So, two thaumaturgists walk into a ritual...

[Mr. Death]

Putting aside all the other issues we're all discussing about thaumaturgy in another thread, my table and I are trying to figure out if and how two wizards' Lore scores should interact when starting up the ritual, i.e., how many shifts the characters start from when building up complexity.

So far, we've discussed three options:

A. Only one wizard's Lore score matters; other wizards can only contribute to the complexity through declarations, invokations, etc.

B. Combine the Lore scores directly, so if you're doing a Divination ritual with one wizard specializing so his Lore's effectively 6, and the other has a Lore of 4, you can do a 10-shift ritual immediately.

C. Pick one wizard as the "lead" in the ritual, use their full lore skill, and take half the Lore score of the assisting wizard, so the example in B. would let the pair cast an 8-shift ritual right off the bat.

What do you guys think?

[Becq]

Thaumaturgy with multiple characters is covered on YS272.  In short, additional characters can aid in the preparation stage, which is what happens after you determine that your base Lore isn't high enough to match the complexity of the spell.  This implies to me that other players can't impact the initial Lore vs complexity comparison, which makes sense to me -- the initial Lore skill reflects the character's ability to conjure up a magical spell construct in his mind, and if two casters each tried to do this, I wouldn't think the results would go well.  Note that other spellcasters can contribute fully during the power stage, making their own rolls to bring power into the spell.  Non-spellcasters can act as damage batteries only during the power stage.

[Mr. Death]

the initial Lore skill reflects the character's ability to conjure up a magical spell construct in his mind

I always interpreted it more as meaning the wizard can pull off the spell with whatever materials he has immediately available.

Like, two wizards casting a 6-shift tracking spell might use the same materials--but the one with a Lore score of 3 has to make a couple declarations to say he has the stuff necessary for it, but the one with a specialization in Divination so his Lore's 6 can just say he has them in his pocket.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I'd just like to note that, when determining how high a skill must be to add to complexity, I typically say that your roll must be two steps lower than the base Lore of the practitioner casting the spell.  Subsequent uses increase this by 2.

That is, if the character has a Superb Lore, you need to get at least a Good result on your Lore roll to have a meaningful effect on it.  If you try to make two Lore declarations, the second one needs to be at least Superb.

Just at thought.

[Tedronai]

That seems unnecessarily punitive to dedicated ritualists over dabblers and generalists.
Why would someone who is an expert in how to make the magic happen have a more difficult time enacting that knowledge than would someone who has only a tenuous grasp on the supernatural in general?

[Becq]

That seems unnecessarily punitive to dedicated ritualists over dabblers and generalists.
Why would someone who is an expert in how to make the magic happen have a more difficult time enacting that knowledge than would someone who has only a tenuous grasp on the supernatural in general?

Perhaps because with a more advanced starting point to the ritual, it requires more esoteric knowledge to improve upon the base?  I'm not sure I agree with this logic, but I can see where the logic comes from.

My (potential) problem with it is that (at least for the caster himself) it removes skill from the equation entirely -- that is, it means that the caster's first declaration always needs a -2 on the Fudge dice regardless of skill, the second requires a +0 regardless of skill, etc, which seems odd to me.  It does mean that its relatively harder for an unskilled indidual to aid a skilled individual that it is for the opposite to occur (which is good).  And it also increases the difficulty for each new attempt, which puts a soft cap on the number of declarations possible (which is good).

Hm.  Have you considered using a inverted version of the skill modification rules instead?  By which I mean that you'd start with the 'standard' declaration difficulties (0+boringness tax) and increase from there based on repetitiveness, as you mentioned.  Then you'd get a -1 penalty to your roll if your skill was lower than the one being assited, or a +1 bonus if the skill you are assisting is lower (kind of like the combining skills rules, but applying the bonus/penalty to the 'secondary' skill roll).

[UmbraLux]

A. Only one wizard's Lore score matters; other wizards can only contribute to the complexity through declarations, invokations, etc.

This is the default for teamwork (YS208), I don't see any reason to change it for thaumaturgy.

[Haru]

I'd go with A if you go straight for a ritual.

However, clever wizards could set up secondary rituals to fuel the first ritual by creating "channeled energy" aspects for the main caster to tag. Alternatively, the other wizards could do smaller rituals that make the first ritual easier, by taking care of part of the ritual. The exact details would of course be up to the discretion of the table, and would vary depending on the ritual.
I could for example see a dual divination ritual to search someone, where one of the wizards creates an empty search spell, and the other shapes a thaumaturgical image of what or who they are looking for and feeds it to the search spell. This would probably be somewhere between B and C.

[Mr. Death]

This is the default for teamwork (YS208), I don't see any reason to change it for thaumaturgy.

Mostly I brought it up because in the two games I'm running, half the PC's are wizards and they started asking about it.

Personally, it does kind of make sense to me that two wizards working together would have an easier time starting up the spell process than one working alone. But at the same time, that potentially puts a lot more power into a mage-centric party's hands a lot faster.

[Becq]

Do two painters have an easier time painting a portrait of someone than one painter working alone?  I'm not an artist, but I wouldn't think so.  Though a painter might well produce a better painting with someone else offering suggestions, fetching the paints, adjusting lighting and such, etc.  By my thinking, thaumaturgy is similar.

[Jimmy]

Do two painters have an easier time painting a portrait of someone than one painter working alone?  I'm not an artist, but I wouldn't think so.  Though a painter might well produce a better painting with someone else offering suggestions, fetching the paints, adjusting lighting and such, etc.  By my thinking, thaumaturgy is similar.

Good analogy. You can handle it a number of ways i think, depending on how the thaumaturgists wish to handle the ritual. The dual ritual method, one complementing the other, is a good idea too as it would allow more than one PC to share in the efforts more than just saying you add 2 to the other guy's Lore deficit, using the results of each ritual to add taggable aspects to the main one.

[Mr. Death]

That is...actually a really good way of putting it, Becq. Thank you, I think that'll satisfy my group's question.

[Becq]

Glad it was useful!

[Mr. Death]

Yeah, it really helped. In the end, we went with only the lead spellcaster's Lore applied, with the caveat that if two casters are similar enough (say, a teacher and student, or some other combination where they'd be reasonably close in casting ability/style), the assisting wizard may get a 'free' declaration to add +2 right off the bat.

[GryMor]

Yeah, it really helped. In the end, we went with only the lead spellcaster's Lore applied, with the caveat that if two casters are similar enough (say, a teacher and student, or some other combination where they'd be reasonably close in casting ability/style), the assisting wizard may get a 'free' declaration to add +2 right off the bat.

I wouldn't call it a free declaration, but assuming the spell is within the second casters pervue, a simple lore assessment for 'Consulted with X' should almost always be available at maneuver difficulties.