Apologies in advance for a possibly obvious and already-answered (I tried Google…) question.
tldr; can Art Magic and/or Enchanting boost, or otherwise affect, Faith?
Hinder: a mage may “hinder one or more of the target’s abilities”. (Maybe yes?)
Advantage: can pump stats, skills, Steel, Resource, Circles, stride. (Faith is none of these? I think?)
But then we have the Breadth example (“If you wanted to affect the Faith and Will of an entire city…”), which suggests that at least some Art Magic can affect Faith (just Hinder? Advantage also?).
Enchanting->Imbuing: “Grant +1D advantage” (to anything, including Faith?)
Enchanting->Enchanting->Advantage: echoes Art Magic “Advantage” language (minus Stride). So this doesn’t work?
Artifacts: it says that items within were all built with the Enchanting rules; Burning Wheel gives +5D Faith, under specific circumstances, which suggests that Enchanting perhaps can boost Faith?
Faith advances as a sorcerous skill (BWG, p. 206) so—while one could argue “advances as” is different from “is”—the simplest interpretation is that the Faith attribute is a skill; and thus can be affected by any magical technique that can affect skills.
That said, the rules for using Faith against Sorcery (BWG, p. 526) state that @luke allows Faith to affect Sorcery rather than it being automatic; thus, by close analogy, there’s nothing unfair (to the extent BW cares about fairness and balance anyway) with a specific GM deciding the handwaving of mortals cannot affect the expression of the divine.
Ultimately, I’d make it a setting question; do you want Faith to be “special”? does the priest’s religion reject magic as “evil” ? or does the priest’s religion embrace magic as a “gift from the gods” (for example, exorcism uses Faith but laying on hands uses healing magic)?
No, I think the simplest interpretation is that the Faith attribute is an attribute. It’s an attribute like Steel is an attribute; Steel advances as a Skill, but it’s not a Skill. Specifically, Faith is an emotional attribute, like Grief or Hatred. It’s listed under the Emotional Attributes subheading of the Attributes heading in the Character Burner, and its rules are detailed in the Emotional Magic chapter of the The Burning Wheel.
As for the OP, note the Recursive Curse bit on p280 of the Codex. You’re not allowed to use Advantage to grant extra dice to Sorcery, Spirit Binding … Or any other similar spell-casting art.
I suggest that one of the reasons Faith isn’t on the Advantage list like Steel is is to avoid you being able to Buff your (buddy’s) Faith to buff your Sorcery to buff Faith, etc. Hindering Faith is another story.
As for Imbuing, it’s a time-consuming, resource-consuming process without a lasting effect. You’re probably okay letting players trade a few hours of work and a tool-kit expenditure risk for a chance to add 1 die to a Faith Test.
I expect the Artefact section means to imply that the artefacts were built according to the structure and terminology found in the Enchanting chapter: They have Antecedents and External Durations and such. I don’t think the idea is to imply that they were all made by some wizard somewhere. Read the hook for The Burning Wheel: It’s a divine artefact given unto men by a god. Remember, Burning Wheel is about Concept; don’t get lost in the mechanics.
To answer the question generally. Yes! You can affect Faith Tests with Sorcery. You can Hinder them with Sorcery, if nothing else. Of course, you can also hinder them with a quick punch to the face.
So, I agree as to your Hinder comment being the most likely interpretation; however:
Sure, although do note this doesn’t apply to Enchanting.
I expect the Artefact section means to imply that the artefacts were built according to the structure and terminology found in the Enchanting chapter: They have Antecedents and External Durations and such.
So, yes and no? The literal language states that the “powers and limits were all built using the Enchanting rules”. A strict reading of this is that the powers described, for all items, are fair game for Enchanters–given the appropriate antecedent.
I don’t think the idea is to imply that they were all made by some wizard somewhere. Read the hook for The Burning Wheel: It’s a divine artefact given unto men by a god. Remember, Burning Wheel is about Concept; don’t get lost in the mechanics.
Sure, but, conversely, there is no reason to believe that a wizard couldn’t build a (super-powered) Burning Wheel–since the Burning Wheel is apparently built with Enchanting rules.
Of course, your wizard has to go find “a piece of the heart of the god of the sun”–doesn’t exactly seem unbalanced, given the difficulty in acquisition.
There is no feature in the Enchanting section that allows for additional dice to Faith Test. I imagine the Burning Wheel is an exception, rather than a rule.
This is why legal cases exist: because even the smartest people trying in good faith can perceive edge cases differently.
In terms of pure mechanics, sure. But does playing in a world where they can make for interesting stories? As both @luke’s comment about allowing Faith to “break” spells and @Gnosego’s comment about being driven by Concept indicate, the rules exist to help tell stories not to tell you what the story is. So—unless you are trying to find evidence to end a table dispute—the best answer might be to decide as part of setting the “style” of magic and faith what they can do in your game.
And what people think they can do or know how to do. After all, to use an analogy, if you created a rule system to model the real world it would allow humans to make mobile phones, so the barrier to a 16th Century nobleman making phones wouldn’t be whether the rules allowed it but whether the nobleman had the understanding to conceive of making it let alone the skill to do it.
I can easily arbitrate one way or another. But I can do that without the rulebooks. I can also always arbitrate against whatever Luke has down on the page. But everyone involved in BW has thought far more about systems issues than I have–BW is a very tight system, with cascading impacts from small number of additional dice–and thus I would l like to understand the design intent and expectation.
Rules As Written, Enchanting fairly easily generates additional dice for Sorcery; neat.
RAW, Imbuing looks like it boosts Faith; neat.
+/-3D for Faith is a very large difference, given fixed difficulties like magic breaking (OB4).
Again, I know this is not D&D; “balance” is a vague notion and not even the goal. But, again, BW is a tight system very vulnerable (in a good/admirable way!–i.e., Luke & co. clearly have thought very deeply, and have designed an intelligent & interlocking system) to the butterfly effect: small changes => big impact. Is this one of those places? Maybe not, I am not a BW expert (which I think is a very high bar), I can’t even say that–but this is why I ask.
This is why legal cases exist: because even the smartest people trying in good faith can perceive edge cases differently.
