[Potion] The Sight

[Arcteryx]

Had a sitch where the enchanter in the group declared a potion that gives him the ability to use The Sight - a power he did not have. Since it's just a special form of perception & assessment, about gaining knowledge not otherwise attainable, ect ect, I thought this seemed reasonable for a potion. He had a maximum potion strength of 6 with 2 doses, I told him it had to have a minimum strength of 5 if he wanted to use his Lore (which was at 5) at its maximum to assess... he didn't automatically get an understanding of what he was seeing, the potion just allowed him to use magesight - once he had opened his potion-induced third eye, it was normal Sight rules after that.

Does this seem kosher?

[ways and means]

(click to show/hide)

3eye was a drug from Storm Fronts that did the same thing

It seems kosher to me you could also make the potion into a 3 shift manoeuvre to place the aspect "3 eyed" which he could compel for affect to gain the sight for a scene. 

[sinker]

If you wanted to do it completely by RAW (assuming Iago's suggestions for dealing with something like this are RAW) then you'd need enough shifts to take out the target and then double the refresh cost of the power, plus he'd need to spend FP as per the rules for temporary powers. If you wanted to be generous you could allow himself to take a willing target out without burning consequences, however that's still a 5-7 shift spell (2 for the power's refresh and 3-5 to take them out + 1 fate point).

The upside of this is that he'd have "The Sight" as a power (exactly as it is written) for the whole scene.

You could use some of the house rules that we have made up for summoning to bring the cost down by introducing side effects. Then you could have a lower shift potion that induces "Nightmarish scenes" or is "Uncontrollable".

[Belial666]

The Sight sees through ALL disguises and veils, no exceptions. It has the power to pierce veils and see the true forms of even Angels and Faerie Queens. The roll is only to understand what you are seeing but merely being able to see something is a fairly big deal. I.e. if you're looking for vamps disguised as coeds in the campus, you don't need to "understand" what you see; the vamps will be very different than the real coeds. Ditto when you need to see through a major, 20-shift illusion. No need to roll to understand the illusion you see through; just ignore it.

Therefore, in many situations The Sight is a major advantage that can do a lot more than just 6 shifts in a potion should be able to.

[ways and means]

The only way to do this by raw is to have a potion which gives you an aspect like "3eyed" and then use the aspect as justification for spending a fate point to gain the sight as a temporary power. I personally would allow tagging the "3eyed" aspect to count as that fate point because tags and fate points are roughly equivalent but that isn't raw. You only need to take someone out of permanent changes and do so would mean the character need the extra refresh to buy the Sight Power or become an npc. You could do it via compels for effect (you can compel it to see through an illusion etc, though it would net the illusion maker a fate point probably) of the aspect but that would only work once in a scene but could net you fate points when the gm compels the down sides of the sight.

[Arcteryx]

Thanks for the pointers & opinions - I'm comfortable with how it went down for the six shifts, but next time I will limit the "Sight" application to something specific, i.e. they have to look at something narrow and can't take in a scene and spot the six vamps hiding out as co-eds. Unless for some reason they're focusing on the co-ed who is a vamp. And even then, the sorority sisters on either side of her are "greyed out".

This makes it closer to being an info gathering assessment without shortchanging the full power that a wizard paid 1 refresh for.

[sinker]

You only need to take someone out of permanent changes and do so would mean the character need the extra refresh to buy the Sight Power or become an npc.

Taking someone out was Iago's suggestion for a wizard gaining/imbuing temp powers (mostly because to gain/imbue permanent powers would simply require the actual purchase of the power and thus wouldn't need rules). However you ideas actually have some interesting implications based on the duration of those effects. One could maneuver to create an aspect that would justify the purchase of the power for a very short time (the duration and fragility of a maneuvered aspect). One could inflict consequences to justify a longer duration (since consequences have a longer duration), etc. It's an interesting idea.