Thamaturgy at the speed of Evocation through high lore?

[Fandraen]

It mentions several times in the fluff text of the Magic section that Thaumaturgy is slow, with even the fastest spells taking a minute or so. But when you actually look at the rules, the slowest part of Thaum (preparation) can be skipped if you're doing a reasonably simple spell and you have a high lore; then there's some number of exchanges to build up power. Which looks on the face of it like a character doing a really simple spell-- like, oh, pretty much any maneuver to add a temporary aspect to a scene, at difficulty 3, when done by a carefully built Submerged wizard-- might well be able to get it off in one exchange of power-building.
There isn't any kind of reliable time-to-exchange converter: a single exchange in a social conflict is liable to be far more than a minute, while a single exchange in a gunfight is likely to be far less.

So, given that, what does it really mean for Thaum to be slow compared to Evocation? I have a player who *really* wants to play a useful-in-conflict-time Thaumaturgist, but I also want his character to have a reason to fall back to his less-favored Evocation skills in some circumstances.

Things I've considered:
1) Yes, very simple Thaum spells really are as fast as arbitrarily complicated evocations; however, Thaum also always has the symbolic link restriction, so you're going to need to do some prep-work if you want to be applying even temporary aspects directly to an enemy. Use Evocation not necessarily for speed, but for lashing out at/defending against something you don't have any links to.

2) Thaum always takes some minimal number of rounds; even if you're skipping the serious prep phase, gathering your mind to prepare to cast the spell always
takes one round. (This seems clumsy, especially since it's nothing but a speed bump; there's not even a Lore role involved.)

3) Thaum spells can be cast in one exchange, but their effects are not instantaneous. The player only needs to spend one exchange creating and powering the spell, but whether the effect settles in on the next round or in a few rounds will depend on the GM's estimation of the speed of the conflict. (This seems like it would cause GM headaches, as well as reducing the coolness factor.)

4) As 1, but performing a Thaum ritual with no prep in a high-stress situation-- which will be most conflicts, but not necessarily all-- adds to the complexity. This departs a little bit from the book (after all, you're already making Discipline rolls to control the power) but encourages the player to go ahead and spend a round or two on maneuvers to create a more optimal spellcasting environment, thereby effectively slowing Thaum down without actually changing the power-building or spell-prep mechanic.

Anyone else have any insights, or suggestions as to which of these might work best in play?

[luminos]

From the way I interpret it, Thaumaturgy can never work at the speed of evocation without sponsored magic.  15 minutes of casting time for simple things that can be done without preparation makes it prohibitively difficult to use in combat.  If you are letting Thaumaturgy get used in a physical conflict at speeds of evocation, you are negating the very important power balance of evocation giving mental stress. 

If a thaumaturgy focused character wants to be effective in combat, he will have to take a different route to that effectiveness.  He will have to prepare for the conflicts ahead of time, performing the rituals he thinks will be useful for upcoming fights, and activate the effects of those rituals when the fight starts.  If he isn't prepared for a specific fight ahead of time, he will have to fall back on enchanted items or evocation or another method of survival.  The price paid for the perfect versatility that thaumaturgy gives characters is that it can never be used impromptu.

[Ophidimancer]

I wouldn't let Thaumaturgy be used at Evocation speed without Sponsored Magic, otherwise that infringes on the benefits of Sponsored Magic.

Thaumaturgy needs at least a minute to set up, and needs a sympathetic connection to boot, so that's not really possible in combat exchanges.

What I would allow, though, is for someone to use their Lore to make Maneuvers using Thaumaturgical principles.  Roll Lore to set up a Closed Circle that you can tag when casting a Block with Evocation.  Roll Lore to declare that you have something with a Sympathetic Connection to an opponent that you can tag to cast an Evocation Attack or Maneuver against them.

Otherwise, using Thaumaturgy for combat means making Enchanted Items or Potions.

[Belial666]

Exchange 1: Build a magic circle, runic word or other symbol of power to begin the ritual.
Exchange 2: Decide on and build the spell-construct (essentially the effect of the spell). This takes only 1 exchange if the complexity is within your modified Lore and you don't need preparation. (i.e. if you have Lore 5, a +5 focus item and a +1 specialization, you can do any complexity of 11 or less as a singe exchange)
Exchange 3+: Cast the spell. You do this by summoning enough power to fuel the spell-construct, using conviction and discipline. Do note however that neither evocation focuses nor thaumaturgy complexity focuses can help with summoning and controlling this power. If your conviction is 4 and your discipline 5, you need at least 3 exchanges to call enough power for a complexity 3 ritual. In this step you also need to provide a sympathetic link of some sort.

So, minimum time of a complexity 11 ritual: 5 exchanges. Minimum time for a complexity 5-8 ritual: 4 exchanges. Minimum time for a complexity 1-4 ritual: 3 exchanges. That's for a submerged, ritualist wizard.
A similarly focused evoker can do an effect of similar power in only one exchange, at 1/3 to 1/5 the time.

[JustinS]

Remember that lore is not 'without' prep, it is without extra prep. You may be fishing lint out of your pockets, turning to face north by northwest (for a very Hitchcock style spell), doing some mental warmup exercises, or just talking though your simple little spell, explaining to your buddy the cop how it works as you cast. It takes a moment of non-combat time.

I would let you spend refinement on can cast specific specialty in combat time. The Merlin can Combat Ward for example.

[wyvern]

But when you actually look at the rules, the slowest part of Thaum (preparation) can be skipped...

This is an unfortunately common misconception - and the answer is, no, you can't.  It can be skipped in out of character terms, yes; you can assume that whatever esoteric ingredients you need are available at your lab.  But there is nothing in the rules to imply that you can get away with skipping that preparation *in* character.  Now, in some cases, you may be able to pull off a tracking spell with a piece of chalk and some string - but it's still going to take time to set up.  There are a couple of specific page references - YS261, for example, has a passing reference to minimum thaumaturgy cast time; there's another one on YS275 under the heading of "Can I conjure a sword?"

If you want a book-legal way to do combat speed thaumaturgy, I suggest looking into sponsored magic; an appropriate choice here (maybe rune-magic from Odin?) might allow some decent options for thaumaturgy with the speed and methods of evocation.

Otherwise, you need a house-rule.
For example, you might rule that, before you can cast, you have to prepare the spell, using one or more maneuvers to put spell preparation aspects into play - things like "a circle drawn in chalk" or "ritual foci arranged just so" or whatever.  How many of these you need before you can start casting would be up to the GM; a conservative option would be needing one such aspect in place for every two points of complexity; I might allow one per three or four points, though, subject to the qualifier "This is a probably unbalanced house-rule and I reserve the right to change it if it doesn't work out in play."
By contrast, in a long-running social conflict where each exchange is several minutes, you might be able to get by with just one preparation aspect for any ritual up to equal to your lore (or, well, equal to your lore + any bonuses you're getting from spending fate points to invoke existing aspects or from taking consequences.)
These preparation aspects would also tend to be fairly fragile; a circle drawn in chalk can be rendered useless by a guy just happening to step over it, nevermind one deliberately trying to mess up whatever you're doing.

[Ophidimancer]

The Merlin can Combat Ward for example.

Maybe.  Or maybe those were just really good Blocks.  Or maybe the headquarters of the White Council sit on a Ley Line (useful dontcha think?) and he's using Sponsored Magic by tapping into that.

[luminos]

Or maybe the Merlin wasn't in the thick of battle, and cast the ward from behind the front lines using normal thaumaturgy procedures.

[Belial666]

Or maybe the Merlin, like some High-Council wizards, has some sort of power tied to his specialty beyond vanilla magic. The Blackstaff has a very serious item of power. Listens-to-Wind has serious shapeshifting abilities. The Gatekeeper has some level of seeing the future, perhaps even Chronomancy. Ancient Mai can create serious constructs.

Why not some special Warding Magic for the Merlin that works like Sponsored Magic for wards?

[Todjaeger]

Or maybe the Merlin, like some High-Council wizards, has some sort of power tied to his specialty beyond vanilla magic. The Blackstaff has a very serious item of power. Listens-to-Wind has serious shapeshifting abilities. The Gatekeeper has some level of seeing the future, perhaps even Chronomancy. Ancient Mai can create serious constructs.

Why not some special Warding Magic for the Merlin that works like Sponsored Magic for wards?

Possible, though the Gatekeeper would need to have a similar ability as well since the Merlin and Gatekeeper cast the Ward together.  Either way, it ends up working out to the Merlin & Gatekeeper either not being in actual combat when casting the Ward, or both having some form of Sponsored Magic which supported and allowed it.

[ahunting]

See YS 288 Side Bar, "With Evocation's Methods and Speed".

[ironchicken]

If you wanted to do something then i would suggest using the time scale. If you assume the simplest ritual prep takes "15 minutes" then 4 shifts would reduce that to "a few moments".

[Synthesse]

If you wanted to do something then i would suggest using the time scale. If you assume the simplest ritual prep takes "15 minutes" then 4 shifts would reduce that to "a few moments".

I had assumed that this is the way you make Thaumaturgy faster. Is this incorrect? Also, I figure that if you prepare a bunch of the stuff in advance (like attaching the circle and materials to cloth, and then unfolding the cloth in combat, rather than drawing it on the ground), you could fire off spells that way.

[ElricTalsso]

As far as I have seen in the books you don't actually need anything other than your mind to cast any thaum. You'd have to be crazy or desperate to try and pull it off without it but you could (and Harry actually does) do the entire ritual in your mind, chances are it goes horribly wrong and you fail though since you lack all of the material aids that make it easier to pull off.

[Synthesse]

Interesting question about Thaumaturgy: Can you reuse the components of a ritual again for another ritual? For instance, could you have, some piece of equipment for example, that has all the ritual components built into it and thus all you would need to do would be to channel energy into the spell? For instance, lets say a character wants to build a knife that when it cuts an enemy, it collects some of the enemy's blood and built into it ritual components necessary for some kind of harmful spell that you could channel through the knife. I think this could be a pretty cool application of Thaumaturgy.