A few spell casting questions

[Deadmanwalking]

You have a far more generous view of Harry's advancement than I do.  I don't see the campaign raising the skill cap up to Fantastic (+6) that early in the series, particularly after reading "Harry's Power Ups" on OW 137.

I actually agree with you on this one. He's not that much better as of Book 4.

Perhaps you can tell me what consequences Harry took in that scene...

Sure. How about "Tired" or even "Winded"? It's a legitimate Minor Consequence.

While recovering Stress is dependent on the GM, I'm pretty doubtful that 30 seconds of conversation qualifies as a full refresh.  If you go that route, the fight at Wal-Mart in Summer Knight can easily be separated into five different scenes, which seems excessive.  I think this is a case of people trying to fit the situations in the rules to the books, rather than the other way around. 

It's not about the time, it's about the narrative distinction. Those are two separate fights, one with random Summer warriors and the second directly with some of the main villains. The scene at Wal-Mart was all one fight because that's what it was narratively. You're thinking too mechanistically. Iago has actually mentioned previously that the duel and subsequent giant battle in White Night would be two separate fights, since they are narratively and thematically, even though there's little if any actual pause between the two.

Because it is no different than any of our campaigns.  Harry has adventures, with downtime between adventures.  When you start adding in all the short stories, and the things Harry does behind the scenes that we don't see, he's about as active as the characters in many ongoing campaigns.

I agree with you on this one, too. Just BTW.

[Walker_Blade]

for those who are thinking that the system can in fact cover the spellcasting in the books, take a look at Ramirez in the fight in White Night:

He explicitly does 8 significant spells, not counting anything covered in the bit about "Blast after hideously ruinous blast..."  which implies many attacks (although it could technically be statted out as either a split attack or a zone wide attack, so maybe it is mechanically only one big one).  So minimum of 9 spells in a scene.  For a young warden with no access to sponsored magic of any kind.  He is listed as having conviction 4, so 4 boxes fo mental stress, no extra consequences.  that means a maximum of 7 spells after consequences, maybe 8 if he somehow took an extreme consequence and we didn't notice.  but we still can't get to the mimimum of 9 needed to play out that scene. 

So yeah, The RPG system of a game based around a wizard can't handle the spellcasting in the books it is based off of.

[Stormraven]

Well, if it bothers you, I might suggest a variation on the Focus Items rules.  For the cost of 2 Focus slots, you get one Consequence you can  use for magic of a given type.  So, maybe instead of giving him a bonus to his Conviction or Discipline, Harry's Blasting Rod lets him cast two or three Fuego spells without stressing himself.

I would cap it at a maximum of two, maybe three, and definitely count them as Consequences as opposed to Stress, so they don't just regenerate between scenes.  Not a house rule I would expect to see in play, but off the top of my head, a possible answer to the question you've raised.

[Deadmanwalking]

for those who are thinking that the system can in fact cover the spellcasting in the books, take a look at Ramirez in the fight in White Night:

As mentioned above, that was two scenes (one for the Duel, a separate one for the big fight). That makes the math work out pretty damn perfectly.

[Walker_Blade]

Would that still be two scenes even though there was absolutely no rest time in between?  Heck, the duel hadn't even quite finished when the battle started.

[mostlyawake]

Sure, it could be 2 scenes.  Remember that a "scene" is simply an arbitrary unit of time, similar to white wolf's scenes, and is meant to designate something like "from tv commercial to tv commercial".  Any heavy action show will almost always end up cutting in the middle of a battle, or right after a reveal (the monster got TALLER, oooooh), or wherever they are at that particular 8 minute mark.  One "scene" was the events preceding the battle up until right before the "end boss", who warranted his own segment. Even one duel can be 2 scenes... just where ever the action naturally breaks (as in, they both fall through the floor to the lower level).

The game really plays like this, too... stress boxes come back between scenes (we see our hero thrown through windows, into trees, ect), but the consequences (the ubiquitous eye-brow scratch, the twisted ankle) remain. Ever notice how the hero should be way, way more beat up than he really is, but instead he's just got 2-3 really noticeable ouchies and some dirt smears?

In their explanation of why the game took forever, evil hat specifically mentions that spellcasting took a lot of work and playtesting to get right. Until I am really, really confident in my spell-fu, I think I will just opt for more scenes instead of adding house rules.

[Todjaeger]

for those who are thinking that the system can in fact cover the spellcasting in the books, take a look at Ramirez in the fight in White Night:

He explicitly does 8 significant spells, not counting anything covered in the bit about "Blast after hideously ruinous blast..."  which implies many attacks (although it could technically be statted out as either a split attack or a zone wide attack, so maybe it is mechanically only one big one).  So minimum of 9 spells in a scene.  For a young warden with no access to sponsored magic of any kind.  He is listed as having conviction 4, so 4 boxes fo mental stress, no extra consequences.  that means a maximum of 7 spells after consequences, maybe 8 if he somehow took an extreme consequence and we didn't notice.  but we still can't get to the mimimum of 9 needed to play out that scene. 

So yeah, The RPG system of a game based around a wizard can't handle the spellcasting in the books it is based off of.

I made a point of re-reading the duel and fight scene again in White Night, by my could, Ramirez cast his entropic water shield, and released 7 green blasts.  Given that other people at the meeting were also casters (Malvorra for instance...) some of the other blasts, etc might not have come from him.  Now, assuming the information from Our World is correct (it is definately not complete) and that the Duel and then fight were all part of the same scene (thus no recovery time) and that each of the green blasts were distinct castings which inflicted 1 point of mental stress on Ramirez, assuming he took both a Minor and Moderate consequence, he would still be "short" 2 mental stress boxes.  

However, as I mentioned, the writeup for Ramirez in Our World is incomplete.  Only one Rote spell is listed, yet he can have a up to 3.  He is also listed as having taken a Refinement, presumably for more focus and/or enchanted item slots, but here too the writeup has him shorted.  Per the Spellcaster rules for Evocation and Thaumaturgy, each one provides 2 focus item slots (4 total).  The writeup has him using 4 focus item slots, 2 each on his staff and glove for +1 power and +1 control with water offensively and defensively respectively.  He then uses 2 enchanted item slots for his willow sword.  Given that he has already used up his allotment of focus item slots for his staff and glove, he would have needed to spend that point of Refinement on getting additional focus or enchanted item slots.  He should therefore have either 2 unused enchanted item slots or 1 unused focus item slot.  This leaves the possibility open that Ramirez might have an item like Harry's Force Ring, which might be set to fire the green blasts...

Or as others have suggested already, those green blasts which are mentioned as coming from Ramirez could be part of a larger or zone-wide combat casting and just the visual description provided by the book mentioned specific/discrete blasts.  Depending on how one wishes to take it, there is room both in terms of the fight description and how the rules work for 'los to have been able to do what he did.  There is also the distinct possibility that "Billy" low-balled Ramirez's power and capabilities.  The Our World writeup puts Ramirez's refresh at the same level Harry at in Storm Front.  Granted, Harry is "special" and also ~15 years older than Ramirez, I do not think Ramirez would have been made a Regional Commander of the Wardens if he was only a little bit more powerful than a starting Wizard of the White Council.

Something to consider at least.

[Myrddhin]

However, as I mentioned, the writeup for Ramirez in Our World is incomplete.  Only one Rote spell is listed, yet he can have a up to 3.  He is also listed as having taken a Refinement, presumably for more focus and/or enchanted item slots, but here too the writeup has him shorted.  Per the Spellcaster rules for Evocation and Thaumaturgy, each one provides 2 focus item slots (4 total).  The writeup has him using 4 focus item slots, 2 each on his staff and glove for +1 power and +1 control with water offensively and defensively respectively.  He then uses 2 enchanted item slots for his willow sword.  Given that he has already used up his allotment of focus item slots for his staff and glove, he would have needed to spend that point of Refinement on getting additional focus or enchanted item slots.  He should therefore have either 2 unused enchanted item slots or 1 unused focus item slot.  This leaves the possibility open that Ramirez might have an item like Harry's Force Ring, which might be set to fire the green blasts...

As far as I can tell from his write-up Ramirez fully used his Refinement, as he has four slots worth of focus items, his Warden's sword (two enchanted items slots) and an additional specialization in Water evocation (effectively, his "GM" allowed him to split the benefits of his Refinement into a new specialization and his sword).

Though I'm with you on the missing Rotes.

[Todjaeger]

As far as I can tell from his write-up Ramirez fully used his Refinement, as he has four slots worth of focus items, his Warden's sword (two enchanted items slots) and an additional specialization in Water evocation (effectively, his "GM" allowed him to split the benefits of his Refinement into a new specialization and his sword).

Ack!  Missed that 2nd water specialization, so yeah, it does look like he was 'allowed' to split his Refinement, which makes sense to me. 

There is still the matter of the missing Rotes (and just what are those green blasts?) and the definite possibility that Ramirez was written up underpowered.  Having looked again at his writeup, those green blasts could be a series of Fantastic (+6) shift blasts, or they could be components of a Great (+4) shift zone-wide attack, or could be elements of a split attack, with a pair of Good (+3) shift blasts for every casting...  In other words, there are a number of different ways this could have been done.