Oathbroken Wizard

[Falar]

So I was considering the other day a character concept that had sworn something by his power, but due to events, he did not do whatever it was or it turned out to not be true - so he lost a great measure of his power. Not all of it, not by a long shot, but now he's so terribly weakened that there's not a lot he can really do.

Looking over the powers, there doesn't seem to be anything that really captures that as a concept, so I thought about going for something new that would get the essence of what I wanted down. I could have gone, as many people will probably suggest, for a Focused Practitioner and have his element be whatever my Oathbroken Wizard focused in, but I find that a bit out of line with where I wanted to go. So I came up with the following general idea:

Oathbroken (+1 to +3)
This power is only available to those with Ritual, Channeling, Evocation or Thaumaturgy and may not add back more refresh than one less than the total amount spent on Spellcrafting powers. In the case of Evocation, it decreases the effective Conviction of the character for purposes of spellcasting by -2 for each level it is taken. In the case of Thaumaturgy, it increases the difficulty of any action by a factor of +2. Refinements other than for items may not be purchased until this power is removed from the character sheet.


What do people think of this way of going about creating my character concept? Basically, at the full level I would be taking it for the character (+3), he would be unable to make any reliable magic without either focus items or pumping a lot into his aspects - even at the Submerged level.

[JosephKell]

I don't like using it as a Power.

I think Oathbreaking would be like a social consequence from failing to try to keep faith with an agreement made on your power.

Since consequences don't start to recover until a certain criteria is met, a broken oath could be a special case of not going away until things are made "square."  Instead of having to take time to heal though it would fix itself immediately.

Because of this "sudden recovery" I would say that the severity of the consequence would figure into how often it compels.  In this case you could treat the practitioner's conviction as being lowered by the consequence's value (mild is -2, moderate is -4, severe is -6, extreme is -8) and multiple consequences stack.  Yeah, taking an extreme consequence would basically make a practitioner powerless until they can get rid of the aspect.  The penalty could also apply to Discipline and Lore for usages relating to spellcasting.

Perhaps just half the consequence's reduced stress would be better.  In that case Mild is -1, Moderate is -2, Severe is -3, and Extreme is -4.  -4 is still brutal on a practitioner.

Of course this only applies to broken oaths on a practitioner's power.  But it is a really good reason for a spellcaster to not fink on a "power oath."

Dresden breaking faith with Lea just put a consequence on him that she (and only she) could compel to cripple him.

[Falar]

So you're saying he should start play with his Severe or Extreme Consequence already filled in instead, basically?

[JosephKell]

I would never recommend a player start off or become an Oathbreaker.  Also, you have to consider how the oath was broken.  If a person made an oath and then (through no fault of their own or foreknowledge or inaction) couldn't keep it, I don't view that as a broken oath.  Especially if someone got hurt while trying to meet their bargain.  Magic (and therefore oaths on magic) are about intent, not just effect.

Also, practitioners don't **** around with oaths they swear on their power.  They do their best to be very precise with them.  Instead of "I swear on my power to protect you," they say "I swear on my power to be my best to keep you safe from X until Y."

But if someone wanted to be such a character, they can definitely start off with a filled consequence (there is no rule saying you can start with consequences, but it isn't like consequences automatically go away at the end of a particular story).

As an alternative (or addition) to effectively reducing skills is a straight compel - limitation.  The only problem here is that it doesn't make more serious consequences have more impact (Oath Penalties seem to go away really fast once "forgiven"), but I guess higher consequences could just be compelled more often.

Maybe something like, Mild can be compelled once a session (but that seems weak), Moderate three times a session, Severe once a conflict, Extreme every time.  Maybe Mild is once a scene, moderate twice a scene, severe three times a scene, and extreme is every time?

But there is still the issue of how important an oath is.  Is the first broken oath a mild, then upgrade to moderate, then to severe, then extreme?

[Deadmanwalking]

Personally, I agree with the Consequence idea but disagree with both taking a penalty on rolls and not allowing it on a starting character.

I'd instead do exactly what p. 274 suggests and Compel that sucker. Frequently and viciously. And if he wanted points for it, I'd make him take it as an Extreme Consequence (which would give him a +1 Refresh, IMO). That's really all there is to it.

[WillH]

I think the way to do this would be to have the characters trouble reflect the oath breaking and then just start with a low conviction, with the assumption he once had a higher conviction but was lowered to represent the loss of power. If this was during play, go with an extreme consequence then juggle the skills at a milestone.

[Lanodantheon]

Oath-breaking is more of a story thing, it shouldn't be something that gives you a refund.
It is better represented through an aspect(the result of an extreme consequence).
It would represent not only your power being borked but also the social stigma the supernatural community will have toward you as a result.

[CMEast]

I'd do exactly as DMW suggested, they were my thoughts exactly too.

An oath-breaker is a great character to play in terms of getting the story going, the PC will always be centre stage; and yet the PC will spend most of it's time getting in to, and being pulled out of, trouble. As a GM I'd treat him as a mortal with the sight and possibly the barest tricklings of power, allowing him to use his aspect to get out of serious mortal danger (he's bound to have a fair few fate points).

He'd never be trusted by any of the old-school supernatural and his mere presence would possibly be an insult to some of the higher-ups in the world and that would never change even after the power returned.

I'd also say that not only would it weaken him and put him in the dog house with most of the Old World, I'd also expect it to colour his decisions too. He'd certainly be wary about making promises and oaths but I'd want to see some serious back story and it roleplayed out.

In short, an oathbreaker would be a hell of a character to play in both senses of the word and so I'd allow him to be at least one tier up the ladder compared to the others, perhaps even two depending on how much he'd been neutered.

[Belial666]

Harry was an oathbreaker, remember? He did get a small penalty in power but the biggest penalty was that he got compelled (a lot) to fulfill the oath he broke.

[JosephKell]

Harry was an oathbreaker, remember? He did get a small penalty in power but the biggest penalty was that he got compelled (a lot) to fulfill the oath he broke.

Dresden broke an oath to Lea.  But I don't believe it was an oath on his power.

Breaking faith with a fae just allows them to exercise power over you.

[JustinS]

It works just fine as an aspect.

It can also be a reason behind a low conviction.

[Falar]

I was actually going to give him high Conviction, because he had been a strong practitioner, and it doesn't make sense for him to lose all the other uses of high Conviction when the only thing the oathbreaking did was to leave him without magical juju.

This would also be a function of my lack of ease with the system! Aspect works tee-totally fine with what I was going for - as long as it got compelled almost every time he used a spell. Hmmm. But what about when he is intentionally going for minor effects 'cause he know he can pull off major ones? Would that fall under a total lack of a compel or would y'all still expect him to possibly roll a lower Conviction side?

[Deadmanwalking]

Well, if he's doing less than he can (like only Channeling 4 shifts of Power when he can do 6) I'd call that a Compel for the fight. He deserves something for being screwed like that.

However, I think you might want to re-think having a lowered Conviction. If he broke an Oath on his Power, something he thought he'd never do, that could easily shake his faith in himself and his magic to it's core, lowering Conviction more generally.

[halfer92]

Could the system you suggest also be used for someone who has sworn off their power? For instance, as a boy someone's first example of wizardry involved turning their parents crispy, but later as older man (27) discovers it was a set up and decides to reclaim his power. For people that have read the books, there's already a great example, but shame on spoilers.

[neko128]

Good example of a fairly well thought out, interesting, and potentially both extremely powerful and fun character: Ghost Rider.  In his original incarnation, he made a literal deal with a demon (he thought it was the devil, but it wasn't), wherein he promised his soul for his father's recovery from cancer.  When his father later died in a motorcycle accident, the demon tried to collect, and - when protected by a spell - the demon with whom he made a deal instead forced another demon to co-inhabit his body.  This left him with a couple of major enemies, a "co-pilot", and various extremely powerful abilities.

Perfect set-up to wrap oath-breaking, demonic co-pilot, and almost any set of other supernatural abilities into a nice, tidy little starting package, with a flaming brimstone-smelling bow.