Current ideas for astrology modifiers

The Nephilim rulebook had really complex astrology modifiers, to the point Chaosium released a pinwheel handout to make them easier to calculate. The French version would ditch this in the third edition, where an Enthronement shifted a flat ±1 level of Difficulty and a Grand Enthronement shifted ±2 levels (one shift is equivalent to a ±3 modifier on the D20 roll).

In Enlightened Magic, still using BRP, astrology modifiers were heavily simplified and made explicitly optional. Instead of months there were flat seasonal modifiers of ±5 during that season. Daily modifiers were a flat ±10 (thus more important), bonus on the day associated with the spell's element and a penalty on the day of the opposed element.

On a French fansite for third edition, I found a house rule that combines both approaches (and a recap of the days and the months they apply). I like this because I like the simplicity of third edition and I like the way modifiers were rescaled in EM. To translate that house rule into English:

"Magical enthronements" by Ethaniael, Tchakaha

The enthronements are the fruit of the concentrations of the different magic fields. They depend on the current astrological day and month. The day influences more than the month, this is why we speak of enthronement of Fire on the days of Fire for example and not during the whole month of Fire. We speak of a grand enthronement when the day and the month correspond to the same Element: this leads to great bonuses in this Element and great penalties in the opposing Elements.

The passage between two different enthronements is done in theory at midnight. The transition between the two enthronements can be very slow, or on the contrary abrupt. Quite often, the environment will influence both the time of the modification and the transition: thus being by the sea will advance the time of the change and will accelerate the transition towards a enthronement of Water; on the contrary, the passage towards a fiery enthronement will be delayed and slowed down.

In terms of rules, the day brings a bonus of +4 for the Element concerned, 0 for the neutral Elements and −4 for the opposing Elements. The month brings him +2, 0 and −2. These two enthronements add up and provide a range of modifiers from −6 to +6. During a grand enthronement, the favored Element sees any roll involving its use (Occult Sciences for example) being granted a bonus of +6. 

I like this adjustment. The modifiers from Enthronements and Grand Enthronements are barely changed, but now the month provides a small modifier to every day in that month rather than being ignored except on Grand Enthronements. This will become the standard rule for astrology modifiers in my campaigns using modified third edition rules.

Solar Enthronements?

The only thing I haven't decided on yet is how to handle Sundays and Leo. 

In 3e Nephilim the Enthronement is randomly determined on Sundays and every day in Leo is a random Grand Enthronement, as in prior editions. I couldn’t find any rule in 3e to actually determine the dominant magic field on Sunday or Leo, so I converted the d6 table from the US rulebook to a d20 table: 

Roll 1d20 on the table below to determine the dominant field for that astrological day. This only needs to be rolled once per astrological day.

D20 Dominant Field
1–3 Fire
4–6 Air
7–9 Water
10–12 Earth
13–15 Moon
16–18 Orichalc
19–20 Reroll

In Enlightened Magic this is simplified so that Sunday applies a flat bonus to all elements, contrasting Saturday applying a penalty to all elements. The latter is easier to track, but the former provides an opportunity for players to roll Astrological Lore to predict the modifier. 

Then in 5e the rules are short, vague and say the GM can use whatever scheme they want. Sunday and Leo don’t have elemental enthronements anymore, but Solar-Ka uses get a boost. Enthronements give a flat +2 bonus (no penalty). Grand Enthronements give a 2 to 5 bonus to the element and equal penalty its opposites (GM apparently has to choose the modifier rather than rolling randomly). An astrology check may predict the modifier in advance within a 10km radius. Otherwise, geography and artificial constructions alter the modifier. Of course, the rules are short and vague rather than giving guidelines.

I need to think on it...

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