So we have a character in our party who has Thaumaturgy and Evocation, but his Evocation is tied to an Item of Power (it allows him to cast when wielding, the focus items from Evocation are part of the item of power). Our GM allowed it because the player isn't really very savy and felt that a boost in power would make us more equal (since our GM considers me a bit more savy and felt that I was hogging the effectiveness spotlight a bit).
Well, our regular GM couldn't make it the other night. I stepped in as a Guest GM. It was fun, but an interesting situation came up. The group had to go into a hospital. The one wizard in the group (an apprentice Warden) used ritual to help control his hexing (until combat, where I ruled he couldn't control the energy if he was actively casting). The player in question (with the IoP) was compelled to leave his staff in the car so his power was more limited (I gave him a fate point, which he then used to resist a hexing compel later). It worked out pretty well.
However, then combat started. The player felt a bit useless (he had some enchanted items which he could use) because he couldn't cast combat spells and wondered if he could cast thaumaturgy during combat. I didn't know. I gave him another fate point (because I felt bad for him for not foreseeing the consequences of the compel I placed earlier and not having an answer to a question I should have seen coming) which he spent for a temporary power (Refinement for focus items, then spent on more enchanted items) for the scene justifying it as anticipating going to a hospital and preparing some useful items to use in lieu of his staff.
Everything went well, and I'm okay with my off the cuff handling of everything (not exactly RAW but it kept things moving without referencing rulebooks, slowing the game down, or leaving a player feeling left out of a game).
However, it got me thinking about using Thaumaturgy in combat. It says that Thaumaturgy can create evocation like effects, but I wouldn't let it work like evocation because that would devalue the power. I came up with a way to handle it and am wondering what the board thinks.
Thaumaturgy for Evocation Effects in Combat
Determining Complexity: There are two parts for determining the complexity for Thaumaturgic Evocation. First, you figure the base complexity of the Evocation. This is the number of shifts it would take to perform the evocation. Then you determine the targeting roll. Unlike other Thaumaturgic contests, it is assumes that you have a target aware enough to make a roll. Thus, you decide the number shifts you'd like to target with. These two numbers together determine the complexity.
Example: Archibald Sinclair can't use Evocation but wants to use his Thaumaturgic talent to shoot lightening at the Troll attacking his friend Jenny. First, he sneaks up on the troll and snags a bit of hair (a Burglary Maneuver vs. the Troll's Alertness restricted by his stealth) from it. He also makes a Lore maneuver to draw a magic circle on the ground with his foot before settling inside it. He knows he'll have to hit the troll with a bit of force, so he wants to use four shifts of power to make the spell a Weapon 4 attack. The Troll. He wants to attack at Superb (vs. the Troll's Good Athletics). Thus the complexity of this spell is 9. He's got Superb Lore and invokes the two aspects (from his declaration and maneuver) to push this to 9. He uses his Great Discipline and Conviction to summon the amount of power in three rounds (3 shifts per round, rolling Good, Great, and Legendary in the rounds). Finally he releases the spell.
In the example, total casting time amounted to 5 exchanges (one for the Lore declaration, one for the Burglary maneuver, three to draw the power).
Typically, this would be manageable as an Evocation effect in a single exchange. Thus, evocation is clearly valuable for a combat wizard, but Thaumaturgy is still an option.
(Of course, the most effective way to do this would be to do a weapon 2 effect to bypass the armor and inflict stress and then channel the remaining 7 shifts of power into accuracy yielding an Epic Attack which the Troll would have no chance of defending against)
What do you think?
EDIT: Of course, this also means that a spellcaster can do Weapon 1 attacks at their Conviction score-1 for accuracy for no mental stress so long as they can make the Control roll and their Lore (or Complexity) is at least equal to their Conviction...interesting.