Ways to achieve a 100 shift rituals

[Lamech]

To your 4 methods
1) Mass sacrifice well this works per the rules pretty clearly, and easily if you can catch the 5 people. Worse, you can even sacrifice WVC, ghouls, or like as far as I can tell. And you can do similar by mass inflicting consequences.
2) I don't think 10 rabbits counts as a person, if they did no one would sacrifice anyone when they can buy stuff at the pet store. At best with sufficient rolls I would let declarations like ANIMAL SACRIFICE, LOTS OF ANIMAL SACRIFICE, ENDLESS BLOOD, BlOOD MAGIC, but those are really just declarations.
3) 50 declarations is hard. I know someone here made a system to adjudicate the difficulty and time requirements of declarations. Just use that, or similar.
4) It technically works, but at 4 scenes a game, your wizard comes back 25 games later. ... Its really not going to happen.

So most of these ways don't really work. Now how do you balance against big rituals? Well what can you even do with a 100 shift ritual that a 40ish shift can't? (Lore +5 Moderate +5 Mild + Change) I suppose you can help punch through wards and such, or make it area of effect to zot a city block, but really? A lot of baddies won't have wards. (No threshold). An aspect pile can be done just as well with 10 20ish shift rituals. What is seriously going to mess with a 30 strength ward?  Even a patently inane healing spell would top out before 40...

So whats the big problem? Its just Thaumaturgy doing what it does. If the PC's are really dedicated and have a symbolic link they can asplode the targets brain. If they really want they can aspect pile. So what is the problem going from 40ish to 100ish?

[Sanctaphrax]

Also, honestly, "normal" people in game aren't going to provide 20 shifts of power. IMO it's like mook opponents. You can get 20 shifts from a major NPC who, during conflict, would be willing to suffer the entire range of consequences, AND you've gotta put in the work to kidnap them so you CAN sacrifice them. Kidnapping some hobo off-screen who doesn't put up a fight? No shifts, or at best, it's a Maneuver or Declaration for 2 shifts.

This probably should be true, but it's not. Last paragraph, page 269 of Your Story.

I like the sound of Becq's revisions.

100 shifts is way better than 40. With 100 shifts you can kill things right through Mythic Toughness and oodles of Fate Points. You can kill a whole bunch of people at once. You can ward an area so securely that a nuclear bomb would bounce off harmlessly. You can conjure an entire city out of thin air. You can summon up a demon that's stronger than a Senior Council member. You can do almost anything.

[Becq]

So whats the big problem? Its just Thaumaturgy doing what it does. If the PC's are really dedicated and have a symbolic link they can asplode the targets brain. If they really want they can aspect pile. So what is the problem going from 40ish to 100ish?

I would say that the problem is that it turns Thaumaturgy into "You can do literally anything you want -- blow up the planet, turn yourself into a god, anything -- so long as you commit a handful of homeless people or a couple of days of meditation to it.  In the novels, Dresden talks about those head-explodie types of spells as being mind-bogglingly difficult (though typically, sacrifice makes them approachable).  He mentions spells that maybe the Merlin could do, but that he himself could only hope to someday manage.

But with the existing system, there are no limits.  Any caster with a decent control (total of +5 from skill/specialization/focus) can control a spell of unlimited complexity with no risk of failure.  And I think this is Bad, because it makes Thaumaturgy ridiculous.

• Bad guy has a massive, Fort Knox-grade ward around his Ebil Lair (10-shifts!)?  No problem, that'll just take us a few hours of meditation to wipe out.  Or maybe we'll have each member of the group contribute a mild consequence, then take a full scene to get there so they heal up.
• Ok, so now the bad guy kills a few homeless people to make his ward 100 shifts.  No problem, we'll just have to meditate longer.
• Money tight?  Ok, we'll just teleport all of the gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's underground vault into our basement.  How many shifts do we need, so we can calculate the meditation time?
• Want to seduce <insert supermodel of choice here>?  Well, Thaumatugy can be used to generate skill rolls, so ... heck, a seduction roll of 50 ought to be plenty, right?

It's just silly, and I think it makes the game less fun when accomplishing anything becomes this trivial.

So yes, I do see it as a problem.

[admiralducksauce]

This probably should be true, but it's not. Last paragraph, page 269 of Your Story.

I like the sound of Becq's revisions.

Heh. Count my post as a vote for Becq's revision #2, then, since they're pretty much saying the same thing.

[Mr. Death]

I think it boils down to GM fiat, and really, really enforcing the stipulation that declarations and invoking aspects has to be reasonable. Personally, I'd limit declarations to only being able to roll each skill once for a given spell. That way, Scrooge McDuck can't just roll his absurd Resources score a dozen times to build up 20+ extra shifts for Magica De Spell's big damn ritual--he'd need to get his nephews, pilot, and maybe a rival or two to contribute as well.

Places a soft limit on the total power a spell can generate and encourages teamwork.

The problem with the making sacrifices who're nameless count for less is, well, in-universe, what makes Lt. Murphy a more potent sacrifice for a particular spell than the nameless Lieutenant heading up Homicide? It's kind of implying that a named character's life is worth more than the extras. I kinda like the idea that stopping Evil McBadguy from sacrificing a random innocent victim is just as important as saving Lois Lane.

[Lamech]

This probably should be true, but it's not. Last paragraph, page 269 of Your Story.

I like the sound of Becq's revisions.

100 shifts is way better than 40. With 100 shifts you can kill things right through Mythic Toughness and oodles of Fate Points. You can kill a whole bunch of people at once. You can ward an area so securely that a nuclear bomb would bounce off harmlessly. You can conjure an entire city out of thin air. You can summon up a demon that's stronger than a Senior Council member. You can do almost anything.

A nukes a plot device. In fact lets try statting up a similarly powerful thaumaturgy landmine. It would need to affect say 100 zones, giving it a roll of 200. That 100 shift ward is melted.
If they have mythic toughness use psychomancy. They aren't a human in all likelihood. Now oodles of fate points might help, but oodles of fate points can save you against the 100 shift ritual too. You may even be able to compel something. (Don't forget about declaring aspects.)
I suppose mass summoning is a nice niche.
Summoning that demon is much better done with the smaller rituals. One big containment spell, one big ward, then either one nice binding/conflict victory. Much better done with three 40 shift rituals.

@Becq: Notice how the PC's never got around to killing people?  The problems with thaumaturgy aren't from sacrificing 5 people, most of the problems have already arisen by the time you are at 40.

[Becq]

@Becq: Notice how the PC's never got around to killing people?  The problems with thaumaturgy aren't from sacrificing 5 people, most of the problems have already arisen by the time you are at 40.

I agree that Warden interaction provides a defense against the players using sacrifice.  But you don't need to resort to that under the RAW.  All you have to do is spend, say, a half hour or so meditating per shift desired (ie, sitting out a do-nothing scene).  Given the rules, why wouldn't any self-respecting wizard have a 50 armor spell lasting his lifetime (call it 70 shifts for good measure, 35 hours of meditation to prep, guaranteed successful with Discipline 5) cast on himself, so he doesn't have to worry about those pesky snipers?  And is the ability to do that good for the game?

I don't believe it is.

[Mr. Death]

Okay, here's what I'm thinking to create a soft upper limit of a thaumaturgy spell:

A. Each skill can only be rolled once per spell, per player for declarations.
B. Each aspect can only be invoked once per spell to make declarations.
C. Additional shifts (not gained through the 'wait offscreen' method) have to be obtained via scenes played out in-game.

A, I think, will solve what I'm going to dub the Scrooge McDuck problem--one character can't carry a whole spell by rolling their apex skill to make declarations over and over. B would put a limit on someone saving up their fate points and invoking them scene after scene. And C would bring risk to really high-powered spells--that +2 shifts might now end up costing you consequences and other resources in the course of obtaining it.

Provided the GM is assigning reasonably stringent difficulties, this would limit each person to, maybe, 3-4 declarations via skill roll for a Submerged game, and force them to spend more significant resources to build up power beyond that.

[UmbraLux]

The one thing I've done (and it was targeted at combat rather than thaumaturgy) is put an explicit preference (limit if you prefer) on Declarations.  I try to allow one Declaration per character skill per scene and prefer only one per exchange.  It's not a hard limit, it's simply where they should expect difficulties to go up.

When it comes to thaumaturgy, you also need to remember the limitations of Declarations - duration.  How many exchanges are they going to last and how many exchanges will they need to channel the power?  This tends to keep most stuff in the teens and makes it a group effort somewhere in the twenties to thirties. 

As for sacrifice driven rituals, they tend to have their own drawbacks.  Legal, ethical, etc.  If you're playing an evil version of the game where those don't matter, I'd make the Wardens a major threat.  If they're not already.  After all, power is detectable.

[Lamech]

As for sacrifice driven rituals, they tend to have their own drawbacks.  Legal, ethical, etc.  If you're playing an evil version of the game where those don't matter, I'd make the Wardens a major threat.  If they're not already.  After all, power is detectable.

The problem with sacrifice driven rituals is it doesn't need to be other people.
Consider a group of five people. They have 5 mild consequences, between them. Probably a bit more from recovery powers, or extra mild consequences. A lore skill of 4, can probably make a couple declarations and its already a ritual of 20ish. Everyone throws in a moderate consequence and its at 40. Then you do a mass version of that healing spell (10 shifts, easy), and it will only take one more scene to get back to full health. I recommend going to a casino and trying to make some money from the other patrons in a social conflict. Or possibly an convention and trying a social conflict to make friends with your favorite actors via a social conflict. Or possibly a conversation convincing the wardens that you really didn't kill anyone for the sacrifice powered spell.

[UmbraLux]

The problem with sacrifice driven rituals is it doesn't need to be other people.
Consider a group of five people. They have 5 mild consequences, between them. Probably a bit more from recovery powers, or extra mild consequences. A lore skill of 4, can probably make a couple declarations and its already a ritual of 20ish. Everyone throws in a moderate consequence and its at 40.

See, I'm pretty much ok with what you're describing so far.  They could do close to the same thing with temporary aspects.

Then you do a mass version of that healing spell (10 shifts, easy), and it will only take one more scene to get back to full health.

This isn't nearly as easy as you'd like it to be though. 

[Lamech]

This isn't nearly as easy as you'd like it to be though. 

I suppose if you didn't allow that damn spell (or not allow it for sacrifice inflicted injuries) they wouldn't be able to pull it off.  But other than that its fairly easy to accomplish. Worst case scenario you get a +4 complexity biomancy item, and do everyone one at a time.

[Tedronai]

I recommend going to a casino and trying to make some money from the other patrons in a social conflict. Or possibly an convention and trying a social conflict to make friends with your favorite actors via a social conflict. Or possibly a conversation convincing the wardens that you really didn't kill anyone for the sacrifice powered spell.

Physical consequences can and should interfere meaningfully with social conflict actions.

[Lamech]

Which is why you try very hard for the social conflict to be something nice and safe like making friends at a convention. Not convincing the vampire's your fully capable of taking them in a fight. Oh and do note that unless your spell was a pile of aspects type spell, things will go down hill really quickly in any ambush after/fight the spell. If it was a pile of aspects thing you'll be fine though. (7 free tags really help)

[AstronaughtAndy]

I'm going to be running a campaign in the near future and this is something I've thought about alot.

One thought I've had, is to do something like the point buy in 3.5e, and require 2 shifts for every 1 shift of effect past a certain point.

Another is compels. Yes, you can do a 100 shift ritual. But horrible scary monsters A, B and C are all very  interested/threatened by you and your magic. Hopefully after the first Skinwalker bursts in to try and eat you in the middle of the ritual the players learn their lesson.

The final one is just saying to the players, "Look guys, please don't break my campaign with your ubermagic." Really no different than asking the wizard/cleric player not to cast instant win spells everytime.