Blocking Magic Internally - Help

[Taran]

It's worth pointing out that the cost of that little power with addictive Saliva is a Hunger track..  Not an insubstantial cost for that little trick. You might get an extremely powerful ability, but you pay for it.

In that one statement, you've made two mistakes:

1.  That addictive saliva and Incite emotion are NOT attached to a hunger track.  Neither of them have a pre-requiste for such a thing.  Each of these powers are a 1 refresh power.  So you aren't paying much.  In fact, channeling is probably a steeper price because it costs 2 refresh and you have to pay a mental stress every time you cast, not to mention what happens if you fail your control.  That's balanced by the fact that channelling is more versatile.

2.  You missed the point.

I was pointing out that there are powers designed to cause consequences to cause a specific effect in order to tag in later scenes.  That you can design a power with an intent to remove a wizards power, if that is the theme of the attack.  I could have a power that causes mental stress with an intent to cause consequences like, "faint power source" or "blocked chi" that a player or NPC can tag, in later scenes, to have the caster fail his spells.

Whether or not the fluff(cutting off magic) is acceptable to the table is beside the point.  The point is, creating consequences is a valid tactic and some powers are built on it.  It undermines the powers if players/GM's don't use consequences with the intended theme in mind.  Yes, you can choose your consequences, but the table needs to make sure people aren't being cheap.

[Lavecki121]

That addictive saliva and Incite emotion are NOT attached to a hunger track.  Neither of them have a pre-requiste for such a thing.  Each of these powers are a 1 refresh power.  So you aren't paying much.  In fact, channeling is probably a steeper price because it costs 2 refresh and you have to pay a mental stress every time you cast, not to mention what happens if you fail your control.  That's balanced by the fact that channelling is more versatile.

Yes Feeding Dependancy is a completly different power that attaches to any power you want.

Custom powers are in the realm of houserules.  Typically, discussions such as these assume as little as possible where houserules are concerned.  If your game is making use of houserules that you feel might be relevant, making those houserules readily apparent in the thread is integral to receiving constructive feedback.

The issue I am having is I dont feel I am getting constructive feedback. I feel that my rewording of how the power works was the best feedback I have gotten. Besides Taran it seems that most of the people here are simply refuting the posibility of this attack working. I am willing to rework it into a power such as with Addictive Saliva, but I dont feel that I should have to do that since I have already spent refresh on:

Channeling (-2)
Natural Channel (-2)
Martial Mojo (+1)

The last two are custom powers off the custom powers list. Martial mojo restricts magic to close range and Natural channel is the one I reffered to in my previous post.

If it makes more sense for people that I make up a custom power "forced backlash" and its a -1 power that attacks mental stress and makes invokable aspects based on detrementing the magical aptitude or whatever. It would end up being a reword of addictive saliva.
I dont feel I need to do that but if it is the only way that people here think that will work then I will.

[sinker]

No seriously, why would it matter whether it's a permanent change or not? If you're altering someone's natural inclinations/mental state with mortal magic then you're breaking the fourth law. I mean I guess that maybe stress is skirting it, but the second that there's a consequence you have made changes. For that matter the intent is there in spades. You're trying to make those changes. I guess that there's some really great drama there if your character is trying to be a hero and then realizes that his methods have terrible consequences, but if you don't want to be skirting the laws then I would suggest against out and out breaking one over and over.

[Lavecki121]

Sorry. I was about to write something that was inherintly wrong. What I want to say now is that I have changed how the attack works. It should no longer prevent them from using magic, in the same way that you dont prevent yourself from using magic by taking backlash. What I am trying to do now is force magic into them. The consequence that they take should reflect that they have more magic, but they should be just as allowed to tag it as I am to invoke it that they have more power behind the attack.

I am not changing how they are anymore.

[Thrakkesh]

Eh, my bad, thought AS required feeding dependency and I didn't double check. Thanks for pointing that out.

Having chewed on it (and discussed it with my wife, since she's apparently less bothered by the whole concept) I suppose the problem that grabbed me wasn't that you wanted to cause mental stress in and of itself, but that it also coincided with removing a Wizard's magic, possibly long term, which is a pretty nasty breaker. Causing mental stress or backlash actually doesn't bother me much, so I'm more or less okay with that.   I mean, a Psychic attack on a Wizard pretty much does that already. I'm not exactly terribly opposed to the idea, as long as it is A). Not all that simple to shut down everyone with any kind of magic and B). Not something that can easily (keyword here) just *ruin* magical being's entire week. You wanna shut a Wizard down with some kind of weird magical psychic attack? Be my guest. (Although it's 4th law breaking territory and magical attempts to do so are, as far as I'd be concerned, identical, since you are attempting to essentially block or cut off who they are).

Regarding Consequences though you should leave some wiggle room: It doesn't have to be 'Can't cast Magic' (and shouldn't be unless it's a taken out result at least), but 'Misfiring Magic' 'Disrupted' Or SOMETHING like that. I mean, assuming you use this on a PC, it's really cruel for a GM to basically turn a Wizard PC into a glorified Mortal for a long period.  If that was the goal I'd be firmly against allowing it as a GM, but you wanna have some kind of weird magicky attack that makes magic harder?  Okay, I guess. Just know that comes with baggage (being 4th-law territory and basically being a horrifying thought to Wizards anyway as a Magical talent folk, for example. Also, if it's evo based, there's ways to shut it down--which actually serves to balance it somewhat, I suspect).

[Taran]

@ Thrakkesh :The only time I suggested completely taking away a wizards magic(if it could be done) - which WOULD involve changing their High Concept would be in the event of a Take-Out.  The alternative is they could be dead.  So maybe alive with no magic might be better.

It leads to a couple scenario's.  If it's a PC, it would suck, but they could quest to get it back, or perhaps move their character in a new direction.  It would involve a pretty in-depth conversation with the GM.

If it was an NPC, they'd be out for revenge, and use everything at their disposal to do it, despite not having magic.  So it might lead to interesting encounters in the future.

@ Levecki:  You know what might be a neat description.   When calling up power, a mage channels all these emotions:  hate, rage, anger, saddness lonliness, fatigue  etc...

It would be neat to describe it as channeling it all, and instead of sending it out as kinetic energy, or a fireball, the character channels it straight into the target.

Suddenly, the target gets bombarded with all this raw emotion that they have to try to cope with.  So maybe they make their skill check and it just goes in through the "right and out the left " (as harry describes it), or maybe they see that emotion and say, "that guy is messed up, but I've seen worse"  represented by taking stress; or maybe they say, "holy crap!  I can't handle it!" and they take a hit to their psyche as they are bombarded with emotions they can't reconcile.

Here's the neat thing:  In the instance where you succeed on an attack, they get a glimps of who you are....the consequence they suffer could even have an aspect relating to your own character.  This might not mean anything - especially if you take them out...but it could come back to haunt you later.

Whether or not that is Lawbreaker territory is another discussion.  But, in essence, that's kind of how I see backlash anyways.

[Lavecki121]

I dont see backlash like that at all, though that is a cool idea. The way I see it is the way harry described it in Fool Moon.

(click to show/hide)

How everything seemed to be connected to him and he could see/feel/hear/smell/taste random things around him that werent really next to him. It was like a total connect to nature flooding his mind

[Thrakkesh]

@ Thrakkesh :The only time I suggested completely taking away a wizards magic(if it could be done) - which WOULD involve changing their High Concept would be in the event of a Take-Out.  The alternative is they could be dead.  So maybe alive with no magic might be better.


Whether or not that is Lawbreaker territory is another discussion.  But, in essence, that's kind of how I see backlash anyways.

So, obviously your group opinion may vary on that, but if you decide to do that, even as a taken out result, you have just done something with signficant impact with the Dresden verse.  Remember Harry's reaction to Michael's 'solution?' And he's relatively young in the Wizarding world.  For some Wizard's you are talking about a fate worse than death here.  Even if it could be say, undone, you've shaken a pretty big foundation of DV.  That's not a bad thing--plots could revolve around other parties in the Supernatural world finding various uses for something like that (or wanting to shut it down entirely), you're not talking a tiny little thing here. 

I will have to disagree with you again one tenant though: Unless circumstances are pretty techincal--it's a law break.  Very likely in terms of game mechanics, but 100% almost CERTAINLY in the eyes of the Council (they just might not prosecute if he was a particularly bad guy).  Magic comes from the core of a Wizard's very being and what you're talking about is essentially cutting off access to that part of them.  It is in some ways the same as crippling or blinding a person.  Furthermore, for a Wizard you may have very well have signed their death sentence. Everyone who has a grudge against the Wizard has now declared open season.  Every single Supernatural being on the planet now has access to a Wizard who is no threat, as a thrall, a source of power, food, or anything else.  It's an aggressive act. Even using it on a straight up villain would probably result in Wardens having some very tense conversations about how much longer they should a person run around doing that.

[Lavecki121]

Which is why I changed it. I feel this attack could work on any person. Its just forcing magic through them. Thats all the attack is made to do. Now at least

[Thrakkesh]

That's fine--at that point it's not fundamentally very different from how Ebenezeer was shutting down other magic.  And I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, just that to do it right it should be treated with the gravity it deserves.  I mean, hey, it's a game--a collaborative storytelling game at that. If you guys have fun with it, have fun with it.

[Tedronai]

Whether or not that is Lawbreaker territory is another discussion.  But, in essence, that's kind of how I see backlash anyways.

Forcing your own turbulent emotions on another with the intent that the result is psychologically traumatic?  Would there really be a discussion to be had?  That would be blatantly Lawbreaking.

[Lavecki121]

I dont believe that it would be. There are only 3 laws that it could be considered breaking: 2, 3, and 4.

2: never transform another. This is reffering to the physical transformation of a persons body into something that it is not. This can cause damage to the mind which is why it is illegal. I am not doing this.

3: Never Invade the Thoughts of Another. This is talking about mind reading. Scanning a persons personal thoughts and using them to your own advantage. I am not doing this.

4: Never Enthral Another. This is talking about taking over the mind and dominating it. Making it bend to your will and taking comand. I am not doing this.

I would love to hear the argument against this though, because I could be wrong with my interpretation of these laws.

EDIT: Taking away a wizards magic could fall in that grey area. You technically arent changing their form but you are taking away something that was part of them. My remarks above were based off of the current power which doesnt take away wizards magic really.

[Tedronai]

And all Molly did was to make a few people afraid.
You're inserting material of your choosing into the mind of another for your own purposes.  Moreover, you're doing it in a way that is intentionally traumatic.  You are purposefully harming the mind of another.

[Lavecki121]

And all Molly did was to make a few people afraid.

She took away choice, which is why it violated the fourth law. I am not taking away any choice.

[Taran]

Huh.  I kind of see this as the equivalent of saying that because you burned someone's arm off with a fire evocation you broke the 2nd Law of Transforming people.

You're exposing them to something harsh and dangerous, with the end result of damaging them.

TBH though, I haven't dealt with Lawbreaking much in my games, so I'm not really a good person to advocate for having it one way or the other.