I think the serious thing here is that the wizard in question is perfectly fine with sacrificing parts of himself and others to fuel his magic. Once is no big deal. Twice and people might look at him funny. Thrice and I'd say he once of his Aspects might start changing.
Aspects only change when a Law is broken.
No one dies, no aspect is changed, as the corresponding Lawbreaker power is not added.
simple as that.
that is the case for first lawbreaking ritualists.
If no corruption of thought occurs (per aspect change) then that really does not make much sense imo.
My two cents: if participation in the ritual is non-lethal, then it's fine as far as the Laws are concerned; if someone dies you get the Lawbreaker power, voluntary or not. The Wardens will cause you problems if the participation was either coerced OR lethal. That is, if you force someone to participate, the Wardens are going to take a dim view, whether or not a death was involved.
As to your particular example, the rules technically allow it. That said, I think it has a great potential of becoming a problem, and I'd handle it this way, with one simple rule:
Sacrifice always counts as satifying your Catch.
Consequences of this sort represent a physical or mental draining more than actual trauma, which is what the Recovery powers are really geared toward.
If you need justification it would make perfect sense to discuss how metaphysically, the benefit to the casting is based on making a sacrifice, with greater sacrifice being worth more than lesser sacrifice. Without this rule, the character with supernatural recovery who gives a severe consequence is making a sacrifice equivalent to a normal character who gives a mild consequence.
Another way of looking at it might be to say that in essence, your powers acknowledge your free will to hurt yourself, and don't stand in your way.
I disagree with this completely, the whole point of the catch is that it is the /one/ thing which stops a supernatural being from being super tough or heal really fast.Right. The one thing, not counting other stuff that counts as satisfying a Catch. For example, a WCV doesn't have a Catch with respect to Swords of the Cross ... yet Swords clearly count as Catch-satisfying nevertheless.
A fast healer will /always/ heal fast so long as the catch is not involved every timeI've put in bold the key part of this statement that makes it a non-argument.
Plus it is listed as one of the ways to generate power in the Living With Magic section in YS indicating its a perfectly valid method.Please note that I am in no way suggesting that anyone should remove the ability of casters to power their spells via sacrifice. Just that it makes sense that the sacrifice should be a sacrifice.
and their is nothing in canon to support such a house ruling or else it would likely have been included in the books.While I think the DFRPG books are amazing, I stop short of claiming they are perfect in every detail.
Once you start house ruling it becomes a slippery slope, which is not a problem in and of itself, but its easy to take it too far and I'd say this is one of those cases imo.As it stands, a rules-abusing player could spend 1 refresh to allow them to gain +19 toward their complexity requirement to Thaumaturgy per scene skipped. How? Simply buy Mythic Recovery [-6] along with The Catch: Only Works On Knife Wounds [+5]. Now each scene you skip, you can get the usual +1, plus you can inflict and immediately recovery from three mild consequences (+6), plus you can inflict a mild, moderate, and severe consequence which you will recover from before the next scene (+12).
Right. The one thing, not counting other stuff that counts as satisfying a Catch. For example, a WCV doesn't have a Catch with respect to Swords of the Cross ... yet Swords clearly count as Catch-satisfying nevertheless.The part of the SotC power, and the concept behind is that things are equal before the WG. and that it is leveraging its power to make it happen through the swords, which are a focus to atleast a couple billions worth of individuals belief. THis is the soul exception this (not counting the opposites nature of the Fae Courts magic against each other, and Soulfire, which is arguably from the same source of power as the SotC.)
While I think the DFRPG books are amazing, I stop short of claiming they are perfect in every detail.
As it stands, a rules-abusing player could spend 1 refresh to allow them to gain +19 toward their complexity requirement to Thaumaturgy per scene skipped. How? Simply buy Mythic Recovery [-6] along with The Catch: Only Works On Knife Wounds [+5]. Now each scene you skip, you can get the usual +1, plus you can inflict and immediately recovery from three mild consequences (+6), plus you can inflict a mild, moderate, and severe consequence which you will recover from before the next scene (+12).
If he had a partner with the same ability, that would go up to +37 per scene, and at a -1 refresh cost, why not have the entire group take it? Five players each taking this would make it, what, +91 per scene? Not only that, but they'd never have to worry about knife-wielding thugs again...
Combine this with a sponsored magic power that grants Thaum at the speed of Evocation, that translates to being able to cast death spells against people in combat simply by stabbing yourself while chanting. Sure you need to make sure that you don't take another consequence before the end of the scene, but that's doable.
Frankly, I think I feel safer with the risk of maybe going too far down the slippery slope, thank you.
As always, this is my opinion. I don't enforce rules for other people's games.
The part of the SotC power, and the concept behind is that things are equal before the WG. and that it is leveraging its power to make it happen through the swords, which are a focus to atleast a couple billions worth of individuals belief. THis is the soul exception this (not counting the opposites nature of the Fae Courts magic against each other, and Soulfire, which is arguably from the same source of power as the SotC.)That's a growing list of exceptions to The Catch mechanics. I'm confused why you feel as though its somehow heretical to assume this list is not necessarily all-encompassing?
One major problem with this - blood sacrifice raised the /power/ of rituals not the complexity, which can be gained by ordinary means safely and efficiently with zero problem against the ritual, blood sacrifice is just faster.Its a short cut, but hardly game breaking - that is the mistake your making in this argument.No, sacrifice is used to make up the complexity deficit ("For every consequence you are willing to take or inflict on others for the sake of preparation, add the value of the consequence in shifts toward the deficit"). So what you do is add +20 consequences (serious, moderate, and up to five milds if you have Endurance 5, otherwise four milds -- including the three insta-cleared milds from Mythic Recovery) worth of sacrifice to your Lore, then skip a scene (+1), which clears those consequences automatically (Mythic Recovery), and repeat. And I'd forgotten the possible bonus mild consequence from Endurance 5 earlier; sorry.
And another thing thing, sponsored magic is not just the speed but the /method/ of evocation.Your not raising complexity as with normal thamaturgy, your raising power and control with rolls like normal, even if you were right.I don't see anything that says that Thaumaturgy-at-the-speed-of-Evocation can't use blood sacrifice as can any other Thaumaturgy. Evocation can't use outside power sources, but Thaumaturgy can.
And also even if they were preforming normal thaumaturgy in combat, even at the fastest speeds it is still several minutes worth of effort.In that time you have been trying to raise that Uber Spell of Doom you know what has happened, the monster has taken your head off your ritual has been disrupted, and you have to deal with the massive amounts of backlash from the massive amount of power you just tried to harness and failed.Right, which is why I mentioned the need for an appropriate Sponsored Magic if combat casting is desired. But just the non-combat Thaumaturgy issues are enough for me to see a problem.
Loopholes are easy to find in rules. If the player's character is consciously exploiting loopholes to rules-lawyer the game, then the player should play an appropriate character. His method of play indicates that unless an aspect already covers this, he should have one that indicates he's a weasel. Obviously, it's very important to this character to walk the line and justify it, and then crow about getting away with it because the deed falls "in the rules". By their very definition, that's an aspect.The problem is that the character is not the one exploiting the loopholes to ruleslawyer the game. The character shouldn't know that he is in a game. The player does, not the character.
Well, there is not real reason to use consequences to fuel a ritual. Let's say that my ritualist has Lore 5 (naturally), Discipline 5, Conviction 4, Resources 4.
In the same scene they make skill navel-gazing maneuvers as follows;
Lore: construct a "magic circle with arcane symbolism" (i.e. a circle with obscure runes), using "appropriately symbolic materials" (i.e. iron and copper wire for fae-summoning)
Discipline: focus to "clear mind of all disruption" and "chant preparatory spells in perfect cadence"
Conviction: call forth power to create "magically charged atmosphere" and rationalize for "believe truly it needs to be done"
Resources: buy "high-quality items" (NOT play-doh)
Then, having done all that, he tags the 7 aspects for +14 shifts of complexity. In the next scene, he simply repeats with other aspects - the only limit would be his creativity.
I don't want to go off on a tangent here but I thought that
a) maneuvers are only used in a conflict situation and;
b) only perception and knowledge skills can be used for declarations.
If this is the case then only the Lore example above would be applicable.
When Harry gets into a grey situation he doesn't say "Okay, I can do X but not Y" because Harry doesn't know that X is allowed and Y isn't.Totally wrong. Wizards do just that; know the rules for magic and use them - that's what the Lore skill does. Harry even comments on it. In addition, Harry has Bob, a spirit of intellect specifically bound by Kemmler to track the rules of magic and serve as an advisor for exactly that kind of thing.
A Dresden game example:Nope. That character does not have Thaumaturgy. They got the much more limited Ritual: Voodoo Magic. Someone with Thaumaturgy is like a wizard; they can do Voodoo, summon demons, curse people, pull meteors from the sky, raise the dead, try to become gods, tear holes in the fabric of the universe and whatever else they could possibly imagine. That's another reason why wizards with enough experience to know how to use Thaumaturgy best are terrifyingly powerful.
If a character is into voodoo then he's into voodoo. He uses the voodoo motif and trappings. The player knows that his PC has thaumaturgy on his sheet, the same thaumaturgy that every character uses, but that doesn't mean that his PC should ever use it for anything except voodoo themed magic. The player knows that the power covers all styles of magic but the character doesn't.
In Dresden, blood magic is like that. Your PC knows that killing someone is wrong but using blood is a grey area. The PC doesn't think in terms of consequences but has to wonder "how badly would it hurt that person if I stuck him with this knife - would it kill him or not?". As a player you know just how what sort of damage you are looking at so know that it will be safe, but the PC doesn't and shouldn't know that.Again, almost certainly wrong. If you have Recovery, you have probably used it to heal from wounds already. So you already know that you can recover from those wounds or similar and lesser wounds. I mean, if a Lycanthrope recovers from several broken bones or being bitten by a ghoul (i.e. can recover from moderate consequences), a bleeding wound from a knife, being much smaller (a mild consequence) is not going to faze them much.
Then there are the Wardens. When they see someone doing blood magic they don't look for metaphysical markers like "Lawbreaker -2" but assume that the person is (or soon will be a warlock) and move to arrest him.If they find you having bound some people with chains over an altar and are cutting them to fuel your ritual? Sure. If they see you standing with your werewolf buddy and using his blood, willingly given, to fuel said ritual whith the two of you joking about the red robe reccomendation in your book of spells, not really. It is all about context.
Nope. That character does not have Thaumaturgy. They got the much more limited Ritual: Voodoo Magic. Someone with Thaumaturgy is like a wizard; they can do Voodoo, summon demons, curse people, pull meteors from the sky, raise the dead, try to become gods, tear holes in the fabric of the universe and whatever else they could possibly imagine. That's another reason why wizards with enough experience to know how to use Thaumaturgy best are terrifyingly powerful.Not certain I agree. A powerful houngan or mambo (one with Thaumaturgy) could accomplish the same things as any other thaumaturgist, they simply use different trappings. The houngan may sacrifice chickens and create a blood circle while a druid weaves his circle out of woven holly and the wizard simply uses salt. The end result is the same.
A wizard can do a salt circle. Or a blood circle. Or woven holly. He can also do it with a cheap marker bought at the wal-mart or do it in his mind. Full thaumaturgy isn't limited by trappings beyond what the wizard chooses out of habit, belief or familiarity. As long as said houngan believes it would work, he could use pink crayons and do it just as well as in a blood circle. (as long as the social consequence he'd take from being a cheapskate would be the same level as the physical from drawing a circle in blood)From an external PoV, I think it would be difficult to tell the difference between a houngan ritualist and a houngan thaumaturgist with refinements specializing in a particular ritual theme. For that matter, don't the books state one of the senior council
As for being caught with consequences, other people cannot tag consequences for free - only the guy that dealt them. So, only the wizard could tag said consequences. On the other hand, the GM can compel them instead.Meh, the terminology is one thing I dislike about FATE. The point was, if that attacking character, PC* or NPC, spends a couple fate points to take advantage of those consequences, does the wizard share some responsibility for the werewolf's death?
From an external PoV, I think it would be difficult to tell the difference between a houngan ritualist and a houngan thaumaturgist with refinements specializing in a particular ritual theme. For that matter, don't the books state one of the senior councilis trained in a different tradition? To me, this means different trappings may be used to get the same results. Not that trappings limit you to lesser results.(click to show/hide)
These guys still generally feel pain.Painkillers. Lots of them. Or an evocation spell that applies an aspect of "no pain". Besides, blood loss is not painful; if you bleed someone in the safe and clean way, they'll barely feel a sting - just lots of dizziness from the blood loss.
hurting a willing victim to power a ritual is as bad or worse than harming an unwilling person.1st Law is about killing. Hurting is in no way part of the Laws.
Painkillers. Lots of them. Or an evocation spell that applies an aspect of "no pain". Besides, blood loss is not painful; if you bleed someone in the safe and clean way, they'll barely feel a sting - just lots of dizziness from the blood loss.
1st Law is about killing. Hurting is in no way part of the Laws.
Besides, the solution is easy. Say the following three times;
"Upon my Power, and my hope for salvation and rebirth, I, [insert true name] will never violate the Laws of Magic"
No wizard, especially a dark wizard, will violate that oath because it will do horrible things to their own Power. The more they violate it, the more it will eat at their power and that is the one thing a power-hungry wizard will never do. A good wizard might violate it, sacrificing their Power to do good, but once they fall to the Dark Side, they will no longer want to do dark things, lest they lose their power. Nice standoff, don't you think?
Totally wrong. Wizards do just that; know the rules for magic and use them - that's what the Lore skill does. Harry even comments on it. In addition, Harry has Bob, a spirit of intellect specifically bound by Kemmler to track the rules of magic and serve as an advisor for exactly that kind of thing.
Nope. That character does not have Thaumaturgy. They got the much more limited Ritual: Voodoo Magic. Someone with Thaumaturgy is like a wizard; they can do Voodoo, summon demons, curse people, pull meteors from the sky, raise the dead, try to become gods, tear holes in the fabric of the universe and whatever else they could possibly imagine. That's another reason why wizards with enough experience to know how to use Thaumaturgy best are terrifyingly powerful.
Again, almost certainly wrong. If you have Recovery, you have probably used it to heal from wounds already. So you already know that you can recover from those wounds or similar and lesser wounds. I mean, if a Lycanthrope recovers from several broken bones or being bitten by a ghoul (i.e. can recover from moderate consequences), a bleeding wound from a knife, being much smaller (a mild consequence) is not going to faze them much.The character would have to be into pain for it happen. Besides, you are assuming that the PCs KNOW THE RULES!!!!!!!!!
If they find you having bound some people with chains over an altar and are cutting them to fuel your ritual? Sure. If they see you standing with your werewolf buddy and using his blood, willingly given, to fuel said ritual whith the two of you joking about the red robe reccomendation in your book of spells, not really. It is all about context.
Now, both the Channeler and the full on Thaumaturge can be Voodoo priests. Both of them can use the trappings of Voodoo, and both of them can come from that background. But one has gone WAY beyond the other.Agreed. One has far more learning / power than the other. My point was simply that, to an external observer, there's very little to tell the two apart. Both will look to voodoo rituals as the solution - one because that's all he can do and the other because he just that good at it.
Agreed. One has far more learning / power than the other. My point was simply that, to an external observer, there's very little to tell the two apart. Both will look to voodoo rituals as the solution - one because that's all he can do and the other because he just that good at it.
Back to the point of the thread though - I still think the wizard chances Lawbreaker status (even if only in the eyes of the local Warden) simply because those consequences could contribute to the donor's cause of death.
Premise:Conclusion: A sacrifice, contributing to death, is dark gray at best. It would almost certainly be seen as Lawbreaking by wardens and would probably have the same mental affect as #3 above. Given the tone of the books, I'd play it that way.
- A willing sacrifice of temporary consequences is 'white' or allowable magic.
- A sacrifice causing death, willing or not, is 'black' or lawbreaking.
- A sacrifice resulting in death, even when unintentional is still 'black'.
Sure, he isn't a lawbreaker. But he's taking those moral justification steps that will make it easier to justly doing it in the future.
But if it became a whole "hey, duracell, get over here" thing, that's the cheapening of life, The developing callousness towards suffering.
'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within...
Goosebumps. Yes, thank you - it is clear which is more thematically appropriate.
1st Law is about killing. Hurting is in no way part of the Laws.
Of course, truly desperate or sociopathic wizards go beyond just self-sacrifice, harnessing the power that comes from the physical and emotional sacrifice of others. The torture or murder of another sentient being is perhaps one of the most heinous acts that a wizard can commit in the pursuit of magic, even (or especially) if the victim surrenders to it willingly.
This sacrifice essentially represents that the wizard is willing to go to greater extremes. He enters that territory where, in order to get what he wants, he’s willing to enter a conflict with someone, put his own emotions and health on the line, or complicate his life and the lives of others.
Oooh, this made me think of one more thing I can add here.
So, in the Dresdenverse, the trappings (see: Aspects) of thaumaturgy and magic on a whole are significant because they represent emotional and mental triggers in the mage casting. He uses these to focus, and, though he doesn't technically need them, things are much harder without.(click to show/hide)
I posit that blood isn't a power source. Rather, it is the representation of that blood to the sorcerer in question. It is lifeblood. It is sacrifice. It is given or taken, and both acts hold significance.
However: if the taking of the blood is none of those things, if no life is in danger, and no worry is to be had, perhaps it is no longer so significant to the mage, because it holds none of the emotional content it would in a moment of sacrifice.
Agree with me or not, but that is the difference between:
"The wizard crouched low over his friend who lay broken and half dead, his blood running freely. His regenerative abilities might allow him to recover from that wound in time. Hell, he'd as much seen him come back from worse. But that wouldn't be worth a bit if they couldn't make it out of this giant snafu their informant lead them into with their lives. He looked into his friend's eyes, and they shared a mutual, horrible thought. 'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within, and adding his own copious strength atop it, even as he burned a circle of ash into the ground around them with a flick of his will. The spell was going to be big, and they might not survive the backlash, but damnit, the Warlock was going to see what a real Wizard could do. More than anything though, he was going to pay."
and...
"The Wizard looked over at his buddy. 'Hey, dude, come here, I need some juice to get the ritual working!' Rolling his eyes, the werewolf shambled over to his annoying roommate, picking up a kitchen knife as he went. 'Ok,' he said, bored, 'but make it snappy! Teen Wolf is coming on AMC tonight!'
I just know which one sounds cool, and since the world and the books pretty much runs on the Rule of Cool, I know which one I'd be happy seeing in a game.
I didn't say it was, but I couldn't remember whether the line I'd read was in the section under the First Law where it talks about grey areas, or whether it was just in the powering a ritual using consequences section. I did point out that I couldn't remember which of the two it was in - it turns out that it's in the inflicting consequences to power a spell section. No, hurting someone to power a ritual isn't a first law violation. But it's the first step on a slippery slope towards that end if it's something that is repeated often.
From YS Page 269:
And from a paragraph later:
The section then goes on to discuss killing and the First Law - which is why my memory had linked it with the First Law section of the rule book.
Oooh, this made me think of one more thing I can add here.
So, in the Dresdenverse, the trappings (see: Aspects) of thaumaturgy and magic on a whole are significant because they represent emotional and mental triggers in the mage casting. He uses these to focus, and, though he doesn't technically need them, things are much harder without.(click to show/hide)
I posit that blood isn't a power source. Rather, it is the representation of that blood to the sorcerer in question. It is lifeblood. It is sacrifice. It is given or taken, and both acts hold significance.
However: if the taking of the blood is none of those things, if no life is in danger, and no worry is to be had, perhaps it is no longer so significant to the mage, because it holds none of the emotional content it would in a moment of sacrifice.
Agree with me or not, but that is the difference between:
"The wizard crouched low over his friend who lay broken and half dead, his blood running freely. His regenerative abilities might allow him to recover from that wound in time. Hell, he'd as much seen him come back from worse. But that wouldn't be worth a bit if they couldn't make it out of this giant snafu their informant lead them into with their lives. He looked into his friend's eyes, and they shared a mutual, horrible thought. 'Do it,' his wounded ally said, 'just be sure you get the smug bastard.' The Wizard nodded, took a deep breath, and, wincing, laid his palm on his friend's wound, calling upon the power of the blood within, and adding his own copious strength atop it, even as he burned a circle of ash into the ground around them with a flick of his will. The spell was going to be big, and they might not survive the backlash, but damnit, the Warlock was going to see what a real Wizard could do. More than anything though, he was going to pay."
and...
"The Wizard looked over at his buddy. 'Hey, dude, come here, I need some juice to get the ritual working!' Rolling his eyes, the werewolf shambled over to his annoying roommate, picking up a kitchen knife as he went. 'Ok,' he said, bored, 'but make it snappy! Teen Wolf is coming on AMC tonight!'
I just know which one sounds cool, and since the world and the books pretty much runs on the Rule of Cool, I know which one I'd be happy seeing in a game.
Thanks for locating that, Babel!
Which means, as we were positing, that while the rules don't say "If the character does this, give him an aspect to reflect it," but it does say that these actions are a serious problem.
Thus, I think using aspects to reflect these activities would be very appropriate... if the Wizard does so more than once, or does so even once if it wasn't for any but the most desperate times.