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Messages - DFJunkie

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31
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 13, 2012, 06:48:42 PM »
Quote from: wyvern on June 13, 2012, 05:30:19 PM
Link?  Why would he need a link to them, when he can just cast a ritual to put a whole pile of aspects on himself? 

Aspects are double-edged swords.  Compel them.  Also, who says he can pile thirty three different Aspects onto his character?  Give him one aspect with 33 free tags (or fewer, if he'd like it to last) so he can only invoke it once per roll.  This would actually be really cool, with your usually small-fry PC suddenly able to fight out of his weight class, at least until is juice runs out.

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Or use the ritual as a skill roll substitute to allow him to make a single devastating attack? 

Assuming he's doing this remotely he'd still need to target the attack via a sympathetic link.  Or do you mean he'd do all the prep and casting, then wait to unleash it until he could face the Lord directly?  If you allow that at all (which I wouldn't,) it'd be bloody obvious that he's walking around with the thaumaturgical equivalent of a nuke gun.  Remember how Lore acts as Alertness for supernatural threats?  There’s no way even a mundane individual wouldn’t notice that kind of power, and someone with finely tuned magical senses would see it coming a mile away.  Even assuming his much more skilled opponent wouldn't be able to turn the power on him ala Changes there's always the option of simply avoiding him until it's dissipated.

I'm still not seeing the problem, sorry.

32
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 13, 2012, 04:23:32 PM »
Quote from: wyvern on June 13, 2012, 03:48:15 PM
Yep.  Had one player who, for any problem, tried to solve it with "build a bigger ritual".  I tried the bog-standard "if you can do this, so can the NPCs" approach to resolving things, and the result was that player quitting the game (because obviously he, with two refresh spent on rituals, should be able to out-magic a fae lord.)

Aside from that one player, though, I haven't had problems with it.  But I'd prefer a system that didn't require so much heavy-handed balancing - one where that player wouldn't have thought to try out-ritual-ing something with higher spellcasting skills, refinement, allies, etc, and one where my other spellcasting players wouldn't have to be concerned about accidentally overstepping the limits of what's reasonable.

Could you supply some more details?  Specifically, how did your player get a link to the fae lord in question?  I hate to reiterate my comments from earlier, but getting a link to someone that old, powerful, and knowledgeable should be hard as shit.  If the player does manage to get that link and then gather the massive number of shifts that would be necessary to penetrate the barrier between this world and the Nevernever, the fae lord’s stress and consequences, and all the various defensive magics that an ancient and wily being would have piled on his person without breaking any laws or being utterly cheap I’d say congratulations are in order.

33
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 13, 2012, 02:45:43 PM »
Quote from: Tedronai on June 13, 2012, 01:53:51 PM
If the PCs are getting a reputation for this sort of thing (which multiple instances should produce if their targets are at all noteworthy), might I suggest a BBEG who's mobile?  Or sits behind a substantial threshold?  Or has some beefy wards on his secret lair?

The fact that a couple middle weight casters working in concert with good information and the right materials can produce effects that are usually associated with future generations “all busted up and everyone talking about hard rain” is probably the reason that people step carefully around the White Council. 

34
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 13, 2012, 01:26:59 PM »
Quote from: UmbraLux on June 12, 2012, 11:08:42 PM
I don't think Tedronai is objecting to the "sacrifice as symbolic link".  If I understand correctly, he's simply saying it doesn't have to be one or the other, it may well have been both symbol and power source.

If you mean “could a different ritual use the same human sacrifice as a source of power and as the symbolic link?”  Sure, I’m not aware of any reason why not.  Hell, you can probably tag it for +2 as well.  However, from the way Bob describes the actual ritual we’re discussing, as a crossbow that just needs to be aimed by the final sacrifice I’d say that the specific sacrifice in question (sorry for the tortured language, I’m trying to avoid spoilers here) didn’t contribute power.

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The discussion on sacrifice as symbol does bring another potential limitation to mind - if anyone is still looking for house rule fodder.  Perhaps symbolic links need to be 'robust' enough to handle power...so you'd need better links for more powerful spells.  Hair might work for tracking but maybe it takes blood for a death spell and a child for a 'kill all your ancestors spell'.  Just a thought.

I wouldn’t even call this a house rule, just an interpretation, and one I heartily agree with.    Magic is all about moving energy around, and you can only push so much energy down any given conductor, remember the thread and the ducky in Death Masks?  Also, since stronger links would in all probability be harder to come by and better protected it helps solve the “OMG my players just keep nuking the BBEG from orbit!” issue.

Come to think of it, has anyone ever had a player or group attempt to resolve an otherwise sticky and interesting issue with the hammer of thaumaturgy?  It’s literally never been an issue for my games, which may be why I was so dismissive of the need to nerf it. 

35
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 12, 2012, 08:15:09 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on June 12, 2012, 08:13:43 PM
If it was anything like Sells's spell, someone had to die as the final sacrifice--their plan was basically to have the last victim be a voodoo doll representing her whole family.

Yeah, I was going to revise it once I thought about it a bit, but the fact that the final death targets and shapes the spell rather than contributes power is the point.

36
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 12, 2012, 08:09:15 PM »
I wouldn't call the final death a sacrifice, it was the sympathetic link.  Mechanically they could have used just a drop of blood, the fact that the person was actually slain on the altar was more of a flourish. 

37
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 12, 2012, 07:41:28 PM »
That was the last sacrifice, and it was more the material link.  The few hundred other poor bastards who got slaughtered were the gunpowder.

38
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 12, 2012, 06:50:46 PM »
Quote from: Radecliffe on June 12, 2012, 05:04:02 PM
I agree that sacrifices can vary in strength depending on the victim's life force.  It shouldn't matter if there is a link to the target though.  Usually a sacrifice is all about payment to some scary being for power.  Now if there were a link between the victim and said scary being THAT might come in handy.  Of course that kind of stuff could be handled as aspects too.

This.  The sacrifice(s) aren't there to connect to the target, that's what the material link is for.  If we use the ritual = gun metaphor the sacrifices are the gunpowder, the more you use the bigger the bang.

39
DFRPG / Re: Question about feeding and the Hunger track.
« on: June 12, 2012, 04:04:07 PM »
If you're looking for a middle ground you could treat the feeding as a maneuver and apply the tag to the next Discipline roll. 

40
DFRPG / Re: Damnation by Association?
« on: June 08, 2012, 07:33:28 PM »
Quote from: Mr. Death on June 08, 2012, 07:17:06 PM
I would say that if they don't have magical power themselves, they shouldn't be eligible for the stunt. Maybe they would take the aspect, and get some bad attention from the Wardens, but given that they can't cast on their own, there's little reason to chop off their heads besides being purely punitive.

I agree almost entirely, but the aspect change would be non-negotiable at my table.

41
DFRPG / Re: Damnation by Association?
« on: June 08, 2012, 07:13:01 PM »
Yeah, I was worried that I was just being a pedantic ass, and perhaps an ignorant one.

I think my point stands though.  The entire point of Thaumaturgy is to build a mental construct, a perfect imagining of the effect to be created.  If the person in question isn’t privy to the effect they shouldn’t be lawbreaking.

42
DFRPG / Re: Damnation by Association?
« on: June 08, 2012, 06:57:49 PM »
I thought that her part of the spell was to bang her husband in order to raise power?  If that counts as thaumaturgy Harry is doing it wrong.  Also I feel like Bob would have mentioned "screwing like bunnies" as an alternative to all those boring circles and robes.

43
DFRPG / Re: Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals
« on: June 08, 2012, 06:49:36 PM »
Quote from: Orladdin on June 08, 2012, 04:52:09 PM
Besides, doesn't it stretch credulity that every time the party starts to cast ritual X, someone comes by to throw a wrench in their plans? 

Depends on the ritual and how important it is to the plot.  If completing the ritual is necessary for the story to continue then why worry about it?  Let it happen and narrate it effectively with the help of the players to make it seem cool and fun.  If it's a giant "I win" button then yeah, it needs to be stoppable, because that's how stories work.  Now, maybe the ritual is basically the denouement and collecting the various components was the meat of the story.  If that's the case then, again, just let it happen, as above.  But if the completion of the spell is the climax of the story then yes, there should be "rising action" leading up to it, and your players will probably expect that. 

From the sound of things people are afraid of or have experience with players who use massive thaumaturgical workings to derail the game, and "win" at no cost to their characters.  If that's the case, then it's the players who're an issue.  Yes, it's unfortunate that the mechanics give them the opportunity to do so, but that same freedom empowers good players to do cool things in service to the story they tell with the GM. 

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After the second or third time, wouldn't they start taking more actions to prevent random passerby N from showing up?  If they do, do you still try to interrupt them, no matter how improbable they make an interruption?

This depends on the nature of ritual x.  Is it some sort of good luck ritual that the players cast before every important conflict?  If so, let it happen, who cares.  If it’s the magical head exploding ritual they use whenever they come into conflict with non-humans then yeah, there should be some pushback.  As above, if getting the link is the hard part then the ritual should be easy.  If the link is easy to obtain then yeah, there should be complications during the casting.  Maybe it was a trap, or maybe the nasty in question has a guardian demon who can sense those sorts of energies building and reroute them, say into an orphanage.  Whatever makes for a good and fun story works. 

44
DFRPG / Re: Damnation by Association?
« on: June 08, 2012, 04:40:06 PM »
Quote from: sinker on June 08, 2012, 04:39:05 PM
At the time she wasn't a practitioner though. She wasn't adding her magic to the spell, she was assisting in meeting the complexity requirement.

The op said “to trick someone into contributing power to it” (emphasis mine) so it’s important to differentiate between adding shifts of power and making casting rolls.  IMO a person who just contributes to a spell, even if they’re well aware of its effects, is not tarred with Lawbreaker for the same reason that a caster who kills someone by mistake is: intention isn’t the issue, results are.  By contributing power you’re loading a gun and handing it to someone, the final decision to pull the trigger isn’t yours. 

45
DFRPG / Re: Damnation by Association?
« on: June 08, 2012, 04:26:21 PM »
In mechanical terms, I think you can add shifts of power without being aware of the nature of the spell, in which case you’re (mechanically) blameless for the spells effects.  Actually rolling Discipline to cast the spell would, IMO, require you to know what you’re trying to accomplish so you can visualize it. 

The reason I think you can add power without being held responsible for the effects is that Helen Becket still has a head.  There’s no way Morgan didn’t know what she was doing at the Victor Sells’ lake house.

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