Focused Practitioners- What are their Limits?

[Katarn]

Ok, so the RPG mentions that magical effects can be drawn from different elements- like lightning could be conjured with the right rationalization by most of the elements.

But where do you draw the line?  IRL I have a player who's playing a pyromancer.  He's made arguments for things like energy redirection (heat transfer), healing (warmth), and numerous other attempts at extended magic, with varying amounts of reasonableness.  Where would you, as the GM, draw the line for things a focused practitioner can and cannot do?

[wyvern]

Hm... healing with fire magic... I'd let that fly with a "Sure, you can do that, as long as you don't mind phoenix deciding to call in a favor or two later..."  (See: temporary access, YS289.)

[EdgeOfDreams]

Important point: Is he using Channeling or Ritual?

Channeling can ONLY do the 4 basic types of Evocation - Attack, Block, Maneuver, and Counterspell.  Additionally, it's limited by the ideas of line of sight, and that it's usually expressed as big movements of energy, not subtle changes.

Ritual, on the other hand, can literally do ANYTHING you can justify.  However, you as the GM are definitely allowed to say, "Sorry, you haven't justified that enough" or "That doesn't fit your theme closely enough".  Feel free to use compels and declarations (costing a fate point) as a way to control access to more extreme or strange applications.

Sponsored magic can, of course, be even more flexible than either of the above, but usually has it's own theme you have to work with.

[wyvern]

More usefully, my default answer when someone stretches the flavor-wise bounds of their power is "yes, but..." and then add some complication.  For healing, another option would be "yes, but you'll need to make a scholarship roll to know what you're doing - and if you fail that, then you're going to harm the target instead of helping them."

[Pbartender]

More usefully, my default answer when someone stretches the flavor-wise bounds of their power is "yes, but..."

"Yes, you can use fire magic to heal, but...  You're limited to curing hypothermia, soothing aching muscles, cauterizing wounds and wart removal."

[Malraza]

We didn't get to hear his justification for healing, but warming seems a bit out there. I imagine he wanted to be a pyromancer so he can throw fireballs. Seems like a downside of his decision. If it's just warming like you said I could see it. But bruses, cuts and broken bones. Beyond that healing has been shown to be extremity difficult and requiring special focus. Enough that Harry didn't even want to try it out because he was afraid he may screw it up. I can definitely see heat redirection. There's a good example of that in White Knight where fire magic is used to freeze water.

I like the phoenix idea though. The player is overstepping their focus a bit but it's still something that vaguely fits thematically. Tack in some greater spirit that they have had contact with or know how to invoke and can build up some kind of debut with. Sounds like a great solution to me, giving the player what they want with a good explanation while adding story hooks and complications. 

[ARedthorn]

Elements are thematic, not systemic... so in theory, you can do everything with anything... that said, in Dresden, theme and story trumps system any time, every time.
So, if the theme fits easily, let it happen easily.

If it doesn't fit easily, let it happen, but make them work for it, or pay for it... with collaboration and negotiation. It sounds like you're already doing that... you just need advice on creative ways to make those boundaries work well (ie, keep the player from running roughshod all over you), and add to the game (keep it fun for everyone).

Fire is a force of purification and destruction equally. It has literal ties to heat, and energy...

For healing- I agree with everything above- but add detoxing as an obvious use... and the similarity to summer fae power as another complication.

Let his arguments for why he should be able to do something provide the complications where you can. Making his own penalties isn't just poetic, it also makes for a quick and easy compromise.
For example: Energy redirection's plausible, but with complications (you can move energy around, but always end up with waste heat energy... remember, magic doesn't ignore the laws of physics, just... works with them more directly)... a fire-based spell could easily turn a TK blast into a bunch of (mostly) harmless but also useless heat... but not into much else... and depending on the environment, all that extra heat could be bad... especially if you have to keep blocking TK that way and it builds up.

[RevengeofTim]

I think he crosses the line when he says healing, as its always been bloody difficult in Dresdenfiles to heal anyone, hence how most healers have doctorates and medical degrees (from some point in history). When fire would work, then that's ok like the others said; hypothermia, wart removal, etc.

But attempted healing would do far more harm than good in a majority of the situations I can think of.

[Tedronai]

When fire would work, then that's ok like the others said; hypothermia, wart removal, etc.

But attempted healing would do far more harm than good in a majority of the situations I can think of.

Symbolically, fire is the element of purification.
Literally, fire is the best element to represent the immune response of a fever.

It might not do much for a concussion or a broken pelvis, but it seems to me that it'd do wonders for infections if applied by a competent practitioner.

[devonapple]

The issue here is that Hermetic/medieval/elemental principles of association are being used, and while association is a component of spellcasting which one should not disregard entirely, there are complexities to it which are being seriously handwaved when someone says "fire is associated with purification."

Certainly, to one who has trained to associate the two, the thematic linkup can be a powerful associative force, especially in Thaumaturgy.

However, the mistake in the DFRPG is to take that association and use it to justify bypassing genre mechanisms and precedents set up which establish as part of the Dresden Files fiction that doing X is just not easy to do with magic, where X can be healing, mind control, and any number of other things which we are used to doing in systems like D&D.

The effect people want can be termed "black box magic." We don't know why it works, but it does, if you are level Y, studied for an hour or two the night before, have components A, B and C, wave your hands and stand in one place for a set amount of time, *this* happens.

What has been set up in the fiction, however, is that the "black box" element has been discarded, and magical effects require more stringent justification, in terms of mass and energy, conservation of matter, etc. Some of this is elided in-game (were-ravens are a serious compromise of the conservation of matter), and certainly magic isn't fun to play with if everything becomes a logistical problem. We're encouraged to pain in broad strokes,

But the fundamental issue is that Evocation - on its own - is just way too crude to do a lot of these things, no matter what the Hermetic elemental system says. And even Thaumaturgy - stripped of a guiding influence - is somewhat limited by human understanding.

Where a lot of these things get sewn back together is Sponsored Magic: letting a barely comprehensible intelligence do the heavy lifting, when it serves their agenda, and fits in their baileywick.

So, heat associated with healing? Summer Faerie magic. Heat used to soothe tired muscles? Probably thaumaturgy, MAY-be Evocation, with a lot of skill and some medical/biological knowledge.

[ARedthorn]

Oh- granted, evo is right out. Too blunt anyway, for healing. I imagine even using Spirit(TK) to set a bone is even rife with risk. I just want to stress the thematic element being the big issue.

[UmbraLux]

But where do you draw the line?  IRL I have a player who's playing a pyromancer.  He's made arguments for things like energy redirection (heat transfer), healing (warmth), and numerous other attempts at extended magic, with varying amounts of reasonableness.  Where would you, as the GM, draw the line for things a focused practitioner can and cannot do?

I draw fairly wide lines however, elements are aspects.  So within the broad lines I'll compel against some border cases.  If they really want it, they can pay a fate point.   

[Tedronai]

Oh- granted, evo is right out. Too blunt anyway, for healing. I imagine even using Spirit(TK) to set a bone is even rife with risk. I just want to stress the thematic element being the big issue.

To give an example, Ritual (thematic specialty: 'fire') should be well capable of performing some limited number of tasks that would be described as 'healing' ranging from the obvious cauterizing of wounds to the delicate balance of 'burning' an infection out of a patient without frying their brain.

[Haru]

This is the type of thing where I would require any caster character to dedicate one of his aspects to his use of magic. So if this aspect would be "KABOOM-mancer", he could remove an ailment from one of his companions... along with the companion and a a few feet of the ground in each direction. An aspect like "Adept of the purifying Flame" would give you more subtle and complex adaptations, but your kaboom magic would suffer.

[Tedronai]

For most of the books, Harry can't pull of a decent veil to save his own ass.  That still doesn't mean that spirit evocations are incapable of creating veils, which is a question more comparable to the content of this debate.