Night-Folk Counterspelling
Vampires, werewolves, faerie beings, and other paranormal entities have a chance to resist a mage's Arts… and the
mages can often resist Night-Folks' abilities too. Although such monsters don't use countermagick in the way that mages
do, their innate abilities give them a certain degree of protection.
Dice Pools
Night-Folk can use the equivalent of basic countermagick. Instead of Arete, such entities use their Wits + Occult as a dice
pool. However, that dice pool cannot exceed the Gnosis or Rage (whichever is higher, for werecreatures), Willpower
(vampires, spirits, wraiths, demons, hunters, and hedge wizards), Glamour (changelings and other fae), Mystic Shield
(Bygones), or True Faith (faithful humans) Trait of the Night-Folk character. Essentially, those Traits reflect the metaphysical
capacity of the target character. If a werewolf, for instance, has a Wits + Occult dice pool of six but a Gnosis of 4 and
a Rage of 3, then she cannot use more than four dice as countermagick.
If the targeted creature does not have a Wits + Occult dice pool, then the Storyteller may rule that the character cannot
resist True Magick – see Optional Limits, below. That said, a mage needs certain Spheres in order to harm a member
of the Night-Folk. As shown on the Common Magickal Effects chart (p. 508), Life Sphere magick alone cannot
affect vampires, werebeasts, ghosts, spirits, or the fae.
Difficulties and Limits
Whatever dice pool you employ, the difficulty for such rolls is either 7 or the mage's Arete, whichever is higher. This way, a powerful werewolf or vampire can shrug off the Arts of an amateur mage, but a powerful wizard or Technocrat can wipe the floor with supernatural foes.
On a related note, the Night-Folk cannot counter immediate-damage attacks like plasma bolts or Enlightened martial arts, nor can they oppose indirect assaults like weakened floors, fire, typhoons, and so forth. The only way to counter a mage's attack is to recognize it as a mystic assault. Thaumaturgical counterspells won't prevent a Virtual Adept from
using Enlightened hypertech to hack the vampire prince's bank account.
Mages Countering the Night-Folk
When countering the effects of some paranormal critters' Disciplines, Gifts, Glamour, and so forth, a mage uses her
Arete as the dice pool. The Storyteller may rule that the mage needs certain Spheres in order to counter certain abilities
– Mind, perhaps, to counter vampiric Dominate; Spirit to counter werewolf Gifts; Entropy and Spirit to counter a wraith's
Arcanoi; Mind and Prime to counter the dreamlike powers of the fae, and so on. After all, it's not as though mages corner
the market on supernatural abilities… and although they certainly appear to be the masters of paranormal arts, mages
have a hard time seeing beyond their own perspectives on reality.
Optional Limits
As an optional rule, the Storyteller may decide that a Night-Folk or mortal character cannot use countermagick at all unless he's
got some sort of magical knowledge. A vampire, for instance, may need the Thaumaturgy Discipline (or some other discipline
that reflects mystic study and understanding) in order to resist a mage's Arts. A hedge sorcerer could counter spells by default,
but most other humans could not. Werecreatures, spirits, Bygones, and the fae are magic(k)al by their essential nature, but theymight still need at least one dot in Occult or Rituals in order to understand the mage's spells enough to counter them.
Given the vulnerability that fae creatures have to the banality of Technocratic accomplishments, it's fair to rule that
changelings cannot counterspell technomagick at all… or, if they can, to raise the difficulty of doing so to 9 or even 10.
For more details about the Night-Folk, see the section of that name in see the Mage 20 sourcebook Gods, Monsters,
and Familiar Strangers.
