What would a power granting ritual look like

[narphoenix]

@sanctaphrax.  I was kind of thinking that 12-14 complexity wouldn't be a simple ritual.  Not an "every second scene" kind of thing.  And that's for a singular power.  Obviously, at higher refresh, that kind of complexity would be easier to reach and declarations easier to obtain because of higher skills.

Um. Daniel Thresh (to take an example) does 12 shift biomancy like you sneeze. Even if you knock him down to Submerged, he still does 10 shifts in a breath. 12-14 shifts is barely a speed bump to someone who's a dedicated Thaumaturgist. Actually, scratch that, they're barely a deterrent if you are evenly split between Evocation and Thaumaturgy at Submerged (theoretical Thresh who has one refinement in Thaumaturgy and only half his foci in Thaumaturgy still throws 9 shifts in biomancy around).

[Taran]

He's also 18 refresh.

But that was my point.  At a certain level, complex rituals become trivial.  But that goes for thaumaturgy in general.

Doing a 10-15 shift ward should be complicated but it's not at that level.

[narphoenix]

He's also 18 refresh.

First, he's 15 refresh. Second, even if you knock him down to 10 Refresh (as I described), he still makes that ritual look easy peasy.

But that was my point.  At a certain level, complex rituals become trivial.  But that goes for thaumaturgy in general.

Doing a 10-15 shift ward should be complicated but it's not at that level.

Btw, regarding pbp. a ward on the door would be useful...  Sorry, i digress.

But it should not be simple when you're at Submerged.

(Also, Thresh has a 12 shift Ward around the entire compound with a 10 shift I'm-going-to-maul-you landmine)

[Taran]

But it should not be simple when you're at Submerged.

Dude, you just said he could pull off a 9 shift biomancy at submerged.  Put his focus on wards and he could pull off the same thing. (and that's split between evo and thaum).

I'm not sure what kind of point I'm trying to make anymore. 

[narphoenix]

Dude, you just said he could pull off a 9 shift biomancy at submerged.  Put his focus on wards and he could pull off the same thing. (and that's split between evo and thaum).

I'm not sure what kind of point I'm trying to make anymore. 

9 shift biomancy if he's evenly split. I could boost him up to 11 like I breathe just by moving focus slots around.  That's a declaration or two away. Hell, using the standard declaration procedures, Submerged!Thresh throws that together in less than five minutes and can push himself a little to cast it in three exchanges. And be expected to succeed.

My point is, 12 shifts is too easy for a ritual to grant powers.

[Taran]

Actually, with the new info that it's one aspect/refresh, the complexity is higher.  It's complexity 12 for a 1 refresh power and complexity 15 for 2 refresh power.  That's for 1 power that lasts one scene.  There's still the debate of "how much time" a ritual like that should take(which is part of the problem).

And granted, the ritual is easy but only if you pump all your foci into that one specialty - which leads to other draw-backs.

Here's another question(to everyone): Would the complexity be less if you had to spend FP's on it?

[narphoenix]

Actually, with the new info that it's one aspect/refresh, the complexity is higher.  It's complexity 12 for a 1 refresh power and complexity 15 for 2 refresh power.  That's for 1 power that lasts one scene.  There's still the debate of "how much time" a ritual like that should take(which is part of the problem).

And granted, the ritual is easy but only if you pump all your foci into that one specialty - which leads to other draw-backs.

Except for the fact that doing rituals to grant powers makes you a swiss army weapon, which would negate the drawbacks.

Here's another question(to everyone): Would the complexity be less if you had to spend FP's on it?

Well, yes. Or you can build complexity with them, it's the same thing.

[Cadd]

If you're willing to spend the fate points you don't need the aspects (as you don't need the tags), so a fp spent there knocks 3 off the total complexity.

[potestas]

That would again be a bargain. You can get 4 enchanted items for 1 point of refresh. If that equals 4 points of temporary powers, you could, again, go mad with power here.
That might be the core issue. Fate isn't D&D. Characters aren't really balanced around powers, they are balanced around narrative impact. Granted, it is still a bit lopsided, and especially wizards can still do a lot, if you have a clever player, but it isn't as bad as some other games I've come across.

Or to put it into the words of a guy on another board:
"I blame WotC for brainwashing us into thinking that +2 damage per attack is acceptable for a fighter, while wizards can get away with stopping time and gating in solars."

Also, aren't there usually other people at the table? I for one love for my character to be a hero in a scene, to show of his skills and what makes him special. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to be the center of every scene. It's what I like to call the Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit problem.

Another great thing about Fate and what it taught me is that there doesn't have to be a lock-key type solution to everything. Just because there is a big strong monster, doesn't mean the solution has to be to be big and strong. If the village is terrorized by a monster, one solution would be to slay the monster. A strong fighter or a wizard with some powerful attack spells might so the trick. But that's not the only story you can tell. You could go in with a socialite and save the day. Not by talking the monster down (though even that might work), but by motivating the villagers, coordinating them, getting them ready to fight the monster themselves. It is going to be a vastly different story than the one the monster hunter would be telling, but in the end, the monster would be defeated. At no point was it necessary for the socialite to pick up any strength or similar powers to fight the monster.


Using tags to justify temporary powers doesn't have to be a casual thing. But if there is a good story around it, or a well thought out explanation, I'm all for it. Even for stunts (minus the ritual then). I think that allowing something will most of the time work better than prohibiting it. But then again, if someone is using this to take temporary powers all the time, I would require them to take a permanent power to do so. After all, that's what their character is now all about. And if the explanation isn't reasonable, I will still veto it. A gunfighter using a resources roll to get a hold of a rifle with a "scope" stunt? Sure. A half-pixie exotic dancer? Not so much.

OMG that was great...thank you.

[potestas]

I don't like the idea of using tags to gain temporary Powers. I think it's too easy, and that by letting people casually acquire 1-Refresh Powers it can easily unbalance the game. If you want a read a long-ass argument about that and other things, look here.

In other words, you want the game to be broken in your favour.

Wizards absolutely should not be able to do more. D&D3 wizards became all-powerful because WotC screwed up. If you can make a similarly powerful wizard in DFRPG, it's because Evil Hat screwed up.

In theory, wizards are no more useful to the party than anyone else. This is true in both D&D and DFRPG. In DFRPG it's sometimes also true in practice, in D&D3 it really isn't.

Please. If you must drag D&D edition wars into this forum, come up with some better attacks. "A video game on paper" is such a lazy and meaningless insult.

Well it was just such an attempt and look a year or so later we were blessed with the MMO neverwinter. so its not so much a lazy and meaningless insult as a prediction a lot of people made the came true.

 I understand they shouldn't be more powerful for game balance but I have never been able to get around the simple fact, that if magic were indeed real they/it would always overshadow everything else. So when I run my games I run with wizards and magic being the pinnacle of the game. I want my players to play wizards. If you want to play say a police girl with a gun and the ability to throw big men down that's fine, but the foes we will be playing against wont be big men that you can just throw down.

The Dresden files are about  a wizard who has a bunch of hangers on that help him, but when the story is done it was the wizard who did the heavy lifting. Otherwise it wouldn't be called the Dresden Files, it might be called say SGT Murphy's chronicles. The roleplaying game allows for all types of characters to be made, but it is called the Dresden files because wizards are meant to be at the center of it. So I simply want to make sure the wizards are wizard enough for my game. Many people on these boards think the wizards are strong enough, I am not one of them. I have indeed been infected by the WOTC bug but I don't mind I think they should be mortals with the power of gods. That is my take on them. I have never understood why anyone would think that a man with a piece of metal with a pointy end could ever stand up to a man who controls the fundamental forces of the universe. It's not realistic fantasy.

Enough rant, I have enjoyed the many ideas as  I am still learning the game. I am still trying to understand how to use such a flexible system. That in part may be my problem I am simply not familiar enough with the rules. Which is why I have been posting a lot of questions and at home running a lot of test situations to see how best to use the rules.

[Hick Jr]

One of the main problems with D&D 3.5 was that playing a non-spellcasting class was a monumentally poor decision. Wizards in that system can literally do anything. I really wish I was joking. The addition of a wizard to an adventuring party renders the rest of that adventuring party superfluous. The fighter? Summon a creature that does his job better and you don't need to feed it. The rogue? the open lock spell existed. Or you could just disintegrate the door.

Sanctaphrax is right- in theory, the wizard is just another party member. In practice, the wizard can do pretty much anything. the DFRPG is quite a bit better about it-Wizards in this game have a lot of weaknesses that 3.5 wizards don't, but it's still really easy to break a wizard without even trying.


All that being said, powerful wizards are not a bad thing. Being the most powerful member of your party is not a bad thing. Being the most powerful member and completely overshadowing everyone else? Is. To use your "man with a pointy piece of metal" metaphor, there are plenty of things he can do that a wizard can't. What if the party is challenged to a duel under the Accords, and Skill is chosen? The swordsman is abruptly the best member of the party to deal with this, and the wizard is pretty much useless in this situation. Your argument seems to be that the wizard can say "I summon an ancient spirit of battle into myself, giving myself the Mimic Form ability, which I use to get Fantastic Weapons. Oh, and I conjure a pointier piece of metal."

And that's sort of not okay.


TL;DR: My personal stance on this is that temporary tags can grant Refresh on a 1:1 ratio, but only for one scene. However, if you use them to effectively have powers that you aren't buying or try to D&D 3.5 it up, that's not so cool. To use a weird metaphor, every scene is a lock, and every member of the party is a key. Not every key fits every lock. The wizard shouldn't get to be a skeleton key just because he has Thaumaturgy.

EDIT: Clarity. 

[UmbraLux]

One comment on the earlier discussion about the "difficulty" levels of thaumaturgy.  Counting shifts has little to do with difficulty.  Shifts beyond a relatively low number are accounted for by declarations - basically convincing the group that a given aspect sounds good and rolling a die (or paying a fate point but the die roll costs nothing).  Any difficulty is purely in the group convincing part.     Shift's are not even a good representation of time consumed since declarations are often about something done in the past. 

Regarding thaumaturgy being used to create a justification for powers, I'm ok with a permanent spell.  However, an invoke (or tag) is still needed for each scene it's used in unless you spent refresh on it.  Two reasons for that: one those are the rules (see the sidebar referenced earlier in the thread); and two is keeping the archetypes relatively balanced.  Or at least no more unbalanced than they are in the text. 

There are, of course, as many different ways to approach the issue as there are groups. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Well it was just such an attempt and look a year or so later we were blessed with the MMO neverwinter. so its not so much a lazy and meaningless insult as a prediction a lot of people made the came true.

Plenty of other games have video game versions too, you know. Shadowrun, Vampire, D&D3, Magic, chess, solitaire...it doesn't say anything meaningful about the game itself.

I understand they shouldn't be more powerful for game balance but I have never been able to get around the simple fact, that if magic were indeed real they/it would always overshadow everything else.

What?

How the hell do you know what magic would be like if it were real?

There's really no way to guess something like that. You could go by what people actually believe magic can do, but...real magic would be kind of lame even if it actually worked.

So when I run my games I run with wizards and magic being the pinnacle of the game. I want my players to play wizards. If you want to play say a police girl with a gun and the ability to throw big men down that's fine, but the foes we will be playing against wont be big men that you can just throw down.

Then give the wizards more skill points and extra Refresh.

Skills and Refresh are the measure of power in this game. Two characters who are equal in those traits will be equal power-wise, if everything works as planned.

The Dresden files are about  a wizard who has a bunch of hangers on that help him, but when the story is done it was the wizard who did the heavy lifting.

Harry's the main character, but he's nowhere near the strongest character. He's just in the right place at the right time.

In particular, I'd like to note that the Knights of the Cross make him look pretty weak until he departs from the Wizard Template. And even after that, they do some stuff he simply can't match.

I have never understood why anyone would think that a man with a piece of metal with a pointy end could ever stand up to a man who controls the fundamental forces of the universe. It's not realistic fantasy.

Realistic fantasy? What does that even mean?

Magic has no realistic power level. A magic system can top out at bending spoons, or it can give its weakest users the ability to destroy galaxies. Both are equally plausible.

If you want to make a game about how wizards are better than everyone else, play a high-powered game where all of the PCs cast spells.

[narphoenix]

If you want to make a game about how wizards are better than everyone else, play a high-powered game where all of the PCs cast spells.

Like SDC. Actually, scratch that. The "weakest" character there still uses some magic, but probably not to the extent you're hoping for (and he still kicks tons of ass, by the by, usually without spells). The "strongest" character frequently doesn't use magic at all. Yes, the wizard in the group is badass, but not only a) is she middle of the road compared to the others but b) it really REALLY doesn't matter.

FATE is not about how wizards are better than everyone else. FATE is about telling a story. A story with a godlike protagonist who kills everyone is /boring/. And if all the protagonist have to do the same things or else some will get overshadowed, then FATE isn't doing its job. I mean, it's supposed to be a fun, cooperative game where everyone is equally participating.