Author Topic: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...  (Read 9815 times)

Offline TheRedBaron

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Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« on: June 02, 2010, 03:40:14 AM »
Because I'm a tad unclear after reading the book, though I've spoken authoritatively to my players. It'd be nice to have Fred or someone else in here commenting on them. Confirm for me or argue about the following:

1) Sponsored Magic does not allow Refinements to be taken to upgrade the magic (as Refinements are specifically for Thaumaturgy, Channeling, Ritual and Evocation, and Sponsored Magic is none of those, and as it specifically isn't your magic, but that pulled from an outside source)...

2)...but it does allow rotes... (since the rote rules don't specify either way)

3) ...and allows a mortal to "break" the Laws of Magic (this one I'm actually dead certain of; I just put it here because I'd like to hear people back me up. It's not mortal magic you're using to break the Laws, but immortal magic from an outside source. You don't get the mystical feedback mortal magic does, so it's effectively like a magical gun - nothing more than a tool in your hands, not an innate part of you. You'd be no more likely to develop an aspect from repeated killings as you would from repeatedly killing people any other way).

Am I correct?

Offline luminos

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2010, 03:46:21 AM »
2 is true for certain.  1 I'm not certain on.  3, I disagree with you.  I don't think Jim has ever stated that getting your magic from a sponsor gets you out of the laws, and it wouldn't make sense to make that the case for the game.  Part of the drawback of using magic is being restrained by the three laws.  If sponsorship got you out of it, then everyone who ever plays a focused practicioner is going to look for some obscure source to make his magic sponsored.
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Offline Archmage_Cowl

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2010, 03:48:49 AM »
1.) not usually
2.)yepo
3.) depends. like if you use hellfire you'll probably get lawbreaker cause they want you to. normally i would say no. thats how i rule it.
"I who stand in the full light of the heavens, command thee, who opens the gates to hell. Come forth Divine Lightning! This ends now! Indignation!" Jade Curtis Tales of the abyss

Offline Michael,HandofGod

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2010, 04:24:22 AM »
1 and 2 look right, but I have to disagree on 3.

Like it says in the books, the Laws of Magic are often about the spirit of the law.  Even if you don't technically use mortal magic, you are a mortal using magic to kill.  By some definitions, the fact that it is a mortal using the magic makes it into 'mortal magic.'  Either way, the Wardens aren't going to care that the fireball you fried some person with was powered by Summer.  They're just going to care that you used a magical fireball to kill someone.
I don't believe in things that go bump in the night.  It's more like a thud...

One, two!  One, two!  And through, and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went gallumphing back.
                                            ~Lewis Carroll

Offline TheRedBaron

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2010, 04:36:20 AM »
The Wardens might care, but like I said, it's not your magic - it's someone else's. You'd get a sword to the neck for tossing around hellfire, maybe, but not a Lawbreaker stunt (though you'd already be a monster if you're using hellfire).

The Lawbreaking aspect comes from the subtle magical change in your soul and aspects - once you break a Law, it becomes easier to see that as the solution to all of your problems. While, yes, you might get the same idea from a gun, magic is something a little more fundamental and far more personal to you. But Sponsored Magic adds, again, that impersonal removal from the source of the magic.

Still, if Fred or Jim stops by and tells me otherwise, I'll be happy to revise my statement. I'm only going by the game rules.

Offline Michael,HandofGod

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2010, 04:38:52 AM »
I guess you could argue that, since you are the one directing the sponsored magic, it is still a part of you, but I guess this one is better left up to GM discretion (unless, like you said, Word of God tells us otherwise).
I don't believe in things that go bump in the night.  It's more like a thud...

One, two!  One, two!  And through, and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went gallumphing back.
                                            ~Lewis Carroll

Offline luminos

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2010, 04:43:02 AM »
You still have to use your conviction to power the spells right?  I see no reason that having a non-standard source of the power will prevent bad uses of the magic to change the PC.
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Offline Deadmanwalking

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2010, 07:08:14 AM »
1. Untrue, I think. It's explicitly a specific variety of Ritual and Channeling. You can thus get Refinement for it for extra items...though not for anything else.

2. True enough.

3. No. Just no. Harry was MORE effected mentally and spiritually by using Hellfire than by using his normal magic, why would that be different if he killed someone? Or different for other sources of magic? You still need to believe completely to use it, so it still grants Lawbreaker.

Offline Wordmaker

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2010, 08:06:16 AM »
It may depend on the kind of sponsored magic you have.

For example, Kemmlerian Necromancy is about as evil as you can get, and in narrative terms is really just a very powerful school of mortal magic. So yes, I'd say using that to break the laws would change your soul and get you Lawbreaker.

Hellfire and Soulfire aren't independent power on their own. They enhance and alter your existing magical talents. So you're still using your own magic, you're just getting a boost from the infernal or divine realm. As such, definitely Lawbreaker for using it to break the laws.

Where things get murky is fae magic. Now, most of the beings using fae magic are going to be changelings or actual fae, so they wouldn't be affected in the same way. But envoys granted power from the Courts, such as the Summer or Winter Knight, are mortal. Since their purpose is to allow the fae courts an emissary who can directly deal with mortals, they would most certainly be expected to kill to protect their queens. I'd rule that in those cases, the power you use, since it's not actually your own, you wouldn't get Lawbreaker for breaking the laws.

Granted, being a Knight of the Fae Courts has problems all of its own...

Of course, things would get even murkier if it was a wizard who became a Faerie Knight, since then the sponsored magic is really just adding to his own power.

Perhaps that's a good way of looking at it? If the character is a magic-user in their own right, then they're subject to the Lawbreaker stunt for violations, but if they're just a mundane human without it, they're exempt?

Offline JustinS

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2010, 08:10:09 AM »
With regard to 3, there are two different questions:
Will the wardens be after you for breaking the laws?
Will you need to take the Lawbreaker stunts?

Both are separate things you need to discuss with your GM, or your player.

With the wardens, if you are human, you need to follow the laws, but are also protected by them. If not, then wizards are free to fry you to crispy bacon. The quick question to ask is if you are covered by the unseelie accords, and if so, by who? If you are under the white council umbrella, you most certainly are at risk of warden.

With Lawbreaker, you need to figure out how you and your magic relate.
I can see pure sponsored magic avoiding lawbreaker in some situations, but that the cost and limits of it being only at the whim of the sponcer should be a similar set of limits and drawbacks (I've had the discussion here before), but it also seems from the books that if you have your own magic, sponsored magic adds a boost on top, and you are still fully libel. The one or two points you saved by already having mortal magic are the points that would have carried the ignore lawbreaker with this specific power only effect... (the effect you get with the vampire feeding and mind control powers as already priced in)

Offline toturi

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #10 on: June 02, 2010, 09:13:06 AM »
If sponsorship got you out of it, then everyone who ever plays a focused practicioner is going to look for some obscure source to make his magic sponsored.
There is a difference between a Lawbreaker and a lawbreaker. A wizard that is thought to use magic to kill is a lawbreaker. A wizard that actually uses magic to kill is a Lawbreaker.

Thus in game terms, if Hades sponsored you his touch and you use that sponsored Death Touch to kill people, I do not think you'd get a mystical feedback that is the Lawbreaker stunt but the Wardens may still come after you if they think you are a warlock. So insofar as the rules are concerned, I think the RedBaron is right.
With your laws of magic, wizards would pretty much just be helpless carebears who can only do magic tricks. - BumblingBear

Offline luminos

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2010, 09:21:24 AM »
And I disagree.  It doesn't matter who's gun you are using, it matters that you are the one using it. 

On the point about the wardens, I think Sponsorship actually reduces the likelihood they go after you.  After all, council politics means that they frequently don't want to rock the boat with major supernatural powers by beheading their lackeys.
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Offline toturi

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #12 on: June 02, 2010, 09:23:38 AM »
And I disagree.  It doesn't matter who's gun you are using, it matters that you are the one using it.  

On the point about the wardens, I think Sponsorship actually reduces the likelihood they go after you.  After all, council politics means that they frequently don't want to rock the boat with major supernatural powers by beheading their lackeys.
Yes, as you have said.

And as I have said, I agree with Red Baron. It doesn't matter that you are the one using it, it only matters (to the metaphysics of the Dresdenverse or at least the way the rules of DFRPG are concerned) whose gun it is.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2010, 09:31:28 AM by toturi »
With your laws of magic, wizards would pretty much just be helpless carebears who can only do magic tricks. - BumblingBear

Offline TheRedBaron

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #13 on: June 02, 2010, 01:10:37 PM »
Quote from: Wordmaker
For example, Kemmlerian Necromancy is about as evil as you can get, and in narrative terms is really just a very powerful school of mortal magic. So yes, I'd say using that to break the laws would change your soul and get you Lawbreaker.

Hellfire and Soulfire aren't independent power on their own. They enhance and alter your existing magical talents. So you're still using your own magic, you're just getting a boost from the infernal or divine realm. As such, definitely Lawbreaker for using it to break the laws.

Yeah, you're already a Lawbreaker if you're picking up Kemmlerian Necromancy. Although, if Sponsored Magic doesn't Lawbreak across the board, it might be a good way to preserve some of your aspects while still utilizing necromancy (not that the Wardens would pay that distinction much heed).

If you've got hellfire, you're probably a monster already who doesn't care about invading minds; if you've got soulfire, you probably care quite a bit about not killing people.

I can see pure sponsored magic avoiding lawbreaker in some situations, but that the cost and limits of it being only at the whim of the sponcer should be a similar set of limits and drawbacks (I've had the discussion here before), but it also seems from the books that if you have your own magic, sponsored magic adds a boost on top, and you are still fully libel. The one or two points you saved by already having mortal magic are the points that would have carried the ignore lawbreaker with this specific power only effect... (the effect you get with the vampire feeding and mind control powers as already priced in)

And I can agree with that - if you're using it as a boost to your own magic (narratively), then you'd be subject to Lawbreaker stunts. But if you're a Knight of a Faerie Court - designated specifically to mess around with the humans the Ladies and Queens can't touch - I don't see why you couldn't fireball some guy with a gun.

I guess the discussion is a bit more fruitful! The general consensus seems to be:

1) You can't take Refinements.
2) You can take rotes.
3) Up for debate.

Offline feliscon

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Re: Sponsored Magic - just for confirmation's sake...
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2010, 03:30:37 PM »
I'd say you can take refinements, but only for item slots, the same as Channeling and Ritual, since the book says that Sponsored Magic is built on the idea of it being a special form of the above powers.