Abstraction Question:Enhance Facet

Can the Enhance Facet be used to create a spell to shade shift damage?

I was thinking of something like this:

Heroic Fist: Ob3, 3 Actions
Origin: Personal AoE: Caster
Element: Anima Impetus: Enhance
Duration: Sustained Resource Points: 6

When cast, this spell strenghtens the casters hand to an other worldly degree allowing him to deliver blows of heroic proportion, (Fist becomes a grey shade weapon) while active the Heroic Fist shimmers with an eerie glow.

Distilled:
Sustained/Anima (Ob 7^/7Act.)÷2= 3.5^/3.5Act.
Enhance/Caster (Ob 4^/13Act.)÷2= 2^/6.5Act.
Personal (Ob0^/1Act.)= 0^/1Act.
Totals: Ob 5.5^/10Act. (rounded) Ob6^/10Act
Final Distillation: Ob 3^/ 5 Actions
Compressed to Ob 4^/ 3 Actions
Capped to Ob 3/ 3 Actions.

Is this something that breaks the rules?

Perhaps a Major is sigil or two since that’she mighty.

Or simply say that the fist becomes the same shade as the caster’so Will, since right now it turns a Gifted Child, Officer’s Mate, Marine into a dragon killer basically instantly.

General guideline: only heroic abilities may produce heroic effects. Even with that, this would need to at the very least have a majoris sigil.

For comparison, see the Dexterity of the Cat and Dog’s Ear, spells that are distilled similarly to what you have here.

For a spell that makes your hands into a weapon, there’s Havoc’s Hand.

So a Black Shade Sorcery should only be able to Enhance within the “normal” realm (perhaps allowing a spell to duplicate the “Hands of Iron” Dt), it should take a Grey Shade Sorcery to Enhance within the “heroic” realm (To allow a spell similar to the one I proposed).
I thought there might of been some kind of shade shift obstacle or something that I was missing.
Enhance does seem like it could do it, judging from the way it’s written though.

So to get the grey shade “weapon” damage, the character would need to have either a grey will (which then makes him difficult to best in a DoW as well as makes all of his destruction spells instant death) or he would have to have a grey sorcery (primarily for the one spell, but it then effects all spells)
Character concept is a martial arts/mystic who can focus his chi into a weapon capable of heroic doing heroic damage (Hands of Iron is already planned)
Considered Havocs Hand (no grey damage)
The damage modifier should come from a spell as it is only temporary, and should take some time to start with a long cooling off time in between uses.

Why do you need a martial artist who can do gray shade damage? Why that as opposed to a pile of extra black dice? What is this adding to your game?

My inclination would be to keep gray shade rare and powerful—that’s killing with a touch!—and give a trait that allows aristeia to shade-shift fist damage. Expensive? Sure is! This sort of feat should be the culmination of months or years of preparation turned into a moment of utter focus, not a party trick to be pulled off at will.

The system is not meant to do the things you want to do with it, methinks. Sorry.

I think the character is just going to have to grow into his players concept (loosely based on the marvel comic character “Iron Fist”). The journey to greatness is traveled one step at a time. (I’ll let it work out in play if he’s still interested).

Thanks again for the advice.

This is what I’m getting at. BW greatness is not on D&D scale. Greatness is having lots of dice in your martial arts and high power, not gray shade. BW also really isn’t a game about showing off amazing powers that you have. For that, again, you’d want a different game.

More importantly you don’t play before you play. Want to be awesome? Don’t make an awesome character, make a character with awesome potential and then live up to it. It’s worth more, it’s more interesting, and you get some ramp-up time to adjust to game-breaking awesomeness.

True, you do not play before you play. But it is also true that character concept is key to burning good characters.
Too often concept gets confused with backstory, and much of the perceived awesomeness or greatness of any game rest with those who play it rather than the power level they choose to play it at.

A three lifepath game can be just as awesome as a six lifepath one. It’s the challenges they must face that change, the awesomeness remains.

“I am the greatest martial artist” is actually a fine character concept. But in BW terms, “I want to be the greatest martial artist” is much richer. It’ll lead to a better game most of the time. BW is a game of beliefs, and concepts that express as beliefs mostly come out better than static concepts. This is doubly true when the concept is something that BW rules do not express well, because then you’re fighting the game to play your character.

Point VERY well taken. After checking out the whole “Iron Fist” comic book character backround, it seems like it would be an excellent inspiration for a one on one where the character was following his path of enlightenment. Perhaps by faith rather then by sorcery (activating his chi instead of calling on a deity for aide).
Using such a character in a group would not gel with most interpersonal goals.