Is there a limit to the amount of power a character can put in a spell?

[Radijs]

I couldn't find an awnser by searching. So I ask.
When a character is going to use thaumathurgy, assuming time isn't an issue. How much power/complexity could a wizard put in a spell? I figured that there should be a limit but I couldn't really find one in the rules.

Is there a limit to a wizard's ability to do magic?

And a bonus question: Assuming time is a factor, how much time usually passes before you can roll to gather your power?

[GryMor]

There isn't a limit on complexity. The only effective limit on power is modified conviction + highest open mental stress box-1 + consequences you are willing to spent + invokes/tags you are willing and able to spend. The all in power throw (all consequences and tagging them) tends to be called a death curse, and if by some absurdity, you don't take yourself out with backlash, expect that extreme consequence to burn out your magic.

P.S. You can draw power once per exchange

[Radijs]

Yeah that's the death curse. But that is something you shoot off once and quickly.

As I understand thaum you can just spend time, and draw power up to your conviction every time and just slowly build up to a bajillion shifts of power without taking any stress or consequences.
So a thaumaturge who's just finished reading his necronomicon could, given time gather enough power to explode Mab's head for example*.
At least, that's how I understand it. And that's not how I want it to be.

*: Yes I know you'd need an arcane link for that the point isn't specifically Mab but just that even a rank amateur can pull together shitloads of power and complexity while the spell should really be beyond him.

[Mr. Death]

The main limit is logistics--if you want to build up a 40 shift spell, that means there's 20 scenes/declarations to take care of, which means that if anyone's looking in your direction, they're going to catch on.

The other limiting factor is time. The higher the spell complexity, the longer it's going to take to safely cast--and that means the longer your target has to respond, and things like endurance rolls and compels. It's a lot harder to concentrate on a spell when you've gotta piss like a race horse, and you can't stop a spell once you've started casting--if you're 30 shifts into a 50-shift spell when the vampires bust down the door, you're probably screwed.

A spell of any real size needs a substantial source of power, too, so you need one of those available if you're going to be casting something huge.

So in short, there's no single hard limit to how big a spell's going to be, but there are a lot of smaller factors that will pare it down.

[vonpenguin]

Keep in mind that in order to construct such a spell the wizard involved would need either an extremely high lore, or spend lots of time making aspects and sitting out scenes to make the difference. That's how it's meant to be. If you take the time to manufacture the spell you can do whatever you want. But your lore hinders you, your conviction slows you, and you discipline is the only thing between you and a messy end.

[Radijs]

So, the limit is how much lore the caster can put together? That's not something you can just keep pumping in to the spell at intervals?

[Mr. Death]

So, the limit is how much lore the caster can put together? That's not something you can just keep pumping in to the spell at intervals?

The way Thaumaturgy works is:

The most complexity you can put into a spell without further preparation is your Lore (plus whatever specializations or focus items for that type of spell you have). If this number is lower than the target complexity of the spell, you have to take actions to build it up, at a rate of +2 for each declaration or maneuver done. So someone with a Lore of 4 who wants to cast a 10-shift spell needs to take three such actions.

There's really no hard limit here to how much complexity you can build up--but unless your GM is seriously lowballing your competition, you're going to run into difficulty here because eventually someone should catch on to what you're doing and try to stop you. There's also availability of proper spell components to consider against your available resources.

Once you've met the complexity and you've got the power and the sympathetic focus, you can start casting. Once you start casting, the spell's "locked" in--you can't add more complexity, and you can't pause to do something else. Each round, you can channel power up to your conviction rating without stress (or with one point of stress for each shift above it), and control that bit of power with Discipline. If you blow the discipline roll, either you let all the spell energy go as fallout and the spell fails, or you take all of the shifts put into the spell by that point as backlash and keep going. This means that anything above 10 shifts or so is very dangerous to the caster and everyone around him if there's any chance of a screw-up, especially if they're normally a low-powered character.

Again, there's no hard limit, but obviously the higher complexity spells are going to take longer to cast safely, and the more often you're rolling, the more likely that you're going to roll a big -4 and blow the whole thing. Plus, this is another portion where your enemies can interrupt--while a caster is busy rolling out discipline, they're a sitting duck.

So in summary, grossly huge thaumaturgy is only possible when you either don't have serious opposition looking to stop you and you have a huge span of uninterrupted time to yourself, or you've got a legion of people to protect you while you cast.

[Sanctaphrax]

Mr. Death is correct, but I think he's leaving out something important.

And that's the fact that the time Thaumaturgy takes and the difficulty of creating complexity isn't actually defined anywhere in the rules. It is entirely up to the GM's discretion.

So there's a lot of GM fiat involved in exploring the potential of Thaumaturgy. A lot.

[vultur]

I honestly do think there should be some sort of limit on the number of declarations involved.

But I'm not sure what's fair... equal to Lore seems too low, 2 x Lore possibly too high.

[UmbraLux]

There is a limit if you enforce durations by exchange.  Even assuming all aspects are Declarations and take no time in themselves, they'll still need to last long enough to cover the exchanges spent drawing power.  So not really a hard limit so much as a skill related limit.

While this can be an annoying amount of bookkeeping; it's one of few limits on thaumaturgy, it provides a reason for mages to draw power at unsafe levels, and it provides impetus to group rituals. 

[GryMor]

Aspects from declarations don't have a duration, once established as true, they stay around until they aren't true.

[UmbraLux]

Not arguing that - perhaps I should have emphasized the "if" in my previous statement. 

That said, declarations are a large part of DFRPG's rule problems.  I was happy to see FATE Core drop them.

[Sanctaphrax]

I prefer to increase the difficulties of Declarations as players make more of them. That way they can't make them endlessly.

[Wordmaker]

Yes, aspects created through declarations remain so until something acts to remove them. But I'd rule that the GM is within his right to say that time, the environment, or random acts by unaware people can remove aspects, depending on how they're defined.

If you set up the aspect "Complex Ritual Circle," then you need to know how it's marked out. Is it chalk? What if it gets scuffed? If it's outside, animals or weather might render it useless. There may not be hard and fast rules to govern this, but a savvy player should be aware that there's a practical limit to how resistant any aspects can be to outside interference.

And of course, the longer you spend on a ritual, the greater the chance of someone noticing. This is why mega-powerful rituals like the Darkhallow are so difficult to pull off successfully, and spoiling them can undo years of planning and preparation.

[Taran]

I prefer to increase the difficulties of Declarations as players make more of them. That way they can't make them endlessly.

Do you have a formula?