I see what you're going for, but it's still worth considering that all other sorcery paths avoid adding this sort of hard limit on mana. In the early stages of the path as presented you pay more for less effect than any other path. It basically requires a support path in a very particular sort of build to be viable without appealing to mantle rules we don't have examples for yet.
Jumping back to this; even a master alchemist making high level potions doesn't have to do this sort of thing. Though this does help me understand where I'm misunderstanding your intent.
Okay so taking a step back here. Both thematically and systematically the merits that this path is based off of flow of ki, strength of psyche, force of spirit all demand Mana to use and they Grant difficulty breaks based on the amount of Mana spent directly one difficulty to one Mana. Thematically speaking this is based on those merits and on the martial arts we learned from Brother divismar. Which also demand Mana, bodily ki. what we saw in character from Arthur and our own charms which generally cost essence.
There is no in character or mechanical source for developing a path that's based in this kind of thing that says you can do this without some form of magical energy. And the path goes out of its way to describe as carving channels for Magical energy in the spirit of the user.
forged in Molly's own understanding of her Essence and how it behaves. Dedicated directly to the manipulation of the spirit as a channel for mystical Energies.
The merits; flow of Ki, force of spirit and strength of psyche are prime examples of powerful though crude forms of spiritual impression. That Molly felt was imparted onto Olivia partially seen in her conversations with the Merlin of the white council while feeling some thing far more refined in the Qiao Arts taught by Brother Divsimar.
Whether through innate connection to their mystical energies or hours of bitter practice they show a portion of the use of the path creating channels for mana to flow through through the very basis of the self to achieve a variety of internal effects. This is the basis of impressions, protrusions which are transmutations of the spirit that channel mystical energy to achieve external effects follow this process in the form of Permutation making.
Initially in the development this was essentially magical sorcerer charms. To the point where the transmutations and permutations were called transmutations and charms.
Then the scope grew. To realizing that we can make supernatural creatures flat out using Arcana and Inner Devils Unchained and Alchemy can make supernatural creatures as well. I said Well let me see if I can't develop something that very specifically revolves around being a supernatural creature without leaving the general Play space of being a sorcerer.
This path has an obvious use by people who have things like mantles or exaltations or have alchemical transformations pattern Changes that provide Broad strokes. While still being usable by those who don't have those things. As while this is generally based on charms as an idea Molly if she was tapping her soul as channel wouldn't use her exaltation for any of this. Thematically speaking her transmutations and permutations would be spells bound to surface themes rather than metaphysical theming (Ex. Shadows and Ice for Kakuri but no Isolation, Desolation and Degradation.)
Then Finally the Sixth dot of alchemy this path functions as a way to develop powers or keep progression for characters and games that do not center around the major splats. In some sorcerer games becoming full on Mages is too much of a jump (Mechanically or otherwise) or just not the goal generally, the same for becoming mummies or vampires or shape changers. This allows the expansion of set characters without needing to create new systems or bringing them too far outside of phase with the level of play from sorcerers this does keep the power level in the orbit of sorcerers but allows the specific Supernatural creature or type of being that The Alchemist has turned into themselves or their entire party into into something that can grow on itself even if it never becomes as powerful as any of the Bloodlines of the Cainites or the blessings of Osiris while using mana as the supernatural fuel stand in or resource for that transformation.
At no stage was this not a successor art for lack of a better way to put this this comes from a specific person in a specific scenario. Everything mechanically in sorcerer revised seems to say this is an appropriate cost.
Perhaps a better balance would be to make it a prep based system? Instead of transmutations being done on the spot you prepare them like DnD spell slots using the roll system you designed, but with a longer time increment, then trigger them with a straight willpower roll at combat time.
That way there's a lot of soft limits to breaking the game while still allowing the path to operate on its own
All paths can hang spells and this feels particularly like hanging spells but you don't have to pay the costs.
So my input has been made on the basis that the end goal is something that enhances and operates on the existing abilities of a character, but still should be able to exist as a peer to the existing options.
Well okay I do see what you're saying here. The thing is even having one dot in the Mana background would make it a good path to have. but there's obviously meant to be synergies between paths from the fat Mana can be used to lower thresholds and difficulties means that every sorcerer would benefit from having Mana manipulation the path. There are also other merits and backgrounds that directly help with particular sorcery paths or psychic numina. The fact that this one requires a background to work is a bit.... heavy-handed I will say but not entirely inappropriate at least to my mechanical understanding.
If that's not the intent then it needs some more limits baked in.
Spiritual transmutation cannot change the substance of spirit only it's form unlike its parent art Alchemy if the sorcerer is not capable of innate manipulation of some part of reality or elements of reality like say fire, Shadow, water plants Etc then no level of spiritual transmutation will allow that, but accentuating a strength a character already has or increasing the durability that a character already possesses or strengthening the life force of a character are all within the grasp of even the most Mortal of practitioners of spiritual transmutation
It is the intent I'll add a more explicit special note denoting that this path can't be used on other people without basis.
In this case someone would be able to be more exp efficient than someone doing that, likely spending large portions of the game outperforming them and having more abilities to boot.
Well generally this is true of both Enchantment and Alchemy enchanter healing patches/tools and enchanted flame throwers and healing potions and alchemical napalm are strictly better as long as the sorcerer isn't specializing and grant more recipes than just the ones listed.
Though beyond just that as far as damage goes or using Hellfire goes by the third dot you're at 6 dice of damage or four dice of aggravated damage more than it's literally possible to gain using spiritual transmutation same story for healing but notably because we're talking about Mortal Sorcerers here you can release blasts of freezing water control Blooms of smoke and release dust storms all that Hellfire one you can throw lightning bolts earthquakes and tangles of choking Vine at Hellfire 2.
This goes even further using healing because you can modify other characters healing rates with healing at healing one as well as treat diseases give medicine in generally use healing Magic all around rather than lowering the difficulty of a medicine.
There is something to be said about the variety of abilities that can possibly be granted by spiritual transmutation but there is definitively a trade-off as a mortal sorcerer that you're making just like there would be a trade-off in definitive abilities just like every other path.
I was thinking from a more mechanical perspective. Transmutations effectively act like if alchemy had an option to make potions on the spot with no recipe requirements. Splitting it off at least makes it more expensive for one character to do that and permanently upgrade themselves at the same time.
Okay there is something he said about making it expensive for one character to invest in transitation and permutation separately though kind of feels bad asking to pay XP to pay XP but largely like everything else about the path I'm balancing against stuff Within sorcerer revised three dots of alchemy is when you can make permanent Alchemy products that essentially stay with your character at all times. Prima Metallum the mercury and the venerian.
Essentially permutations as their own side path are directly competing with enchantment items talismans as path dots cost the same no matter which path you're talking about and are divorced from Transportation depth significantly worse for the XP then just getting more talismans as well as costing to use and develop.
At the moment at very least from my perspective it's definitively worse having talismans when you have spiritual transportations it's definitively worth having Alchemy potions when you have spiritual transmutations and vice versa so I don't want to make it so that these statements are untrue it really is from my own perspective.
As for my perspective they're all complimentary while they each have benefits that extend an individual scenarios there are complementary to have all together I'm drawing so much material from Alchemy and enchantment I wouldn't want the three paths to be in Conflict directly with some of them being just better than the others.
That's partially why I'm so attached to the Mana cost as that's essentially functioning in the same way that the material and time costs of both Alchemy and enchantment by essentially limiting the maximum number of spells even a high level Spirit artist can use at a time.
Then again there's a lot of considerations that are obviously a part of why I've altered specific General aspects to be nerfed when used with this particular art so it doesn't just subsume every other art or step all over the toes of every other art.
