Evocation at Thaumaturgy speed?

[Kaldra]

i was explaining what you could and couldn't do to a person with thaumaturgy and they asked "so if i had a picture of some vampire, a recent picture, as my symbol and enough time, why couldn't i make a ball of fire fall out of the sky and kill them?" to which i had no real reply. with thaumaturgy you can do pretty much anything although the only examples of offensive thaumaturgy are curses why couldn't one do evocation at thaumaturgy speed?

which sparked up a debate over what would the specializations look like and how would you classify the bonuses for that type of casting? another way to think about might possibly be what Theme would it fall under? entropomancy? Siege magic? ritual (fire evocation)?

so the questions are: can you do evocation at Thaumaturgy speeds and what would it look like, what would the bonuses be, and do you think this the system/world?

[Belial666]

A picture is enough for a building or place. For a person you need a much closer link such as a piece of their body, their Name or something of paramount importance or closely linked to them such as a signature item they've crafted or identify with, a sibling or other close relative and so on.

[Kaldra]

not really caring about the symbolic link, i know the picture wouldn't be enough, i am more curious about the rest of it.

[Ala Alba]

I'd call it transformation/disruption or conjuration.

[sinker]

Thematically it always depends on how the player wants to do it. Does he want to create fire and send it though the symbolic link (Pyromancy)? Does he want to summon a demon to do it for him (Diabolism)? Does he want to drop some bit of star-stuff on him from high (Astromancy?)? Does he want to drop a plane engine on him (Entropomancy)? Does he want to create some freak weather pattern that makes that possible (I honestly have no idea what weather might be called)? Anyway you get my point.

Even from a functional standpoint there's a lot of different ways to do it. Could be summoning and binding (Same as the above example), conjuration (For making the fire), transportation (for opening a way to someplace a lot hotter).

There's more than one way to drop a fireball on a vampire.

[Kaldra]

for simplicity's sake lets just use harry's fuego spell, and say we want to hit a vamp down in south america.

[sinker]

It really does depend on the player. The player should really be picking what he's using and then the GM tells him how hard that particular method is. But if you just want a straight ruling I'd say Conjuration or Pyromancy.

[Kaldra]

ok here are a two of the spells we came up with, we are curious to know what yall would classify these as. as far as applying specialization bonuses.

Bombard
this spell "launches" concussive blast of force to a location affecting every one where it lands
type: Thaumaturgy, ?
Complexity: 10 shift force "attack" 2 shifts to affect the whole zone. total 12
Duration: instant to a few moments (flight time)
opposed by: athletics to take cover.
Effect: every one in the target zone is hit by a concussive blast.
Notes: possible aspects could include "ringing ears" or "shell shocked"
variations: possibly a sustained version targeting more than one zone lasting up to days.

Hammer n Anvil
This spell is most likely a few spell cast in series but could probably be done all at once

part one
the caster throws/launches a hammer into the sky/low orbit. dono what this would classify as nor

part two
the caster uses a symbolic link to the hammer to add more mass and energy to it (ectoplasma) conjuration i think. 

part three
the caster uses a symbolic link to the target person/vamp/poor chap/area to guide the now car sized hammer to.

[Haru]

The biggest problem that I can see with this is that magic doesn't know about roads and street maps and the like. Remember Harry's tracking spell and how he describes it. Now imagine a fireball flies along the way a tracking spell would guide it. The enormous thaumaturgy fireball would fly the direct way in the direction of its target, going through everything on its way and leaving part of its energy as it smashes through border after border, running out of power before it even reaches its target. There are going to be a couple of buildings on fire, and yes, it would be your fault. (I always wanted to say that )

If you want to damage a target or kill it outright, use a variant of the heart exploding spell from YS. You could use firemagic to burn the victim instead of ripping its heart out, that would just be a flavour thing. The difference would just be, that you inflict the damage on the target directly instead of guiding a fireball or something similar to your targets direction.

[Kaldra]

well since the hammer would be falling basicly straight down at the target i would only have to worry about the building he was in, also for your example modifying victor sells heart explody spell what theme or bonus would you apply for it what would the complexity bonus be labeled as?

[sinker]

The biggest problem that I can see with this is that magic doesn't know about roads and street maps and the like. Remember Harry's tracking spell and how he describes it. Now imagine a fireball flies along the way a tracking spell would guide it. The enormous thaumaturgy fireball would fly the direct way in the direction of its target, going through everything on its way and leaving part of its energy as it smashes through border after border, running out of power before it even reaches its target. There are going to be a couple of buildings on fire, and yes, it would be your fault. (I always wanted to say that )

Unlike Evocation, Thaumaturgy really doesn't have to work that way. It doesn't need to travel in straight lines or for that matter it doesn't need to travel. If you didn't want to worry about crushing buildings in between you and the target you would simply build something that directed the force at the target alone without any in between. One of the great things about thaumaturgy is it usually follows the rule of "As below, so above." That's the whole point of the symbolic link. You do something to the symbolic link, then amplify the effect so that it occurs to the target. You could have the fireball simply materialize around the target if you so desired.

[Kaldra]

so what would you use to boost the complexity for making a fireball appear around some one? conjuration?

[Ryan_Singer]

Blow up the building
Pyromancy / Conjuration
20 Shifts

This spell does a Weapon:10 fire blast at +10 over 5 zones. The attack is centered on the target, who you have to target with a sympathetic link. Warning: use of this spell almost guarantees a rank in Lawbreaker: First.

[Haru]

Unlike Evocation, Thaumaturgy really doesn't have to work that way. It doesn't need to travel in straight lines or for that matter it doesn't need to travel. If you didn't want to worry about crushing buildings in between you and the target you would simply build something that directed the force at the target alone without any in between. One of the great things about thaumaturgy is it usually follows the rule of "As below, so above." That's the whole point of the symbolic link. You do something to the symbolic link, then amplify the effect so that it occurs to the target. You could have the fireball simply materialize around the target if you so desired.

I know that, that's what I tried to say by the second part of my post. "Evocation at Thaumaturgy speed" however would still behave like evocation, at least in my opinion. Thaumaturgy is so much more than just slow evocations, so you would not have to think in evocations ways, that was pretty much all I wanted to point out.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

The rules for all of this seem pretty clear under the heading "Contests and Conflicts" on YS265. It is pointed out on several occasions that you are to factor in the targets defense roll and stress track into spells that you intend to inflict consequences, so you could pretty much just pick a number and let them roll as normal if it isn't crazy high. (i.e., Victor Sells bypassing any and all possible rolls)