Storing then redirecting magical energy?

[Belial666]

Say you got a pretty standard wizard. Said wizard uses Thaumaturgy to apply some long-duration effects on himself, such as lasting aspects. Say that he gets enough shift that the 4-shift sticky aspect spells can be prolonged to last a day or so.


Then he enters prolonged combat and he ends using up his mental stress. And then he has this idea. Why not redirect the energy of the Thaumaturgy spells on him that weren't used in the combat to cast more evocations? Sure, they'll only be 4 shifts of power but that is a whole lot better than nothing.



So, is this doable? And if it is, could a wizard thus spend an hour or two every day to store a few dozen such spells so he doesn't run out in combat?

[Todjaeger]

Can you provide a better, or perhaps more detailed description of what sort of thaumaturgy effects the Wizard would be trying to make use of?

Based off what I understand from the description, the Wizard would have used thaumaturgy to apply temporary Aspects to themselves.  If I understand what the question is, the 'magical power' the Wizard would have collected and applied to themselves would have been converted or manifested itself as the temporary Aspects, which means there wouldn't be any 'latent' power available for them to tap into, apart from whatever the temporary Aspects are.

The other possible way this might be meant or intended, is for the Wizard to enable themselves to somehow collect or hold onto 'latent' magic, for later usage and redirection.  In essence, like an Enchanted Item.  The way I read and understand the rules, unless the 'latent' energy is contained in a specially prepared item/device (read: Enchanted Item) then the power can't be located and stored for later use in place of Evocation or Channeling.  Those two supernatural powers are themselves manifestations of a practioner's ability to manipulate and redirect their 'latent' power.  Rituals can be performed in advance to (potentially) given them temporary assistance via temporary Aspects, but not a direct amount of additional power.

[Ranma1558]

Looking at pure rules and danger of 'munchkining" it up I'd have to say no to this kind of use. Whats to stop a player from say putting 14 shifts of power on himself and start tossing it around? Then he'd effectively be able to pull a 14 shift evocation, at no stress, once a day or so. How soon before he's running back to his home base after every cast of his 'PWN POWER" to recharge? Even limiting to say 4 shifts of power puts you on the same scale as enchanted items which are paid for in refresh points. Getting a power that costly for next to nothing seems entirely silly.

On a purely logistical stance what you're suggesting bares close resemblance to the redirection of blocks. That being said blocks exist for very limited time and are roughly constructs of energy that exist outside a body changing them into an attack makes sense. A field of fire is a nice block but pushing it towards someone is instantaneously an attack, no change in metaphysical  construct, not to mention you've already paid the stress for it. On the other hand vague mystic energy directed to provide enhancements to one's self are not intrinsically dangerous (even though they may increase one's power from tagging an aspect) and have already fulfilled their purpose.

Finally looking from the lore side, Harry has had to take "Deep Breaths" of magic in the past bring magical energy from the outside and internalizing it. It's hurt, a blinding pressure behind the eye's and a shortness of breath have been problems with "holding" onto extra energy. You just CAN'T hold onto that kind of energy for any length of time.

[wolff96]

Looking at pure rules and danger of 'munchkining" it up I'd have to say no to this kind of use. Whats to stop a player from say putting 14 shifts of power on himself and start tossing it around? Then he'd effectively be able to pull a 14 shift evocation, at no stress, once a day or so. How soon before he's running back to his home base after every cast of his 'PWN POWER" to recharge? Even limiting to say 4 shifts of power puts you on the same scale as enchanted items which are paid for in refresh points. Getting a power that costly for next to nothing seems entirely silly.

Although this did give me an idea for a caster who has designed a ritual -- probably sponsored -- for this very purpose and uses it as ace in the hole when he's really in trouble. 

Useful after your characters have a decent idea of a caster's capability, then *WHAM* he pulls a huge, magical sucker punch.  Then he's very weak again...  Figuring out how he's doing it would be an interesting investigation.    Probably with some kind of observable energy (Lore?  The Sight, definitely) to notice that he's got an enormous amount of energy built up around him...

[Becq]

While I suppose you could play with a house rule allowing this, it would have to be a house rule, as the 'redirecting spell energy' rules you refer to are an aspect of Evocation.  I don't recommend doing this, primarily for balance reasons.  After all, this in effect allows you to cast a largely unlimited number of spells without 'paying for them' by spending mental stress.  If this were possible, I can't see why all wizards wouldn't do something like it, at least on a limited scale.

In terms of flavor text, I would tend toward believing that while Evocations bind magic into lightly-structured frameworks that can be altered if the need arises, Thaumaturgy binds the magic tightly into a specific framework, making it impossible to change the structure.  Or perhaps it *could* be altered ... but by another Thaumaturgical casting.

[Belial666]

Hmm. You're right; you can't redirect actual Thaumaturgy - only evocation.


On the other hand, you still can cast 5-6 shift Thaumaturgy rituals that apply one aspect for a day and take the minimum time (a couple of minutes) to cast because they are within your (modified) Lore. Imagine a wizard spending two hours preparing each morning, casting, say, sixty of them.

When the battle comes, he takes out his hand crossbow, whose bolts have been "enchanted" with six aspects each; "trueshot", "magic", "accurate", "bane", "seeking", "slaying". You shoot the Weapon 2 bolt with +4 weapon skill and tag its aspects for a +12 to your weapon roll for a whopping total of +16.

If you're a sufficiently powerful enchanter (i.e. you got high Lore, specialization and foci to get a higher effective Lore), you could make the aspects last for weeks with minimum casting time. And you could stack up on bolts of slaying.

[Becq]

This seems within the rules.  Though keep in mind that you'd only get the one free tag each; after the first +12 you'd need to pay 6 Fate to get the next +12.  I think that if I were to run a game for someone who did this regularly, I might consider requiring the 'magic bolts' to take up a potion slot (each) or an enchanted item slot (with each charge being a bolt, as they fill the same role.

And by the way, you can do more or less the same thing without magic, if you have a little time to prepare before combat.  Consider a sniper using maneuvers to give himself "Perfect Sniping Position", "Braced and Ready", "Target in My Sights", etc.  Or a Tai-Chi master meditating before combat to place aspects on himself along the lines of "Calm Thoughts" and "Well-Centered" and such.  The Wizard has a bit of an edge in terms of prepping well in advance, but then there's no chance of all those aspects being grounded out by stepping through a doorway and across a threshold...

[Ranma1558]

The big thing is Thaumaturgy has no real set time frame (if i'm reading the rules right) and can be set by the GM who could object to this. It would only take a day or two to make an army's supply of uber arrows, really upsetting game balance. Personally I like multiple tags on things but I can see a small problem with this. Dresden Files usually encourage "strait to an end point" for magic usage rather then how you can manipulate the system. What you're going for is a +16 to hit, instead I'd say you'd have to make a ritual of at least 20 or so complexity to create these items. Unless you're making a bolt for a particular opponent, then you'd need a link to the target for each aspect and could make true slaying arrow.

[Belial666]

The point is that you aren't creating items at all; you are merely applying aspects via thaumaturgy spells. Unlike normal aspects that only last for a scene, thaumaturgy could last for as long as you have complexity for it - up to and including several mortal lifetimes.
And you don't actually need items to do it; you could well apply aspects on yourself. Then you move up to an enemy and punch him, discharging half a dozen aspects' worth of stored energy. Sort of how Goku can gather power for a bazzillion episodes and then level the city/country/planet. The "items" were only there for flavor - magic items are cool.


Now, I agree that this isn't balanced but technically it is possible.

[Becq]

Regardless, anything that creates obvious balance issues needs to be looked at closely by the GM, and adjudicated in a way that makes the game fair and fun for the group playing the game.  At best, if I was running a game and a player (or players) insisted on doing this, they'd soon find themselves faced by NPCs doing exactly the same thing back to them.  After the first few battles in which all of the players were taken out by volleys of enhanced attacks launched by mooks with piles of aspects enchanted onto them and/or their weapons by their Sorcerous master, I think they might start recognizing the problem.

[Crimson Overcoat]

An arms race created in this sort of way, if handled correctly by the GM, could be interesting. It would be only a matter of time before large powers become involved, either as sponsors to gather more power, or as parties becoming disturbed by the sheer amount of mojo being tossed back and forth by two groups. Wardens may start to get involved, and some of the laws might start getting broken inadvertently, especially if someone piled on the overkill and started accruing mortal collateral damage.

It's the sort of thing that either the PC will learn from, or they'll just get smoked.

[HobbitGuy1420]

Personally, I wouldn't allow for large-scale redirection of thaumaturgical results, for the given reasons. 

If someone wanted to specifically build up a magical reservoir to use, I'd just run it as a maneuver placing the aspect "filled with magical energy" on them, then let them tag/invoke that aspect to gain a bonus to their Conviction for the purposes of gathering power without increasing the amount of stress taken. 

voila: a more powerful spell, all done within the rules as I understand 'em.

[Ranma1558]

I agree with HobbitGuy, a single tag is more in line with lore and feel. I'd almost go as far as to say you can only can only have 1 casting of a category on an object or person. That being said if you pull a ton of complexity to make 4 or 5 aspects in a single casting good for you, you did the research and paid the price for the whole thing. Putting a half a dozen spells that each put 1 aspect on is munchkining at its best.