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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: MijRai on August 24, 2010, 07:16:08 AM
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Okay, so with Sponsored Seelie Magic, you get biomancy at the speed of Evocation. How would you use that to give yourself Speed, Strength, Recovery, or Toughness powers? My idea was to make each refresh represent a shift of power, with more being added for how many exchanges it would last.
Say I had a guy with 5 Conviction and Discipline. He had Sponsored Seelie Magic. Could he cast an Evocation at five shifts that gives him Inhuman Strength for 3 exchanges, or Supernatural Strength for one exchange?
This would be for a Summer Knight without any magic besides what was given to him. He needed a leg up in fighting super-strong baddies, so he used the magic he was given to make himself stronger.
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Transformations require that you Take yourself Out, so you need to have enough shifts to overcome your own Stress, then I think you have to produce a shift for every point of Refresh in powers you want to give yourself, secondly, you have to spend the Power's Refresh in Fate Points, as per the Temporary Powers rule on page 92.
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Transformations require that you Take yourself Out, so you need to have enough shifts to overcome your own Stress, then I think you have to produce a shift for every point of Refresh in powers you want to give yourself, secondly, you have to spend the Power's Refresh in Fate Points, as per the Temporary Powers rule on page 92.
I don't see it as a Transformation. More like supercharging. Putting magic into the muscles and bones, to make them stronger. Besides, that refers to being given the powers. This is all the character, doing fun things with magic. Should I attach a Modular Abilities to it, allowing myself to draw from it for the powers?
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I don't see it as a Transformation. More like supercharging. Putting magic into the muscles and bones, to make them stronger.
Ok, then you're doing a Maneuver that adds Aspects. Powers are different. If you're getting Powers, it's changing something about you fundamentally.
Besides, that refers to being given the powers.
It's basically the rule for how the system deals with getting temporary powers.
Should I attach a Modular Abilities to it, allowing myself to draw from it for the powers?
If you transform yourself to have Modular Abilities and pay the Fate Points, yes.
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The closest I can find in the rulebook is under Biomancy. It points you towards the Transportation and World Walking section on page 282. Which in turn deals with supercharging in terms of maneuvers that put aspects on the character, or mimicing the effects of a high roll of the appropriate type (which is essentially covered under the 'Solve Improbable or Impossible Problems' section on page 263). These would seem the easiest and fairest way of boosting a character via Sponsored Thaumaturgy.
Allowing them to boost themselves via Sponsored Thaumaturgy makes the character massively unbalanced - they can effectively have 8 refresh worth of supernatural powers any time they want for the cost of only 4 refresh. That's assuming you limit them to only Inhuman levels of Recovery, Speed, Strength and Toughness, if you let them go as far as Supernatural that rises sharply to 16 refresh worth of power.
Gaining powers from a sponsor should always be done within the context of a bargain or oath. They won't bestow it for free. It will cost Refresh to buy, and you'll become more indebted to the sponsor. There are rules which would seem applicable in the Mid-Session Power Upgrade section on page 91 and 92.
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I'll lock the extra points into modular abilities if I ever make it.
Besides, if you read my first post, it is for a Summer Knight. He uses his 'Biomancy at the Speed of Evocation' bonus from Seelie magic to do it. They wouldn't be permanent, they would last as long as the shifts to effect last (unless you put more power in, which you can do).
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Giving yourself supernatural powers with magic -- even on the short term -- is really powerful. That's why it requires you to Take yourself Out. It's just hugely powerful to add to the existing power and flexibility of magic with powers.
Modular powers are the way to go for this type of thing. Marked By Power [-1] and Modular Powers [-6] puts you in the range of an 8+ Refresh character.
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Well, YS284 states that Biomancy can be used to "supercharge" body attributes such as strength, speed, etc, though it suggests that physical consequences are a common side-effect due to (for example) the muscles making promises the skeleton can't keep. A bit later on YS287, it indicates that Psychomancy can do the same thing for mental abilities, with similar side-effects.
As far as difficulties, the only example I can find is the Escape Potion. This uses the 'simple action' option for Thaumaturgy, which (if I understand correctly) basically translates complexity into an effective result on a simple action. Based on this example, if I wanted to get enough biomantic strength to lift a midsize car (requires a +9 might result), this would be a complexity 9 spell. For simple action-flavored thaumaturgy, I think the duration is long enough to perform the action, which probably means an exchange or two, or *maybe* a few minutes, though it could be bumped up by adding shifts dictated by the time chart. Using Biomancy as Evocation, this would be one exchange, plus an exchange per shift paid to increase duration. Based on the side effect discussion, a GM might *require* that a consequence be part of the payment for the spell.
This doesn't really answer the question, though, which is how to use Biomancy to grant refresh-grade strength, speed, and toughness (Recovery is largely covered by the sample healing spell provided, which downgrades consequences much like Inhuman Recovery). Some aspects of this are on the easy side (toughness is mostly an armor effect; in this case you're using Biomancy insead of Spirit to generate the effect), others less so.
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OK, so I have a really great example of a power being granted via a potion in both the novels and in DFRPG: Victor Sells 3 Eye potions. The potions have the effect of granting the user the effects of the sight (a 1 point refresh power) as listed the potions only require 2 shifts of power to create. The potion is listed on page 226 of OW. Now admittedly the potion does not allow the user real control over the new power (I figure as a GM this creates an easily compellable aspect on any character who chooses to imbue himself or others with a power. [i.e. Inhuman strength: Dude your crushing my hand!/ Eek! That guy just one handed a keg. He must be on PCP!!] Gm's use it make your PC's lives hell and your player's lives a riot.)
Now extrapolating from that that a 1 point refresh power can be mimicked with 2 shifts of power one can argue that it costs 2 shifts of power per refresh point of power that you wish to mimic. Now I will point out that if this is true it presents a game breaking number of possible power combinations when combined with the uses of sponsored magic. To that effect I recommend that GM's limit the users of sponsored magic to effects of complexity no greater than the casters lore for effects with a ritual duration or things can get really out of hand.
Thoughts/Comments/Questions/Arguments are welcome.
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Personally, I would allow it with a major ritual (enough to take oneself out) *and* enough Fate points to pay for the power temporarily. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
So if your wizard has the Conviction and Lore to toss a ~26-shift Thaumaturgic Ritual on the fly and the Fate points, rock and roll! Take a on a ton of sponsor debt -- that won't bite you later -- to power your ritual. Then you can get, what, 20 shifts for a human sacrifice? Just watch out for Wardens... ;)
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It seems as if everyone is stuck on taking yourself out with a ritual to grant the human body temporary access to inhuman and above level refresh powers. I do not believe this is necessary unless the change you wish to imbue is permanent. I would think temporary ritual duration upgrades to the body would be a much less taxing ritual. There should be a mid session cost for the upgrades of one fate point per refresh(or 1 free compel per FP owed, GM's eat your hearts out!) of power gained as detailed on pg. 92 under the temporary powers sidebar.
Besides everyone is acting like every player is going to spend 4 hours in ritual buffing up before stepping out the door in the morning. When the &^$% is hitting the fan (as it should be in the Dresdenverse) there usually isn't time for that. And Sponsored casters are going to be so horribly in debt as to be NPC's if they go about doing this regularly, not to mention the fact their patron power may deny them access to it's admittedly vast yet limited resources for petty uses.
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Hey, even if a particular Biomantic ritual required a wizard to 'take themselves out', that ritual would need only 5 shifts, tops, for most wizards. Such a ritual cast on an unwilling target needs to take into account their best possible defense roll, all the consequences they could use to mitigate stress, and number of stress boxes. Taking consequences is optional, though, and defending yourself against the spell is, too. So in a case like this, you'd only need to have one more shift than you have stress boxes. I think most wizards would find generating that level of power fairly simple, even on the fly.
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Besides everyone is acting like every player is going to spend 4 hours in ritual buffing up before stepping out the door in the morning. When the &^$% is hitting the fan (as it should be in the Dresdenverse) there usually isn't time for that.
The original question was specifically about using sponsored Seelie Magic as one of the Knights. Seelie Magic allows biomancy type effects at the speed of evocation. So the ritual time doesn't apply, nor should the idea of sponsor debt. It's in keeping with the type of magic, used to augment the representative of the Sponsor for that magic.
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Hey, even if a particular Biomantic ritual required a wizard to 'take themselves out', that ritual would need only 5 shifts, tops, for most wizards. Such a ritual cast on an unwilling target needs to take into account their best possible defense roll, all the consequences they could use to mitigate stress, and number of stress boxes. Taking consequences is optional, though, and defending yourself against the spell is, too. So in a case like this, you'd only need to have one more shift than you have stress boxes. I think most wizards would find generating that level of power fairly simple, even on the fly.
While I agree that transforming a willing target should be easier than an unwilling one, I completely disagree with you on how it should be done. For the purposes of a spell, the caster would have to meet a complexity equal to all his possible consequences plus 1, but doesn’t need to overcome his Stress Track, and his defense rating is locked at Mediocre (+0) (because he’s not trying to resist the spell or defend against it in any way).
That would set the base complexity for the spell at 21: 2 for his minor consequence, 4 for his moderate consequence, 6 for his severe consequence, 8 for his extreme consequence, and 1 to take him out.
Remember that Stress is kind of a side-bar, meta-game concept: It goes away fast and doesn't represent any lasting change. If you *only* take Stress in a fight, you haven't even really exerted yourself -- even something as light as "Winded" or "Out of Breath" would be a minor consequence. If you want to actively change your character, even temporarily IN MY OPINION then you need to run out the consequence track.
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The other reason that I wouldn't allow easy access... This is, to me, one of those "dangerous precedent" areas. If you can supercharge your character any time you feel like it, however temporarily, why doesn't everyone with access to any kind of Biomancy do this all the time? What's the point of paying for the powers of the Summer Knight if any half-decent wizard can make a deal with the Seelie and stomp all over Fix in an arm-wrestling match whenever he feels like it with no real cost?
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If you can supercharge your character any time you feel like it, however temporarily, why doesn't everyone with access to any kind of Biomancy do this all the time? What's the point of paying for the powers of the Summer Knight if any half-decent wizard can make a deal with the Seelie and stomp all over Fix in an arm-wrestling match whenever he feels like it with no real cost?
I think it's probably impractical to use biomancy to boost yourself as part of a normal Thaumaturgy ritual, it would take too long for a benefit that could run out before you get to use it - that's assuming that you manage to pull off the transformation correctly in the first place (and that would arguably require an exceptional knowlege of how the human body works. If you're using biomancy as part of summer sponsored Seelie magic you can bypass the knowledge requirement, but it's very likely that the moment you tried to move against the Summer Knight you'd find your magical enhancements disappearing, and yourself being sternly talked to by your sponsor in the Seelie Court.
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If you're using biomancy as part of summer sponsored Seelie magic you can bypass the knowledge requirement, but it's very likely that the moment you tried to move against the Summer Knight you'd find your magical enhancements disappearing, and yourself being sternly talked to by your sponsor in the Seelie Court.
If you're trying to use Seelie magic against Fix, then yeah they could just yank your membership card. :) Probably a poor choice of example on my part -- though internal factions in the court (Aurora, anyone?) could still make this happen.
But what about any other group that would know Biomancy and offer Thaumaturgy at the speed of evocation? I'm not sure of any other faction in the books that offers that particular combination (and I'm at work and can't look), but I'm certain they exist out there somewhere.
If it's an option, why wouldn't everyone use it? Especially if it's as easy as bypassing a stress track with a sponsor that can supply the knowledge of anatomy?
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Actually I must admit that I don't think that generally Biomancy should be able to give a spellcaster the equivalent of full blown Supernatural Powers. I'm far happier with the idea of it allowing boosting as per the examples in the rulebook where it's just adding a temporary aspect that can be invoked.
But (assuming that you wanted to allow such transformations in a game) to answer the point about a sponsor that offers the same knowledge of anatomy and biomancy at the speed of evocation - everyone wouldn't use it for the same reason that everyone doesn't sign up for any other type of sponsored magic, the strings that go with that sponsorship.
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While I agree that transforming a willing target should be easier than an unwilling one, I completely disagree with you on how it should be done. For the purposes of a spell, the caster would have to meet a complexity equal to all his possible consequences plus 1, but doesn’t need to overcome his Stress Track, and his defense rating is locked at Mediocre (+0) (because he’s not trying to resist the spell or defend against it in any way).
That would set the base complexity for the spell at 21: 2 for his minor consequence, 4 for his moderate consequence, 6 for his severe consequence, 8 for his extreme consequence, and 1 to take him out.
Just for the record, I wasn't suggesting that transformations should be based on taking someone out. I was actually pointing out how *easy* self transformations would be if that was how it was defined. Offensive transformations use that format because really the purpose of the spell is to 'take someone out' and the fact that it's a transformation is really special effects more than anything else. A spell to destroy someone's mind would follow exactly the same format, but the FX would be different. Or ... perhaps a spell to rip someone's heart out? Same thing, different FX.
The spell we're talking about here has similar FX as the offensive transformation, but my take is that it's a totally different spell that merely looks the same. So the complexity should be based on the benefits granted by the benevolent transformation, because the spell is about granting benefits, not taking someone out.
I found an older thread in which this question was raised, and it pointed to the section in the rulebook that sort of handles this. See YS92, the "Temporary Powers" sidebar. Basically, thaumaturgy would become an excuse to make use of the rules in the sidebar to give you powers temporarily. If, for example, you wanted to turn into a normal animal, it would cost you 1 Fate to gain Beast Change [-1] for a scene, and you'd use thaumaturgy to enact that change. If you wanted Mythic Strength [-6], it would cost 6 Fate points. A player can 'owe' the GM some compels in place of some of the Fate points.
At first I wasn't happy with this, but I think it's starting to win me over. It doesn't give a "complete" system for using it as a system for Biomancy, though, so here's my attempt to round out the edges (borrowing from the post linked above) for using the sidebar in conjunction with Biomancy:
If you wish to grant temporary powers via Biomancy, begin by listing the powers you wish to grant. Sum up their refresh cost. The base complexity for the spell is two shifts per refresh (for a transformation that lasts one scene). The duration of the spell can be increased by a level on the time chart per shift added to the complexity. Once the complexity is known, the spell is cast as usual for Thaumaturgy.
In addition, the target (either you or a *willing* subject) gains a point of 'Biomantic Debt' for every two points of complexity. Biomantic Debt represents the physical (or even non-physical) wear and tear on your body (or mind) by pushing it further than it was meant to go. Each point of Debt gives the GM a free compel, which can be used any time after the spell duration ends. The target does not get a Fate point for these compels, but may buy out of a compel by paying a Fate point. Some example compels might involve strained muscles from improved strength, or animal-like behaviors left over from shapechanging into an animal.
Some examples:
Giant's Strength
Need to lift a car, but don't have a forklift handy? Know of a monster that *really* deserves a major smackdown? Well, now you can do these things and more with better living through Biomancy!
Type: Thaumaturgy, biomancy
Complexity: 8 shifts (more for longer duration)
Duration: One scene
Effect: Willing target gains 4 point of Biomantic Debt, and also gains the effects of Supernatural Strength for the duration of the spell. Note that this particular version of the spell does not increase the target's size.
Thaumaturgical Werewolf
The Alphas have all the fun, but that need not be the case! No wolf pelts or demonic assistance required, though it might make the spell easier...
Type: Thaumaturgy, biomancy
Complexity: 16 shifts
Duration: Until sunrise or sunset
Effect: Willing target gains 8 Biomantic Debt, as well as the abilities of a werewolf (Beast Change [-1], Inhuman Strength [-2], Inhuman Speed [-2], Claws [-1]) and can change back and forth into werebeast form for the duration of the spell. While not in werebeast form, the target loses access to the other werebeast powers. Note that this spell does not include the senses or instincts of a true werewolf, which require considerable time and practice to learn to interpret.
Thoughts?
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The debt track could work quite well with powers such as this that stress the body and mind by there purpose and nature. I personally don't see a problem granting supernatural powers with thaumaturgy, especially biomancy. That's what it is designed for. But it should be a part of your high concept or a central part of your character to be any good at it. Native American Shamanic Traditions, Qui Gong practitioners, and wizard martial arts types would be the most likely folks to have any ability to enhance themselves. Off the cuff castings by someone with an idea of how it might work could lead to more stress and more severe consequences.