Instead of following the character creation rules outlined in chapter three of the Sorcerer Revised Edition book, use the following modified steps:

Choose a concept for your character, archetypes for their Nature and Demeanor, and which (if any) sorcerous organization they are affiliated with.

Prioritize the three categories physical, social, mental. Assign 7/5/3 attribute points. Your character has automatically one dot in each attribute.

Prioritize the three categories: Talents, Skills, Knowledges. Assign 13/9/5 ability points. Your character has no automatic dots in any abilities. The lists for available abilities can be found in the general system house rules.

Define the character’s focus (paradigm, practice, instruments).
Choose Backgrounds (5 Points)
Choose Numina (6 Points)

Record starting Willpower (5) and Mana Pool (equal to Mana Background)
Spend Freebie Points (15)

While sorcerers don’t affect the world through their awakened will, their worldview still determines the lens through which they view the secrets of linear magic and inform their approach to their craft. As such they choose a paradigm like mages do (see section Focus and the Arts in the M20 core book, starting on page 565). If the character is part of an organization then the focus will likely reflect the organizational beliefs of that group, e.g. a member of the Star Council will likely operate under the paradigm that Aliens Make Us What We Are or that (Alien) Tech Has All Answers.

The next step depends on whether your character is a path-based sorcerer, or relies on psychic phenomena.

Choose at least two practices that are appropriate for the style of sorcery that your character uses. Next, choose instruments. You need to choose at least five, but you can choose more if you wish.

Distribute six dots among paths. A character cannot have more than three dots in any path at character creation. The paths listed for each sorcerous society serve as a starting point, but players can choose other paths as long as they fit the style of sorcery practiced by the character (the ST is the final arbiter of this question).

Assign a practice and a personalized instrument (see M20, page 587) to each path. No two paths can have the same personalized instrument, but they can share the same practice. Any time the sorcerer uses this instrument when casting a spell from the associated path he receives a one-point break on the difficulty. If a sorcerer learns a new path during play then he has to assign a practice and a personalized instrument to the new path as well.

You may also choose a unique instrument for a path, according to the definitions of the M20 core book, page 588. This instrument conveys a two-point break to the difficulty of casting rolls, with the caveat that accessing the path becomes very difficult if the instrument is lost.

Sorcerers cannot overcome the need for instruments in the way that mages can, but they can temporarily work without them. Casting a spell without an instrument requires the expenditure of a point of Willpower and increases the difficulty of the casting roll by +3 (compare section Working Without Focus in the M20 core book, page 566).

Additionally, choose six rituals from your chosen paths. You can choose rituals of any level, as long as the character has mastered the path to that level and know at least one ritual of each lower level (so if the character wants to know the level three ritual Sword Summoning he needs to know Conjuration 3 and at least one level one and level two Conjuration ritual).

Psychics work differently from sorcerers in that they typically only need one practice, Psionics, and they don’t need instruments in the classical sense. They only need to concentrate. This affords them great flexibility and makes it virtually impossible to disarm them, but it also means they usually cannot benefit from personalized or unique instruments.

Because psychic powers are spontaneous in nature and don’t rely on elaborate ritualized actions and tools, psychics are unable to use rituals and usually can’t work as a team.

Sorcerers have access to all backgrounds from the Sorcerer Revised book and the Mage 20 core book, with the exception of Avatar/Genius (use the Mana background from Sorcerer Revised instead) and Familiar (use the Guide background instead. Also see below). However, certain backgrounds require adjustments:

The description from the book leaves it somewhat unclear what a guide actually is or does. So for the purpose of this game Guide functions like the Familiar background of Mage 20 (page 314ff in the core book), with two differences: Because sorcerers are not susceptible to paradox, guides don’t need the The Feast of Nettles/ Paradox Nullification ability. On the flipside, they also don’t need to be fed with quintessence, they can sustain themselves in the material world without help. A guide always has the outward appearance of the normal animal.

The sheet of the guide will be created by the ST using the rules for familiar creation from M20 Gods and Monsters. For each dot in the Guide background the guide will have ten freebie points. That means that high-level guides can be stronger than the sorcerers they serve. Why such a powerful being would agree to the character is of course something that needs to be adequately explained in the character background.

For this background please refer to the version in the M20 core book (page 325f). Also keep in mind that in many organizations that are composed of both sorcerers and mages the positions of great respect and power tend to be reserved for the awakened, either de jure or de facto.

Sorcerers can extract mana from nodes just like mages can gain quintessence from them, and at the same rates. Sorcerers in possession of a personal node should probably have some ranks in the Mana Manipulation path.

The distinction between vulgar and coincidental magic is meaningless for a sorcerer, so this aspect of a sanctum doesn’t apply. However, spells cast in a sanctum will never be affected by disbelief, and the sanctum still works to inhabit magic from a caster with a paradigm that is opposed to the worldview of the sanctum’s owner. The other bonuses all apply, including the reduction in the difficulty of rituals.

Sorcerers are able to take any merits and flaws from the M20 Book of Secrets (and other sources, with Storyteller approval), with the following exceptions: Circumspect Avatar, Demented Eidolon, Manifest Avatar, Permanent Paradox, Phylactery, Prone to Quiet, and Shattered Avatar. Instead of the Sphere Natural merit and the Sphere Inept flaw sorcerers have access to the Path Natural merit and the Path Inept flaw from Sorcerer Revised, and instead of the Twin Souls merit psychics can use the Twin Link merit.

The following merits and flaws from Sorcerer Revised need to be adjusted:

• Ritual Congregation: This merit is superfluous. Use the Cult background instead.
• Mistreated Minority: Is covered by the Culturally Other flaw from the Book of Secrets. Is also unlikely to be approved.
• Blood Magic: This is a 5-point flaw, not a merit (compare M20 Book of Secrets, page 92.)
• Totem: Like Ritual Congregation, this merit is superfluous. Use the Totem background instead.
• Struggling Awake: Since this merit leads to the character acting like a mage in certain situations it can only be bought with the permission of the Mage ST.

The cost to raise a path (or psychic phenomenon) given in the book is equal to the new path rating times 7. Under this progression it costs 7 + 14 + 21 + 28 + 35 = 105 XP to raise a path from zero to the fifth rank. By comparison, a mage pays only 90 XP to raise a sphere from zero to the fifth rank. As such it is undeniable that the official costs are overblown.

For the purpose of this game we will use the following cost progression for numina:

The Mage 20 core book offers updated rules for counterspelling for a 20th Anniversary Edition environment on page 546. The rules are similar to what is presented in Sorcerer Revised on page 63, but with some minor changes.

Your pool to counterspell is either Wits + Occult or your permanent Willpower, whichever is lower. So if you have Wits 4 and Occult 4 but only Willpower 7 then your pool will be seven dice. On the other hand the base difficulty of the counterspelling roll is now seven instead of eight. It may be higher if you face an opponent on the level of a powerful archmage, but such encounters are rare, and the storyteller will announce it if such an increased difficulty is in effect.