Benefit to Overshooting a Control Roll?

[MyNinjaH8sU]

I was reading in prep for playing my first Wizard, and I very much like the idea of someone who doesn't necessarily have a ridiculous amount of power at their disposal, but has an absolutely absurd amount of control over it.

What I am wondering, and can't seem to find anything in the book, is if there is a benefit to rolling extra high on a Discipline Roll to control your power. If I understand Evocation correctly, having a crazy high discipline means you can channel more power safely, but it doesn't do so much when channeling that much power is going to deal a boatload of stress to you anyway...

Am I missing something?

[babel2uk]

Off the top of my head:

Getting more on your control roll means having extra shifts that you can apply to your spell effect to boost it in certain ways.

In the case of an attack you can use those extra shifts to attack separate targets (by splitting your roll between them) or to make it affect everyone within a particular radius (2 shifts per zone of effect). So if you've rolled 8 on that Weapon 2 effect you can hit everyone in the same zone with a weapon 2 effect that they have to beat a difficulty of 6 to avoid. And remember that if they get less than 8 the difference is added to the damage as per a normal attack.

For Manoeuvres you can make the aspect you're creating last longer by spending those extra shifts (1 shift per extra exchange).

For Blocks you've got the choice of adding to the strength of the block, covering more than one person (you can cover all allies in the same zone for the cost of 2 of those extra shifts), or extend the duration of the block by 1 exchange per shift.

So yes, low power high control can be beneficial.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Alright, see that makes sense.

The way I was reading it was that the total shifts of power to the effect was entirely based on your Conviction, and rolling high was only important if you were calling up more shifts.

What you are saying makes much more sense, and I will plan on using it.

To make it clear, an example of what you are saying would be:

Our protagonist wizard is being surrounded by a gang of three thugs. He wants to disable them without harming them. He creates a gravity surge under them to hold them in place (Earth Magic), using the grapple rules, and pulls 4 Shifts of power into it (3 for Good Conviction, +1 for a Offensive Earth Focus Item in this example).

He then Rolls His Superb Discipline, getting a + on the Roll, for a total of +6. He Invokes an Aspect (It's Worth Doing Something Well) to bring it to a +8, and then has a +1 Focus Item for Control as well, bringing the grand total to a +9.

He uses 4 for the base control to hold the energy of the spell correctly, then 4 more to make the power a spray attack and affect all 3 thugs. Lastly, he uses 1 shift to extend the duration, giving him another exchange, and a precious couple of minutes to get the heck out of dodge.

Does that all make sense?

[ralexs1991]

mybe i'm missing something but shouldn't you have rolled your conviction 

[Ala Alba]

I'm not sure what babel is talking about, but in terms of Evocation, the only time there is a benefit to having your control roll equal more than the shifts of power you called is when attacking.

This is because your control is ALSO your attack roll(for the purposes of hitting the target). Like normal attack rolls, any extra shifts over your opponents defense adds to the damage done.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

mybe i'm missing something but shouldn't you have rolled your conviction 

Not as far as I have ever seen. Only 1 roll for evocation: Discipline to control the shifts of power.

You can call up as much power as you want, and take mental stress for the effort. Basically, that's how crazy big spells go off: You call up more power than you can handle, and take extra stresses or consequences for your effort, but manage to do silly, silly things.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

I'm not sure what babel is talking about, but in terms of Evocation, the only time there is a benefit to having your control roll equal more than the shifts of power you called is when attacking.

This is because your control is ALSO your attack roll(for the purposes of hitting the target). Like normal attack rolls, any extra shifts over your opponents defense adds to the damage done.

Babel isn't talking about extra damage, near as I can tell. He is pointing out using power for things like making the attack into a spray, or extending the effect, or the like.

Is that something that doesn't make sense to do with your Control Roll? As I said initially, I feel somewhat lost on this.

And if there's not a point in rolling higher on your control, and you take extra mental stress for going over your conviction regardless, what the heck is the point of having a high Discipline in comparison to your Conviction? It seems pretty pointless then, to me.

[ralexs1991]

I'm not sure what babel is talking about, but in terms of Evocation, the only time there is a benefit to having your control roll equal more than the shifts of power you called is when attacking.

This is because your control is ALSO your attack roll(for the purposes of hitting the target). Like normal attack rolls, any extra shifts over your opponents defense adds to the damage done.

yeah i have to go with ninja on this if discipline is what dictates the attack power for a spell then why get a high conviction at all and not kust spend all those skill points getrting a really killer discp. skill

[sinker]

Ala Alba is right, those are all effects you can create with more shifts of power. The only benefit to a high control roll is a high attack roll.

[luminos]

Ala is right, babel is wrong.  Remember, a spell requires you specify how many shifts go into it BEFORE you actually attempt to cast it.  Letting a high roll retroactively change what the spell does defeats any reason for doing that.  You'd just choose a low target every time, and take the extra shifts as bonus, rather than risking fallout/backlash, and to reduce the casting stress.

[babel2uk]

Sorry, was commenting off the top of my head as I said, and realised the error a while back but haven't been near a computer to correct it. Was mis-remembering Shifts of Power as just Shifts. Which are two entirely different things. Power has to be decided before the spell is cast, so yes, the only real benefit of massively high discipline is the attack based portions of Evocation - but that probably does include certain manoeuvres on living beings (who should feasibly get some sort of 'dodge' attempt against certain types of manoeuvres).

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Alright, so, when the books talk about characters having a high amount of control being able to accomplish feats that someone like Harry cannot, that is pretty much crap then?

Bob mentions that someone with a lot of control who uses fire might be able to use it to purify instead of burn, and there are things in the Novels like Luccio focusing fire to a tight beam which has none of the hazards that Dresden's stuff does.

So, really, all that is as far as the game goes is rolling equal control to the power? Does that mean there is nothing on Harry's sheet that prevents him from doing those things with fire mechanically, and that it is all only favor/the occasional compel to light the room on fire instead of controlling his evocations?

I really am ok with that, but I just want to verify that there is absolutely no point whatsoever to have anything less than the highest possible Conviction as a spellcaster, since it is all that governs what you are capable of.

[ironpoet]

I really am ok with that, but I just want to verify that there is absolutely no point whatsoever to have anything less than the highest possible Conviction as a spellcaster, since it is all that governs what you are capable of.

Conviction is certainly important, but I would say Discipline is equally important for a spellcaster.

- A Wizard with Average (+1) Conviction and Superb (+5) Discipline could cast a Weapon:1 Attack that was guaranteed to avoid fallout, with an average attack rating of Superb (+5)
- A Wizard with Superb (+5) Conviction and Average (+1) Discipline could cast a Weapon:1 Attack that had a 50% chance of fallout, with an average attack rating of Average (+1)

Those are extreme examples, obviously, but hopefully it illustrates a point.  Having a high Conviction is useless if you can't reliably control that much power.

[ralexs1991]

really am ok with that, but I just want to verify that there is absolutely no point whatsoever to have anything less than the highest possible Conviction as a spellcaster, since it is all that governs what you are capable of.

that's what this has me wondering now lol

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Conviction is certainly important, but I would say Discipline is equally important for a spellcaster.

- A Wizard with Average (+1) Conviction and Superb (+5) Discipline could cast a Weapon:1 Attack that was guaranteed to avoid fallout, with an average attack rating of Superb (+5)
- A Wizard with Superb (+5) Conviction and Average (+1) Discipline could cast a Weapon:1 Attack that had a 50% chance of fallout, with an average attack rating of Average (+1)

Those are extreme examples, obviously, but hopefully it illustrates a point.  Having a high Conviction is useless if you can't reliably control that much power.

So, as in your first example, this is the ONLY thing that discipline does? Make an attack harder to dodge? Can you cite that in the book for me? I'm thinking in circles at this point and I am sure I am missing it.