u/ScrumblyScrimblo

So I've read through the core book once.

My brain has holes in it now, but I'm just curious if someone can give me an offhand answer mechanically of how rituals work, what they need to have/roll to basically buff themselves in preparation for a fight, and if they can have lingering enchantments on themselves like a force field or something. Also one of my players is -basically- an ex technocrat grunt who doesn't believe in magic but uses hypertech so that's also sort of a hangup lol.

Before the last session my Mage party had inherited an old chantry from one of their mentors and had a house warming party to celebrate becoming a cabal intent on finding the secrets behind the "Vitae" they've acquired. They had a plan to ambush some fledgling vampire one of them had been seeing romantically by inviting him to a house party, only for someone completely different to show up. This thing appeared as if it was trying to act human but referred to itself as "This Vessel" or "We". At first it was polite and cordial, it's purpose at the house not clear to the mages just yet. It offered more Vitae in exchange for cooperation. (One of the cabal members is ghouled.) After a brief Q and A with our "Brother" here, combat ensued when the mages declined the offer and threatened the creature. It proceeded to nearly one shot one of them by shoving his hand through their chest, and they managed to all bring it down after it tanked a few shotgun blasts and a snapped neck, slit throat, and severed leg after burning points to dodge other more dangerous attacks. It then proceeded to get up, knit its wounds and thank the party for this 'evaluation', only for it to peel the reinforced front door off like it was made of cardboard to join 6 identical looking figures standing just outside. The cabal is understandably shaken as fuck with three of them now receiving the same psychic bleedover as the ghouled mage, due to being dosed during combat. After this session, I feel like my mages don't realize how powerful they are (3 arete and atleast one 3 dot sphere) as they mainly used guns (the ghouled mage attempted a potence neck-snap. One other mage did do Agg damage to it with a prime-infused bone blade, which was pretty sick. Also, probably the only reason it decided to play dead.) I'm super excited for next game when they all start putting pieces together.

I have a player who wants to use magic drugs! I must not be magepilled enough because it's got me stumped and whenever I try to relate my own drug experiences it doesn't seem to click, so...How do they go to the spirit realm to escape the material? is it somewhere you'd actually wanna go? Can they use drugs to astral project?

Session four, game is starting to really come together as they've obtained a chantry and become a cabal working together to uncover some sort of plot.

They've now decided they're going to lure a "vampire" who one of the characters was having a fling with, and interrogate them.

Can't wait for their hubris to blow up in their faces when they figure out a cornered dog is most dangerous LOL.

Fourth game into my first mage game, and one of my players has managed to get themselves lvl 1 blood bonded. The addiction is compelling them to take additional doses, and it feels as though they're aiming for ghouldom, I'm fine with it from what I know, just curious as to how someone might figure out how to break a blood bond if they've no prior knowledge to what Vitae actually does to the body (botched esoteric roll). If he wants to break it, is it really as simple as one roll? I'd expect a lengthy and taxing ritual to have it performed right with some big consequences, I wanna treat Blood Bonding as serious as it is and as tastefully as I can. Edit: just realized blood bonding and being ghouled aren't necessarily the same thing. This changes things slightly.