Some Magic Powers, for Discussion

[UmbraLux]

Was "Blood Magic" intended to replace the mental track with the physical for purposes of casting?  If so, it needs to be clarified...using "add power" makes me think it's using / changing the standard sacrifice rules.

[KOFFEYKID]

I will try my hand at making a Blood Magic with jives with the standard mental track spellcasting as well.

The idea here is to make Blood Magic useful but dangerous as hell.

Blood Magic [-0]
Description: You give your lifeblood as a sacrifice to fuel your magic.
Musts: You must have thaumaturgy, evocation, sponsored magic, or some other form of magical ability.
Skills Affected: Conviction
Effects:
Power in the Blood. You may take physical stress (or physical consequences) in place of mental stress (or mental consequences) in order to fuel your magic. Stress and consequences you take in this way are considered to bypass all catches and thus you do not benefit from Recovery powers, Toughness powers, or Armor.
Backlash of Power. Blood magic is very potent, very dangerous and very addictive. After using blood magic you must roll discipline (with the same bonuses) versus your original discipline roll, as if you were facing an attack of the same value. If the attack succeeds you take an extra toll in physical or mental stress. This extra stress is considered to bypass all catches and thus you do not benefit from Recovery powers, Toughness powers, or Armor.

For Example: Tommy uses blood magic to cast a 5 shift evocation spell. He rolls a 5 to control the shifts of power he called up. Now he must defend versus an attack with an accuracy of 5 and a weapon rating of 0. He rolls a 4 and takes one extra stress, which his player may allocate to either the physical stress track or the mental stress track as he sees fit. If it was allocated to the mental stress track, the pleasure of the power coursing through his body has impacted him in a negative manner. If it was allocated to the physical stress track his body had difficulty handling the strain of so much energy rushing out of him, fatiguing him just a little more than he had expected.

[ways and means]

Uhm its a zero power which makes you use physical stress instead of mental (so you have less boxes for getting hit) and then attacks you each time you use it, without toughness powers casting with physical stress has no advantage over mental so this power is just negative it gives you a severe negative and a minimal positive (unless the attack roll replaces the original stress to cast). 

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Uhm its a zero power which makes you use physical stress instead of mental (so you have less boxes for getting hit) and then attacks you each time you use it, without toughness powers casting with physical stress has no advantage over mental so this power is just negative it gives you a severe negative and a minimal positive (unless the attack roll replaces the original stress to cast).

Well, it does nearly double the number of spells you can cast since there's no prohibition against using your physical track for one spell then your mental for the next.  If anything it's under-costed.  Yes, I know that's not a word but I'm on my first cup of coffee;  give a guy a break.

[ways and means]

Suppose it might be nice with a feeding power (so a free recovery period means quadruple casting) and I suppose there is no rule that you can't cast normally to get rid of your mental stress before falling back on blood magic.

[Tsunami]

+2/+1 to a single spell can be achieved with 2 Focus item slots if you lock it down. Costs 1 Refresh.

So, Signature Spell is basically an internalized Focus item locked down to a single spell
Seems fairly balanced, though extreme stacking could be a problem.

Important would be to specify that you can only take the Power once.

[KOFFEYKID]

Uhm its a zero power which makes you use physical stress instead of mental (so you have less boxes for getting hit) and then attacks you each time you use it, without toughness powers casting with physical stress has no advantage over mental so this power is just negative it gives you a severe negative and a minimal positive (unless the attack roll replaces the original stress to cast).

I disagree.

1) It increases the number of spells you can cast in one sitting.
2) Using Blood Magic should not be overtly more powerful than casting with Mental Stress. Once a thing becomes obviously better it becomes necessary to keep up with the "arms race". If something is so obviously good that you would be an idiot not to take it, it makes the field of play stale.

[UmbraLux]

I might agree to the -0 version of Blood Magic if it replaces normal casting entirely.   In other words, the blood mage wouldn't have the option of just using mental stress.  (Reminds me of Shadowrun, may have to work up a villain along these lines.)

I'm not a fan of being able to choose between physical and mental stress.  Wizards are powerful enough without the extra boost.

[Sanctaphrax]

It's overpowered, because it isn't useless.

The drawbacks on this power only trigger when the power is used, which is optional. So there's no reason not to take it.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Why not just make it a -3 Power that does exactly what Evocation does except using the physical track?  Let it be just a re-skinning of Evocation.  You'd need to treat it as a separate casting skill from Evocation though.  Specializations and focus items go to one or the other if you have both.