Help judge complexity?

[Cadd]

How do you go about deciding on the complexity of thaumaturgy of those harder-to-pin-down things?

My character is about to perform a ritual to suffuse an entire (smallish) house with sunlight, metaphysically. It's not going to be actually illuminated, but for the purposes of beings affected by sunlight (primarily the Red Court etc) the house is going to be filled with sunlight 24/7. This is the culmination of middling length scenario, centered around creating this effect to settle a debt.

To accomplish this we've had a couple sessions in the Nevernever hunting down a rare type of crystal inspired by those Harry see illuminating the Ostentatiatory in Edinburgh. A couple failed attempt to find and acquire it has led to my character being appropriately banged up, and finally actually made a deal with a Sidhe providing the crystal as the sugar on top of a deal. (Yes, I'm aiming to get the poor guy in deep trouble )

Now, I'm not sure how to go about handling it mechanically. The plan is to have the actual ritual be performed under some amount of pressure for time, but it will of course be balanced around how big the ritual needs to be.

How would you suggest?

[dragoonbuster]

Use the Adjective ladder and ask, "What kind of wizard could pull this off? Could a Good one do it? A Superb one?" Then add shifts for duration past a sunrise.

Or just decide how strong you want it to be, since you're basically putting an aspect over an area [Diffused with Sunlight]. Since it's a sort of magically created/directed sunlight, I'd say a creature sensitive to such things would roll its Conviction to enter the area, so for a fullproof spell you need to add 5 to whatever highest creature Conviction you expect to run across. Plus shifts for duration.

[narphoenix]

Or just decide how strong you want it to be, since you're basically putting an aspect over an area [Diffused with Sunlight]. Since it's a sort of magically created/directed sunlight, I'd say a creature sensitive to such things would roll its Conviction to enter the area, so for a fullproof spell you need to add 5 to whatever highest creature Conviction you expect to run across. Plus shifts for duration.

This one is probably better.

[Haru]

I'm not entirely sure this needs to be a ritual per the book. At least I don't think you'd get the most out of this that way.

Two questions come to mind immediately: What's the time pressure and what happens in the case of a failure?

To me, it feels like revolving the pivotal scene around these questions could be far more exiting than a mechanical question. The ritual could mostly be the backdrop for the scene and add some drama, but otherwise not need a number as such.

[dragoonbuster]

I'm not entirely sure this needs to be a ritual per the book. At least I don't think you'd get the most out of this that way.

Two questions come to mind immediately: What's the time pressure and what happens in the case of a failure?

To me, it feels like revolving the pivotal scene around these questions could be far more exiting than a mechanical question. The ritual could mostly be the backdrop for the scene and add some drama, but otherwise not need a number as such.

This works too. I picture a scene where PCs are holding off a number of sunlight-sensitive things from getting to the Wizard's ritual spell while he attempts to channel shifts in time to get the spell up before they all are overwhelmed.

[Quantus]

Im with Haru, this sounds like it would be better handled from it's narrative implication on the scene rather than pure game mechanics. I think it would really just come down to the scene's objectives, the success and fail scenarios, and what you want the primary challenge to be for the PCs 

What does the spell ritual do specifically?  As in, will it destroy them all in a nice big wave of light, or will it just weaken them enough that the rest of the table can take them down while they're depowered?  Is the scene about holding them off while you get the spell up like DB pictured, or is it to hold the spell up for some amount of time?  If interrupted do they just start the duration over?  Does it literally blow up in their face? Do they have some astrological time-frame where they have a limited window?  Are the attackers aware of the ritual and actively trying to stop it, or is it a trap they are walking into?  How many of the table will be devoted to the ritual vs the defenses?  Since your talking about filling a building with light, is the magical construct at one location or are there multiple "nodes" throughout the building, and if so how many can it loose before the ritual fails? 

[Cadd]

Thanks for the input people!

The situation is a little bit odd - there isn't actually any other players at the table, this is a one-on-one game I'm playing with my GM.

What we needed was a refocus on the basic question of "do we have an interesting outcome for success or failure?" We realized that neither of us sees this as something interesting to fail, since there is no logical result of failure that still leaves the character alive and we have too many more stories we want to explore with this guy

So, instead of playing out the ritual itself we'll play out the (hurried) preparations, and as soon as the wizard sits down in his circle to start his ritual we cut to the other people in the building - the ones that have to keep the ravenous, old, powerful, out-of-control RCI away from the ritual without killing her or allowing her to kill any of them.

For the curious - the end effect of the ritual is a long-term thing, making the house a safehouse for the Fellowship of S:t Giles. The "sunlight" will work as both a help in recuperating after drawing on the vampire part too heavily for too long, as well as protection if the house would be compromised - most Rampires would be completely incapable of even entering the house, but that would come as a surprise since there is no visible light coming out of the house.
In the short term, it will help subdue the above mentioned RCI enough for her to not rip out throats and instead get time to cool off and regain control of herself.

[Quantus]

Thanks for the input people!

The situation is a little bit odd - there isn't actually any other players at the table, this is a one-on-one game I'm playing with my GM.

What we needed was a refocus on the basic question of "do we have an interesting outcome for success or failure?" We realized that neither of us sees this as something interesting to fail, since there is no logical result of failure that still leaves the character alive and we have too many more stories we want to explore with this guy

So, instead of playing out the ritual itself we'll play out the (hurried) preparations, and as soon as the wizard sits down in his circle to start his ritual we cut to the other people in the building - the ones that have to keep the ravenous, old, powerful, out-of-control RCI away from the ritual without killing her or allowing her to kill any of them.

For the curious - the end effect of the ritual is a long-term thing, making the house a safehouse for the Fellowship of S:t Giles. The "sunlight" will work as both a help in recuperating after drawing on the vampire part too heavily for too long, as well as protection if the house would be compromised - most Rampires would be completely incapable of even entering the house, but that would come as a surprise since there is no visible light coming out of the house.
In the short term, it will help subdue the above mentioned RCI enough for her to not rip out throats and instead get time to cool off and regain control of herself.

Ah, interesting!  The obvious tactical questions would then become how Happy and/or Faithful of a person is the PC?  Having sunlight folded in a hanky or a nice glowing icon of Faith would be very helpful in that situation.  Oooh, what fun