Drawing and Storing Magical Power

[Lavecki121]

It almost seems like thaumaturgy to gain a power pool.

[Dr.FunLove]

Agreed - as shown in the books, power draws can be done fairly quickly or more slowly but that power doesn't always have to be expelled in the "stressful" manner of Evocation. When it is expelled via Evocation, how to treat those stored shifts is an important question.

What do you think about that Lavecki?

[Hick Jr]

Again using Harry as an example here.

He's drawn 44 shifts. Now that he has, he can use them however he pleases for Evocation. So he throws a Fire attack at Urumviel. Harry's "safe" (Power and Control are equal) Fire evocations are at 7 shifts. So if he throws a 7 shift evocation, he takes no mental stress, and subtracts 7 from his shift count, bringing it down to 37.

later, he throws a 9 shift evocation at Deidre. Normally, this would cost him 3 mental stress- one base, and two for exceeding his limit. Now it costs him only 2, because the base cost no longer applies.


This actually reminds me of the Power Points system used in D&D 3.5 for psions and the like. It'd be an interesting "alternate magical paradigm" power. I'd be willing to take a stab at it.

[Dr.FunLove]

In the example from Small Favor, this is very true. However, what about points drawn under normal conditions? Say a practitioner spends an exchange drawing power before entering the fray. The draw five shifts of power and have a Conviction of Five. They want to strike with their normal Conviction and the five shifts of power they drew previously. Are we saying that said practitioner must take 6 stresses?

[Hick Jr]

No, because that's the exact same thing as the RAW. I'd say that they would have to make the control roll, but wouldn't have to take extra mental stress.

[Dr.FunLove]

I concur...in this case, the major drawback is being able to control that much power safely. Of course sometimes that isn't so much a problem...

[Lavecki121]

No, because that's the exact same thing as the RAW. I'd say that they would have to make the control roll, but wouldn't have to take extra mental stress.

I disagree, in that case they would only take 5 stress. (The example given he wants the appellate in question to use a 10 shift evocation, 5 drawn, 5 conviction)

[Dr.FunLove]

So you would handle stored shifts of power the same as drawn shifts of power in Evocation - every shift beyond your Conviction incurs a stress?

[Sanctaphrax]

I'd model it as a Conviction roll, allowing you to use your highest Power Specialization to add to it. For each successful roll, you get to keep that many shifts. For example, Harry, who's Conviction is Fantastic and has a +2 Specialization in Fire, which brings him up to Legendary. He rolls Conviction at Legendary for let's say 5 exchanges, and gets a +8, +8, +7, +10, and +11, for a total of 44 shifts. Once he gets inside the Sign, this is all he's got for spellcasting.

So what stops any random dude with Average Conviction from rolling until he has 100 shifts?

It can't be time, because exchanges don't actually have a fixed length. They don't even exist outside of conflicts, really. And this will rarely be done during a conflict.

However, what about points drawn under normal conditions? Say a practitioner spends an exchange drawing power before entering the fray. The draw five shifts of power and have a Conviction of Five. They want to strike with their normal Conviction and the five shifts of power they drew previously. Are we saying that said practitioner must take 6 stresses?

Not sure what you're asking.

Are they trying to cast a 5-shift spell or a 10-shift one?

I would rule that it wouldn't cause mental stress unless you exceeded your "safe" limit, where it would cost more than one normally. I think the mental stress is supposed to be the drawing of power, and this invalidates that.

I'm pretty sure that this is a bad idea.

Mental stress costs are an important limitation and should not be messed with carelessly.

[Lavecki121]

I would rule that it has the same rules as thaumaturgy but you can only do it as many rounds as you have conviction

[Dr.FunLove]

@Sanctaphrax
Looks like I was talking about a total of 10-shifts...yep, 10-shifts.

Would you care to weigh in on the concept of draw/storage of power (shifts) and how to handle the idea mechanically in game?

@Lavecki
So the power build-up from Thaumaturgy capped by Conviction. Interesting...but how would you handle the release of it via Evocation. Per the RAW?

[Hick Jr]

The amount of times you can roll is limited by your Conviction. Conviction 5 would let you roll 5 times.

Mental stress is supposed to be the drawing of magic, not its control. If you've already drawn it, you shouldn't have to take the base stress. But to mitigate your concerns-
-This can be done once per scene
-for every roll you make, there is an attack versus your Endurance equal to your Conviction. If you fail this, you must take physical/mental stress or you lose all the gathered shifts as fallout. It's a lot like gathering shifts for Thaumaturgy and then running around with them.

[Sanctaphrax]

I don't think that's likely to work. It seems like a hodge-podge of random rules.

Plus it's bad to punish high skills like that, and the thematic justification is weak. If drawing power costs mental stress, why doesn't it cost stress to draw power in advance?

Limiting it to once per scene is unimportant, there's not much reason to do it more often than that.

I don't see much reason to do something fancier than simple Conviction Declarations here.

[Taran]

Why is it so complicated?

Normal circumstances:  I draw power, cast a spell and take mental stress

Circumstance where magic is locked down:  You can't cast spells.  So, in advance You may draw on shifts a number of times = to your conviction.  You use those shifts to cast spells normally until the shifts are gone.  Why would you be able to avoid mental stress?    Each spell works like evocation normally does.  You take mental stress.  You can cast spells until you have no stress boxes/consequences left or you have no shifts left - whatever comes first. 

Note:   you cannot draw more magic until you've completely depleted the pool you've gained.  This prevents people from going:  "I draw 44 shifts.  Next scene:  I draw 44 shifts.  I do that 20 times until I have oodles of shifts making the lock-down an un-challenge"

If you do it this way, there is no in-game benefit.

I see this as a very specific challenge.  You'd never use it except in that very specific circumstance. With 44 shifts, you could preserve your energy by casting less powerful spells, but you'd go through your mental track quicker or you could cast less, more powerful spells and end up running out of your pool.  The latter doesn't happen in a normal combat.


******

The other way is setting up a bunch of aspects, as dmw said, and invoke them.

GM:  you can't cast spells here
Player:  I created 3 aspects in advance that let me cast magic, I'll ivoke.

When  you run out of tags, you start spending FP's so you can cast.

and/OR

The GM says:  there's a "magic dead" aspect on the scene I compel you not to cast."  You earn a FP.  The next time you want to cast, you spend a fp to turn down the compel and cast your spell.

[Hick Jr]

There's really a number of ways to represent the Sign. I suppose you could pick whichever one, with Conviction maneuvers that are tagged for effect to allow you cast being the simplest, and my ruleset there being the most complex.

And i'm really tempted to do a Power Points/Vancian Casting custom power based on those rules. you roll Conviction X number of times at the beginning of the scene, and that's how many shifts you get for spellcasting.