It's possible to cast rituals without a Power, using the Common Ritual trapping of the Lore skill.

But nobody seems to do this. Or at least, I've never seen anyone do this.

So...have you ever used a common ritual?

My theory is that most people ignore common rituals because they aren't fleshed out in the rules and no cool examples exist. And because their most prominent users are inexplicably statted as actual spellcasters.

But I could be wrong.

Hypothetically, how would you write the skill list for this game if you were given the opportunity to redo everything from scratch?

Personally, I wouldn't change much.

But I would redo the combat skills. It kinda bugs me that only a fool or a non-optimizer would take all three of them at high ratings on the same character. And I don't like the way that Fists drops in usefulness when the game assumptions change a bit.

So I'd merge Guns and Fists and Weapons into Melee Combat and Ranged Combat. Each would have a trapping that lets you defend against melee or ranged attacks respectively.

This has the added benefit of making Athletics less mandatory.

(This isn't my idea, other people have proposed it. But only recently did I buy into it.)

Apart from that, I'd just re-emphasize a few trappings. I'd put a bit of stress on Endurance's defensive applications so that people don't just take it at 3 and forget about it. I'd make Craftsmanship's Building trapping as useful as Resources's Buying trapping, because building stuff is awesome and not enough people want to do it. And I'd make it clear that people can make a First Impression roll with basically any social skill, because not all first impressions are about being nice.

I guess I might drop Burglary too, it's a bit unnecessary. Or maybe I'd add an Exactly As Planned trapping that'd let you retroactive Declare that you were ready for whatever happens.

So, that's my take. What's yours?

DFRPG allows a pretty wide variety of character types. But not an infinite one. With the RAW, it's not really possible to play as a coin-bound Denarian or as Demonreach.

Fortunately, there's nothing stopping us from writing a "you're a coin" Power or a "you're an island" Power.

So, who's interested in talking about how to write such Powers?

Title says it all, really.

For background:

Recently, we've been discussing the possibility of purchasing minions and allies with stunts. It's been agreed that really strong allies and large mobs of minions should require multiple stunts.

This can be done by piling 1-Refresh stunts on top of each other, but not elegantly.

So I thought, why not make some multi-Refresh Stunts?

Which brought to mind an old thread about letting people take packages of related stunts at a small discount.

So, the idea is to make it possible for stunts to cost more than one Refresh. Such stunts would be good for four things:

1. Providing new abilities that are just too good for one Refresh, but that should be available to mortals.
2. Giving people a discount for buying a bunch of stunts that are thematically appropriate but mechanically foolish to take together. Often, this will mean that a single multi-Refresh stunt applies to multiple skills.
3. Letting people basically take a stunt repeatedly, with the limited stacking you'd expect from that.
4. Compressing a stunt tree into one stunt.

Such stunts would not scale exponentially the way that Powers do. A -3 Stunt is not better than 3 normal stunts.

Examples:

[-2] Extremely Capable Researcher (Scholarship): If there was an Olympic researching event, you'd be a strong contender for the gold. All of your Scholarship research is three time increments faster.
[-3] Hammer Blows (Might): Your mighty muscles make you much more dangerous in a fight. All of your muscle-powered attacks inflict 2 additional stress.
[-3] Supreme Workspace (Resources): You have the best facilities. THE BEST. Your workspace can be used for any workspace function and has a quality equal to your Resources plus one.
[-4] Pet Wolf (Survival): You have a pet wolf. It's pretty badass. You are accompanied by a companion character with the High Concept (Character)'s Pet Wolf. It has Echoes Of The Beast, Claws, Inhuman Strength, and Inhuman Speed. It has a skill pyramid that caps out 1 below your Survival skill.

What do y'all think?

When writing custom Powers, I often find the Skills Affected section kind of annoying. It seems useless to me and often makes little sense.

But maybe it's useful to people who aren't me.

So I ask you all: do you like the Skills Affected sections of Powers?

Not looking for an argument or anything, just curious.

This was inspired by a recent discussion on spellcasting balance in which the Laws were suggested as a way to keep magic from being too strong.

Now, for reasons I've already been over I don't much like that approach. So here are twenty-five ways to nerf magic that are, in my opinion, much better.

(With a few exceptions, I think that the balance of magical effects is pretty good. I wouldn't use most of these, personally. But that's beside the point.)

Anyway, each of these ways is different and each of them can be combined with other ways. I wouldn't suggest using more than a few, though, because making things less powerful is easy to overdo.

Feel free to submit your own ideas if you want. Magic has a lot of fiddly bits, by DFRPG standards, which makes it easy to depower.

1. Remove Rotes from the game.
2. Increase the Refresh cost of spellcasting powers.
3. Remove the free specializations from Evocation and Thaumaturgy.
4. Reduce the number of free focus slots that spellcasting powers give.
5. Make backlash come in the form of consequences rather then stress.
6. Put a hard limit on the number of allowable thaumaturgy Declarations.
7. Make elements more restrictive by requiring them to be present in the environment before they can be used.
8. Get rid of the Spirit element.
9. Make elements more restrictive by tying them to specific mechanical actions.
10. Make the difficulty of thaumaturgical control rolls increase with the complexity of the associated ritual.
11. Make it so that drawing 2 shifts of power over your base power fills in your first 3 stress boxes rather than your 3rd, and so on.
12. Require foci to follow a pyramid structure.
13. Allow only a single focus to be used for each spell.
14. Do not allow Evocation and Thaumaturgy focus slots to be intermixed.
15. Do not allow people to inflict consequences to fuel Thaumaturgy unless the target is important enough to take those consequences.
16. Make all Enchanted Items require an action to activate.
17. Make all non-armour Enchanted Items require an action to activate.
18. Remove Crafting frequency bonuses from the game.
19. Do not allow Crafting foci.
20. Make Thaumaturgy less efficient at imitating other skills with a tax or a bad exchange rate.
21. Make control bonuses not apply to attack accuracy.
22. Make zone attacks cost more, and/or make them cost both power and control.
23. Do not allow people to prolong spells with other spells.
24. Do not allow people to redirect spells.
25. Make actual rules for accidental hexing.

PS: I left out the things that I don't see as nerfs, like ruling that self-inflicted harm satisfies Catches or not allowing Orbius.
PPS: I could provide more nerfs, but I figure that 25 is probably enough.

This thread exists to compile the various Sponsored Magics made by the people on this forum. Please, feel free to use what you find here in your own games.

If you'd like to add something to the list, just post it to this thread. I'll reformat it (if necessary) and add it to the list.

The contents of this thread are available as a text document here.

Every power here grants the standard Sponsored Magic benefits as outlined in Your Story. That is to say, they all grant four focus slots and the ability to take Sponsor Debt unless the power entry says otherwise. Furthermore, unless otherwise noted a character with Evocation or Thaumaturgy subtracts one Refresh from the cost of these powers and two focus slots from their benefits.

Some of the powers on this list are Self-Sponsored Magics. Self-Sponsored Magics differ from ordinary Sponsored Magic only in that they are powered by the character who takes them rather than by some external force. Debt taken from Self-Sponsored Magic is discharged through Compels on the user's High Concept and other Aspects.

BOON OF THE FISHER KING [-4]
Description: This is the power of the legendary Fisher King. Enough said.
Sponsor: The Fisher King is a very old and very powerful faerie who features in the mortal legends of Bran the Blessed and King Arthur. He is the wounded monarch on which the vitality of the land depends, his life sustained by the magic cauldron that can restore the dead to life. Over the years his legends have been mixed with Christian ones, giving him a severe identity crisis and essentially forcing him into senility.
Agenda: The Fisher King seeks to unlock the true potential of others, generally by sending them on quests. He prizes creativity. A character who incurs significant sponsor debt to the Fisher King finds himself compelled to conform to traditional tropes for questing heroes, including aiding any seemingly helpless individual who asks for it and insisting on antiquated notions of chivalry and honor. Given the degraded nature of the Fisher King's state of mind, such compulsions can take on bizarre and even dangerous forms.
Evocation: Evocations cast with the power of the Fisher King take the appearance of spectral weapons and warriors created to aid their caster. They may not be cast in opposition to the Fisher King's agenda.
Thaumaturgy: Rituals cast with the power of the Fisher King may be used to create things or to inspire and aid others in their adventures. They may not be cast in opposition to the Fisher King's agenda.
Evothaum: All rituals that may be cast with the power of the Fisher King may be cast with Evocation's speed and methods.
Extra Benefits: Characters with the Boon Of The Fisher King may spend a Fate Point or take a point of Sponsor Debt to send a willing character on a quest. A quest is a compel against one of the quest-taker's aspects that sends the quest-taker on a journey to accomplish some great task. While on a quest, a character may invoke the aspect that sent them on the quest by taking a point of sponsor debt. In addition, a character with the Boon Of The Fisher King may spend a Fate Point or take a point of Sponsor Debt to give a Fate Point to or remove a point of Sponsor Debt from a character who is on a quest for them.

SUPER-SCIENCE! [-4]
Description: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; any sufficiently defined magic is indistinguishable from technology. You're able to invent and build fantastic devices that are only dreamed about in science-fiction to create effects that blur the line between science and magic.
Sponsor: Super-Science! is sponsored by Science! itself. Science! is a semi-aware entity formed out of the scientific method and the collected knowledge of the human race.
Agenda: Science! desires to grow through the continued collective accumulation of knowledge and through the propagation of the scientific world-view. Beware, for the cold logic of Science can be used to justify any action...the same inspirations that created radiotherapy for curing cancer, first created nuclear bombs.
Evocation: Super-Science! evocations consist largely of the activation of supernatural weapons. As a result, they tend to be similar to exaggerated versions of real-life weaponry. Examples of Super-Science! evocations include homing missiles, laser blades, acidic bullets, and the like.
Thaumaturgy: Super-Science! rituals work through building machines and solving equations. If a ritual could conceivably be completed by those means, it may be cast with Super-Science!.
Evothaum: Super-Science does not grant the ability to use Thaumaturgy with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: Super-Science! does not use the usual set of spellcasting skills. Resources replaces Conviction, Craftsmanship replaces Discipline and Scholarship replaces Lore for the purposes of spellcasting with Super-Science!. In addition, a character with Super-Science receives one free specialization in either Crafting power or Crafting frequency. Finally, a character with Super-Science! never accidentally hexes anything.
Drawbacks: Super-Science! evocations may not be cast without foci. Furthermore, Super-Science! foci and enchanted items are vulnerable to hexing. The difficulty is equal to Scholarship + twice the number of Enchanted Item slots invested in the item.

THE POWER OF BLOOD [-4]
Description: A true blooded elder vampire can draw a form of magical power from the life in the blood they have stolen. This power can be used to manipulate the blood of others and the blood of the vampire itself. The power of the blood works like evocation though cause hunger stress rather than mental stress.
Musts: The Blood Drinker and Feeding Dependency powers are required in order to purchase this one.
Sponsor: The Power Of Blood lacks a conventional sponsor. It is fueled by its user's nature and by the blood that its user has stolen.
Agenda: The Power Of Blood wants its users to drink more and more blood. It has no long-term agenda, just endless bloodlust.
Evocation: Evocations cast with The Power Of Blood work through the physical control of blood.
Thaumaturgy: The Power Of Blood allows its user to cast rituals that manipulate or make use of blood.
Evothaum: Any ritual that may be cast with The Power Of Blood may be cast with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: Any spell cast with The Power Of Blood costs hunger stress instead of mental stress.

CHAOS MAGIC/THE BLESSING OF THE UNNAMED [-4]
Description: Drawing on the power of the Nameless God of Chaos you are able to cast spells that fit into its essential nature: chaos, destruction, madness and the bending of reality. Making use of this power can cause ripples in the very nature of causality.
Sponsor: The Nameless God of Chaos sponsors users of this power.
Agenda: The Nameless God of Chaos wishes to twist the world until nothing but chaos and madness remains.
Evocation: Chaos evocations consist of brute-force reality-bending. They often resemble entropomantic attacks.
Thaumaturgy: Chaos rituals twist the world in subtle ways. Their effects are many and varied, but they always serve to promote the goals of the Nameless God.
Evothaum: Chaos Magic allows its user to use entropomancy, psychomancy, and diabolism with the speed and methods of evocation.
Extra Benefits: Chaos Magic users get a free Thaumaturgy specialization in complexity or control for spells that twist the natures of things.

MA'AT MAGIC [-4]
Description: Ma’at was the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice. In practice, the concepts of Truth, Order, and Justice prevail as the Goddess Ma’at’s  theme.
Sponsor: Ma’at (the personification of Ma’at the concept, and facilitator of "Final Justice" in Duat, the Underworld, where Anubis weighs one's heart against her Feather of Truth)
Agenda: To seek Truth, enforce Order and ensure Justice is done. Those Sponsored by Ma’at are often required to accept requests to mediate situations, like Judges or Viziers.
Evocation: Evocations based on Ma’at tend to be direct and focused. Fallout tends to occur in visibly stilted ways (Accidental fires that spread evenly, items break cleanly, etc.). Evocations of Ma'at are usually used in the Justice phase of a Sponsor's work, and must reflect a Just and fitting punishment (Shadow Evocations against someone proven to have blinded another, for example).
Thaumaturgy: Rituals involving Ma’at often make use of precise measurements, use of balance in item placement, well-chosen incantations(preferably in ancient Egyptian), and intricate repetitive gestures. Ma'at rituals promote the process of Investigation, Determination of the Truth, and Atonement/punishment for transgressions.
Evothaum: Ma’at Magic allows its user to cast Divination, Entropomancy, and Conjuration spells with the speed of Evocation when acting in pursuit of justice.
Extra Benefits: Those Sponsored by Ma’at are gifted with a knack for feeling out the truth in situations, they may choose to use Lore to roll for the Empathy trapping "Reading People", or for the Investigation trapping "Examination". The Sponsored must choose which when affirming his appointment as Ma'at's Favored.

YULETIDE MAGIC [-4]
Description: Drawing on the power of the Saint Nicholas, you’re able to cast spells that fit his essential nature: warmth and coldness, charity, protection, travel, and power over secrets. These magics are under the sway and watch of Saint Nicholas himself; making use of them will inevitably catch his notice.
Sponsor: Santa Claus
Agenda: To reward good children, and to promote the traditions and spirit of Christmas.
Evocation: Yuletide evocations involve the control of warmth and coldness.
Thaumaturgy: Yuletide rituals encourage or make use of warmth, coldness, charity, protection, travel, and secrecy.
Evothaum: Yuletide Magic allows its user to cast conjuration and warding spells with evocation's speed and methods.
Extra Benefits: A character with Yuletide Magic gets a one free specialization in conjuration complexity and another in conjuration control.

FOXFIRE [-4]
Description: A gift from the fox spirits of legend allows you to cloud minds, fool the senses, and even drive people to insanity.
Sponsor: The fox spirits of Eastern legend, AKA nine-tailed foxes, huli jing, kumiho, kitsune, and many other names. Contrary to many modern interpretations, fox spirits tend to be unrepentant monsters with a taste for human flesh, though benevolent individuals exist. Many scholars compare the diversity of fox spirit myths to faerie lore in European traditions, though the two are (probably) distinct supernatural genera. Fox spirits are often worshiped, or at least placated, in traditional shrines.
Agenda: Seduction, illusion, the gaining of status and wealth through dishonorable means or Faustian bargains. Foxfire prefers to be used in indirect ways, but when grave insult or disrespect is offered, it kindles brightly with the desire for vengeance.
Evocation: Foxfire evocations are often limned in ghostly blue or red flames. Foxfire employs raw spiritual energy channeled in the form of voracious insubstantial fire It is quick to take hold and consume, but just as quick to burn out or be quenched.
Thaumaturgy: Foxfire can be employed to manipulate emotional states, create durable illusions, and to cause effects in a target household that resemble a haunting or demon possession. When used offensively it has a the unique preference for inflicting mental stress, the fire that burns cold but sears the soul.
Evothaum: Foxfire allows its user to cast Photomancy and Psychomancy with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: A user of Foxfire may add one to their Deceit skill when using it to create a mundane illusion or to support an illusion of any kind.

BIBLIOMANCY [-4]
Description: You can project the world of the word into the real world. Nothing from the world of the word can exist without context as it would lose its meaning and therefore its existence. Monsters drawn from books remain monsters and heroes, heroes.
Sponsor: Bibliomancy draws upon the world of words for its powers. The world of words is essentially a conglomeration of everything ever written, from novels to textbooks. It is not actually sentient, but it has a sort of will nonetheless.
Agenda: The world of words has no concrete agenda, but it is generally in favour of knowledge and against the destruction of books. Sometimes it will try to force reality into the shape of a novel.
Evocation: Bibliomantic evocations make use of the Word element. Word evocations generally function by bringing things from the world of words into reality. This can create almost any evocation effect, but it requires access to written material containing the desired effect.
Thaumaturgy: Bibliomantic rituals can blur the line between text and truth, perform a wide variety of divinations with a textual thematic, create books or other associated objects, and open portals to certain realms.
Evothaum: Bibliomancers may summon creatures from books, divine written things, and create written materials with the speed and methods of evocation.
Extra Benefits: A Bibliomancer adds two to his or her Resources skill when using it to determine Library quality or to purchase a new Library. In addition, a Bibliomancer may use a Library of any sort as an Arcane Sanctum of an equal rating.

FOMOR MAGIC [-4]
Description: Fomor magic draws on the dark, pressured, saline depths and the powers of entropy and mutation; Fomor magic effects tend to form, or be attended by, shadows, fogs, or mists and leave corrosion, rust, or decay behind. It favors dark curses, mutative or flesh-warping effects, corrosive attacks, and entropy-based defenses that weaken and soften attacks.
Sponsor: Fomor magic draws on the power of the Fomor, an ancient alliance or nation of mostly aquatic beings with affinities to the jotuns and the darker faeries.
Agenda: The plans of the Fomor as somewhat nebulous, but extremely sinister. Their current efforts are primarily dedicated to kidnapping mortal magic users.
Evocation: Treat Fomor Magic as Water for Evocation purposes.
Thaumaturgy: Fomor Magic can be used to cast entropomantic curses and to use the more mutative/disgusting effects of biomancy.
Evothaum: Any ritual that may be cast with Fomor Magic may be cast with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: Fomor Magic is unaffected by running water.

RUNE MAGIC [-4]
Description: A long time ago, Odin stabbed himself with a spear and hanged himself from The World Tree as a sacrifice to himself. By doing so, he acquired the power of Rune Magic. Now Odin gives some of that runic power to his Valkyries, making them able to serve him better.
Sponsor: Rune Magic comes from Odin, greatest of the Aesir and master of runes.
Agenda: The agenda of Odin is not entirely clear, but it definitely includes making preparations for Ragnarok. Users of Rune Magic might be called upon to find new Einherjar for Odin's armies or to gather weapons for the final battle.
Evocation: Rune Magic does not provide any form of Evocation.
Thaumaturgy: Rune Magic rituals are mainly useful for divination, warding, and crafting. Some other effects might also be possible, but no Rune Magic effect may extend beyond the immediate proximity of the runes used to cast it.
Evothaum: Rune Magic does not grant the ability to use Thaumaturgy with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: A user of Rune Magic may create special Rune Items. Creating a Rune Item requires a ritual much like an ordinary thaumaturgical ritual, except that the caster spends an Enchanted Item slot for each exchange he spends casting the spell. If the ritual succeeds, the resulting Rune Item functions identically to a single-use potion containing the ritual's effect. In addition, Rune Magic users get a free specialization in Rune Magic complexity and gain the ability to read and write the secret language of runes. Finally, Rune Magic provides five focus slots instead of the regular four.
Note: The cost of Rune Magic is not reduced if the character taking it has Evocation. But if that character has Thaumaturgy, reduce the cost of Rune Magic and the number of focus slots it grants by one and two respectively.

AQUAE ARNEMETIAE [-4]
Description: Arnemetia, she who dwells in the sacred grove, presided over the Buxton spring since before Britain went Roman. Unfortunately for her, when the Romans came they killed her druids and suppressed her worship with both mundane force and summoned demons. With the druids exterminated, Arnemetia entered torpor, waiting for a champion. One shrine dedicated to her survived.
Sponsor: Arnemetia, she who dwells in the sacred grove.
Agenda: The destruction of demonkind.
Evocation: Evocations cast with Aquae Arnemetiae use water, purification, growth and plant life to work their effects.
Thaumaturgy: Rituals cast with Aquae Arnemetiae can purify things, manipulate water, manipulate plant life. They can also emulate many diabolism effects, but said effects are entirely geared towards combating demons and returning them to the Inferno.
Evothaum: The diabolism rituals granted by Aquae Arnemetiae can be cast with Evocation's speed and methods.
Extra Benefits: Aquae Arnemetiae ignores one level of Toughness when used against demons.

OLYMPIAN CASTING [-4]
Description: You are able to cast spells of a deep and true nature, drawing upon the magics of the Olympian Gods. Due to the nature of this power source, it is less flexible in some areas than mortal spellcasting and is therefore subject to limitations. 
Sponsor: The gods of ancient Greece.
Agenda: The Olympians often demand that their Emissaries destroy monsters and enact the plans of Fate.
Evocation: Olympian evocations are fairly subtle, and generally work through manipulation of Fate and perception rather than through the use of raw energy.
Thaumaturgy: Olympian rituals are generally used to ask favours and boons of the Olympian gods. But transforming things, summoning ghosts, casting prophecies, cursing things, and manipulating Fate is also possible, as is Crafting.
Evothaum: Olympian Casting can be used to cast curses and to manipulate Fate with the speed and methods of Evocation.
Extra Benefits: A character with Olympian Casting receives a free specialization in Crafting strength.