Number of Mystery Slots
From Sagataflwiki
This article contains the rules for how to derive the natural number of Mystery Slots that a character has, as well as Advantages and DisAdvantages for increasing or lowering that number
Contents |
Base number of slots
Start with 3 Mystery Slots, then add extra (free) slots if the character meets each of the following criteria.
| Attributes | Bonus slots | Total slots if this is the only modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Psyche is between 5 and 8 | +1 | 4 Mysterys Slots |
| Psyche is 9 or higher | +2 | 5 Mystery Slots |
| Faith is between 5 and 8 | +1 | 4 Mystery slots |
| Faith is 9 or higher | +2 | 5 Mystery Slots |
| Will is 7 or higher | +1 | 4 Mystery Slots |
As an example, a character with Psyche 6 and Will 6 (his Faith is 3) gets 4 Mystery slots, the base amount of 3, plus 1 extra slot for having a high Psyche. Another character has Psyche 7, Will 8 and Faith 6. He gets one extra slot for Psyche, one extra slot for Faith, and one extra slot for Will, for a total of 6 slots.
Advantages and DisAdvantages
During character creation, only one Advantage from the first section below, or one DisAdvantage from the second section further down, may be chosen.
Advantages
This section simply contains a series of Advatanges that add a progressively larger number of (bought) slots to the character's Mystery Slot total.
| Bought slots | AP cost | spacing | Bought slots | AP cost | Spacing | Bought slots | AP cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 DP | 6 | 28 DP | 11 | 100 DP | ||
| 2 | 5 DP | 7 | 38 DP | 12 | 130 DP | ||
| 3 | 9 DP | 8 | 50 DP | 13 | 170 DP | ||
| 4 | 14 DP | 9 | 64 DP | 14 | 220 DP | ||
| 5 | 20 dP | 10 | 80 DP | 15 | 280 DP |
As is hopefully evident, having a lot of Mystery Slots is really expensive.
DisAdvantages
Note that the DisAdvantages in this section have prerequisites. If the character has fewer base Mystery Slots than the prerequisite for the given DisAdvantage, then he cannot take it.
| DisAdvantage | Cost | Effect | Prerequisite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reduced Mystery Slots I | -(MF/2)(rn) DP | The number of Mystery Slots is halved (round down) | 2+ base Mystery Slots |
| Reduced Mystery Slots II | -MF(rn) DP | The number of Mystery slots is uartered (round down) | 4+ base Mystery Slots |
The prerequisites are completely logical. If a character with only 1 Mystery Slot can take Reduced Mystery Slots I, and get compensatory points for it, then he gets compensatory points for nothing, since his number of Mystery Slots remains unaffected. Same for Reduced Mystery Slots II. (rn) means "round the final value to the nearest whole number". For instance a character with a Mage Factor of 3.71 takes Reduced Mystery Slots I. Half of 3.71 is1.855 which rounds to 2, so the amount of compensatory points given would be 2 Advantage Points.
Advice
If you are making a magically capable character, then either Psyche or Faith really should be 5 or higher. That gives you 1 extra (i.e. free) slot already, for a total of 4. Do you need more? Maybe you do. Having more is nice, so you might want to buy 1 or 2, or even 3, more slots, but this is not mandatory. 4 is a nice enough number. For a very magically powerful character, buy either Psyche or Will up to a value rather higher than 5 (although 9 is so expensive, you might not want to go there), and raise Will to 7, and buy six more Mystery Slots.
Or if you are somewhat versed in Sagatafl already, go to the category for Category:Mysteries and look at everything that sounds like it might be relevant, and add up the total slot cost for it all. That's how many Mystery Slots you're going to need. (And then if you can afford it - which might not be the case - buy one or two Mystery Slots above and beyond that, just in case.)
