Author Topic: Magically Giving Oneself Powers  (Read 5160 times)

Offline MijRai

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Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« on: August 24, 2010, 07:16:08 AM »
Okay, so with Sponsored Seelie Magic, you get biomancy at the speed of Evocation. How would you use that to give yourself Speed, Strength, Recovery, or Toughness powers? My idea was to make each refresh represent a shift of power, with more being added for how many exchanges it would last.
Say I had a guy with 5 Conviction and Discipline. He had Sponsored Seelie Magic. Could he cast an Evocation at five shifts that gives him Inhuman Strength for 3 exchanges, or Supernatural Strength for one exchange?

This would be for a Summer Knight without any magic besides what was given to him. He needed a leg up in fighting super-strong baddies, so he used the magic he was given to make himself stronger.
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Offline Ophidimancer

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2010, 11:55:02 AM »
Transformations require that you Take yourself Out, so you need to have enough shifts to overcome your own Stress, then I think you have to produce a shift for every point of Refresh in powers you want to give yourself, secondly, you have to spend the Power's Refresh in Fate Points, as per the Temporary Powers rule on page 92.

Offline MijRai

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2010, 04:05:32 PM »
Transformations require that you Take yourself Out, so you need to have enough shifts to overcome your own Stress, then I think you have to produce a shift for every point of Refresh in powers you want to give yourself, secondly, you have to spend the Power's Refresh in Fate Points, as per the Temporary Powers rule on page 92.

I don't see it as a Transformation. More like supercharging. Putting magic into the muscles and bones, to make them stronger. Besides, that refers to being given the powers. This is all the character, doing fun things with magic. Should I attach a Modular Abilities to it, allowing myself to draw from it for the powers?
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Offline Ophidimancer

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2010, 04:45:18 PM »
I don't see it as a Transformation. More like supercharging. Putting magic into the muscles and bones, to make them stronger.

Ok, then you're doing a Maneuver that adds Aspects.  Powers are different.  If you're getting Powers, it's changing something about you fundamentally.

Besides, that refers to being given the powers.

It's basically the rule for how the system deals with getting temporary powers.

Should I attach a Modular Abilities to it, allowing myself to draw from it for the powers?

If you transform yourself to have Modular Abilities and pay the Fate Points, yes.

Offline babel2uk

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2010, 04:53:43 PM »
The closest I can find in the rulebook is under Biomancy. It points you towards the Transportation and World Walking section on page 282. Which in turn deals with supercharging in terms of maneuvers that put aspects on the character, or mimicing the effects of a high roll of the appropriate type (which is essentially covered under the 'Solve Improbable or Impossible Problems' section on page 263). These would seem the easiest and fairest way of boosting a character via Sponsored Thaumaturgy.

Allowing them to boost themselves via Sponsored Thaumaturgy makes the character massively unbalanced - they can effectively have 8 refresh worth of supernatural powers any time they want for the cost of only 4 refresh. That's assuming you limit them to only Inhuman levels of Recovery, Speed, Strength and Toughness, if you let them go as far as Supernatural that rises sharply to 16 refresh worth of power.

Gaining powers from a sponsor should always be done within the context of a bargain or oath. They won't bestow it for free. It will cost Refresh to buy, and you'll become more indebted to the sponsor. There are rules which would seem applicable in the Mid-Session Power Upgrade section on page 91 and 92.

Offline MijRai

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2010, 05:29:17 PM »
I'll lock the extra points into modular abilities if I ever make it.

Besides, if you read my first post, it is for a Summer Knight. He uses his 'Biomancy at the Speed of Evocation' bonus from Seelie magic to do it. They wouldn't be permanent, they would last as long as the shifts to effect last (unless you put more power in, which you can do).
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Offline TheMouse

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2010, 05:42:58 PM »
Giving yourself supernatural powers with magic -- even on the short term -- is really powerful. That's why it requires you to Take yourself Out. It's just hugely powerful to add to the existing power and flexibility of magic with powers.

Modular powers are the way to go for this type of thing. Marked By Power [-1] and Modular Powers [-6] puts you in the range of an 8+ Refresh character.

Offline Becq

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #7 on: August 27, 2010, 10:07:38 PM »
Well, YS284 states that Biomancy can be used to "supercharge" body attributes such as strength, speed, etc, though it suggests that physical consequences are a common side-effect due to (for example) the muscles making promises the skeleton can't keep.  A bit later on YS287, it indicates that Psychomancy can do the same thing for mental abilities, with similar side-effects.

As far as difficulties, the only example I can find is the Escape Potion.  This uses the 'simple action' option for Thaumaturgy, which (if I understand correctly) basically translates complexity into an effective result on a simple action.  Based on this example, if I wanted to get enough biomantic strength to lift a midsize car (requires a +9 might result), this would be a complexity 9 spell.  For simple action-flavored thaumaturgy, I think the duration is long enough to perform the action, which probably means an exchange or two, or *maybe* a few minutes, though it could be bumped up by adding shifts dictated by the time chart.  Using Biomancy as Evocation, this would be one exchange, plus an exchange per shift paid to increase duration.  Based on the side effect discussion, a GM might *require* that a consequence be part of the payment for the spell.

This doesn't really answer the question, though, which is how to use Biomancy to grant refresh-grade strength, speed, and toughness (Recovery is largely covered by the sample healing spell provided, which downgrades consequences much like Inhuman Recovery).  Some aspects of this are on the easy side (toughness is mostly an armor effect; in this case you're using Biomancy insead of Spirit to generate the effect), others less so.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2010, 10:39:40 PM by Becq »

Offline Mylessc

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2010, 05:38:09 PM »
OK, so I have a really great example of a power being granted via a potion in both the novels and in DFRPG: Victor Sells 3 Eye potions. The potions have the effect of granting the user the effects of the sight (a 1 point refresh power) as listed the potions only require 2 shifts of power to create. The potion is listed on page 226 of OW. Now admittedly the potion does not allow the user real control over the new power (I figure as a GM this creates an easily compellable aspect on any character who chooses to imbue himself or others with a power. [i.e. Inhuman strength: Dude your crushing my hand!/ Eek! That guy just one handed a keg. He must be on PCP!!] Gm's use it make your PC's lives hell and your player's lives a riot.)

Now extrapolating from that that a 1 point refresh power can be mimicked with 2 shifts of power one can argue that it costs 2 shifts of power per refresh point of power that you wish to mimic. Now I will point out that if this is true it presents a game breaking number of possible power combinations when combined with the uses of sponsored magic. To that effect I recommend that GM's limit the users of sponsored magic to effects of complexity no greater than the casters lore for effects with a ritual duration or things can get really out of hand.

Thoughts/Comments/Questions/Arguments are welcome.

Offline wolff96

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2010, 09:11:51 PM »
Personally, I would allow it with a major ritual (enough to take oneself out) *and* enough Fate points to pay for the power temporarily.  There's no such thing as a free lunch. 

So if your wizard has the Conviction and Lore to toss a ~26-shift Thaumaturgic Ritual on the fly and the Fate points, rock and roll!  Take a on a ton of sponsor debt -- that won't bite you later -- to power your ritual.  Then you can get, what, 20 shifts for a human sacrifice?  Just watch out for Wardens...   ;)

Offline Mylessc

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #10 on: September 02, 2010, 10:41:27 PM »
It seems as if everyone is stuck on taking yourself out with a ritual to grant the human body temporary access to inhuman and above level refresh powers. I do not believe this is necessary unless the change you wish to imbue is permanent. I would think temporary ritual duration upgrades to the body would be a much less taxing ritual. There should be a mid session cost for the upgrades of one fate point per refresh(or 1 free compel per FP owed, GM's eat your hearts out!) of power gained as detailed on pg. 92 under the temporary powers sidebar.

Besides everyone is acting like every player is going to spend 4 hours in ritual buffing up before stepping out the door in the morning. When the &^$% is hitting the fan (as it should be in the Dresdenverse) there usually isn't time for that. And Sponsored casters are going to be so horribly in debt as to be NPC's if they go about doing this regularly, not to mention the fact their patron power may deny them access to it's admittedly vast yet limited resources for petty uses.


Offline Becq

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2010, 12:38:36 AM »
Hey, even if a particular Biomantic ritual required a wizard to 'take themselves out', that ritual would need only 5 shifts, tops, for most wizards.  Such a ritual cast on an unwilling target needs to take into account their best possible defense roll, all the consequences they could use to mitigate stress, and number of stress boxes.  Taking consequences is optional, though, and defending yourself against the spell is, too.  So in a case like this, you'd only need to have one more shift than you have stress boxes.  I think most wizards would find generating that level of power fairly simple, even on the fly.

Offline babel2uk

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2010, 08:42:59 AM »
Besides everyone is acting like every player is going to spend 4 hours in ritual buffing up before stepping out the door in the morning. When the &^$% is hitting the fan (as it should be in the Dresdenverse) there usually isn't time for that.

The original question was specifically about using sponsored Seelie Magic as one of the Knights. Seelie Magic allows biomancy type effects at the speed of evocation. So the ritual time doesn't apply, nor should the idea of sponsor debt. It's in keeping with the type of magic, used to augment the representative of the Sponsor for that magic.

Offline wolff96

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #13 on: September 03, 2010, 03:39:02 PM »
Hey, even if a particular Biomantic ritual required a wizard to 'take themselves out', that ritual would need only 5 shifts, tops, for most wizards.  Such a ritual cast on an unwilling target needs to take into account their best possible defense roll, all the consequences they could use to mitigate stress, and number of stress boxes.  Taking consequences is optional, though, and defending yourself against the spell is, too.  So in a case like this, you'd only need to have one more shift than you have stress boxes.  I think most wizards would find generating that level of power fairly simple, even on the fly.

While I agree that transforming a willing target should be easier than an unwilling one, I completely disagree with you on how it should be done.  For the purposes of a spell, the caster would have to meet a complexity equal to all his possible consequences plus 1, but doesn’t need to overcome his Stress Track, and his defense rating is locked at Mediocre (+0) (because he’s not trying to resist the spell or defend against it in any way).

That would set the base complexity for the spell at 21: 2 for his minor consequence, 4 for his moderate consequence, 6 for his severe consequence, 8 for his extreme consequence, and 1 to take him out.

Remember that Stress is kind of a side-bar, meta-game concept:  It goes away fast and doesn't represent any lasting change.  If you *only* take Stress in a fight, you haven't even really exerted yourself -- even something as light as "Winded" or "Out of Breath" would be a minor consequence.  If you want to actively change your character, even temporarily IN MY OPINION then you need to run out the consequence track.

------------------------------------

The other reason that I wouldn't allow easy access...  This is, to me, one of those "dangerous precedent" areas.  If you can supercharge your character any time you feel like it, however temporarily, why doesn't everyone with access to any kind of Biomancy do this all the time?  What's the point of paying for the powers of the Summer Knight if any half-decent wizard can make a deal with the Seelie and stomp all over Fix in an arm-wrestling match whenever he feels like it with no real cost?

Offline babel2uk

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Re: Magically Giving Oneself Powers
« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2010, 03:54:56 PM »
If you can supercharge your character any time you feel like it, however temporarily, why doesn't everyone with access to any kind of Biomancy do this all the time?  What's the point of paying for the powers of the Summer Knight if any half-decent wizard can make a deal with the Seelie and stomp all over Fix in an arm-wrestling match whenever he feels like it with no real cost?

I think it's probably impractical to use biomancy to boost yourself as part of a normal Thaumaturgy ritual, it would take too long for a benefit that could run out before you get to use it - that's assuming that you manage to pull off the transformation correctly in the first place (and that would arguably require an exceptional knowlege of how the human body works. If you're using biomancy as part of summer sponsored Seelie magic you can bypass the knowledge requirement, but it's very likely that the moment you tried to move against the Summer Knight you'd find your magical enhancements disappearing, and yourself being sternly talked to by your sponsor in the Seelie Court.