Recovery Powers and Taking Consequences for Rituals

[toturi]

@Toturi: I never once advocated adversarial GMing. Please do not ascribe opinions to me. I expressed the opinion that allowing a starting character the power to pull infinite complexity rituals together and solve any task in the entire game was broken--and I don't mean mechanically. I meant it breaks the story and makes things not fun. However, if you enjoy the idea of your players enslaving Mab, Titania, and Ferrovax, and using them to solve all their problems without lifting a finger post-binding, and your players like it too...more power to you. The game is there to have fun. However, given most of us paid money so we could have rules to guide our fun, I think it is not unreasonable to assume that the majority of us finds the concept of making use of bizarre loopholes so that you never need to bother rolling dice past the first session a little less than ideal, as I do.

I never once said you advocated adversarial GMing to you or anyone else. Please do me the same courtesy of not ascribing opinions to me. The complexity of the rituals are not infinite. There is a finite limit to them. It does not break the story or make it not fun. It breaks the assumption most people have that a game has to be a "challenge" to be fun, I was always puzzled by the concept that the players have to struggle mightily to overcome the obstacles the GM puts in their path to have fun. Remember that there will be other NPCs out there that could have the same combinations(if not more) of powers as the PCs - Mab, Titania and Ferrovax are certainly prime candidates. The game certainly is to have fun. Thus given that we have paid money so that we have rules to guide our fun, I think it is certainly reasonable to assume that using the rules as an enabler for fun is very much the ideal.

[GruffAndTumble]

I apologize if I was reading too much into your comment about "GM vs. Players." And, as I've said, what works for you is gravy. However, in my experience, and in the experience of the vast majority of gamers I've talked to, ultimate power is boring. Stories thrive on conflict, after all, and an "I win" button is not conducive to that.

You can make the argument that the PCs are not the only ones who can press the I Win button, but then all you've done is make someone else the winner in a game that shouldn't have one. I'm a long time fan of Exalted (if you're not familiar with it, the gist is that every character is a demigod originally incarnated to kill immortal chthonic entities from before time began), so trust me when I say I have experience trying to balance powerful PCs versus powerful opposition. It's hard.

Furthermore, while one of the PCs is busy binding Mab to be the waitress at his favorite bar, what do you do with the PCs who didn't make a character capable of breaking the game over their knee? Give the ritualist two or three opportunities to do his thing at most, and he'll be more powerful than the entire party combined, which tends to cause no end of ill-will between players. The spotlight should go on everyone equally, and it should definitely not highlight people who prioritize mechanical strength over those who just want to tell a story (which, as mentioned above, revolves around a valid conflict).

Just to be clear though, I'm not trying to stop you from giving this concept a whirl if you really want. This post is, if you'll forgive my pretensions, sort of a Public Service Announcement about ideas for GMing that are usually bad for most groups. I have no interest in forcing people to subscribe to my views, but I have been GMing for years, and if I'd been able to give my earlier self this advice, it would have helped a lot. Take from this precisely as much as is helpful for you to have fun. As the Chaucer has written*, "take the wheat, and let the chaff be still."

*Technically, he wrote "taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille." But I wasn't sure how many people on the forums knew Middle English. 

[ryanroyce]

 Eh, it's effortlessly easy for the GM and the other players to make the mage regret this "clever" strategy.  All they have to do is strictly enforce the "skipping a scene" option, by which I mean that the rest of players actually play the game while the mage is relegated to the sidelines and watching them have fun.  One session of that and most players will quickly realize the errors of their ways.  Those who don't might need more creative persuasion. 

 IOW, the trick can be easily abused, yes, but it is also easily controlled without resorting to the nerf bat or the ban hammer.

[toturi]

I think that in any such game, some combinations are more optimal than others and they can be much more powerful than any combinations of similar value. I accept and support this. In most games I have seen, there is no such thing as infinite or ultimate power and no such thing as an I Win button and even with this particular combination of power, I have yet to see it as ultimate power or an I Win button. I certainly wish there was a Pun Pun in this game. Stories thrive on conflict, but that conflict doesn't mean that the characters need to have the odds against them.
I have played Exalted and have GMed Scion since it came out, and trust me when I say that I have much experience GMing for ultimate power PCs whose power levels are off the charts; at the highest levels, the PCs are not just demigods, they are the gods themselves. It is quite easy. You have to accept that your NPCs will lose and whole armies of your titanspawn will die to the PCs.
You mean what are the other PCs going to do while one of them is busy pissing Mab off by binding her to be the submissive in his favorite SM parlor? There are many things that those other PCs can be doing, like getting as far away from ground zero as possible.
I encourage my players to build characters that are both mechanically as strong as possible and have a good background story. While ideally the spotlight should go on everyone equally, it is not going to be so practically speaking. The person who put the most effort and skill into crafting his character should have the spotlight more than someone who simply cobbles together a character and expects to tell a story with it. The story to be told doesn't have to be one that revolves around a conflict, as mentioned above, where the odds are against them.

[Doc Nova]

I've got to chime in with Gruff on this one.  The whole thing bodes escalation and exclusion, in my opinion, neither of which leads to a very fun game.  I'd also have to argue the point about a character like this (it was not said directly, rather implied) had the "most effort and skill" put into it.  There wasn't a lot of effort and skill, only combining two, already very powerful, abilities.  There was no background, no concept.  Just, again, from my vantage point, mega-ritualist.

While I agree that not every conflict needs to be weighted against the PCs, this sort of thing only sets up a series of ever-escalating "one-ups" that, in my experience, generally leads to tedium, frustration, and a game that isn't a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Additionally, I think PCs have far more of a "we did it!" feeling when things are "tough" (not necessarily stacked against them) rather than solved by one character built around this sort of loophole.

[blues.soldier]

I think this is the kind of weapon I'd put in a badguy's hands, but be VERY careful about it getting into a PC's. And even for a villain, the +100 shifts is more than excessive.

Now, a storyline about stopping a warlock who uses blood to power his spells from becoming physically immortal... that's a good story.

I'm normally a "what the PCs can do, so can the NPCs", but I think the game-breaking nature of it puts it in the category of osmething that should be used to scare the PCs, not used BY the PCs.