Biomancy Medical Spells

[Mr. Death]

It's an idea -- but I'm honestly not sure if it's kosher to use rituals to add shifts to other rituals. I don't think we've seen anything like that in the books and to me it doesn't seem to fit with how spells are described in the RPG.

Tagging anesthetic's aspect for a control roll sounds like it makes sense, though.

[Taran]

I think doing minor rituals to get extra complexity is fine.  I've seen it written somewhere before - There's was an example somewhere of how the Blackstaff got the complexity to bring a satellite down on the Reds and it was a pretty good example.

But it involved several "astronomy" rituals and a few other things.

It was done by Belial666, I think.  I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,34132.msg1610637.html#msg1610637

[Mr. Death]

I think doing minor rituals to get extra complexity is fine.  I've seen it written somewhere before - There's was an example somewhere of how the Blackstaff got the complexity to bring a satellite down on the Reds and it was a pretty good example.

But it involved several "astronomy" rituals and a few other things.

It was done by Belial666, I think.  I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,34132.msg1610637.html#msg1610637

Nothing official, though. And it still doesn't sound right to me -- like, those wouldn't add to the complexity of the final spell, they'd just be other effects on it. Or they'd be flavor components of the final spell.

It's always seemed to me that what you do to build up shifts are different from actions actually taken in the spell, if that makes sense. Like if you're doing a spell to unlock something, you would gather components that are symbolic of unlocking rather than, say, starting to pick the lock physically.

Which is to say, doing those preparatory spells might lessen the number of shifts needed for the final effect, because you're already doing work on it, but they wouldn't work to build up the shifts of that final effect.

That's kind of my intention here -- instead of a mammoth 25-shift spell that has to be cast all at once (and thus needs 17 shifts of additional buildup), you have a 3-shift spell that can be cast at will, a 6-shift spell that can be cast with no additional prep, and a big spell that only needs 8 shifts of prep.

[Quantus]

It's an idea -- but I'm honestly not sure if it's kosher to use rituals to add shifts to other rituals. I don't think we've seen anything like that in the books and to me it doesn't seem to fit with how spells are described in the RPG.

What specifically bothers you about it? Im not sure I understand your objection. 

Looking for examples from the books, Would it count when Harry went "full ritual" the first time he used Little Chicago?  Or, I always imagined that the Bloodline curse in changes was a similarly multi-part Ritual, with then doing one stage each time they sacrificed a "Fuel" person, and then a different ritual requirement to actually fire the thing off.   The Genus Locii bonding required like 5 spells, one to call him and 4 elemental attacks to make it stick.  The entropy curse was arguable broken into three different parts, maybe that would be a reasonable restriction to stacking multiple effects into a larger ritual?

[Mr. Death]

What specifically bothers you about it? Im not sure I understand your objection.

The components to a ritual spell do one of a couple things -- they give a target, they give shape to the intent and they provide power. They symbolically create the connections and form the spell. We don't have any examples where the preparation for a big spell is, 'Cast smaller versions of that same spell.'

Looking for examples from the books, Would it count when Harry went "full ritual" the first time he used Little Chicago?

He didn't use spells to build up there -- he meditated, he washed, he got naked, he lit incense, but he didn't cast spells. And most of that was just to buff his control roll to make sure the casting was safe for him, personally.

Or, I always imagined that the Bloodline curse in changes was a similarly multi-part Ritual, with then doing one stage each time they sacrificed a "Fuel" person, and then a different ritual requirement to actually fire the thing off.   

That's not how it's described, though. It's one single, gigantic spell -- a fairly simple one, really. The sacrifices were about putting power into it to extend its range and penetration.

The Genus Locii bonding required like 5 spells, one to call him and 4 elemental attacks to make it stick.

The spells he cast there were during the larger casting -- they weren't things done in preparation beforehand. That wasn't, "Okay, i cast an Earth spell, that adds 2 shifts to get me to 15 complexity..." it was more like, "Okay, I do my first roll to control 3 shifts of the 15-shift spell... I'll describe that as calling up earth... second roll, another 3 shifts, let's say it's a fire..."

The entropy curse was arguable broken into three different parts, maybe that would be a reasonable restriction to stacking multiple effects into a larger ritual?

Nah, the Entropy curse was one spell, just with three people helping to control it. Kind of like the scene in Shaun of the Dead where they're all trying to fire the rifle together -- one person pulling the trigger, another person helping reload, a third person keeping an eye out for targets, etc. No one person involved had all the necessary skill to cast it on his or her own, so they divided up components of it to help them handle it -- but they weren't each casting spells for it.

In fact, I would argue that it would be wiser not to cast spells as part of preparation, because spells are dangerous and taxing in themselves. When you're doing a big ritual, you want to do it as fresh as you can -- not after you've spent a bunch of time using up your magic to create the spell in the first place.

It's also dangerous precedent for a GM -- any wizard could, effectively, cast an infinite number of small rituals effectively for free and ratchet up the power of any spell far too easily. If you're allowed to build up a complexity for a big spell with a bunch of little spells, what's to stop this:

Player: Okay, I want to do a 36-shift ritual to kill the badguy.
GM: Okay, you've got a Lore of 4, so you'll have to do a bunch of quests and gather a lot of items to --
Player: Nah, I'll just do a bunch of 2-shift rituals. I can make those rolls easily and it won't cause any stress to call up that little power.

[Quantus]

The components to a ritual spell do one of a couple things -- they give a target, they give shape to the intent and they provide power. They symbolically create the connections and form the spell. We don't have any examples where the preparation for a big spell is, 'Cast smaller versions of that same spell.'
He didn't use spells to build up there -- he meditated, he washed, he got naked, he lit incense, but he didn't cast spells. And most of that was just to buff his control roll to make sure the casting was safe for him, personally.
That's not how it's described, though. It's one single, gigantic spell -- a fairly simple one, really. The sacrifices were about putting power into it to extend its range and penetration.
The spells he cast there were during the larger casting -- they weren't things done in preparation beforehand. That wasn't, "Okay, i cast an Earth spell, that adds 2 shifts to get me to 15 complexity..." it was more like, "Okay, I do my first roll to control 3 shifts of the 15-shift spell... I'll describe that as calling up earth... second roll, another 3 shifts, let's say it's a fire..."
Nah, the Entropy curse was one spell, just with three people helping to control it. Kind of like the scene in Shaun of the Dead where they're all trying to fire the rifle together -- one person pulling the trigger, another person helping reload, a third person keeping an eye out for targets, etc. No one person involved had all the necessary skill to cast it on his or her own, so they divided up components of it to help them handle it -- but they weren't each casting spells for it.

In fact, I would argue that it would be wiser not to cast spells as part of preparation, because spells are dangerous and taxing in themselves. When you're doing a big ritual, you want to do it as fresh as you can -- not after you've spent a bunch of time using up your magic to create the spell in the first place.

It's also dangerous precedent for a GM -- any wizard could, effectively, cast an infinite number of small rituals effectively for free and ratchet up the power of any spell far too easily. If you're allowed to build up a complexity for a big spell with a bunch of little spells, what's to stop this:

Player: Okay, I want to do a 36-shift ritual to kill the badguy.
GM: Okay, you've got a Lore of 4, so you'll have to do a bunch of quests and gather a lot of items to --
Player: Nah, I'll just do a bunch of 2-shift rituals. I can make those rolls easily and it won't cause any stress to call up that little power.

OK, I think I can wrap my head around your objection.  It sounds like the hangup is a matter of stacking., you dont want somebody to spam the same small-level spell over and over again and cumulatively make a big one (closest thing in the books I can think of are the Wards that the Paranet put on Murphy's place).  But I dont think that's a danger here.  It woulnt ever be casting the same spell over and over to build up the complexity, it would always have to be different spells/ritual to add different aspects that logically contribute.  Taran's latest example boils down to anesthesia, radiology, and sterile operating environment, and in that case Id argue that the pain-killers and the Sleep spell wouldnt stack, but the others are from separate sources so they could.  And if a Player could come up with 18 different small spells that could all logically add together, Id say they earned the 36-shift.


That being said, I dont think I fully grasp all the practical difference between "adding complexity shifts" for the final affect versus "lessening the number of shifts for final effect?

[Mr. Death]

That being said, I dont think I fully grasp all the practical difference between "adding complexity shifts" for the final affect versus "lessening the number of shifts for final effect?

In the former case, you're taking efforts to boost the final spell -- counting those smaller spells toward building the complexity of the effect. In the latter case, each spell is, itself, having an effect on the target, and therefore you don't need to hit it as hard the final time.

In the case of Asteroid Dresden, what the example you linked suggests is that Ebenezer did several spells, each of which built up to a target complexity for a massive, 70+-shift spell that Ebenezer then had to cast.

The alternate I'm talking about is that each of those spells lowered the difficulty of the final spell -- that in the end, after doing those other spells as prep, Ebenezer had basically done half the tangible work, and so would have been able to get his effect with a much smaller amount of shifts in the final casting.

Or, to look at it like a combat scenario, what you're suggesting is like a bunch of maneuvers that all get tagged for a massive boost to a single killing blow, versus whittling down the target's stress so the target can eventually be taken down with a much lower roll.

[Quantus]

In the former case, you're taking efforts to boost the final spell -- counting those smaller spells toward building the complexity of the effect. In the latter case, each spell is, itself, having an effect on the target, and therefore you don't need to hit it as hard the final time.

In the case of Asteroid Dresden, what the example you linked suggests is that Ebenezer did several spells, each of which built up to a target complexity for a massive, 70+-shift spell that Ebenezer then had to cast.

The alternate I'm talking about is that each of those spells lowered the difficulty of the final spell -- that in the end, after doing those other spells as prep, Ebenezer had basically done half the tangible work, and so would have been able to get his effect with a much smaller amount of shifts in the final casting.

Or, to look at it like a combat scenario, what you're suggesting is like a bunch of maneuvers that all get tagged for a massive boost to a single killing blow, versus whittling down the target's stress so the target can eventually be taken down with a much lower roll.

OK, that makes sense.  Id say in that case medical procedures would be a little bit of both, and that situationally they'd have to fall on one side or the other based on how you describe:  Do they A)affect the spell/procedure itself, or do they b)produce separate effects on the target that simply make the procedure easier to accomplish.  For example, a spell to disinfect the area really doesnt contribute to the success or failure persay, it just avoids certain detrimental side effects, so its a good idea to do but more of a general environment aspect.  Pain-killers or Sleep spell happen to affect the same target and make the surgery easier, so that would be B.  But trying to use Sensory magic to feel your way around, Kinetomancy to move bits around, and Water Magic to make the cells repair themsleves faster, all at the same time?  Those feel like an A scenario.  If say your patient was a shapeshifter themselves, adding some direct psychomancy to try and guide their own abilities to do some of the work would be A, but a leveraging a modified shared Dream sleep spell to accomplish it while also providing pain-insulation might be B.  In general I think B would likely be more common, but I dont think A is entirely out of the question.   



Hopping back to the topic of Book examples of chained rituals adding shifts/complexity/power, what about the first uses of the Bloodline curse in SF?  Werent they using two spells, one using sex rituals to tap the storm and provide power and a separate one that was what the Ramps used later (substituting Sacrifices for the storm power).

[Mr. Death]

But trying to use Sensory magic to feel your way around, Kinetomancy to move bits around, and Water Magic to make the cells repair themsleves faster, all at the same time?

See, that strikes me just as flavor for the one big spell. Basically, to me, once the spell starts, everything in it is just channeling the complexity and power you already built up.

Hopping back to the topic of Book examples of chained rituals adding shifts/complexity/power, what about the first uses of the Bloodline curse in SF?  Werent they using two spells, one using sex rituals to tap the storm and provide power and a separate one that was what the Ramps used later (substituting Sacrifices for the storm power).

Nah, it was all one spell, the only change was the scale and the power source. He might have been using magical ability to channel the lightning, but it was all just part of that spell, not a separate, distinct spell happening at the same time. The RPG's write up of it has it as all one big spell, just with a crapload of components adding to the complexity (like inflicting consequences on his family, etc.).

[Fenix Wulfheart]

The Reiki Healing spell is 8-10 shifts, with four shifts representing the consequence being healed, and four as a "base complexity" to represent "that healing magic is partially transformative, though not to the degree of more hostile magic."

That is the basis of my own ideas of instant heals effects; I use them in the Healing power post I just made in the custom powers thread. Essentially, I use four shifts to represent "move the recovery time one step down in duration". So healing a mild instantly is 4 + 2 + 4 + 4, as it needs to go from "end of next scene" to "end of this exchange" (two time increment shifts, roughly), for 14 shifts. Healing a Moderate is 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 (reduce time increment from session to full scene to half scene to turn, 3x 4 cost plus moderate cost of 4 + base cost 4)=20. Severe is 4 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4=26. Extreme would be a whopping 4+8+4+4+4+4+4=32 shifts, which is the same power rating of Victor Sells' Heart Exploding Spell. I'd say those are actually pretty comparable. I might say healing an extreme would need 4 or even 8 more, tbh. Either way, the Aspect change doesn't go away.

For simply justifying healing's start, I'd call that a Moderate transformation that doesn't need to change time increments at all, so base 4 + Consequence stress value. Maybe Base 2 instead. A talented mage could maybe cast that as an evocation with a proper focus and Specialization with lower level consequence (and some justification for it working as evocation for them, like a sponsor)! The pain-reducer spells I'd say are a 3 cost maneuver per instance it can be tagged, so also easily usable as evocation with justification. I'd ok it as evocation with a proper aspect on the character if they have a strong medicine-background, and maybe bought a stunt for it.

I'd think every one of these has a linked Scholarship roll to study the wounds, which creates a taggable aspect to make these spells castable.

Also, this stuff that is being said about diagnostic spells. That sounds to me like a ritual is being used to replace a scholarship roll to create a taggable aspect for the man ritual. So instead of rolling Scholarship, you'd cast this extra spell. That does indeed have some interesting game effect, and the spell itself would thus carry its own risks. Its kind of like a purification ritual. My main concern? Someone going all "I cast fifteen preparatory spells to create all the aspects that let me cast ma uberspell!" XD