Magic resistance and damage in third edition

The rules for magic resistance and magic damage in Nephilim: Revelation are scattered, so I’ve decided to centralize what I've been able to find for easier reference. I found this fansite article very helpful in explaining things. I might use house rules in the future...

Magic Resistance

Magic Resistance in other editions works via the Nephilim resisting using the Spell's Ka-element (or one of the two opposed starting in 2nd edition onward), but this gets complicated when trying to adjudicate Selenim, Ar-Kaïm and mortals who don't have Pentacles. (In the US version at least, muggles cannot resist at all, awakened humans resist with half their Solar-Ka value, and Mithradites resist with their full Solar-Ka value.)

Immortals do not make any resistance tests against Spells in third edition, only a few Spells here and there that increase the attacker's Difficulty. I assume this is because it would be difficult to cover all three magical races (see below), so no resistance test is made for the sake of game balance. I can accept that.

Mortals generally cannot resist spells, so if you cast a spell that temporarily transmutes someone's eyes into oil or throw an alchemy powder that causes excruciating pain... then they simply cannot resist. Indeed, their Characteristics don't even figure into the Difficulty for the caster. Pretty powerful in combat, right? Some Spells allow the target to test a relevant Characteristic, such as the special attacks of summoned beings, but this may only partly mitigate the effects. Some protective Spells make it harder to affect a target, too.

As explained the GM's book, Minor Arcana Initiates receive training allowing them to make Solar Resistance tests. They test their Solar-Ka+Initiate Tradition versus the Spell's Difficulty+1: on Success, the Spell has no effect on them. Solar Resistance only applies to Spells that directly target the resister, not the natural weapons of magical beings or Spells targeting an area rather than living things. Immortal Initiates of Minor Arcana can use Solar Resistance too! Some Quests allow Immortals to awaken their Solar-Ka and learn genuine Solar magic, or to learn Solar Resistance, but the rules aren't consistent on this.

For Necromancy, the Difficulty incorporates the target's Solar-Ka. But the target doesn't make a resistance test. This works differently from Nephilim's magic because... different authors wrote them, I guess? Whatever, I should be used to this mess by now.

Oddly, the rules for Composition (Third Circle Conjuration) mention that Difficulty (equal to target's relevant Initiated level) may be "modified" by the target’s relevant Skill level (e.g. Entities count their "resistance to Pavane" Skill if any, Selenim count their Conjuration Circles as a single Skill, a Realm counts its Defense Aspect, Deceased count their Torment). This is mentioned nowhere else and doesn’t fit the rules for Difficulties (it's not mentioned whether the "modification" is a 1:1 addition or not), so I assume it’s a mistake of some kind? (As a quick and dirty errata, use the house rule from this fansite: Profane provides a +3 circumstance modifier, Apprentice +0, Companion −3, and Master −6.)

In fifth edition?

5e's rules are a scattered incoherent mess, as you would expect for this IP. It's even more Nephilim-centric than 3e so the rules for Ar-Kaïm are completely absent and the rules for Selenim suck (their occult sciences don't have Circles like they did before in 3e, 99% of their spells were discarded, 99% of their lore was discarded, etc.).

Selenim p102 and La Toison d'Or p126 specify that Black Moon and Moon resist themselves and mutually resist each other, but Black Moon and the other elements mutually don't resist each other. It's all very complicated and I understand why 3e decided to jettison magic resistance entirely except for Solar Resistance.

Magic Damage

Magic damage is likewise complicated by the 8 types of Ka that are distributed differently between mortals and Immortals. If I understand this incoherent mess correctly, there are basically four types of magic damage: Elemental, Solar, Black Moon, and Orichalc. In general, magic damage only applies to targets of the same type: Elemental to Nephilim, Solar to mortals, Black Moon to Selenim, etc. There are exceptions, however.

I've summarized the magic damage matrix on the following table:

Attacker	Defender
	Element	Neutral	Opposed	BMK	Orichalc	SK
Elemental	×0	×1	×2	×0	×2?	×0
Black Moon	×1	—	—	×1	×0?	×1
Orichalc	×2	—	—	×0	×1?	×0
Solar-Ka	×1?	—	—	×1?	×1?	×1?

This is something that really should've been in the books, but oddly isn't. I included "?" to indicate where I couldn't find examples in the books or was otherwise unsure. In more detail...

Elemental damage: Elemental damage only applies to Nephilim and other elemental beings. When a Nephilim or other Elemental being suffers Elemental damage, the damage inflicted is modified by its concordance with the targeted Ka. This is always the Dominant Ka, as only that Ka may take direct damage. The targeted Ka is immune to damage of the same element, doesn’t modify damage from neutral elements, and takes doubled damage from opposed elements.

Orichalc damage: Sources of Elemental and Orichalc damage mutually annihilate each other on contact. Elemental damage applies to Orichalc entities and Orichalc damage applies to Nephilim and Elemental entities. The damage inflicted on the target is doubled. The attacker loses the same amount from its Ka (for an elemental) or Capacity (for an Orichalc weapon). Ar-Kaïm, Selenim, mortals, other Black Moon entities and Solar-Ka beings are insensitive to Orichalc damage. 

Black Moon damage: Black Moon damage only applies to Selenim and other Black Moon beings, but isn’t modified by any concordance. Conversely, they’re insensitive to elemental and Orichalc damage. While Black Moon entities cannot magically damage Nephilim per se, they may inflict points of Black Moon contamination. They can corrode Solar-Ka, however, inflicting magic damage that way without modification. The only rules relating to affecting Orichalc I found are that the Orichalcans (cf. Codex des Selenim) can nullify Orichalc with a BMK sheath.

Ar-Kaïm and 666: Ar-Kaïm are insensitive to Orichalc damage, but they are subject to any magic damage for which they have a targetable Ka. Unlike Nephilim and Selenim, they track magical damage to each Ka independently. Like Nephilim, elemental damage is (presumably?) modified by its concordance with the targeted Ka. 

Characters with the 666 disability had separate Elemental and Black Moon Characteristics to keep track of, not unlike Ar-Kaïm.

Temporary versus permanent damage: Magic damage comes in two types: temporary and permanent. Temporary damage heals at the rate of 1 "bullet" per month. Permanent damage is usually inflicted by Orichalc and must be regained through experience. 

Ka drain: Certain effects, like Entities, Dragon-effects or Assuaging, don’t inflict magic damage per se but actively steal Ka from the target. In this case, the damage isn’t modified by elemental concordance. 

Solar-Ka is siphoned by Selenim Assuaging, which regenerates at the rate of 1 "bullet" per hour. It isn't specified if this applies to magic damage to Solar-Ka in general or only to loss from Assuaging. 

Selenim could lose "bullets" from their Core as a result of Entropy at the rate of 1/hour, but it wasn't specified if this damage was temporary, permanent, or could be restored by Assuaging. Only the section on Composition in the GM’s book confirms the loss is permanent damage.

Ka spending: Ka Sacrifice for the Sacrifice Ritual and creating an Artifact was presumably permanent too, though this wasn't specified. 

Inscribing Spells instead cost charges from the Stasis object, in addition to experience points ("Agartha Points") spent to acquire it offscreen.

Ka charging: Ar-Kaïm could charge their Ka-elements from various sources, but it wasn't specified if this healed magic damage faster than the one "bullet" per month rate or whether the capacity was reduced for that duration. 

Some passages mention that Nephilim could heal Ka damage faster with charges from a Nexus or Plexus, possibly from Stasis, but I couldn't find any actual rules for this. (Although 5e does provide explicit rules for these, see below.)

Subtle Planes: on the Subtle Planes, characters take both physical and magical damage from the same attacks. Except for various exceptions, which are tracked on a table...

A human who suffers magic damage on the Subtle Planes recovers his Solar-Ka at the rate of 1 "bullet" per week. It's not explained if this applies to magic damage in general or just that inflicted on the Subtle Planes, as Immortals recover at the rate of 1 "bullet" per month. 

Pretty confusing, right?

A la fifth edition?

In fifth edition, temporary and permanent magic damage were separated into different tracks, and experience points were spent instead of Ka. 

Magic damage: Temporary magical damage is accrued in an identical fashion to physical damage, inflicting a penalty based on how much accrued. Additionally, Orichalc damage caused Ka-imbalance (i.e. Draconisation) as it only reduced Dominant Ka but not the other Ka-elements. 

5e complicates it further by divided magic damage into magic damage and magic consequences. Different boxes apply different penalties and absorb different amounts of damage... yeah, 5e isn't any less complicated or confusing than 3e is. 

Healing: Basic damage vanishes as soon as the Neph has a few minutes to rest. Consequences don't heal naturally, and healing magic is required. The Neph may also immerse in a Plexus or Nexus, healing at a rate based on the consequence, from hours, to days, to weeks. The consequence can also be healed by performing the Stasis Ritual.

Spending: Performing the sacrifice ritual, or inscribing spells, cost experience points ("sapience points") instead of inflicting Ka damage. This makes a fair amount of sense to me.

I can see the logic. A separate track for temporary magic damage against all character types, and spending XP instead of Ka, would probably be much easier than trying to track temporary and permanent damage against the Ka Characteristics. I might adopt those into my house rules... 

(Maybe the temporary magic damage could double as the Ch’awe Pool? Maybe not…)

Let's spitball it for a moment... As with physical Health in third edition, I would divide Magic Health into four levels that inflict a circumstance penalty to all magical actions: "Little Hurt" (−1), "Enough Hurt" (−3), "Hurt" (−6),  and "Very Hurt" (−9). While all characters have a fixed set of 10 Health boxes (2-3 per level), for Magic Health the number of boxes per level would be equal to Initiated (Dominant Ka) level ×2. Plus a last Magic Health box: "Destroyed." This gives total boxes equal to Initiated level × 4 Magic Health levels × 2 + the Destroyed box. So a Not Initiated character would have 9, Little 17, Enough 25, Initiated 33, Very 41. This is only slightly less than the Initiated×10 or so Ka "bullets" in the rulebook.

Or something. I'd need to refine and playtest it...