Chemistry Inside Living Organisms
Rote · Mage
On a related note, the mage M-U-S-T employ Life 3 or higher in order to change chemistry within a living organism. Mere Matter alone will NOT change chemicals within a working body. We emphasize this point because the question comes up so often on Mage forums. Yes, Chopper could synthesize sugar into cocaine if she has the proper chemical expertise; if she wants to change that sugar into coke once it’s in someone’s system, though, then she must have Life Rank 3 or higher. Otherwise, the complex biological systems involved in the interactions between Patterns render that attempt at transmutation useless.
For more details, see the sidebar Dude, Do You Even Know
What You’re Doing? and the Mage 20 entries Drugs, Poisons, and Disease (Chapter Nine, pps, 441-444), and Conjunctional (Combined) Sphere-Effects (Chapter Ten, p. 511).