Channeling Tattoos (was "Inhuman Toughness [Backlash]")

[KOFFEYKID]

New Concept:

So to give a better explanation for my question; I was reading paranet papers and obviously everybody who loves wizards in dfrpg has seen the Mental Toughness power chain. Looking at it I became dissatisfied with the obvious progression, sure you have more spells via the longer stress track but unless you have a means you wont necessarily be able to take advantage of the increase in shifts of power. Your #10 box provides 9 more shifts of power than your #1 box, and reaching Conviction + 9 in control isn't necessarily easy to do.

So the obvious thing, something that has been holding conviction based spell-casters back is the lack of fallout and/or backlash mitigation. This compounds the fact that discipline is superior since excess shifts equal excess damage anyway .

Reading more of Paranet Papers, this seems to obviously be the kind of thing the soulfire stress track looks good for. For example 6 refresh in Soulfire and Inhuman Mental Toughness lets you perfectly absorb backlash for your entire mental stress track (5 mental stress boxes call for absorbing backlash, and you have 5 boxes of soulfire stress)

So now I'm thinking a "Channelling Tattoos" sponsored magic which works similarly. Something like:

Channelling Tattoos
You have tattoos covering your body which have been designed to safely channel the backlash from summoning large amounts of magical energy. Furthermore, if you are skilled in their application, you can make use of this excess energy to power magical tattoos which function as enchanted items.
Musts:  You must have both the Evocation and Thaumaturgy powers, and at least one crafting specialization. You must change one of your aspects to represent your new magical paradigm.
Skils Effected: Conviction, Discipline, Lore
Cost Varies, at least -3. Since Channelling tattoos require evocation and thaumaturgy there is no discount for having either.
Effects:
Magical Tattoos. You can craft magical tattoos as enchanted items. You gain 4 enchanted item slots, and you gain +1 Strength and +1 Uses per day, stacking with any specializations you may currently have. While magical tattoos can not easily be removed they can be damaged, either through mundane means (burning, slashing, etc) or by channelling more backlash than you can control.
The Tattoo Stress Track. The tattoo stress track defaults to two boxes, like most stress tracks. You can opt to increase its size by taking more refresh in the Channelling Tattoos power, -1 per box. The track can only take self-inflicted stress for the purposes of absorbing backlash—no one can attack this stress track, and you can’t use it to absorb stress from any other source. You must choose to use it to absorb backlash from your spell-casting. You also get a single mild consequence slot to reflect the impact of channelling backlash or having your tattoos damaged though mundane means. Proper aspects would describe burnout or physical damage of your magical tattoo enchantments, making them less effective, unreliable and possibly fatal to use.

Original Post:

What do you all think of Inhuman Toughness or greater that only protected against backlash damage? Perhaps via tattoos of some sort that channel the excess magic in a safer way.

[PirateJack]

That would be a focus item (power).

[Cadd]

A focus item increasing power does nothing to make Backlash safer. In fact, it will rather make Backlash more likely and more dangerous as it's easier to draw more power.

I'm not entirely sure how to go about calculating the "bang for your buck" on spending refresh to negate Backlash, versus spending refresh to increase Control (via Refinement). The idea feels evocative though.

[PirateJack]

Actually, that's specifically what power focus items are for; increasing the amount of power you can safely channel before having to take backlash.

[Cadd]

No, Backlash happens when you can't control all the power you've called. You can either suffer Fallout (excess hits the area around you) or Backlash (you suffer stress equal to the excess).

[KOFFEYKID]

So to give a better explanation for my question; I was reading paranet papers and obviously everybody who loves wizards in dfrpg has seen the Mental Toughness power chain. Looking at it I became dissatisfied with the obvious progression, sure you have more spells via the longer stress track but unless you have a means you wont necessarily be able to take advantage of the increase in shifts of power. Your #10 box provides 9 more shifts of power than your #1 box, and reaching Conviction + 9 in control isn't necessarily easy to do.

So the obvious thing, something that has been holding conviction based spell-casters back is the lack of fallout and/or backlash mitigation. This compounds the fact that discipline is superior since excess shifts equal excess damage anyway .

Reading more of Paranet Papers, this seems to obviously be the kind of thing the soulfire stress track looks good for. For example 6 refresh in Soulfire and Inhuman Mental Toughness lets you perfectly absorb backlash for your entire mental stress track (5 mental stress boxes call for absorbing backlash, and you have 5 boxes of soulfire stress)

So now I'm thinking a "Channelling Tattoos" sponsored magic which works similarly. Something like:

Channelling Tattoos
You have tattoos covering your body which have been designed to safely channel the backlash from summoning large amounts of magical energy. Furthermore, if you are skilled in their application, you can make use of this excess energy to power magical tattoos which function as enchanted items.
Musts:  You must have both the Evocation and Thaumaturgy powers, and at least one crafting specialization.
Skils Effected: Conviction, Discipline, Lore
Cost Varies, at least -3. Since Channelling tattoos require evocation and thaumaturgy there is no discount for having either.
Effects:
Magical Tattoos. You can craft magical tattoos as enchanted items. You gain 4 enchanted item slots, and you gain +1 Strength and +1 Uses per day, stacking with any specializations you may currently have. While magical tattoos can not easily be removed they can be damaged, either in battle or by channelling more backlash than you can control.
The Tattoo Stress Track. The tattoo stress track defaults to two boxes, like most stress tracks. You can opt to increase its size by taking more refresh in the Channelling Tattoos power, -1 per box. The track can only take self-inflicted stress for the purposes of absorbing backlash—no one can attack this stress track, and you can’t use it to absorb stress from any other source. You must choose to use it to absorb backlash from your spell-casting. You also get a single mild consequence slot to reflect the impact of channelling backlash or having your tattoos damaged though mundane means. Proper aspects would describe burnout or physical damage of your magical tattoo enchantments, making them less effective, unreliable and possibly fatal to use.

[Haru]

This came up when we set up Rising Tides. We ended up agreeing that toughness and recovery powers would count against backlash, as long as it was physical backlash. It would negate as much as it could, nothing about at least 1 stress left or anything like that. So far, it hasn't broken anything, and I doubt it ever will. It seems like it would be incredibly powerful at first, but it comes up surprisingly rarely. Not nearly enough to charge that much refresh for it.

[KOFFEYKID]

I think it is going to start coming up more often though, since Mental Toughness is now a thing. It was fine to stack control only and get +3 to control the stress from larger mental stress boxes, but now we have to believe that Ancient Mai should be able to effectively control +9 shifts over her conviction? I know fate points are probably the answer but with Soulfire as an example I think this should be fine too.

-edit-

Though now I have to wonder if just taking Physical Immunity (To Backlash Only), with a catch of "Only vs Backlash, and beaten by literally anything else" being worth a total of +4. Four refresh for not having to worry about fallout ever isn't a bad deal.

[Sanctaphrax]

Couldn't you just take the backlash as mental stress and use mental toughness to absorb it?

The tattoo Power seems a bit like a solution in search of a problem, to me.

This came up when we set up Rising Tides. We ended up agreeing that toughness and recovery powers would count against backlash, as long as it was physical backlash. It would negate as much as it could, nothing about at least 1 stress left or anything like that. So far, it hasn't broken anything, and I doubt it ever will.

I suspect that that's because your players aren't big optimizers. That makes some builds that are already very strong even stronger. Which is rarely a good thing.

I dunno if I'd call it "broken", but it's a substantial upgrade to people who really don't need an upgrade.

Though now I have to wonder if just taking Physical Immunity (To Backlash Only), with a catch of "Only vs Backlash, and beaten by literally anything else" being worth a total of +4. Four refresh for not having to worry about fallout ever isn't a bad deal.

I think you could bring the cost of that Power down to 2 by making it public knowledge. But even for 4 I think it's probably too good. A spell fuelled with backlash has its full effect, after all, so someone with no fear of backlash could drop massive blocks to paralyse enemies and there'd be almost nothing anyone could do about it.

[Cadd]

How many Refresh should it cost to turn all spells (of any power) into a Rote, AND turn all Thaumaturgy into a question of how much Mental Stress you want to spend to speed it up? Because that's what Physical Immunity (Backlash) would do. Control would no longer be a factor, Discipline's only function in magic would be to aim.
No, I'd flat out disallow Immunity to Backlash.

Regular Toughness I think yes, but I'd only count it as a +2 Catch (for the "only against specific thing") as no one else can weaponize it.
Arguments can be made the other way around of course, but I think paying 2 refresh for A:2 and four stressboxes (potentially valued at 5-8 stress) eserved for Backlash is plenty powerful enough. That will basically mean the wizard in question will always go for super-big spells, because there's always high-value stressboxes ready to counter a poor Control roll.

[Haru]

Though now I have to wonder if just taking Physical Immunity (To Backlash Only), with a catch of "Only vs Backlash, and beaten by literally anything else" being worth a total of +4. Four refresh for not having to worry about fallout ever isn't a bad deal.

That sounds broken. You could pretty much summon up 1000 shifts if you like, taking all the excess as backlash that gets negated.

May I ask, what exactly is your goal with this? Just to be able to cast more powerful spells? I think refinement got you covered there fairly well, at least for those spells your wizard specializes in. And a bit of risk being involved with spellcasting is ok, I think.

[Taran]

You can't draw up a thousand shifts because you need to take the mental stress for drawing power so the most you can draw is your stress track plus all your consequences.  24 shifts?  But you can only do that once.   I don't think you should immune to drawing power.

Also, if you have physical toughness, it should apply to backlash.  If your going to have 'self inflicted' as a catch (on top of your usual catch), you should get an extra rebate on your refresh because, as a spell caster, your catch will be met every session so that should be worth some kind of rebate. 

[Sanctaphrax]

May I ask, what exactly is your goal with this? Just to be able to cast more powerful spells?

To be able to use Mental Toughness to its full extent, I think. Because if you use your 8th mental stress box to cast something, and your control and power are roughly balanced, you're likely facing a lot of backlash.

But by my reading you can use Mental Toughness on that backlash anyway.

Also, if you have physical toughness, it should apply to backlash.  If your going to have 'self inflicted' as a catch (on top of your usual catch), you should get an extra rebate on your refresh because, as a spell caster, your catch will be met every session so that should be worth some kind of rebate.

Eh. There's a note on page 250 of YS which says that you can't armour against self-inflicted harm. Dunno whether that's meant to apply to extra stress boxes too.

Personally I prefer to think that physical Toughness doesn't work against backlash because "Wizard who spent 1 Refresh to buy Supernatural Toughness with a +3 Catch" is already a really powerful character design. But Mental Toughness isn't nearly so strong, and I'm fine with it stopping backlash.

And I wouldn't be so sure that a caster is going to take backlash every session. A control-oriented caster or one who uses a lot of Aspects can quite feasibly go quite a long time without failing a control roll.