Thaumaturgical Blocks ... err, help?

[z2xm]

Right, so, Scenario: Lets say our intrepid heroes are tracking a supernatural threat across the city.  This threat uses a flute to lull people to sleep and then robs them.  Maybe a bank, or a store.  The wizard sees the residual magic, uses the sight, examines a victim, basically figures out that it is a flute causing the catatonic state.

Once the wizard is ready to face the threat, he starts the day by using his high lore skill, some decelerations and an aspect to traumatically place a 6 shift block on a pair of earmuffs.  A 6 shift block against flute music.  It's thaumatur2gy so it lasts basically until the next dawn. He argues that as written the rules for thaumturgy are presented so that you can carry out the 4 basic actions you can with evocation.

I am uncomfortable with this resolution and this level of power in the magic system.  I cannot, however, find something that really says that the magic system does not work this way.  I could just treat it as an on the fly magic item, like a potion, but that isn't right either.

Any thoughts, is this totally legal?  Am I missing something?

fyi, I let him get do it because it allowed he and the other players to have a ton of fun feeling super powerful going into the fight.  I just want to see if this is normal.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Yep, that's a completely valid and creative use of Thaumaturgy.

Really, Thaumaturgy can solve ANY problem as long as you can call up enough power, control it, and have the appropriate symbolic connections.

[sinker]

Feel free to tell him he's wrong... sort of.

The only blocks that thaumaturgy is capable of are wards, and if you actually read the portion on wards you will find this little paragraph here (I added the emphasis):

Wards don’t have a “scale” concern, the way
that veils do, and they cannot move. They are
almost always tied to a particular place’s natural
thresholds—think of them as a super-boosted
immune system—so they are limited by the size
of that threshold. Without a threshold they can
only be set up to cover a small area at most—
usually a point of transition such as a doorway
or intersection.

Wards are rooted to a place. Even when you aren't using a natural threshold as a basis they are still immobile and remain where you cast them. And as I said earlier wards are the only thaumaturgical blocks.

Now, just because he was wrong on the one thing does not mean he couldn't do that, it just means he didn't know the right way. Technically he could have used enchanted items (or more appropriately potions) to create the effect that he wanted. Enchanted items are capable of any effect of evocation or thaumaturgy and can be activated when you need it. In fact there's a great example of a ward potion (if you use the word potion to mean one use enchanted item as DFRPG does) near the end of Turn Coat.

Of note, four actions? I can only think of attack, maneuver, and block. Unless you're talking about moving, and neither evocation nor thaumaturgy is capable of that. Well there is worldwalking, but that's not really moving with magic. You still have to physically move yourself from one place to another, it's just that the distance between the two is shortened.

[zcthu3]

I'd allow it, but we generally treat temporary Thaumaturgy effects (i.e. things not requiring enchanting slots) as lasting a "scene" (about 15 minutes) unless the guidance in YS says otherwise (i.e. so Wards last until the next sunrise or sunset as the default, but most other effects last 15 minutes or so).

That means, your Thaumaturgist can create his mobile block but it will require more power than 6 shifts, i.e. the block at 6 shifts plus the steps on the Time Table.

Note, that 15 minutes might be too short a "base" time. We've just started our campaign up again and I am going to relook at it this weekend and see if I change my mind.

[Haru]

Doing a block like that with thaumaturgy is absolutely valid, but under your circumstances, there are some things missing.

First of: The duration of thaumaturgy like that would, in my opinion, be limited to "1 scene" per default (longer duration would need additional shifts), though I would also allow preparing this in advance to use in a specific scene (during some sort of preparation scene before the big fight for example). If you want to always have things like that at hand, that is what enchanted items are for. And the daily routine of refreshing the spell can just be there to color it.

Then I am missing a symbolic link. Sure, he could lay a block against any sound on those earmuffs fairly easy, but just against a flute (and probably a magical flute or at least a magical melody) he would need some sort of link to block out only that, with the rest of his hearing unimpaired.

[Tedronai]

Harry did pretty much exactly this for Murph when they were faced with the Mind Fog in...whichever book that was.
(also, I'm pretty sure the duration was only a scene)

[zenten]

Then I am missing a symbolic link. Sure, he could lay a block against any sound on those earmuffs fairly easy, but just against a flute (and probably a magical flute or at least a magical melody) he would need some sort of link to block out only that, with the rest of his hearing unimpaired.

Buying a flute as part of the prep would make sense to me.

[sinker]

Wait... Does anyone have a RAW backing for any of this? Tedronai? Haru? Mostly because I just looked at the thaumaturgy rules and Wards were the only place I found blocks.

[Tedronai]

See also veils
see also Types of Thaumaturgy not being an exhaustive list

[Michael Sandy]

Might be mechanically easier to just make a lore declaration and navel gazing maneuver:
"The ear muffs protect me from the flute's magical effects"  one free tag and you can invoke it again with fate points.

A way that is supported by the books is to build it as a potion, or magic charm that protects from magic for a limited period of time.

You can do all sorts of magical preparations if you are willing to commit an enchanted item slot to it.

[Haru]

Wait... Does anyone have a RAW backing for any of this? Tedronai? Haru? Mostly because I just looked at the thaumaturgy rules and Wards were the only place I found blocks.

Page 264:

It can be used for some of the same basic effects as evocation, but the results are more elaborate and lasting.

Page 266:

You can choose to move the spell's duration up one step on the time chart starting from an appropriate default and adding one to the complexity for every step you want to go.

Of course, the definition of appropriate is going to vary from group to group. I think one scene is always a good starting point, because otherwise people are going to use the same thing ever and ever again, and that would not really be all that interesting. Of course, YMMV.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Wait... Does anyone have a RAW backing for any of this? Tedronai? Haru? Mostly because I just looked at the thaumaturgy rules and Wards were the only place I found blocks.

The thing is, Thaumatugry can do ANYTHING.  Look again at the thaumaturgy section where it talks about how to determine how many shifts of power are required, especially when it talks about "simple actions" and doing things that would normally be impossible for a human to do.  Blocking a specific kind of sound with magic earmuffs isn't that far off from covering your ears or using noise-canceling headphones.

[UmbraLux]

Wait... Does anyone have a RAW backing for any of this? Tedronai? Haru? Mostly because I just looked at the thaumaturgy rules and Wards were the only place I found blocks.

Harry's duster (YS:303) is a thaumaturgy created enchanted item providing mobile armor (a block) against damage.  The OP's earmuffs sound very similar except they're a block against sound. 

[BumblingBear]

Harry's duster (YS:303) is a thaumaturgy created enchanted item providing mobile armor (a block) against damage.  The OP's earmuffs sound very similar except they're a block against sound. 

Bingo.

[devonapple]

Not all Blocks are Wards: Wards are a special kind of Block. I think Block is appropriate in this case.

However, if we want to sidestep the Block situation entirely, then an alternative would be to figure out the skill used to resist this magic (Discipline? Presence?) and use Thaumaturgy to provide a temporary defense skill of X shifts (Say, 10 shifts giving the recipient a 10 Discipline for 1 scene), and then increase the duration from 1 scene by adding Complexity, as mentioned before.