Tattoo (Sponsored) Magic

[KOFFEYKID]

So, I've always lamented the loss of "always on" enchantments from the beta PDFs, and I've always wanted to have cool tattoo magic... so of course the natural things to do is combine these things into one glorious thing of awesome (logical, right?).

What do you guys think of this as a sponsored magic costing -4, the iffy bit (I think) is the no accidental hexing, but it makes sense to me.

Tattoo Magic
Description: You can create enchanted tattoos which leech off of your ambient energy.
Cost: Standard costs.
Benefits: You gain a new medium with which to create enchanted items, tattoos. Tattoos provide “Always On” magic and such enchanted items have half the strength a normal enchanted item would have, though you do gain a +1 bonus to such item's base strength. Since the power that charges these effects comes from what would normally leak out uncontrolled, you don’t accidentally hex things anymore.

I suppose if it is a bit much, you could take away voluntary hexing to balance out the lack of accidental hexing.

-edit-
Upon further thought:

Tattoo Magic
Description: You can create enchanted tattoos which leech off of your ambient energy.
Cost: Standard costs.
Benefits: You gain a new medium with which to create enchanted items, tattoos. Tattoos provide “Always On” magic and such enchanted items have half the strength a normal enchanted item would have, though you do gain a +1 bonus to such item's base strength. Since the power that charges these effects comes from what would normally leak out uncontrolled, reduce the strength of any "accidental hexes" by 1 shift per enchanted item slot you have invested in tattoos. Once you have reduced the strength of accidental hexes to 0, you have reached the maximum number of tattoos you can have.

-edit-
Some rewording:

Tattoo Magic
Description: You can create enchanted tattoos which leech off of your ambient energy.
Cost: Standard costs.
Benefits: You gain a new medium with which to create enchanted items, tattoos. Tattoos provide “Always On” magic. Tattoos have half the strength a normal enchanted item would have, though you do gain a +1 bonus to such item's base strength. Since the power that charges these effects comes from what would normally leak out uncontrolled, reduce the strength of any accidental hexes by 1 shift per enchanted item slot you have invested in tattoos. Once you have reduced the strength of accidental hexes to 0, you have reached the maximum number of tattoos you can have.

[Haru]

For a character like that, I think I would not go with standard magic rules. I would look at what the tattoos are supposed to do and simply put it up as powers directly. Want a shielding tattoo? Take toughness. Want a tattoo that lets you throw lightning? Take breath weapon. I think it is much easier to do it like that. Modular abilities can account for powers you just want to take every now and then.

I guess depending on your power level, it will work out more or less equal. Your tattoo magic could become pretty powerful, once you get a lot of refinement to buy more item slots. Since all of those items would only need one charge, you would end up with absurd amounts of spells at your disposal, which might not sound much, since they are at half strength, but they will still be able to break the game, if you have a handful of tattoos that can throw up maneuvers.
That's the only objection I would have against that power.

[KOFFEYKID]

I just accounted for that in the latest version, I put a limiter on how many tattoos you can have as equal to your conviction, though upon further though perhaps you can only have as many enchanted item slots dedicated to tattoos as your conviction.

The idea is that for each tattoo/slot you need to have some "ambient leaking power" to draw from to feed it. Each tattoo/slot reduces that ambient energy by 1 shift (so accidental hexes are 1 shift weaker), until there is no more leaking power (accidental hexes are 0 shifts strong, AKA: nonexistent).

[Taran]

Haplo from the Death Gate cycle.  I love the idea of tattoo magic.

Why wouldn't your tattoos be based on lore like any enchanted item?

Just taking powers seems the easiest.  I might keep accidental hexing the same, but only when a tattoo gets used. 

[KOFFEYKID]

Its Lore+Specializations(Etc)/2 because that was what the beta version of DFRPG had, and I just snagged that for the basis. So for example to have an enchanted tattoo that granted Armor: 2, you would have to have 8 shifts of effect (halved since it is an always on tattoo, and halved again for armor, not block).

[Taran]

Its Lore+Specializations(Etc)/2 because that was what the beta version of DFRPG had, and I just snagged that for the basis. So for example to have an enchanted tattoo that granted Armor: 2, you would have to have 8 shifts of effect (halved since it is an always on tattoo, and halved again for armor, not block).

Sorry, I meant your number of enchanted items, but I just realized that that is just based on focus item slots..  Sorry, it was a brain hiccup.

[KOFFEYKID]

Oh, you can have more enchanted item slots, lets say you've got Joe Wizard, with the full wizard package and Tattoo Magic on top.

Joe can have up to 8 enchanted items, since he starts out with 4 focus items and converts on a 1:2 ratio. Joe can still have only up to 5 tattoos however, since his max Conviction (and thus his max accidental hexing) is 5. This leaves 3 enchanted item slots unaccounted for, which he can use for normal enchanted items or potions, or whatever.

[Haru]

Thinking about it again, I'm not sure there is so much need for it. And it might actually be broken.

I could only see a couple of spells that would make sense to tattoo. Armor is the obvious choice, of course. After that, it starts to get a bit problematic already.
"Always on" maneuver spells? Aspects are already always on. Would it be a spell you can just use over and over again? Then it feels more like it should be a stunt, since it grants a constant bonus equal to a fate point.
Attacks? Based on the 8 shift spell you propose for the Armor, you would be able to get a constant weapon:4 for the price of 1/4 of a refresh. That's 8 times more powerful than Claws, and besides a bit of ink under your skin, it doesn't really come with much of a physical and optical downside.
Skill replacements? Sure, those would work, but thats a whole lot of skills you get to have at a constant value of +4.

Let's take the 8 enchanted items and your base value of 8 shifts per item. The tattoos cut it in half, ok, so it's one item with Armor:2, another with Weapon:4 and 3 skill uses at +4. Since you will most certainly take skill replacement tattoos for skills you don't have, and even 3 applications is a lot, if you have them available at all times. That's 3 free trapping moving stunts.

I really think it is better to take those things as powers, not as enchanted items. If you don't want to take toughness, just grant your tattoo guy an armor bonus like you would anyone with an armored vest, just without the vest. I think the impact on the game should be minimal, most of the time. Claws and Breath Weapon will do for attack spells, or the equivalent powers from the custom powers list. Skill replacement can be done with a tweak on mimic abilities for direct skill replacement or one of the minor powers, depending on what you want to do exactly.

[KOFFEYKID]

I don't think its too powerful considering that enchanted items can have thaumaturgy effects as well, and those types of effects have an entirely different timeframe than evocations.

A thaumaturgy effect which gives you a weapon: 4 fist attack has a 12 hour window with one enchanted item usage, as a base.

[Sanctaphrax]

A thaumaturgy effect which gives you a weapon: 4 fist attack has a 12 hour window with one enchanted item usage, as a base.

Nope.

At least not if I'm GMing.

There are no real rules for spells that increase the weapon rating of your punches, so how they work is up to the GM. And I'm pretty sure that method would get very broken very quickly.

That aside, this Power looks problematic to me. Some issues:

-Accidental hexes don't have a strength. They're Compels.
-This isn't really very Sponsored Magic-like. So far as I can tell it has almost nothing in common with Sponsored Magic.
-It's not clear exactly how an "always-on" item would even work for some effects.
-The costing here is screwy, since you pay a big chunk up-front and then get underpriced effects later. That's a recipe both for being underpowered and for being overpowered.

[Tedronai]

-The costing here is screwy, since you pay a big chunk up-front and then get underpriced effects later. That's a recipe both for being underpowered and for being overpowered.

The word you're looking for is 'broken'.