Considering some Evocation house rules

[Deadmanwalking]

Grenades get an attack roll, by dropping one at your feet, you forego a defense, and the attack roll probably counts as +4. So call it a minimum 8 stress hit, really. So you take an Extreme Consequence and go to the hospital immediately...

Also, what in he world makes you think mooks are as tough as PCs? They don't even have Consequences (or more accurately don't use them). Nor do they all need to bunch up in a single zone to be effective. Or they could be mixed among civilians. Being mooks doesn't make them idiots. A Wizard can take them all out if the come in all bunched up...but two squads of five, both with point-men out front in a separate zone to scout, and a rear-guard another zone back? That's a little harder.

[luminos]

Impossibly tough characters make the entire concept of automatically "lethal magic" a misnomer in game terms unless you declare that you are/were trying to kill your opponent.  A character drops a hand grenade at their feet and doesn't bother to dodge, meh.  It's a 4 Stress hit, you fill in your 2 stress box and take a mild consequence; you go for burger talk with your buddies about how weak grenades are and you're 100% fine in 30 minutes.  A spell with 4 shifts in power and 2 in area should be no different and no more lethal, than a hand grenade.

If this is how you are playing, then you're doing it wrong.  The narrative comes first, and the mechanics exist merely to serve it.  By dropping the a grenade at your feet and taking the hit, you are saying that you want to have the narrative flavor of getting blowing yourself to hell, so you might as well take a severe/extreme consequence from it, no dice rolled.  If you decide that you can fry little girls with lightning bolts just for looking at you funny, and get away with it by continously making implausible descriptions of how they survivor, the GM has every right to use the narrative against your character and make the next mook die that you try to hit with heavy magic.

[Papa Gruff]

If this is how you are playing, then you're doing it wrong.  The narrative comes first, and the mechanics exist merely to serve it.  By dropping the a grenade at your feet and taking the hit, you are saying that you want to have the narrative flavor of getting blowing yourself to hell, so you might as well take a severe/extreme consequence from it, no dice rolled.  If you decide that you can fry little girls with lightning bolts just for looking at you funny, and get away with it by continously making implausible descriptions of how they survivor, the GM has every right to use the narrative against your character and make the next mook die that you try to hit with heavy magic.

After some sessions of play and similar situations I'm with luminos on this one. If you don't want to kill your opponent, then don't hit it with heavy duty stuff, because it is bound to kill someone some day. It is a question of relations. If a Evocation Attack Action is designed to be Weapon: 5 it should be comparable to any other Attack with a Weapon: 5. There is a reason why the wizards of the books only use their aggressive magic (excluding enchanted items like the force rings) when they truly want to hurt some. It's because it is potentially lethal to do so.

If you just want incapacitate someone or show somebody who he is up against use other types of actions. Make it a maneuver. A good example is Elaines Mind Fog (YW 299). There are other examples in the book. In my opinion maneuvers are the way to go if you just want to knock somebody unconscious via magic.

[Ornithopter]

After some sessions of play and similar situations I'm with luminos on this one. If you don't want to kill your opponent, then don't hit it with heavy duty stuff, because it is bound to kill someone some day. It is a question of relations. If a Evocation Attack Action is designed to be Weapon: 5 it should be comparable to any other Attack with a Weapon: 5. There is a reason why the wizards of the books only use their aggressive magic (excluding enchanted items like the force rings) when they truly want to hurt some. It's because it is potentially lethal to do so.

I don't know, from my reading of the mechanics, there's nothing saying that you have to kill someone when you "take them out" with a shotgun either.  You always get to dictate the outcome, maybe they pass out from blood loss or shock, maybe they're paralyzed, maybe they're lying on the ground groaning, conscious, but only capable of crawling away.  Perhaps they are largely uninjured, and merely have to retreat under fire, neutralizing them as a threat long enough for you to get away clean.  In a sword duel, you could narrate that they are disarmed, and you have your blade at their throat, drawing a single drop of blood.  It seems to me that you have a great deal of freedom here.

When it comes to evocation specifically, I would imagine that you have even greater freedom.  You use electricity to "taze" somebody, air to sleeper-hold them into unconsciousness, earth to leave them in the bottom of pit, spirit to put them in a trance, etc.  The only real requirement is that your "taken out" result makes narrative sense, which shouldn't be too hard assuming a certain degree of player creativity.

If you just want incapacitate someone or show somebody who he is up against use other types of actions. Make it a maneuver. A good example is Elaines Mind Fog (YW 299). There are other examples in the book. In my opinion maneuvers are the way to go if you just want to knock somebody unconscious via magic.

Maneuvers are only going to apply aspects, right?  I mean, you could try a compel for them to go to sleep, but that probably won't work against anybody important enough to have fate points, at least not in a combat situation.

[Victim]

1. Yeah, wizards can break grapples, that's hardly the only way to beat them.

2. The big mental attack I can think of is Incite Emotion, which is Deceit + 2, and thus very likely to be attacking at 6 or 7 or so, so it's alot worse for anyone you're attacking...and now that I thik on it, probably as scary offensively as Evocation itself, if not more.

3. True enough, but they really do hurt people without Toughness powers more...and Wizards are very much in that category. Pretty much by definition.

4. That's one or two more than a combat focused character actually needs, and fails to cover actual defense rolls that don't cost you your offensive action.

5. I dont necessarily disagree with most of it, but Grevane actually has a Weapon Focus stunt very explicitly.

Argument #6, which you fail to address, is that the Mental Stress cost of Evocation is actually a rather large down-side to having and using it.

1: Sure, magic isn't the only way to break grapples.  But my point is that grappling a wizard is hardly the end of the world.  Some comments here have suggested otherwise.  If the grapple doesn't even have a good chance of blocking one spell, trying for a grapple may not be the best strategy.  OTOH, a really tough monster might find it useful for reducing damage below a critical amount.

2: The wording for the +2 with Incite Emotion seemed to leave open the possibility that it would only apply when placing maneuvers or blocks even after the ability gains the power to make attacks.

But yeah, Incite Emotion with the upgrades is pretty freaking brutal: there are no supernatural mental defense or toughness powers, many otherwise formidable combatants will have weak mental defenses, the power can be subtle, Incite Emotions can help in both physical and social conflicts, and it may have an accuracy bonus.  

Again though, notice the trend, an attack with an inherent bonus to accuracy is very strong for its cost.


3: Yeah, getting ambushed does hurt a lot more if you don't have a toughness power.  However, always on toughness powers don't really seem common in the default character templates and source material.  Red Court Infected have Toughness and Recovery, and Changelings can easily justify them.  But the Catch of cold iron/steel is easy to satisfy purely on accident with mortal weapons.

Also, spellcasters can pick up enchanted items to add armor or a block to address moments of vulnerability like that, or bad luck.  But that's not quite the same topic.

4:  That's true.  That does essentially free up one highish skill.  However, Discipline and Lore do have more non attack use than Fists or Weapons


5:  His stunt only applies to maneuvers, which seems more limited than something that applies to attacks.

6: I didn't address the downside of having limited ammo because it's a legitimate downside.  It's one that you can try to cover to cover with an additional attack skill (maybe around Fair), doing maneuvers or Assessment actions in between shots, or items.  OTOH, grenades or explosives also seem likely to have ammo scarcity.

Still though, I feel that the ability to double the accuracy of other characters (so you essentially never miss AND deal lots of extra damage) is more than worth the downside.  The better your offense, the less you need additional shots.  It's a real drawback, but it's worth living with it.  If you can take a tough enemy or a group in only a few actions, then you don't need to be able to attack dozens of times.

Also, I think there's a potion that can help too.

-------------------

it will take a minimum of 14 stress to take them out of the fight in one hit.

Starting on page 327, there are some guidelines for how many consequences NPCs should take before being taken out.

While it's theoretically legal to blast a bunch of normal folks with magic and then narrate a non lethal take out result (perhaps the thugs aren't even hit directly - they just flee after witnessing the powerful magic display ), it's not even strictly necessary.  An overchanneled block will leave the wizard pretty safe (or lock down the thug's offensive options).  After bubbling up (or turning invisible, etc), the wizard can probably do without direct magic attacks.

IIRC, Elaine's mind fog was almost as illegal as just killing people, so I can't really recommend using it.  

Note that my experience has been with our wizard usually being pretty careful about not shooting humans with high power magic, even when it's been to our tactical disadvantage.  Stupid vampire addict acting as a human shield.    It's not like he's been reaping the benefits of player chosen take out results while dosing tons of mortals with chain lightning.

-----------------------------------

An unaddressed benefit is that some evocations can also target Might apparently, granting them another effective accuracy boost besides just raw control bonus.

[Deadmanwalking]

1. Oh, sure, I'm not saying grappling wins or anything.

2. True, but those are hardly the only accuracy boosters available.

3. Um...Emissaries of Power, Were-creatures (in animal form), Scions, Changelings, all sorts of things get it. I'm currently running a DFRPG game with 7 players, five of whom have Inhuman Toughness, so it's not as uncommon as all that.

4. Depending, but Athletics is pretty awesome, too.

5. Hmm, I just re-read it and maybe you're right. Still, you can always take Duelist and Target Rich Environment and have +1 pretty much all the time anyway.

6. True, but bullets don't, nor do sword slashes.

And 'doubling' is a significant overstatement, you're talking about a 10 vs. about a 7 with a properly designed non-wizard combat character.

[Papa Gruff]

I don't know, from my reading of the mechanics, there's nothing saying that you have to kill someone when you "take them out" with a shotgun either.  You always get to dictate the outcome, maybe they pass out from blood loss or shock, maybe they're paralyzed, maybe they're lying on the ground groaning, conscious, but only capable of crawling away.  Perhaps they are largely uninjured, and merely have to retreat under fire, neutralizing them as a threat long enough for you to get away clean.  In a sword duel, you could narrate that they are disarmed, and you have your blade at their throat, drawing a single drop of blood.  It seems to me that you have a great deal of freedom here.

When it comes to evocation specifically, I would imagine that you have even greater freedom.  You use electricity to "taze" somebody, air to sleeper-hold them into unconsciousness, earth to leave them in the bottom of pit, spirit to put them in a trance, etc.  The only real requirement is that your "taken out" result makes narrative sense, which shouldn't be too hard assuming a certain degree of player creativity.

Maneuvers are only going to apply aspects, right?  I mean, you could try a compel for them to go to sleep, but that probably won't work against anybody important enough to have fate points, at least not in a combat situation.)

You understand the rules correctly. I never said it is impossible to just stun somebody with evocation. I just said it's improbable, because it is so dangerous that no wizard would do it lightheartedly. From where the rules are concerned you can dictate the take out, true. But please take a look onto the narrative standpoint and answer me this. Why do we not see more incapacitating magic in the books. This has to have a very good reason and this reason is, that pulling something like this of takes an amount of control that no wizard other then the most powerful are comfortable with. The possibility of doing it wrong and dealing lethal injuries are to great.

Example: The Wizard decides to do the least powerful attack possible with evocation. Its Weapon: 1 (equivalent to a baseball bat) and he describes it as a hit of force over the head. He rolls his discipline (Discipline: Great +4) roll + + - 0 on his Discipline Roll. So he hits pretty well. The mook rolls his athletics which he has on average against it to defend. He does poorly, rolling - - 0 0. Weapon: 1 + 6 Shifts from poor defense + 0 Armor = 7 Shifts. The mook has to take either a mild and moderate or a severe physical if he wants to avoid the take out. As take outs have to be within the realm of reason as a GM i'd argue that the attack is very unlikely to just incapacitate with a damage like this.

It comes down to this: it is possible. No argue there. But it is very very very dangerous and as it is, it's most likely that you'll only use it as a last resort. Look at the examples for sleep/stunning in the book. The Aspect can be invoked for effect you know. As a GM i'd even allow the free tag to go towards a compel of the aspect. Look at maneuver rules. Keep in mind that evocation maneuvers work differently then normal maneuvers... For me it's the way to go.

In my humble opinion it is important that you can do a lot with magic, especially with evocations, but you shouldn't be able to do just anything that you want. Otherwise the importance of things like thamuaturgy is diminished by a really great deal. (Most of the sleepe spells in the book are under the thaumaturgy examples, and they are maneuvers.

[jalrin]

Here is the problem though, Why on earth does it make sense that a highly controlled evocation is worse than a less well controlled one?
Consider two sample evocations that could be used for stunning purposes.  Sorcerer A uses a seven shift force attack, rolls only a Great control roll but takes three backlash to keep it from going berserk.  The target (the one from your example) rolls a great defense roll so no shifts on the aiming roll but the target takes seven damage and is taken out.  I would be seriously inclined to agree with you in this case.

Consider Wizard B, who brings the attack you describe and gets seven shifts of damage off of weapon:1 but a fantastic control roll for six shifts of damage?  Does it make sense to punish Wizard B (who likely had to sacrifice skill points that could have gone into conviction and thus raw power) for trying to control their power (by establishing a "fantastic" level of control over their power)?

The argument that sleep maneuver spells are the answer fails to consider that a lot of these spells violate the Third or fourth laws of magic.  I guess you could house rule that they are not, but now we have imposed two house rules to deal with a problem that can be controlled with a single, narrower rule.

P.S.: baseball bats are Weapon:2) YS:p.202

[Papa Gruff]

Here is the problem though, Why on earth does it make sense that a highly controlled evocation is worse than a less well controlled one?
Consider two sample evocations that could be used for stunning purposes.  Sorcerer A uses a seven shift force attack, rolls only a Great control roll but takes three backlash to keep it from going berserk.  The target (the one from your example) rolls a great defense roll so no shifts on the aiming roll but the target takes seven damage and is taken out.  I would be seriously inclined to agree with you in this case.

Consider Wizard B, who brings the attack you describe and gets seven shifts of damage off of weapon:1 but a fantastic control roll for six shifts of damage?  Does it make sense to punish Wizard B (who likely had to sacrifice skill points that could have gone into conviction and thus raw power) for trying to control their power (by establishing a "fantastic" level of control over their power)?

The argument that sleep maneuver spells are the answer fails to consider that a lot of these spells violate the Third or fourth laws of magic.  I guess you could house rule that they are not, but now we have imposed two house rules to deal with a problem that can be controlled with a single, narrower rule.

P.S.: baseball bats are Weapon:2) YS:p.202

Yep, thats exactly the problem. It's discussed in the other thread too right now. How do we solve it?

I'm / was faced with this in the game I run and the resulting debate has brought me to the point were I consider not to allow intentional knock outs by (Evocation) Attack Action at all, just to be rid of frustrating gaming nights.

EDIT: added an intentional

[Deadmanwalking]

IMO, you can absolutely knock someone out with a properly designed Evocation...but it has to be properly designed. Blasts of fire? Not a good idea. Entropy bolts? Ditto. Localized earthquakes, or even hitting people in the head with raw force? Likely to cause brain damage. All of these remain true even at low Weapon ratings, and no matter how much Control you have.

Now, Taser blasts of lightning, choking people out with bands of force, or yanking the air from someone's lungs, those all work fine. Even at decently high weapon ratings (though if you lose control, even these could be deadly), but they're also rather specific to certain elements (which may or may not be your primary), may use defensive stats other than Athletics (which could be either good or bad depending on the opponent), and are likely to be different from your existing Rotes (unless you're a specialist in non-lethal combat).

[CableRouter]

If this is how you are playing, then you're doing it wrong.  The narrative comes first, and the mechanics exist merely to serve it. 

Yes and the winner of a conflict gets to narrate what happens to the loser.  If that doesn't include death, he doesn't die.  

There's a couple of threads on this subject running at the same time, another died out a day or two ago and I'm amused by how much hate there is for Evocation.  The most flexible power source in the universe, powered by the will of the user and people want to flat out deny that it has any flexibility or any ability to control the results with that will.

[Deadmanwalking]

Did you read my last post? Of course you can control it...but you don't do that by somehow not burning people to death with infernoes of flame, you do by using it to do something else, like the listed options above.

[Ornithopter]

You can do it with fire too, or at least I don't see why you couldn't.  Burn out all the oxygen around them, they asphyxiate till they pass out, then give 'em some air.  Or, hit them with quick intense bursts of heat to cause incapacitating pain but minimal tissue damage, like that controversial microwave pain gun the army has now.

Honestly, I still think you should be able to do it with a shotgun.  Maybe they're non-lethally wounded and incapacitated, or they're not even wounded but are under such an intense barrage they are forced to retreat or keep their heads down long enough for you to get away; from my reading of the rules, the player gets to narrate any taken out result they want, as long as it's plausible.

As an extension of that, I don't really even think you need to describe explicitly non-lethal evocation attacks, so long as you can plausibly describe people surviving whatever attack you do throw at them.

Re: The lack of "less-than-lethal" evocations in the source material, I think most of that can be explained by selection bias.  The caster we see the most of is Dresden, who is infamous for his lack of subtlety and control.  Further, non-Dresden non-evil wizards fighting with mortals is probably where you would expect to see the most use of magical "tasers" and I don't recall seeing too many fights like that.

[Jeckel]

You can do it with fire too, or at least I don't see why you couldn't.  Burn out all the oxygen around them, they asphyxiate till they pass out, then give 'em some air.  Or, hit them with quick intense bursts of heat to cause incapacitating pain but minimal tissue damage, like that controversial microwave pain gun the army has now.

* puts on the GM cap my players made me for these specific situations *

If you could explain in real-life physics how to use fire to burn away the oxygen around a persons face without causing second and third degree burns, or worse, then sure, but I can't think of anyway you could do that. Also, there is a looooot of difference between fire and microwaves. That is why the pain gun you mention is controversial and trying to do the same thing with a flame-thrower is not even considered an option.

[Ornithopter]

* puts on the GM cap my players made me for these specific situations *

If you could explain in real-life physics how to use fire to burn away the oxygen around a persons face without causing second and third degree burns, or worse, then sure, but I can't think of anyway you could do that. Also, there is a looooot of difference between fire and microwaves. That is why the pain gun you mention is controversial and trying to do the same thing with a flame-thrower is not even considered an option.

Well, since we're (presumably) not playing a game about physicists who fight vampires by night, how about I throw out some magi/techno-babble patter and you tell me if it sounds plausible enough to work for Harry?

1. Fire magic grants some ability to control heat flows generally.  An example can be seen from the case where Harry makes a big gout of flame, taking the heat from Lake Michigan in order to freeze a portion of it to run across.  Depending on level of control*, a mage could create fires in the vicinity of a target, but pull enough heat away from the target not to cause lethal burns.

2. As far as I understand it, the microwave gun works on the same basic principle as a microwave oven, you hit water and fat molecules with microwaves, exciting them, causing heat.  Now, in the gun, the heating is supposed to be limited to the outermost part of the skin, decreasing the amount of long term tissue damage.  Again, with sufficient control*, you should be able to use fire magic to create a similar effect.  Also, we may be more willing than the army to see some tissue damage, so long as it isn't lethal.

However, I would like to restate that even without explicitly "less-than-lethal" evocations, I think it should be possible for reasonably creative players to come up with plausible "taken out" results that don't involve killing.

*For the purposes of this discussion, I think it's safe to assume pretty solid control, since here we're talking about evokers who are getting +8 or +10 on their control rolls.