Entropy Curses? How about...

[mstorer3772]

An entropy BLESSING.  A year of GOOD luck.  Just like the curse, only with warm fuzzies instead of cold pricklies:

May Fortune Smile Upon You
Type: Thamaturgy, Entropomancy
Complexity: 22 shifts vs target's Discipline.
Duration: 1 year.
Effect: Target gains "Fortune Smiles on Me" for one year.  Expect to be thrown out of a lot of casinos if you go that route.

That raises an interesting question:  When casting a spell on someone that they want cast on them, do you really need to beat their Discipline/Fortitude/Reflex?  Can't they just say "hey, I want that" and let it happen?

The "Dreamless sleep (easy version)" variation text suggests that overcoming Discipline is only necessary when they want to resist:

Attempting this as an attack will be opposed by the target's Discipline.

So a blessing could be significantly cheaper.  13 shifts (pure duration, scene -> 1 year) instead of 22.

This sort of "good joss" spell could include all kinds of happy effects.  Fertility, prosperity, professional success, romantic success, whatever. 

[Haru]

Sure it is possible, and who knows, maybe there are some minor talents around making their living like that. Masked as Feng Shui masters. Maybe they are not powerful enough to make it last a year, but if it works, they are sure going to get follow up contracts.

On the other hand (and something I would possibly do as a GM): Dresdenverse magic can not create energy, it can only move it. That means, if you have a year of good luck, it has to come from somewhere. Maybe some punk who would have broken into your house, and you would have easily fought him off, would brake into your neighbours house and ends up killing the poor old lady. You get a promotion, while your friend is fired. A car misses you by an inch, only to hit your fiancée.

Plus, having a spell like that on you could make you a beacon for all kinds of supernatural predators. You will be lucky enough to escape them, but once they get loose, who knows what they will do?

[mstorer3772]

Masked as Feng Shui masters.

Masked!?  What do you think Feng Shui is?

And I disagree with your "the bad luck has to come out somewhere else".  We certainly didn't see any good luck seepage in Blood Rites when people were dying from entropy curses left and right.  No lottery winners, no "ran into The One Who Got Away, we have a date tonight", no Maxwell Smart dodges.

If you want to go Dark Darker Darkest with your campaign, by all means... but as far as game mechanics go, there's no reason for it.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

My take on is it's like most other spells.  Taking a cup of water out of the ocean is no big deal.  Taking half a million gallons out is also no big deal as long as you don't do it instantly from one particular spot.

Rig the spell to only draw negative entropy in as necessary and you concentrate its drains to specific times and places.  Instead rig it to work in the manner of Harry's force rings and siphon a constant but minuscule amount of luck out of the environment around the target.  You'd end up with a few extra stubbed toes and paper cuts but nothing even close to fatalities unless we're talking a nuclear weapons grade luck spell.

[mstorer3772]

Instead rig it to work in the manner of Harry's force rings and siphon a constant but minuscule amount of luck out of the environment around the target.

I always wondered why Harry didn't come up with a dream catcher that saved up a little sleep, or a health thingy that made him ever so slightly sickly most of the time... then when Harry's back is to the wall and he's banged up and exhausted:  BING!  A week's R&R in an instant.

But it looks like the fallout from books 12 and 13 make that a moot point.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I always wondered why Harry didn't come up with a dream catcher that saved up a little sleep, or a health thingy that made him ever so slightly sickly most of the time... then when Harry's back is to the wall and he's banged up and exhausted:  BING!  A week's R&R in an instant.

But it looks like the fallout from books 12 and 13 make that a moot point.

I used to wonder that but, aside from little Chicago, Harry rarely thinks outside of his kaboom box when crafting items.  It probably just never occurred to him.  That may very well have changed some with his new outlook on things post-GS though.

[Masurao]

I always wondered why Harry didn't come up with a dream catcher that saved up a little sleep, or a health thingy that made him ever so slightly sickly most of the time... then when Harry's back is to the wall and he's banged up and exhausted:  BING!  A week's R&R in an instant.

But it looks like the fallout from books 12 and 13 make that a moot point.

Whoop! Don't forget his potion in Fool Moon and the bear-belt he used in... Proven Guilty, I believe. They are rather nifty and give him lots of juice to throw around, but when it wears off, all the consequences and stuff hit him like a sledgehammer. (I believe the potion is in YS, btw) The items were so dangerous, they aren't ever mentioned in other books again.

What I take this to mean is this: you can siphon of little bits of luck from others so you get good luck, but that means you can only spend as much as you've gathered (like Harry's force rings). You want a boat-load of good luck at once, or for a longer time: then a boat-load gets drawn from somewhere else as you cast the spell. It might take some time to manifest, but it's gone all the same.

Also, if I'm not mistaking, altering the luck of other people is a breaking the law Law... Whether or not it is positive, it doesn't say, so we could (and should) assume that it has caused loads of problems in the past. A year of good luck could mean a year of bad luck for someone else, but imagine that bad luck got someone killed within a week, then the bad luck shifts to another person. Or it could all manifest at once and steep an entire nation in debt. (2008/2009 world economy dip, anyone? )

[mstorer3772]

I think you're drawing an unnecessary parallel between the way an enchanted item works (like Harry's rings), and a thamaturgical spell.

The Enchanted Item is powered by keeping back just a little bit of motion every time Harry so much as twitches.  This energy is stored, and then released all at once.

Thameturgy takes a while to cast, and the effect draws all the power from the act of casting itself.

So in this case, there's no need to generate a pile of bad luck to match your good luck.  All the generating happens during the casting of the spell... the spell energy is converted to Good Luck (or whatever).

Again, there's no fountain-of-good-luck parallel in the books due to bad luck curses, so I don't even see a "canon" reason to require it.

The rules don't require it.  The setting doesn't require it.  Don't require it.

[admiralducksauce]

Yeah.  Sells' heart-popping curse didn't cure the other hotel guests of any lurking heart disease from its fallout.  Hitting everyone around a dude with a Good Luck aspect with lethal entropy is just being a dick unless that was written into the intent of the spell (or the caster rolled shitty and this is the fallout).

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I think you're drawing an unnecessary parallel between the way an enchanted item works (like Harry's rings), and a thamaturgical spell.

The Enchanted Item is powered by keeping back just a little bit of motion every time Harry so much as twitches.  This energy is stored, and then released all at once.

Thameturgy takes a while to cast, and the effect draws all the power from the act of casting itself.

So in this case, there's no need to generate a pile of bad luck to match your good luck.  All the generating happens during the casting of the spell... the spell energy is converted to Good Luck (or whatever).

You're right of course.  I was thinking from the wizard I play's perspective and he's far too paranoid to chance it adding entropy to him or his surroundings accidentally.  He doesn't believe it, so he can't do it that way.

[Masurao]

Meh, I'm still all for karma!

No, seriously, I can see how thinking of it in terms of balancing itself out would be needlessly complicated now.