Damage Shift Blood Magic

[Lys]

So, what exactly stops you from using this in combat? The victim doesn't have to be willing, nor do they have to be touched, they just have to be nearby, which they are if you're trading blows. If you beat their spell defence with your Thread Weaving test, which is eminently doable for a fair number of opponents, then you can draw damage from then in order to fuel your magic. Now this isn't so bad for regular strain costs, but it synergizes in a pretty horrifying fashion with Talent pushing. After you succeed in attuning to the opponent's pattern, you can then every single turn inflict strain equal to your Wound Threshold and inflict a Blood Wound and get a +7 to one of your talents, all for beating the opponent's spell defence once. It's great regardless of what Discipline you're playing as, because Thread Weaving is always a Discipline Talent (barring Versatility). I can think of no reason not to use this every time you're in a fight to the death. I mean, you were already going to kill your opponent, what does it matter if the cause of death is disembowelment or life force drain? Also, if you also took a turn to do Karma Boost, you get a free karma for every one of those wounds you're inflicting, which means that you can spend karma every turn without draining your karma pool.

[Panda]

There is a reason the Death Magic uses did not make it beyond that edition, despite noting explicitly they are for NPC's only. I have always treated those as requiring the subject to not be actively resisting in any way. The Raw Magic Filter is explicit about this, but they only make sense in context if applied to all of the rest.

[Lys]

That's from the 3rd Edition Gamemaster's Companion. I think it's pretty flavourful that you can power blood magic rituals using someone else's life force, I like it both as a thing villains can do to unwilling people to show how depraved and amoral they are, and also something that heroes can volunteer for as a heroic sacrifice. Like if there's some kind of ritual the Nethermancer can cast to seal away a Horror that the party cannot fight for themselves, but the strain cost would kill him, so the Warrior and the Sky Raider volunteer to take the strain for him. The problem is that only the Raw Magic Filter is limited to requiring physical contact and an unresisting victim, the other two can be used in combat as written, which is totally broken. If you take it as Karma Boost and Damage Shift also having those limitations then they work fine. I guess it was an oversight in how it was written.

[Panda]

I had forgotten they were there... yeah, I still have never really cared for that option. There is a great deal which was "updated" to 3E without changing anything. Most of the text is exactly the same, or, even when updated, contains curious artifacts. See The Little Troll's Helm for an example.

They are interesting options, but the necessity for specific rules rather than some vague indications of "here are some things which can be accomplished with blood magic if you are morally bankrupt and have no fear of Horrors showing up". To maintain them as discrete mechanics, they would likely be best served as becoming Knacks of some kind. This is knowledge you must actively seek out and learn, even if it isn't terribly difficult in practice. The Raw Magic Filter use is actually somewhat amusing simply because it would be easier to reattune a matrix and cast through that. Without all of those horrific side effects and the chance for everything to go terribly wrong. Using it is pretty much evil for the sake of being evil.

A heroic sacrifice would be just that - the magician using that particular flavor of blood magic rather than relying on another's sacrifice. The very act of using this kind of blood magic to seal away a Horror has "Bad Idea" written all over it. The kind of thing other player characters would have to fix in not terribly long.

[Lys]

Why would it be a bad idea? If the horror's sealed away, then it's sealed away, no different than if the magician casting the spell had had enough HP to pay for the cost of the ritual themselves. There are other examples where paying blood points for someone else would be beneficial and even heroic. Helping someone low on HP to push a talent at a critical moment comes to mind. Also Spell Naming has a strain and legend point cost, and it makes sense to me that if you want a magician to Name a spell for you, that they would want you to bear those costs. Though making it into a Talent Knack makes a lot of sense. It is a little weird if anyone who know how to Thread Weave can automatically attune their patten to someone else to draw their life force. More reasonable to make it into something you have to go out of your way to learn.

It's true that spell filter's pretty much useless though. It might have been something that was done before spell matrixes were invented, but afterward there's no point to it. Even if you are really evil there are no doubt better uses for your slaves than using them as a magic filter when your matrix will do the job just fine.

[Panda]

It would be a bad idea because Death Magic explicitly draws Horrors to the area. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say it also empowers those Horrors - they feed off of exactly what the NPC is doing. Whether the victim is voluntary or not, the process is explicitly bad mojo. They may give their consent, but the magic which makes it happen doesn't care. It is happening regardless of the whatever social construct makes them feel okay with their action.

[Lys]

Yeah the book says that but it doesn't explain how it happens, or why it's any different from the normal blood magic that adepts use on a regular basis. It makes it a bit hard to take it seriously when it just says it does this thing but not the how or the why. That's pretty much leaving it completely in the realm of DM fiat, which makes it just as easy for nothing at all to happen as for Verijorm himself to show up. I don't necessarily object to it being risky, doing risky stuff in a desperate situation is what a hero is all about, but if there is a risk it has to be outlined in explicit rather than vague terms. That's how it is for raw magic casting. You can see that it's generally a bad idea, but there are times when you might want to do it anyway.

[Panda]

Doing risky things in a bad situation is covered under "normal" uses of Blood Magic - sacrificing yourself. This isn't heroic by the metaphysics of the world. This is pretty nasty. I'm perfectly okay with leaving these things up to GM to decide. It means the risks aren't predictable and the action must proceed without already know what the outcome may be. There is no varnish around this - it is a terrible thing to do. Regardless of someone saying it is okay. That just squares things between the two of you in a social context. The magic does not care about such things.

[Lys]

Whether something is good or bad is meaningless out side of a social context, because Earthdawn's metaphyscis are indifferent to good or evil. Casting raw magic is dangerous and risky regardless of whether you're doing it for a good cause or a bad one. Also regardless of whether you're casting a benign spell like Recovery or a brutally sadistic one like Onion Blood. Your intent and result don't matter, all that matters is that you've done the equivalent of turning on the lights in a dark room full of serial killers, and now they can all see you. I would presume that Death Magic results in something similar, you're drawing attention to yourself, and the Horrors don't care whether it's for a good cause or not. That doesn't mean it's inherently a terrible thing to do, all it means is that it's dangerous.

I would not call sacrifice blood magic risky, because there is no risk element to it, no uncertainty. You know ahead of time what the cost is: your life. You also know ahead of time what you get for it: casting a curse or blessing upon the world. That's not risky, it's merely very expensive.

[Panda]

I think what has happened to astral space indicates there are objectively bad things which can be done with magic. If Horrors are interested in what you are doing, the odds are approaching certain it is bad. Spells are also different creatures than blood magic. I'm also glad you agree with me - intent doesn't matter. If you are using Death Magic, it is objectively a bad thing regardless of what you are doing with it. Ergo, if you are putting your Strain, Wounds, whatever, on someone else while sealing a Horror away, it is going to end up badly. The intent was noble, but the methods were stained and thus going to end poorly. Maybe not in a year, but someone will be cleaning up the mess.

The "risky" blood magic I was referring to was using Death Magic for "heroic" purposes. Which was in response to a desire for more discrete rules for what bad things happen when Death Magic is used. Those rules are explicitly not for players. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Even if they were for players to engage with, it would be a bad idea to make the darker results (e.g. Horrors) something which can come down to a known dice roll ahead of time.