Enchanted items - overpowered?

[Sanctaphrax]

Moriden, I take issue with your Sponsored uber-caster. Here's why:

Items of Power are often not allowed to grant Refinement.
Block or armour rituals are generally considered broken (and with good reason).
You can't stack foci.
Lawbreaker only adds to control by the RAW.
I don't think you can stack Lawbreaker (although I could be wrong).
There's no such thing as a "biomancy" focus, it has to be "biomancy control" or something else like that.
Allowing a thaumaturgy focus to boost all uses of Sponsored Magic is probably not reasonable.

[infusco]

Not to mention that Wards are fixed location spells and not something that can be carried with you. Otherwise, every wizard in the novels would be utterly un-touchable.

[Moriden]

Moriden, I take issue with your Sponsored uber-caster. Here's why:

Fair concerns let me walk you through how it works under RAW.

Items of Power are often not allowed to grant Refinement.

"Abilities outside of the Minor Abilities, Strength, Toughness, and Speed categories must be examined closely by the GM and may be disallowed." pg 167 your story. emphasis mine. the frequency of this being allowed or not is impossible to quantify.

Block or armour rituals are generally considered broken (and with good reason).

Most likely, though i was in no way addressing weather or not this build should be allowed in a game, merely showing that the artificer is in no way the most broken thing in the system

Lawbreaker only adds to control by the RAW.

What else could we possibly be talking about but the RAW? i have no way of knowing what any given person may like or dislike about the rules, so i must always assume that the book as written is the standard.

I don't think you can stack Lawbreaker (although I could be wrong).

"Trouble Comes in Threes. Increase the spellcasting bonus by one if you have three or more Lawbreaker abilities in any combination (i.e., if you’ve broken three or more Laws of Magic, sporting a Lawbreaker ability for each one), making the maximum possible bonus +3." pg 182 your story. so hes just taking the +3 from lawbreaker second, or the +2 from lawbreaker first. switch as desired for your particular character.

There's no such thing as a "biomancy" focus, it has to be "biomancy control" or something else like that.

and

You can't stack foci.

it is a thaumaturgical bonus to complexity for biomancy, which is one of the sample thaumaturgical fields in the book. see below for why i mistakenly listed it.

Allowing a thaumaturgy focus to boost all uses of Sponsored Magic is probably not reasonable.

Got me there, you need kemlerian necromancy to be able to do that and with necromancy not biomancy. im using autumn magic in my game which gives me the ability to use the complexity bonus of your biomancy as a control bonus for certain spells. So i apologize for forgetting that its not a part of printed summer magic. so instead we change the focus items to. a single one that has +4 summer magic control offensive, and +2 summer magic power: offensive. resulting in 9 shift offensive evocations with a control base of 12, mix and match as needed if you want better rotes for defense. im sure i could make a version using kemlerian that worked similarly but i don't see the need.

Not to mention that Wards are fixed location spells and not something that can be carried with you. Otherwise, every wizard in the novels would be utterly un-touchable.

Wards certainly are. Veils however which i believe use a similar or identical system however are not. And what we are talking about is using biomancy to enhance a body to withstand damage. So much like a ward being limited to a threshold or circle of power this is limited to a person. normally you'd have a really hard time doing this since your understanding of biology probably isn't sufficient, but thats not a problem with summer magic.

The reason you don't see any of the wizards in the book doing this is very simple, none of them have either summer magic or the willingness to experiment with biomancy, rightly fearing the consequences to themselves and from the law. I'm sure you'll then ask well why don't the summer court/knight do this?

To which i can easily respond how do we know they don't? the

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"ogre" that harry fights in summer knight was essentially immune to anything he did to him that didn't involve cold iron, which i would argue would bypass any spell cast by summer magic.

There are in fact several occasions where harry

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fights someone who he basically cant hurt with direct magic attacks.

To me that very much seems like a situation where harry is confronted with a "ward/block" that he cant overcome until he gets enough assessment actions to penetrate or bring it down.

[infusco]

Wards certainly are. Veils however which i believe use a similar or identical system however are not. And what we are talking about is using biomancy to enhance a body to withstand damage. So much like a ward being limited to a threshold or circle of power this is limited to a person. normally you'd have a really hard time doing this since your understanding of biology probably isn't sufficient, but thats not a problem with summer magic.

The reason you don't see any of the wizards in the book doing this is very simple, none of them have either summer magic or the willingness to experiment with biomancy, rightly fearing the consequences to themselves and from the law. I'm sure you'll then ask well why don't the summer court/knight do this?

To which i can easily respond how do we know they don't? the

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"ogre" that harry fights in summer knight was essentially immune to anything he did to him that didn't involve cold iron, which i would argue would bypass any spell cast by summer magic.

There are in fact several occasions where harry

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fights someone who he basically cant hurt with direct magic attacks.

To me that very much seems like a situation where harry is confronted with a "ward/block" that he cant overcome until he gets enough assessment actions to penetrate or bring it down.

First off, Ogres have straight out resistance to magic specifically. It's not a magical block but an actual inherent Toughness power. In fact, many of the creatures have Toughness powers, most of which are general ones with a regular catch, but some that are specific to certain attacks like that of Ogres. Check Our World, the stats are in there.

Moving forward into the difference between a magical Block and a Toughness power, there is one huge notable example

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where a very powerful Summer Magic character bit the dust when they wouldn't have needed to: Aurora, the first Summer Lady, a character that, while certainly not as powerful as Titania, was still way more powerful than Harry was at the time, and no doubt a master of Summer Magic and all it could do. Yet, she was cut down by a bunch of sprites with steel box cutters! She could have easily have cast what you're describing to make up for her vulnerability to Iron, but didn't.

Take into consideration that using Biomancy to use your own body's bones, muscles, and skin to create that powerful an armor would require massively reconfiguring how your body works to a vastly traumatic degree. It even says that most uses of Biomancy to supercharge you can cause Consequences due to the strain you're putting on your body. And those are short term effects! The kind of change that would turn your body into something as rigid as steel for several HOURS would definitely kill you. Not maybe. Not probably. Absolute kill you dead!

[devonapple]

Take into consideration that using Biomancy to use your own body's bones, muscles, and skin to create that powerful an armor would require massively reconfiguring how your body works to a vastly traumatic degree. It even says that most uses of Biomancy to supercharge you can cause Consequences due to the strain you're putting on your body. And those are short term effects! The kind of change that would turn your body into something as rigid as steel for several HOURS would definitely kill you. Not maybe. Not probably. Absolute kill you dead!

Sometimes things which we can handwave in one genre (like this power, which no one bats an eye at when seen in a comic book) have mind-bogglingly insane ramifications of scale, complexity and danger in another genre (DFRPG).

One is inclined to route this type of Biomancy effect through a Sponsor because the precedent is that the Sponsor is able to take care of the exponential difficulties inherent in such a transformation.

[Moriden]

as devonapple said, summer magic clearly says that it takes care of the problems of using biomancy.

I personally don't put a lot of faith in the stats in our world. i was providing examples in the novels which could have supported this mechanical method.

I actually already responded to your spoiler-ed comment

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I don't believe that any level of fae magic will work against iron. doesn't matter if its a block 1 or 1 million.

[infusco]

as devonapple said, summer magic clearly says that it takes care of the problems of using biomancy.

I personally don't put a lot of faith in the stats in our world. i was providing examples in the novels which could have supported this mechanical method.

I actually already responded to your spoiler-ed comment

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I don't believe that any level of fae magic will work against iron. doesn't matter if its a block 1 or 1 million.

Not quite. At least not from how I read it. Summer magic makes it *easier* to create those effects because it understands biology, but it doesn't lessen the strain your body takes from the ordeal. In other words, it drastically reduces the complexity requirements and can cast at the speed of evocation to allow you to instantly run at three times your speed by powering up your muscles, but in the end, you'll still end up with badly ripped up legs.

[Sanctaphrax]

1. IoP with Refinements have been discussed on these forums before and the consensus seemed to be against them.

2. Your character only has two Lawbreaker powers and so does not benefit from Trouble Comes In Threes.

3. The stats as you have written them apply multiple foci to both power and control. You can't do that. Unless one of the bonuses is meant to be a specialization, in which case you can't have those with Sponsored Magic alone.

4. As far as I know Summer Magic works just fine against cold iron. The book does not say that it doesn't in the entry for Summer Magic, at least.

[Moriden]

Not quite. At least not from how I read it. Summer magic makes it *easier* to create those effects because it understands biology, but it doesn't lessen the strain your body takes from the ordeal. In other words, it drastically reduces the complexity requirements and can cast at the speed of evocation to allow you to instantly run at three times your speed by powering up your muscles, but in the end, you'll still end up with badly ripped up legs.

Certainly possible. which is represented by working consequences into the more powerful spells. if you don't do so then your sponsor was able to pull it of for you without complications. For the one character im playing who has summer like biomancy [though certainly not to the degree for that mock up i made] i also have inhuman recovery for that particular reason.

[devonapple]

Not quite. At least not from how I read it. Summer magic makes it *easier* to create those effects because it understands biology, but it doesn't lessen the strain your body takes from the ordeal. In other words, it drastically reduces the complexity requirements and can cast at the speed of evocation to allow you to instantly run at three times your speed by powering up your muscles, but in the end, you'll still end up with badly ripped up legs.

Your point is certainly in the spirit of the text, if we go by the DFRPG's take on the "flying spell" question. People can theoretically train up to tolerate such violations of physics and physicality, and bestow such powers on themselves, but in the RPG as well as the fiction, the hazards inherent in learning to tolerate or guide such effects has a potentially lethal learning curve.

I am reminded of Jael, one of the characters from Joanna Russ' "The Female Man" (coincidentally, a cybered-out predatory woman who at one time passed herself off as a dangerous Fae to some people). She mused graphically on the injuries she sustained training up her body to use the enhanced muscles, the broken bones flindered by her untrained and inexpert twitching.

[infusco]

Certainly possible. which is represented by working consequences into the more powerful spells. if you don't do so then your sponsor was able to pull it of for you without complications. For the one character im playing who has summer like biomancy [though certainly not to the degree for that mock up i made] i also have inhuman recovery for that particular reason.

As a GM, I wouldn't allow that in the same way that the stunt Tower of Faith does not soak up stress from your own spellcasting. Otherwise, it would be grossly overpowered given that character could use Toughness powers to soak up Backlash or, well, do exactly what you're doing.

[Moriden]

2. Your character only has two Lawbreaker powers and so does not benefit from Trouble Comes In Threes.

Depends on interpretation i suppose, i view each level of lawbreaker to count. but what i put up as ive said was a five minute example, if you'd like i could make a character who does the same or similar things with no flaws, personally i don't think its really worth the time for a character id never actually play.

3. The stats as you have written them apply multiple foci to both power and control. You can't do that. Unless one of the bonuses is meant to be a specialization, in which case you can't have those with Sponsored Magic alone.

I would be much obliged if you could cite the rule that says you cant get refinement specializations with sponsored magic? the focus items and specializations where mistaken as i addressed a few posts up.

4. As far as I know Summer Magic works just fine against cold iron. The book does not say that it doesn't in the entry for Summer Magic, at least.

When it comes up i side with the novels over the rpg. it is not listed in summer magic it is shown that fae magic cannot stand up to iron.

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as we saw in changes when susans protections where ignored by martens sword. harry knew it wouldn't stop the blade. Think of it as harry making a lore assessment on susans armor, which he gave to marten to invoke for effect. causing a compel against lea's high concept. Lea gets a fate point susan dies and everyones happy.