Manuvers in a nutshell

[JosephKell]

You can do a maneuver to give him something to tag (no fate point required and no risk of fate points being transferred).

For example: You and your buddy, Bob, were just caught behind a bar hearing something you shouldn't have been listening in on.  You decide to pretend you and Bob were having a disagreement, and therefore couldn't have been eavesdropping.  You want to make it look good by throwing a punch at Bob's head.  You roll Fists and get a Superb result (in this case the GM rules that since you were just walked in on, this is a very hard maneuver of Great).  Bob catches the hint and falls back into the wall with the aspect of "Looks like one helluva punch."

On Bob's exchange he can tag the aspect to surprise the guys (or use it for effect to try to use Ambush).  He can even tag it to make a deceit check to try to further convince the new guys that you two were really distracted with your own stuff.

[greycouncilmember]

I guess I'm not explaining myself.  I designed a thaumaturgy spell called blessing of good fortune.  It applies a temporary aspect to a person with one free tag.  The recipient can use it for a bonus as you can anytime gaining the one time free use and the tag goes away.  In discussions we determined that it's probably a minimal cost spell probably costs 1 or 2 base plus the duration you want to add to it through thaumaturgy because the target wouldn't resist.  I was curious what the base cost would be with evocation instead.  Would it be a standard 3 plus duration? 

[luminos]

Regardless what was determined in another thread, the base cost of unresisted maneuvers for evocation and thaumaturgy is 3.

[greycouncilmember]

Regardless what was determined in another thread, the base cost of unresisted maneuvers for evocation and thaumaturgy is 3.

So that's the standard regardless of whether or not an effect is resisted?  No bonus for people not resisting?

[JosephKell]

Okay, let me see if I am getting this straight.

1.  It is a spell.
2.  It gives a very versatile aspect to tag.

Yeah, that is going to be at least 3 shifts for the tag.  Since it is Thaumaturgy, you can easily make it last a whole day for a few shifts of power.  And since it is Thaumaturgy, it is easy to avoid stress anyway, so don't worry about that.

Honestly, it seems kind of too good since it is so broad.  Maybe if it is restricted to being only usable on things that are sufficiently luck based?  Like any skill the character is mediocre (or worse) at, to count as shifts spent for time duration (2 shift time reduction), invoke for effect to find something that can help (you find a hair pin while locked up in a closet), and things like that.

So instead of being a +2 tag, it can make it possible to do something without a penalty or faster.

This would work out really well (and balanced) as a potion.  Because that is basically what it is, a potion.

[greycouncilmember]

yeah I see what you are saying.  I am very new to the system, I have not started playing yet.  I'm preparing my character for friday.  So you think it's too broad the way it is and I need it to be more specific?  It's a little depressing but I understand why it's considered to be too good.  I guess I'll have to do more thinking about it.  If I made the tag specific to a skill the player has, would that be more appropriate?  Like a gun tag for a character with a gun?

[JosephKell]

Ask yourself these questions:
1.  Would a character capable of producing this effect go without it?
2.  Would a character capable of producing this effect have any reason to just have one charge?

If the answer to those questions are "No," and "As many charges as possible," then it should be a potion.

[greycouncilmember]

I guess I don't understand the difference.  I could spend all my item slots on potions and really achieve the same effect which is exactly what I want.  I am trying to understand from the perspective of the game if a tag is considered to be too powerful how do you handle that? Do you try to make it more specific or add to the casting cost?  I based my spell on the mild entropy curse example in the book.  If a person has the aspect Bad luck applied to them sticky and free to tag once by the caster why couldn't I do the exact opposite and cast a Good Luck spell?  I don't even want to make it sticky.  Base cost 3 was established previously and I am understand that.  I can add shifts to duration.  Does that not work?

[JosephKell]

What I am saying is this:

"If I can have a bunch of generic taggable magic aspects floating on me, why shouldn't I have even more of them available?"

If there is a thaumaturgical spell to place such a bonus, why shouldn't the wizard of the part do 100 of them for each character each morning?  Now the obvious response is "That is blatant munchkining/twinking/lame."  Well yeah, of course it is lame.  But when stupid good* things exist in a game, especially when they have no additional associated cost or limiting factor, why shouldn't people keep pushing that "magic dispensing button?"

*Stupid good is defined as anything so good that someone would have to be stupid to not take it.

In DFrpg, requiring the usage of potion slots acts as a limiting factor for your spell (this is a good thing).  It means you (1) have a finite number of them, (2) have to drink and use the tag during a scene, and (3) can pass it off to someone else (by giving them the potion).

If you want to do an evocation maneuver in a conflict, that is fine.  You are paying for the tag with (1) a standard action (i.e. your main action this exchange was to get or give a tag) and (2) by taking mental stress.  Thaumaturgy done prior to a conflict doesn't face the same cost, therefore it is unbalanced.

[luminos]

if you are being strict about time limits, then doing 100 thaumaturgic maneuvers every morning would take about...  25 hours.  So yeah, good luck preparing that.  Also of note, is that the GM still gets to set the difficulties of any thaumaturgy maneuver you want to try, so going for an aspect that can be tagged in literally every single situation is bound to receive some high complexity costs, unless the GM is asleep at the wheel.

[Deadmanwalking]

What luminos said, only 25 hours is a minimum. It's GM discretion how long Thaumaturgy actually takes, so it could be a whole lot longer (say, 100 hours at an hour per ritual). Still, doing one or two a morning isn't unreasonable... Of course, your 'morning ritual' time seems to me to be an ideal time for people to attack ou. It probably seems that way to all your enemies, too.