A Psychomancer and his Rotes, Or Breaking the 3rd & 4th... maybe

[toturi]

Maybe the guy isn't a psychomancer at all. Maybe he is an enchanter. He refines and weaponises a mundane hallucinogen using mundane techniques and uses magic to enable it to break down magical defenses used against it like how the warden swords break down enemy shields. So if a warden was to use a spell to block his fear gas (maybe like how Harry used a spell to shield Murphy from the mind fog), the magic kicks in and breaks down the warden's shields and the hallucinogen does its job mundanely.

So when the wardens come investigating the rogue, they can't haul him up for breaking the Laws because he hasn't broken any of them. And a faction in the White Council whips up a political storm, accusing the Wardens of abusing their authority...

[Ophidimancer]

Whether Mind Fog is grey or black, it is not charged with negative emotions in the manner these spells are. Black magic is often described as associated with fear or inflicting pain, which these rotes do. In fact, the mental stress attacks flavor text could be argued to be both at once.

Quite right, and the original post was about a Bad Guy, so it definitely warrants Lawbreaker status.  I guess I was going off topic, but I wanted to also discuss options for handling protagonist psychomancers.  Casters who would not use spells of such ill intent.

Saying "I'm invading someone's mind, but I won't cause more damage than I need to" is not only black magic because of its psychomantic principles. It is black magic because of the colossal arrogance fueling the assumption that despite Harry's (and the entire White Council's) repeated assertions that messing around in someone's head is a hazardous, risky business and can cause permanent damage from the slightest slip-up, and that such slip ups are all but inevitable...*deep breath from run-on sentence*...you think that you are good enough not to make the mistakes that will break the target's psyche and stain your soul.

I guess I'm more talking about something like the idea of a young caster with a talent for mind magic in the situation like, "Someone's attacking me and I'm afraid so I'm going to do the thing that comes most naturally to me and project that fear out at him to make him stop."

In fact, it could be argued that an assumption that you understand the grey areas well enough to avoid their pitfalls might catapult you to warlock status, even if the magic would be grey otherwise. As Harry is fond of pointing out, Pride Goeth....

I don't know if I would go that far.  That's a level of scrutiny that's just a tad bit harsh, especially if you think about trying to apply it to the other Laws.  If I cast an electrical stun spell, does it automatically make it black magic just because I think I can judge it well enough that I won't kill the person, or do I still have to actually kill the person to break the Law?

[luminos]

Quite right, and the original post was about a Bad Guy, so it definitely warrants Lawbreaker status.  I guess I was going off topic, but I wanted to also discuss options for handling protagonist psychomancers.  Casters who would not use spells of such ill intent.

This is where a whole lot of arguments get going on the question of lawbreaker, and a lot of it could be avoided with better word choice.  Intent matters for breaking the law, but motive is completely irrelevant.  You have to make this distinction, otherwise the conversation is just going to go in circles.  Casters who don't have an ill motive still intend to change someones mind.  This is lawbreaking, no matter how much you like it or not. 

[Ophidimancer]

This is where a whole lot of arguments get going on the question of lawbreaker, and a lot of it could be avoided with better word choice.  Intent matters for breaking the law, but motive is completely irrelevant.  You have to make this distinction, otherwise the conversation is just going to go in circles.  Casters who don't have an ill motive still intend to change someones mind.  This is lawbreaking, no matter how much you like it or not.

Except that I think there's some room for projective psychomancy that doesn't automatically count, metaphysically, as Lawbreaking.  I guess how one rules in their game comes down to interpretation.  I take my crib notes from the end of the Fourth Law section that talks about violations as transformations of the mind.  I think that very temporary effects, like Mind Fog and Lust Potions, don't actually transform the mind.

[Myrddhin]

Thanks for the input thus far, it's been quite helpful in rewriting his rotes to reflect the deepest, darkest black he practices, and seems to be making for an interesting discussion.

Defessio
Type: Offensive maneuver
Power: 7 shifts – 6 for effect & 1 for boosted duration
Duration: One Scene
Target: One target in line-of-sight
Opposed by: Target’s Discipline
Effect: If target fails to oppose Fantastic (+6) effect, they gain Tired as a sticky temporary aspect.
Flavor: By firing his will through a mental construct aimed at the Target’s mind he wears down their cognitive capacity/speed leading to a sense of feeling tired or somewhat lethargic.

Enviso Vereos
Type: Offensive block adjudicated as a grapple
Power: 7 shifts – 5 for effect & 2 for extra duration
Duration: 3 exchanges total
Target: One target in line-of-sight
Opposed by: Target’s Discipline
Effect: First exchange establishes grapple, each exchange thereafter the Target rolls against the Superb (+5) effect and takes a one stress hit to their mental track if they fail.
Flavor: The caster launches a spell deep into the Target’s mind to dredge up his deepest-seated fears and induce hallucinations of those self-same fears.

Memori Dolessia
Type: Attack
Power: 7 shifts
Duration: One action
Target: One target in line-of-sight
Opposed by: Target’s Discipline
Effect: If the Target's defense fails, Weapon: 7 attack against the Target’s mental stress track.
Flavor: By sheer force of will the caster assails the mental defenses of his Target, attempting to crack his mind or strike him unconscious by the weight of psychological trauma.

Excruciatus
Type: Offensive block adjudicated as a grapple
Power: 9 shifts – 5 for effect & 4 for duration
Duration: 5 exchanges total
Target: One target in line-of-sight
Opposed by: Target’s Discipline
Effect: First exchange establishes the grapple, in each subsequent exchange the Target rolls against the Superb (+5) effect to break it or else takes a one stress hit to his mental track.
Flavor: Once the spell gets hold, it takes the Target for a painful ride of writhing agony, as it feels as though they have white fire racing along their nerves.
Notes: Needs to invoke for control or take a two stress hit as backlash.

I think that very temporary effects, like Mind Fog and Lust Potions, don't actually transform the mind.

While I don't have Summer Knight on hand to consult, I do recall some mention of Lust Potions, in the style of Bob's "Love" Potion, to not count as breaking the Laws because it only lowers a person's inhibitions and ability to resist acting on impulse, much like them quite drunk, as opposed to forcing them to behave in a lustful way that was completely out of step with who they were.

[Doc Nova]

Those look like wonderfully terrifying bad guy spells, that's for sure.

And it really seems like Lawbreaker is a real point of contention between different games...probably much like it would be between different Wardens.  Ahhh, the politics of wizarding...

Personally, I'd err on the side of strict and "mean" rather than lenient and allow the occasional slip so as to keep the teeth with the Laws.  Personally, it's the whole metaphysical, the universe reacts side that I will be keeping in mind when I run a game, far more so than what the Wardens decide.  What they decide makes good drama in the story (and therefore open to player declarations and input), how the universe reacts is a bit more decisive and "inarguable".