Tips on Evocation?

[ryanshowseason2]

I love this magic system I think its great, my only problem with evocation though is that it cannot be used for a very long amount of time if I'm correct, so lemme confirm some things:

Regularly evocating up to your conviction in power uses 1 mental stress no matter what.
Sponsored magic evocation is the same.
The toughness powers do not effect mental stress or consequences

So the most a char coming out of character creation can use evocation is 5 times before needing to take consequences. In a single scene. Which is a lot if you use it right, but it leaves me wanting a bit more.

Has anyone else felt like this? Or does it never really become a problem in everyone's opinion? Is there such a thing as mental armor? Can it soak evocation damage? (Cheap I know.)

[Saedar]

In games I've played, it hasn't really been a problem. The stress vanishes quickly enough that over the course of a day, you can toss around some serious power.

Also, "scene" is defined fairly loosely. I don't have the books in front of me right now, but I seem to remember an example in them where they describe Harry as having a scene switch mid-battle during a lull in the action. Maybe I'm just imagining things.

[Aminar]

Magic is already immensely powerful.  A high lore/conviction combat mage can manage some truly ridiculous damage with the right Rote Spells.(Set up at Conviction+3 power and arcing down.)  A 4 conviction 5 lore caster(likely with 4 discipline) can dish out Weapon 7/6/5/4/ in a single combat and whip out the power 5 for a consequence with relative ease.That is a ton of damage.  That weapon 7 Rote can one shot supernaturally tough creatures with ease on a tie roll.
Giving them more spells is kinda broken, although enchanted items can give you several more as well, based on Lore.

[bitterpill]

Magic is already immensely powerful.  A high lore/conviction combat mage can manage some truly ridiculous damage with the right Rote Spells.(Set up at Conviction+3 power and arcing down.)  A 4 conviction 5 lore caster(likely with 4 discipline) can dish out Weapon 7/6/5/4/ in a single combat and whip out the power 5 for a consequence with relative ease.That is a ton of damage.  That weapon 7 Rote can one shot supernaturally tough creatures with ease on a tie roll.
Giving them more spells is kinda broken, although enchanted items can give you several more as well, based on Lore.

In Submerged + games our GM allways run monsters with full concequences and still evocation kicks ass.

[ryanshowseason2]

Thanks for the replies, I realized the ability to arc down right after I posted. I suppose its just my job as gm to split scenes up accordingly when the players are running low on magic juice. Thanks for the advice I think it prevented me from going down a broken path.

[Aminar]

I give minor consequences to bad guys and occasionally moderate to extreme.  Never permanent unless they are a full on NPC villain like the necromancer that had his arm blown off by a lightning bolt before fleeing.

[riplikash]

I feel like people confuse physical mechanics with story mechanics. Dresden files focuses much more on story mechanics than physical ones.

Aspects represent something relevant to the story, and fate points govern how often they can come into the story. Aspects are typically only given to things that are important to the story, they are not meant to simulate a physical world.

Take for instance enchanted armor like Dresdens leather duster: it is ALWAYS bullet proof, but it can only be used in the story 3 times per session. It doesn't lose its enchantments if used 3 times, it just can only be used in a way relevant to the story 3 times per session. Likewise and enchanted blade of superlative sharpness is ALWAYS an enchanted blade, but can only effect the story x times per session.

So lets take the laser sight. Is it important to the story in the long term? Then it should probably be a character aspect (advanced arsenal or something). Is it a thing that comes up once? Declarations can handle that fine.

Yes, the laser sight is still there and doing something when it isn't being tagged, but that doesn't really have any long term effects on the story, so it is ignored except for the times that it is story relevant (i.e. tagged or evoked).

Imagine if it was a book? Every time you tag an aspect you can imagine it is a point being dwelled upon in a book. Can you really see "the laser sight" being constantly referenced just because it was put on the gun? It comes up a few times, but not a ton.

[ryanshowseason2]

I feel like people confuse physical mechanics with story mechanics. Dresden files focuses much more on story mechanics than physical ones.

Aspects represent something relevant to the story, and fate points govern how often they can come into the story. Aspects are typically only given to things that are important to the story, they are not meant to simulate a physical world.

Take for instance enchanted armor like Dresdens leather duster: it is ALWAYS bullet proof, but it can only be used in the story 3 times per session. It doesn't lose its enchantments if used 3 times, it just can only be used in a way relevant to the story 3 times per session. Likewise and enchanted blade of superlative sharpness is ALWAYS an enchanted blade, but can only effect the story x times per session.

So lets take the laser sight. Is it important to the story in the long term? Then it should probably be a character aspect (advanced arsenal or something). Is it a thing that comes up once? Declarations can handle that fine.

Yes, the laser sight is still there and doing something when it isn't being tagged, but that doesn't really have any long term effects on the story, so it is ignored except for the times that it is story relevant (i.e. tagged or evoked).

Imagine if it was a book? Every time you tag an aspect you can imagine it is a point being dwelled upon in a book. Can you really see "the laser sight" being constantly referenced just because it was put on the gun? It comes up a few times, but not a ton.

was this meant for another thread?

[Vine]

This is a dumb noob question, but what is arcing?

[ryanshowseason2]

This is a dumb noob question, but what is arcing?

I just figured this out as well so not noobish IMO.

But due to the way the system allocates stress you're better off casting a really powerful evocation first to fill your last circle of stress instead of opening up with a weaker controlled evocation. in example.

I play it safe with 4 conviction and 4 discipline and cast a 4 power spell and fill my first stress circle. Then I do it again and force myself to fill in me second stress circle repeat over and over until I've filled up my mental stress track. so at 4 mental stress I've done 4 weapon 4 attacks

Buuuut I could have opened with a walloping first strike opting to go above my conviction and cast a 7 power spell filling up my last circle first, then cast a 6 power to fill my third circle etc. So now I've cast 7 6 5 and 4 power spells doing a lot more damage in the process.

[Vine]

So I'm assuming most campaigns have little to nothing in the way of mental attacks?

[bitterpill]

No I don't get why arcing either why not just cast at the limit of conviction + focus + specialisation for all of your mental stress boxes going above that costs more mental stress which is a scarse resource.

[devonapple]

Actually, arcing is a *brilliant* metagame strategy - but only if you are able to make the Discipline rolls to control to spell. Those spells are going to hit harder, but only if they land.

[Vine]

I get the point of it, being able to call extra power at a cost to yourself, I think the solution is for GMs to push a few more mental attacks on people so that those extra points might actually hurt.

[devonapple]

I'm disinclined to punish the practice - having to make higher Discipline checks is its own challenge with its own consequences (and sometimes actual Consequences).

In fact, without having heard the term "arcing," I have been encouraging my players to do the opposite - arc upwards and cast progressively higher-power spells - as their Mental Stress track as filling up.

They could always stay within the safe confines of their Conviction limit - but how fun would that be? No, this is in truth a little bit of metagaming, but from a certain POV, everything in DFRPG is focused on the metagame, so I'm not going to start including villains specifically to hose this practice.