FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?

[Tsunami]

I'm not going to comment much, there's lots of good thoughts here already.

There is one thing i'd like to point out. Just in case it's not simply a typo.

[...]+7 Power for offensive Evocation in his favored element with specializations and focus items. He would plan on taking a Minor consequence and fill in his last Stress box (expecting, usually accurately, to one-shot them), so he'd set the Power of the first spell at 14.[...]

Base Power of 7, increased to 14 means 8 Stress from casting. One Mild consequence would not be enough to manage that.

[Masurao]

About the OP's question: I am always of mind that when players do things in a similar fashion too much, they will eventually meet up with someone or something that negates that particular habit of theirs. As suggested, this wizard might be coming up against an Ogre and your own Outsider are such examples. And, of course, mortals, what better than to throw a few flunkies in the mix, in the way of the wizard's blasts. Bring the meaning of 'living shield' up to a whole new level

Or you could follow the 'mantra' of the novels, as was also suggested, throw out a big fight early on, or several smaller ones. Stretch the players a bit and have them face the big bad in a worse-for-wear state, as Harry often does. You don't have to do this all the time, but just often enough to remind them to use their minds creatively.

[jb.teller4]

Thanks for all the comments, everyone. Some very good points. They'll be very helpful next time I run a Dresden campaign with evocation or channeling.

Link is broken. You have http:// twice and unnecessary quotation marks.

Thanks. It should be fixed now.

Also, some of them are Submerged and others are Feet In The Water. What's up with that?

Well, it's not directly related to the post's question, but there were two separate sets of characters who did not directly interact (until the very end, and even then it was limited). So the Submerged characters were all together in one party and the Feet in the Water characters were all together in a separate party. It was basically two interwoven campaigns around the same central themes and threats. I think that the main Wiki page explains more what we did.

PPS: I have to wonder why the guy without Speed was going first. Did you never fight anything supernaturally fast?
PPPS: I question the balance of that initiative-boosting enchanted item more than I do those evocations.

Well, that's embarrassing--I think I'm going senile at an early age. I looked at Alois'character sheet and he doesn't have any Initiative boost... the enchanted item I was thinking of is actually for physical defense. So he wasn't going first. It's weird what memory does sometimes... Still, his evocation uber-blasts dominated every fight he was in, except for the Outsider fight.

There is one thing I'd like to point out. Just in case it's not simply a typo. Base Power of 7, increased to 14 means 8 Stress from casting. One Mild consequence would not be enough to manage that.

Yeah, it was a typo -- he actually had a base Power of 8, and a base Control of 7, so I mixed those two up. Thanks.

Or you could follow the 'mantra' of the novels, as was also suggested, throw out a big fight early on, or several smaller ones. Stretch the players a bit and have them face the big bad in a worse-for-wear state, as Harry often does. You don't have to do this all the time, but just often enough to remind them to use their minds creatively.

That's a good idea and I didn't use it as much as I wanted to. Because we weren't doing a combat focused campaign, one fight per session was usually all I threw in. And I didn't push them as hard as I should have (or the novels would have) so they got recovery time between pretty much every conflict until the climax.

In the two-session climax (which I haven't written up on the campaign wiki yet), there was a series of back-to-back fights, chases, and other conflicts--basically Alois snuck and ran through a full-blown Wild Hunt in progress to get to a Red Court stronghold, which he proceeded to wipe out (though not without getting hurt and tired). He knew it was coming and he played more conservatively with an eye towards stretching out his resources (fate points and Mental stress/consequences).

I used mortals in the climx, too (the Red Court stronghold was a night club full of people).

(I'd also instituted the hosue rule above before the climax sessions, so I can't say for sure if it would have been any different if we were using RAW...).

-John B.

[jb.teller4]

[Y]our houserule sounds reasonable. So does Redthorn's (although I don't know how he/she handles cases where the caster takes backlash), so does the one about foci and specializations that seems to belong to no-one in particular.

If I'm understanding Redthorn's rule variation and your question correctly, it should still work just fine.

First, if you roll high enough to hit the target (i.e. tie or beat their defense roll), then you hit them, regardless of what happens with the attempt to Control the Power of the spell.

Next, attempting to control the Power of the spell is resolved as RAW--if you fail to meet or beat the Power, then you choose Backlash or Fallout. If you choose Backlash, you take damage but the spells goes off at full power. If you choose Fallout, then the Power (and thus the damage) of the spell decrease, plus there is unintended fallout.

The only difference is that if the Power of the spell is higher than the target's defense roll, then you have to roll higher before you start getting extra shifts of damage, so you'll get less overall.

Is that what you're asking, Sanctaphrax, or am I misunderstanding?

-John B.

[BumblingBear]

I like leaving evocations fine as-is.

A good GM can find many, many ways to make a PC think twice before putting everything they have into one evocation.

Also keep in mind that if a wizard takes consequences to make a truly huge evocation (I used to do this), they've "used up" consequences that they could have used for physical stress.

Everything is a give and take in this system.

[ARedthorn]

Yeah, it was a typo -- he actually had a base Power of 8, and a base Control of 7, so I mixed those two up. Thanks.

Still not enough for a mild consequence to do it (14 shifts - 8 power = 7 stress of overcharge - 2 mild = 5 = taken out).

As for me and mine... the thing I'm worried about is that the way I've been playing it... there's really no perk to having a higher power rating (higher conviction means more stress available, but higher power... useless).

ie- if I have a Power 8 Control 8 wizard built... and cast the same damage spell 2ce, with the same roll...

first time with 8 power against a target dummy with no defense or armor, roll +0 on control... I barely control the spell, so no extra shifts.
                    ....I deal 8 damage from power, with no extra from shifts of success, AND I risked backlash or fallout if I rolled poorly.
second time with 1 power against a target dummy with no defense or armor, roll +0 on control... I gain 7 shifts of damage from the control roll (higher of defense or spell dc was 1, the spell power)...
                    ....I deal 8 damage again- 1 from power, 7 from accuracy. All I risked from a poor roll here is less damage.

now- non-target dummy (target has 4 defense/no armor this time)... same spell 3 times.
first with 8 power and +0 control: barely control the spell, but hit just fine. 8 weapon + 0 shifts from control.
                    ....deals 8 damage.
second time with 4 power and +0 control: control the spell well (8 vs 4), and hit well (8 vs 4), either way, that's 4 shifts. 4 Weapon + 4 accuracy.
                    ....deals 8 damage.
third time with 1 power and +0 control: Control the spell VERY well (8 vs 1), and hit well (8 vs 4)... that's 4 shifts from accuracy.
                    ....deals 5 damage.
In any of the above, rolling a -1 on control would've reduced damage by 1 (fallout in case 1, reduced bonus to accuracy in 2 & 3), and rolling a +1 would've increased damage by 1. The only factor that changes here is power.

Meaning that in order to get the maximum damage out of a spell, you only need to put as many shifts into power as your target's defense. This puts some more responsibility for the success of the spell on the player's guesswork rather than the character's build, but... it also means that a munchkin can afford to treat power as a dump stat after they get conviction to +5 (since defense won't often be higher than this, and in OW, the monsters are often statted up much lower than this).

I'm not sure I like that. At least in the RAW, both power and control have value, even if that results in the potential for game-breaking displays of power.

You really have to pick which way you want to break the game, I guess.

[zenten]

I'm wondering why the wizard wasn't dealing with consequences from non-physical conflicts.

[Shadowman17]

So apparently, I'm a total noob here. I was under the impression that since the Attack Roll and Control Roll were a single roll, any fate points applied counted only once. Are you guys treating these as two separate rolls that are made at the same time?

[EdgeOfDreams]

So apparently, I'm a total noob here. I was under the impression that since the Attack Roll and Control Roll were a single roll, any fate points applied counted only once. Are you guys treating these as two separate rolls that are made at the same time?

They are a single roll. However, that single roll serves two purposes, which is why they said it felt like the fate point was counting 'twice' - because it improves both your control and your aim.

[Shadowman17]

Thanks, EdgeOfDreams. I wonder if most people adjudicate it this way.

[jb.teller4]

They are a single roll. However, that single roll serves two purposes, which is why they said it felt like the fate point was counting 'twice' - because it improves both your control and your aim.

Which means you can get +4 extra damage per fate point with Evocation atacks, instead of the +2 extra damage per fate point that you can get with any other type of attack, magical or mundane.

For example, if you decide that you're planning on spending 2 FP on an attack, then you can up your Power by 4 (which increases the damage by 4) because the 2 FP you spend on casting will offset the additional difficulty of controlling that increased Power. Then the 2 FP you're spending will also improve your to-hit roll by +4, which also increases the damage by 4. Thus for 2 FP, you got +8 damage instead of the usual +4 damage you'd get if you spent a FP while shooting a gun or swinging your fists or any other type of attack, mundane or magical.

I don't mind wizards doing obscene amounts of damage, per se, but I don't like them getting double the bonus from FP that everyone else does. However, there are other consequences of either of the two house rules that have been suggested (mainly that Discipline becomes more important than Conviction), so I'm undecided what I want to do about it in future campaigns.

This has been a very helpful discussion...

-John B.

[EdgeOfDreams]

I don't mind wizards doing obscene amounts of damage, per se, but I don't like them getting double the bonus from FP that everyone else does. However, there are other consequences of either of the two house rules that have been suggested (mainly that Discipline becomes more important than Conviction), so I'm undecided what I want to do about it in future campaigns.

That increased bonus doesn't come *totally* free, at least due to the stress issues, but anyway...

The thing is, by the default rules, Discipline is ALREADY better/more important than Conviction.  Ignore Fate Points, Focus Items, Stress, etc. and just compare a caster with Discipline 5, Conviction 3, and another with Conviction 5, Discipline 3.  If they both summon up power equal to their conviction and roll neutral on their attack-and-control roll, then they've both got an effective 8 shifts against an opponent defending at 0.  However, most enemies will defend somewhere in the 3 to 6 range, which means the high-discipline caster is gonna hit WAY more often than his high-Conviction buddy.

There really is no 'right' answer to the evoker power-level question, sadly. On the other hand, this thread has given me more ideas for houserules that I may start up a new thread about at some point.

[Vairelome]

Matsurao, regarding High Concept invokation:

From the sidebar on YS158:

Story Power Alchemy: Supernatural Powers And The High Concept

By drawing straight lines from a character's high concept to his supernatural powers, you gain all of the benefits of having an aspect riding shotgun whenever the character's supernatural abilities are in use.

Whenever, say, a wizard goes to town with arcane spell-slinging, he can invoke his high concept (Master Evocationist) to make it work....

If you've got a wizard character with FPs handy, he can invoke his High Concept for ANY Evocation roll, Thaumaturgy roll, or even The Sight roll.  If you think that gives too much to spellcasting characters, note that this is true for non-spellcasters as well.  A werewolf with Inhuman Strength and Inhuman Speed could use his High Concept to amplify any offensive combat roll where his Inhuman Strength would apply, and any defensive roll where he's using the Dodge Trapping of Athletics, since that's boosted by Inhuman Speed.  A White Court Vampire may always use his High Concept to boost Incite Emotions.

There are two limitations that apply here.  First is the player's supply of FPs.  Second is the rule that any Aspect may only be applied once to a given roll.  This does mean that if a werewolf's player is sitting on a giant stack of FPs due to many compels, he could boost every Attack and/or Dodge roll in a given combat using his High Concept...until those FPs run out.

[Masurao]

Matsurao, regarding High Concept invokation:

From the sidebar on YS158:

If you've got a wizard character with FPs handy, he can invoke his High Concept for ANY Evocation roll, Thaumaturgy roll, or even The Sight roll.  If you think that gives too much to spellcasting characters, note that this is true for non-spellcasters as well.  A werewolf with Inhuman Strength and Inhuman Speed could use his High Concept to amplify any offensive combat roll where his Inhuman Strength would apply, and any defensive roll where he's using the Dodge Trapping of Athletics, since that's boosted by Inhuman Speed.  A White Court Vampire may always use his High Concept to boost Incite Emotions.

There are two limitations that apply here.  First is the player's supply of FPs.  Second is the rule that any Aspect may only be applied once to a given roll.  This does mean that if a werewolf's player is sitting on a giant stack of FPs due to many compels, he could boost every Attack and/or Dodge roll in a given combat using his High Concept...until those FPs run out.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up!

[Michael Sandy]

In the books, there are a couple of incidents dealing with what happens to a wizard channelling vasts amounts of thaumaturgical energy if it is disrupted.

What happens to a wizard channelling 13 or 14 shifts of energy, and who uses all their fate points to do it, if another wizard pours some magic into countering their control?  Instead of just taking a mental stress hit and a minor consequence, the wizard is going to take a much larger mental stress hit if they do control it, or that 13 or 14 shifts is coming out as fallout.

One of the things the power gamer is going to expect is that his power is going to be a known quantity that villains in the know will plan for.  They will do things so that as the hero enters their lair, they get tagged with various effects that will allow the villain to mess up their spell.  So the hero gets something sticky on them, and the villain has something similar in their control, so when the hero targets the villain, a lot of his energy will leak onto the substance that got over the hero.

Or the minor henchman encounter used maneuvers to put something on the hero, a spell, a trigger, that will later interfere with the wizard's control at a crucial point.

Or perhaps the villain is lazy, and just boasts of his plans before a minion that the hero's are bound to capture and interrogate, so your nuking wizard is going to want to have a lot of reserve control to deal with said villain's plan.  Which has the effect of taking that big opening nuke off the table.