Chronomancer issues

[SavageMage]

Hi all,

I have a player that is playing a focused practitioner with the chronomancy specialty. This has of course evolved from their powers of Cassandra's Tears and Psychometry. Anyway, They came up with a spell that I found rather ingenious, but somewhat scary (nevermind that whole sixth law thing...  )

Stuck Between the Ticks
Power: 10 shifts (assuming the base 3 for maneuver cost)

3 maneuvers, 2 exchanges
Places the aspects of "Stuck", "Between", and "Tick" on a single target for 2 exchanges. These aspects each subtract 2 from a targets athletics (dodge) skill for the duration of the spell.
This spell is designed as a last ditch "time-out" spell for the chronomancer, when all seems lost.

Is this legal? Just wondering.

edit: Legal as in rules wise, not the sixth law type legal.  

[luminos]

I'm unsure whether or not it legal.  Thaumaturgy allows for multiple tags in a single spell for sure.  This might seem to imply that such an option is available for evocation.  On the other hand, the options for maneuvers in evocation don't mention this, so that could imply that you can't do that.  Ultimately, I'd say its the GM's call, but I'd be slightly inclined to allow it.

[Ophidimancer]

Thaumaturgy specifically allows a Maneuver to be placed multiple times with one spell as long as the shifts are paid for each instance of the Maneuver separately.  I'm not sure if Evocation allows this.

[MWKilduff]

I'm unsure whether or not it legal.  Thaumaturgy allows for multiple tags in a single spell for sure.  This might seem to imply that such an option is available for evocation.  On the other hand, the options for maneuvers in evocation don't mention this, so that could imply that you can't do that.  Ultimately, I'd say its the GM's call, but I'd be slightly inclined to allow it.

Not only would I be disinclined to allow it because the single maneuver places 3 aspects on a target, but I would rule the cost is incorrect.  For the affect to last through 2 exchanges you would need to pay for each aspect to have the duration.  In this example you would spend the 3 shifts for each aspect and then 1 additional shift per aspect bringing it to a total of 12.  If you allow this spell to go into play you should allow some kind of resistance.  
Lastly just to play devil's advocate you could rule this is why the Senior Council is so damn scary.  Since anyone of those wizards are skilled and powerful enough to cast this with ease.

[Deadmanwalking]

That works, but not the way you're writing it up, at least IMO. You're doing three separate Maneuvers, so IMO you'd need to pay for Duration separately on each.

What's not just IMO, is that each Aspect can only be tagged and used for free once, thereafter any use will need to be paid for in FP, which will go to the victim.

[KOFFEYKID]

what the player is trying to do is a compel on the aspects, which is different from a tag. Id disallow it, because a compel on somebody else's aspect costs a fate point. Also, as the others said, applying three aspects with one spell isn't going to work out so well. I'd treat it as a spray attack, each aspect being a different part of the spray, so he would have to pay 4 for each aspect.

If he agree's to those changes, he wont be imposing a penalty so much as a flat out failure. A compel doesn't make you worse (a penalty), it makes you fail.

[Ophidimancer]

Why don't you adjudicate it as a Grapple instead?

[luminos]

Just to clarify, one of the reasons for me to say I would possibly allow it is that I'd treat each aspect as its own difficulty, meaning that he'd be able to avoid each one seperately with a difficulty of 3.  Of course, seeing some of the counter arguments, I can see why it shouldn't be allowed as evocation anyways.

[CMEast]

I don't see an issue with it personally, though as the others have said to make the aspects sticky you would have to pay a shift for each aspect just like it's three separate spells (if it was sponsored magic then I'd allow it just as you've written it, as they can cast thaumaturgic spells at evocation speed).

The only thing I'd say on the wording is that I wouldn't worry about specifying the consequence as '-2 to athletics'. I would simply treat it as three sticky aspects at +3 (opposed by athletics I imagine), each with a free tag plus further invocations and compels available with fate points. This way, the same spell could also be used to speed someone up as well as slow them down, this is potentially much more useful.

I don't think it's broken, simply because a 10 shift attack is far more lethal. Weapon 10 is crazy and, I assume with a high roll to control and target the spell as well, it could do some serious damage. Compared to three free tags, it's far worse. Especially as the roll to oppose the tags is far easier to achieve, potentially wasting the entire spell.