Sample Combat

[JesterOC]

You get a free Invoke. You can either do a standard invoke, or an invoke for effect. Invoking for effect lets you declare a fact or circumstance that would be of benefit to your character.

Seems to me that having the bad guy fall while trying to get away, benefits the character.

[greycouncilmember]

The following is mostly a commentary on the characters' choices in the conflict, not the conflict itself. It is what the good guys could do if they had a decent plan;

3) If you want to win a combat vs a caster and a ghoul while protecting a girl, you do a zone-wide offensive (Tazering can be force. As can a telekinetic hold) block vs endurance on all of them (including the girl), feeding it with conviction 5, +3 from 4th mental box +4 from your 2 mild mental consequences, rolling +7 disipline, a fate point and your 2nd or 3rd physical box as backlash.
This gives you a zonewide block of strength 10, which you are going to maintain with more power in later exchanges. The enemies and the girl can probably do nothing to beat a 10-shift block vs endurance and your buddy is now free to shoot the bad guys dead while you do a soft maintain with 3-4 shifts of power every so often.

Fight won without any consequence over mild, without any danger of enemies escaping, without any property damage and without any danger to the girl. (that's why you always blast the wizard if you can - so he can't pull off the nova)

I have two questions because I don't really understand how this block works.  What does a block do against endurance, does that mean they can't do anything at all? 
Wouldn't the block affect both the caster casting the spell (Barry) and the cop (Dave) if it's a zone effect?

[babel2uk]

Seems to me that having the bad guy fall while trying to get away, benefits the character.

Just my point of view, but I'd say that's far more heavily weighted towards the detriment of Voldemort - which edges it into Compel territory.

The paragraph on page 98 says that Invocation for Effect allows you to make a Declaration - which is defined on page 116 as introducing a new Aspect. So effectively you can add another aspect to Voldemort, and then tag that, and then again and again ad infinitum - which seems a little silly. In this case I wouldn't allow an Invocation for Effect, just a straight Invocation or Compel.

[wyvern]

While a PC compelling that consequence with the free tag is questionable, the GM compelling it (and giving the guy a fate point) is not; that's a perfectly valid and reasonable thing to do, and is one of the things that give consequences teeth - I mean, if compels don't get involved, you'd have guys with broken legs running around at no penalty, and that's obviously just wrong.

edit: I'd also point out that Voldemort gets a fate point when the conflict ends, as per YS206 (cashing out).

[Doc Nova]

I would also rule the effect of Voldy toppling being far more detrimental to him than beneficial to the player, hence it being a compel.  And certainly the GM is within rights to (and rightly should) compel the consequence, that is not what a tag enables, however, which was my only point.  I'd hate for one of my players to read this and suddenly think they would have that ability at the table.  It is neither how the rules are written, nor would they want the GM doing the same to their characters without recourse (in this case, a fate point to the villain).

Otherwise, what was to stop the ghoul's player from compelling the wizard's "Gutted" consequence to eliminate action and without awarding them a fate point?

Conseqeunces are vicious things as written, but they, at least in my opinion, do not need added teeth.

[JesterOC]

There is no set answer to the issue about Invoking for effect. However just to be clear the book has an example spell that shows Invoking for effect being used to bring misfortune upon a target, not giving a direct benefit to the caster.

It is Harry's Blinding spell. All the spell does is place an aspect of Blinded on the target. When that is done the player can tag for effect and say "The target is blinded and won't be able to hurt anyone else tonight". Which was done in a novel.

However it is different if the target is a quarter mile away from you, than if it is right up in your grill. 

When chatting about this with Rob D.(via twitter)  he said that the amount of narrative control of tagging for effect during a conflict is a subtle subject and that must be agreed to by all parties involved. (I'm paraphrasing here).

In other words (my interpretation) it will depend on the GM and the other players to accept the power of the Invocation of effect. In a nutshell it just has to feel right to all the parties involved. In the current it feels right to me, your mileage may differ.

JesterOC

[babel2uk]

There is no set answer to the issue about Invoking for effect. However just to be clear the book has an example spell that shows Invoking for effect being used to bring misfortune upon a target, not giving a direct benefit to the caster.

It is Harry's Blinding spell. All the spell does is place an aspect of Blinded on the target. When that is done the player can tag for effect and say "The target is blinded and won't be able to hurt anyone else tonight". Which was done in a novel.

If you're talking about the 'Harry Blinds The Loup Garou' spell, the actual spell doesn't mention Invoking for Effect, it says that it applies a temporary aspect of Blindness, which is highly likely to be sticky because of the complexity involved. This does alow you to tag it (obviously), but I'd say the example of driving off the Loup Garou in Full Moon would be accomplished in game terms by Compelling the Blindness aspect rather than an Invocation for Effect. I'd have no problem with someone invoking the aspect for effect to say the Loup Garou thrashes wildly and doesn't hit his intended target this exchange or similar, or invoking it to give them a bonus to hit or dodge while it can't see, both of which seem like reasonable uses of a freebie. But a long term effect like driving it off for the rest of the night just screams Compel.

In other words (my interpretation) it will depend on the GM and the other players to accept the power of the Invocation of effect. In a nutshell it just has to feel right to all the parties involved. In the current it feels right to me, your mileage may differ.

I'm not going to argue with that, like I said, it's my point of view that allowing an Invocation for Effect as a tag  action is fine, but the effect shouldn't be to immediately end combat or capture the bad guy. That level of narrative power should require a Compel rather than an invocation.

[eberg]

Not to get all rulesy on this, but I don't think this is how it works.

A consequence enables one tag, which is a free invoke.  An invoke is either +2 to a roll or a reroll.  In order to compel the consequence, the player (Barry, in this case) would need to spend a fate point, which Voldy would get...and could also have begun an escalation on the compel, making it far more costly to the compelling player.

This might be my confusion from having read Diaspora and Dresden Files back-to-back. The former allows a tag to either be an invoke or a compel.

[eberg]

It's a very common house rule to allow caster to create 'reactive' evocation blocks (i.e. generating an evocation block instead of trying to dodge with athletics).  And even without this houserule, spending your action to create a block is usually not a good idea, they other side can just blast your buddy instead, and you've wasted your action, since your block only has a duration of one turn.

I prefer forcing players to choose between using their magic to attack or defend each round. I think it makes for more interesting choices during a combat. Also, I defend V's decision to put up the block. He doesn't really care if they attack Igor instead (that's what he's there for) and he can always put more energy into the block next round if he needs to keep it up.

Note that you can take backlash on either your physical or mental track.  Most spellcasters prefer to take backlash on the phyasical track so that they have the maximum amount of mental stress boxes available for more spellcasting.

Quite true. I'll have to clarify that to the players.

You normally only get a dodge roll either when your dodge roll total is greater that the effect of the evocation block protecting you, or that evocation defense was used to create armor instead of a block.

You don't know if it is higher until you roll it. Granted, in this case it wasn't likely he was going to beat his shield, but I put it in anyway to illustrate to the players that they get both the defense and the shield against attacks.

As Voldy did not put any extra duration into his block, it would have only lasted until this end of his action this turn anyway.

 

It would have lasted long enough to be effective against Dave's attack if Barry hadn't collapsed it with his attack.

So Barry didn't have to spend an action to dispel it, it would have dissipated by the time his action rolled around.

Only if V didn't sink more power into it.

Also note that greater duration is one of the advantages offered by 'thaumaturgy at the speed of evocation' available to sponsored magic.

Mental attacks like this are probably a third law violation

It's arguable. He isn't violating his mind, he's just doing a brute force punch to his brain. Given that the alternative is another force attack, it is less likely to kill him (from an in-character perspective).

Leadership tasks like this are normally done with presence, not rapport.

You are correct. I got hung up on the description of Presence as a passive skill, like Alertness, and forgot that trapping.

[JesterOC]

After rereading the rules for invoking for effect, compels, and all the examples in the book I can find. I agree that having V fall in the stairs is a compel and not an invoke for effect. It makes PC's using narrative control to short circuit much more costly which I think it more beneficial.

Thanks for clarifying all this folks, especially before our game tonight.

JesterOC

[KOFFEYKID]

I have two questions because I don't really understand how this block works.  What does a block do against endurance, does that mean they can't do anything at all?  
Wouldn't the block affect both the caster casting the spell (Barry) and the cop (Dave) if it's a zone effect?

The wording is off, it shouldn't be a block versus endurance, its a block, against some action, which is opposed by endurance. Which means that the block keeps X from happening, but you can overcome the block by means of your high endurance.

So for example you can have two blocks that do the same thing be opposed by different skills.

A block against movement opposed by athletics.
A block against movement opposed by might.

In the first block you are doing something like dodging past whatever is blocking you, as long as its athletic.

On the second block you are using your brute strength to bypass the block, like maybe the block manifests as chains which bind you in place, and you go all hulk smash on the chains and then proceed to move.

[Miso]

After rereading the rules for invoking for effect, compels, and all the examples in the book I can find. I agree that having V fall in the stairs is a compel and not an invoke for effect. It makes PC's using narrative control to short circuit much more costly which I think it more beneficial.

Thanks for clarifying all this folks, especially before our game tonight.

JesterOC

I don't want to be a spoilsport but I'm asking myself if this isn't indeed a tag. 
Take the example on YS 106, headline Tagging:
Harry assesses an aspect via skill roll and is due to a tag.
This tag is spend as +2 dice roll. Harry doesn't spend a fate point because it's a free tag.
"This is clearly to the Shadowman's detriment, but since the tag was free for Harry, the Shadowman doesn't get a fate point."

If I'm not mistaken, Voldy's aspect Shattered Ribs wasn't tagged so I think the GM could rule that tripping off Voldy counts as a tag without a fatepoint for him.

[Doc Nova]

+2 to a roll, or a reroll, as an invoke (or a tag, which is a free invoke) is not the same as denying an action (such as falling down, which denied movement, in this case).  That is the realm of compels.  At least as I see them.

[Miso]

I can live with that but I wanted to have it clarified.
I think you can see it the other way round, too.

[chrislackey]

 * Igor attacks Dave. He has Fists at Great (+4), he rolls -1, so his effort is +3. Dave rolls Athletics (+2) to dodge, gets a +1, and also has effort +3. That means Igor hits. His claws are Weapon:4 so he does a 4-stress hit. Dave only has three spots on his track, so this would take him out. He decides to take a Mild Consequence instead (Nasty Scratches) which reduces it to a 2-stress hit, which he marks on his sheet.

I thought if you get a net "0," you miss. +3 for Igor, +3 for Dave. I'm confused.