So after more than ten sessions of our Big Easy game (run by, and written up here by mroehler - go check it out) it's becoming increasingly clear that Evocation attacks are more effective than an equivalent refresh of other abilities.
Why? Because Evocation attacks are the most accurate - which then turns into damage. Sure, evocations can have big weapon values, but a lot of powers offer bonuses to damage. The real difference: most attack forms max out at around the skill cap, plus 1 or so. The sword of the cross adds 1 to Weapon attacks, the vampire powers can +1 situationally, a stunt can add another +1 in the right conditions. Not too many examples there (Target Rich Environment is the only stunt in Your Story that adds to attack). OTOH, with Refinement, an evoker can grab up to twice the skill cap in bonuses from powers. Granted, that's a pretty extreme example (kind of like the Red Court Infected + Knight of the Cross + DIY sword master stunt).
More reasonably, we can look at what a character in our game has: Evocation, with 2 points of Refinement: 1 for specializations, and one for a bigger focus item. So that's +4 Offensive Control on a focus, and then +2 Control, +1 Power from specializations in the caster's favored element - basically, +6 attack, +1 damage, for -5 refresh. -5 Refresh can also get you a plain old +6 damage (claws, Supernatural Strength). This isn't exactly the most expensive ability. Our character has a skill cap of 5, so he's throwing 6 Power, 10 Control air evocations with his starting skill selection (it's actually 6, 11 now since he increased his Discipline).
Let's take a look at how that stacks up to some monsters.
The Black Court Master Vampire defends at 4, and packs 8 stress with 2 Armor from its Supernatural Toughness. With +0 rolls, it gets hit by 6, so the spell does 10 damage after armor. That's bigger than its stress track, so it must take a consequence after every shot. Ouch. Even if the caster isn't overchanneling - which is free, since 4 one stress hits are equivalent to hits of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 (in any order) - he can deal out enough damage to essentially skip the stress track entirely. Moreover, without a 7 point difference in rolls, the attack WILL hit.
How about Ursiel? With only a Good Defense in ranged combat, he gets hit by 7 for 11 damage after armor. So he's immediately in consequences as well.
Looking through other monsters, even a Fantastic defense roll is pretty freaking rare. So even with a more balanced spread on a focus item (say, +2 Control instead of 4), these attacks essentially don't miss. This situation isn't really surprising: powers seem to add far more damage or toughness than they do to accuracy or defense. Mythic Speed at -6 is +3 versus ranged (and a near autowin against melee); Refinement can be +2 attack per -1. Who needs maneuvers to hit for serious damage?
With a bit of overchanneling, a tag on the consequences from the first shot, and a bit of luck, it's not unreasonable to put down some badass, Supernaturally Tough enemies who are willing to take serious consequences in 2 shots. At the same time, the most effective single target attacker can also be the most effective area attacker with whole zone evocations - people with Grenades don't have a 10 in Weapons, and can't decide to include an even bigger area when needed.
Sure, an evoker only has a few shots without seriously hurting himself (we can assume someone interested in serious evocation has at least Good Conviction for 4 mental stress, and may have 5 for an extra mental consequence), but it doesn't take all that many when you do lots of damage and nothing can dodge.
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So that's been the problem as its appeared in our game a few times.
1: We think that the crux of the solution should be that the attack roll for a spell should be made with Discipline only. Control bonuses help to control the power of the spell, but don't apply for comparing to the target's defense. It's still just one roll, with Control bonuses being subtracted out.
Since attack value is a skill, it's essentially going to be in roughly the same range for combat focused wizards as other combat focused characters - the evoker can do a lot of damage, but they don't have a special advantage when attacking. Maneuvers are still important in terms of landing a hit, and not just if you're trying to avoid an attack that would otherwise kill a mortal.
With that change, a mage's juice doesn't go nearly so far since they can't reasonably expect to hit some guy for like 12 damage, more spells will be wasted shots, they may have to use magical maneuvers to make sure they can land a hit, etc. That kind of seems like a serious problem - being a guy who can throw out 4 or so 7 damage attacks (which isn't so unreasonable) would kind of suck compared to being a guy who has unlimited attacks at Weapon 6. And Control just took significant hit to its utility relative to power (not that Power > Control is an especially safe place to be
). That leads us to idea #2:
2: Spin on the Control roll reduces the mental stress dealt by the spell, at the standard rate of 3 extra successes reducing stress by 1.
A high control caster can get significantly more attacks at baseline levels of power. Maneuvers, especially to apply scene aspects, don't require too much power, so there's a reasonable chance they'll be free (except for the action cost, obviously).
Even better, overchanneling to get extra power at the expense of more mental stress is no longer free. If you already have 1 stress, then a 2 stress hit hurts just as much a 1 stress hit (without armor). OTOH, with a chance to cast a spell at reduced stress, a caster might be able to avoid taking stress with normal spells, but even a spell with Spin at Conviction +1 would deal mental damage.
Of course, these changes are slightly more complicated than the base rules. There's an additional calculation for an evocation attack. We don't use Spin normally, so that's another complication.
We also couldn't come up with a great way to deal with high power blocks. Just like an evocation attack could have a huge accuracy, an evocation block can have a big defense value - one that significantly exceeds other characters' attacks. Before, these defenses could be breached by high accuracy evocations, leaving the turtle mage vulnerable to other attacks until he could recast the shield (and a shield can be a significant investment). With our house rules, not so much. It seems like the only real countermeasure would be stacked maneuvers and declarations. Our group couldn't actually think of a great way to deal with a mighty shield - maybe eroding the block ala attacking a threshold? However, no character in our game going that route. Also, a character who gives up a lot of active abilities to be nearly invincible seemed like less of a problem in a group than the person who can potentially blow through an encounter in an action or two.
So, thoughts?
