Cascadeing Thaumaturgic Power

[rickayelm]

You can use thaumaturgy to give yourself aspects, three shifts for a fragile aspect more shifts to get the fragile aspect to stick around longer. So is it possible to give yourself a lot of fragile aspects that enhance thaumaturgy then use your free tags to create spells with a large complexity and safely power them up very quickly?

[Moriden]

Short answer: yes

Long answer: Raw say it works that way, very few gms will allow it.

[Sanctaphrax]

Depends on the GM. If the GM is me, probably not.

By the way, the RAW give the GM an enormous amount of leeway for things like this. The taggability of an aspect is temporary, and the GM chooses how long it lasts. Plus, all invocations are subject to GM fiat. So this can be disallowed without actually houseruling anything.

[UmbraLux]

You can use thaumaturgy to give yourself aspects, three shifts for a fragile aspect more shifts to get the fragile aspect to stick around longer. So is it possible to give yourself a lot of fragile aspects that enhance thaumaturgy then use your free tags to create spells with a large complexity and safely power them up very quickly?

Yes.

Not only is it allowed, it's encouraged by the rules as a method of involving the entire group in casting.  (YS272 Using Help)  It's also featured in the fiction and shown in the thaumaturgy spells pulled from the fiction.  (YS301 Sells' Heart Exploding spell)

A few groups may choose to go in other directions, but that's up to them.

Edit:  Its also explicitly part of the spell casting process.  Specifically, Declarations made when Complexity is greater than Lore.

[bobjob]

Not only is it allowed, it's encouraged by the rules as a method of involving the entire group in casting.  (YS272 Using Help)  It's also featured in the fiction and shown in the thaumaturgy spells pulled from the fiction.  (YS301 Sells' Heart Exploding spell)

The way I understood Sells' Heart Explodey spell was that they weren't creating aspects, but instead inflicting consequences on themselves to help power the spell.

[UmbraLux]

"Killed a Rabbit with a Spoon" is an aspect.  Any component used is just an aspect.  

See YS269 under Invoke Aspects:  "These aspects may come from any relevant source...temporary aspects..."  And further down under Make Declarations:  "If the roll is successful, put a temporary aspect on the spell."

[sinker]

Isn't there something somewhere about not being able to use magic to bolster your magic, cause then you get mixed mojo?

[UmbraLux]

Don't know if that's in the text or not, but either method is possible.  One of Fred's design blogs said "a spell is a story".  As such, the difference between drinking a potion to become Clear Minded prior to casting and drinking a potion of invisibility to steal a Golden Circlet to use in your ritual is only in the story.  The mechanics are the same...an aspect giving you +2 complexity.

[Warpmind]

Just remember that such elaborate preparations do take a LOT of time. If you sit around and spend the better part of sixteen hours straight building up taggable aspects for an über-spell, there's plenty of time for an interruption to rear its ugly head, potentially defenestrating most of those aspects.
Chandler's Law may apply. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlepblp18h5?from=Main.ChandlersLaw

[UmbraLux]

The time issue brings up another point - your temporary aspects will need to last long enough to be used in the ritual.  A few minutes at least, but more likely several hours or even a few days.  It might even be years for extremely complex rituals.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

In my game, free tags don't last around long enough, especially when they are fragile, to let one spell power another one.

Also, it's boring for the other players after a point, even if they are involved.