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

[Sanctaphrax]

Michael, I am not sure what you mean.

Are you saying, "the GM can compel you to screw up"?

Or do you have some other meaning in mind?

[Michael Sandy]

What I was getting at is that a villain who expected to have to deal with a wizard known to have powerful evocations would take precautions.  Some of those might just be psychological, aimed at undermining the confidence of his expected opponent.

But how does it work mechanically?  If someone is tapping the maximum power that they can control, what happens if someone disrupts their control?  If a wizard calls up 14 shifts of power, and with all the fate points they can spend gets a 15 roll, and had to take a minor consequence just for calling up that power...  what happens if their opponent spends fate points and invokes aspects that bring that roll down?  So instead of taking a minor consequence with a 15 roll, they have to take a moderate consequence as well because it is now an 11 roll.

[UmbraLux]

But how does it work mechanically?  If someone is tapping the maximum power that they can control, what happens if someone disrupts their control?  If a wizard calls up 14 shifts of power, and with all the fate points they can spend gets a 15 roll, and had to take a minor consequence just for calling up that power...  what happens if their opponent spends fate points and invokes aspects that bring that roll down?  So instead of taking a minor consequence with a 15 roll, they have to take a moderate consequence as well because it is now an 11 roll.

Technically, you can boost your rolls but you can't reduce an opponent's rolls.  The closest you can come to that is an appropriate compel / invoke for effect which prevents him from taking some action altogether.

[Sanctaphrax]

Um, yeah. What UmbraLux said.

Although allowing a compel to reduce a roll would be reasonable, in my opinion, I'm not actually sure that the rules allow it.

But they can be bought off, give FP, rely on the target's aspects to work, and are under the GM's control. So they can't really make a reliable weapon.

Normal invocations are more reliable, but they can't do that and shouldn't be able to do that.

[NicholasQuinn]

I don't see why you can't compel an enemies aspect to reduce their roll. Especially a consequence, in which case they're reimbursed a fate point at the end of the fight based on the assumption it will in some way hamper their chances of winning.

Even if not strictly by the rules, it allows for such compels (-2 to roll) without requiring the GM to do it everytime. If necessary, call it an Invoke for Effect which causes a GM compel of the aspect/consequence to reduce their roll.

[Becq]

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.

With regards to Thaumaturgy, it seems that an opponent could weaponize a Block attempt.  That is, by applying a Block against the Thaumaturgist's control roll, you could force a control failure.  If the Thaumaturgist still had Fate/aspects in reserve, they could overcome the block, but if not, it could force the spell to fail.  And if this was done late in the casting process, then the release of energy from a large failed spell could be ... bad.

Another way to disrupt spells (Thaum or Evoc) might be to make use of maneuver-generated aspects.  Choose a tactically appropriate aspect, then if they try to cast, Invoke/Tag the aspect to trigger a Compel.  The target can buy out of the Compel ... but only if they have the Fate available.

[UmbraLux]

I don't see why you can't compel an enemies aspect to reduce their roll. Especially a consequence, in which case they're reimbursed a fate point at the end of the fight based on the assumption it will in some way hamper their chances of winning.

Even if not strictly by the rules, it allows for such compels (-2 to roll) without requiring the GM to do it everytime. If necessary, call it an Invoke for Effect which causes a GM compel of the aspect/consequence to reduce their roll.

My impression:  it was a philosophical choice.  As written, you always own your own action / roll.

While I agree using fate to force a -2 seems reasonable, I'm extremely hesitant to change that principle.

[Masurao]

My impression:  it was a philosophical choice.  As written, you always own your own action / roll.

While I agree using fate to force a -2 seems reasonable, I'm extremely hesitant to change that principle.

Also, in the example provided, the villain would still need to do something to hamper the caster, so he could use the tags and whatnots to empower his own roll(s), right? That takes care of -2 to the player, by adding +2 to the NPC. (Or am I terribly, terribly wrong in this assumption?)

[devonapple]

+2 to one's own roll in a contested check is, inversely, a -2 to the opponent's roll - but the system tends to privilege tagging Aspects for a positive numerical impact ("He stumbles because of his Twisted Ankle, giving me the opportunity to duck his blow: +2 to my Athletics to dodge" rather than "He stumbles because of his Twisted Ankle, taking a -2 to his Fists roll to attack me").

[UmbraLux]

Or am I terribly, terribly wrong in this assumption?

You (and devonapple) are correct.  Adding to your resistance roll makes it more difficult for your opponent to succeed.  Functionally, there's little difference between that and subtracting from the attacking roll.  However, if you allow subtraction you open the possibility of adversely affecting rolls which aren't normally resisted.  (Navel gazing maneuvers, scenery maneuvers, declarations, etc.) 

So I prefer to stick with the principle "you own your own action". 

[noclue]

I don't see why you can't compel an enemies aspect to reduce their roll. Especially a consequence, in which case they're reimbursed a fate point at the end of the fight based on the assumption it will in some way hamper their chances of winning.

Even if not strictly by the rules, it allows for such compels (-2 to roll) without requiring the GM to do it everytime. If necessary, call it an Invoke for Effect which causes a GM compel of the aspect/consequence to reduce their roll.

If the GM wants to compel me he's got to be working a lot harder than that. A compel for a -2 on a roll is narrative weak sauce.

[devonapple]

Even if not strictly by the rules, it allows for such compels (-2 to roll) without requiring the GM to do it everytime. If necessary, call it an Invoke for Effect which causes a GM compel of the aspect/consequence to reduce their roll.

Invokes for Effect are better spent keeping the opponent from acting or defending at all for an Exchange.

I wonder if a lot of these discussions would be reduced if there was a published Fate Point/tag economy chart with examples of what types of plot effects (combat and non-combat) were considered "fair game" for a single tag or Fate Point. Then again, it may be impossible to stratify because each table is going to care differently about different things at different times.

At one table, for instance, an invoke could render an opponent unable to act or defend for an exchange; at another table, or even at the same table but in a different conflict, that invoke could take an opponent out of the fight because the opponent is less relevant, the fighting is just a minor obstacle, or the GM needs to move things along.

[DFJunkie]

I think the reason people are looking to reduce opponent's rolls is the specific case of an opposed caster who, should their Discipline roll be reduced below the threshold required to control the shifts they've called up, will either suffer backlash or fallout.  It's understandable given the amount of hostility Evocation tends to draw. 

On the other hand, if you are aware of your opponent's aspects you can do quite a bit better than just a -2.  Anything from compelling them to miss completely (one of the example aspect discussions goes over compelling Harry's "The Building Was On Fire And It Wasn't My Fault" aspect) to compelling them to flub a certain portion of the power (if they have an aspect like "Goonish Magic" or "Sloppy Evocator.")  So it isn't like you can't penalize your opponent's actions, you just can't do so as routinely as you can buff up your own.

[jb.teller4]

I've been messing with this a bit, based on some of the comments in this thread. I was thinking about an idea and was wondering what people thought (basically I'm trying to keep the power of evocation more in line with other powers and with my own expectations based on the novels and setting, while also trying to keep or make Discipline and Conviction roughly equally useful).

Evocation House Rule Idea: You cannot increase Power above your Conviction (plus any specializations, focus items, etc.) with stress.

You may choose any power up to or equal to your modified Conviction and you suffer a single Mental stress, whatever the Power is. The only way to cast a spell with Power higher than your modified Conviction is with Mental consequences or Sponsored Magic debt. Consequences increase the Power up to their rating (e.g. a Minor consequence gives +2 Power while an Extreme mental consequences gives +8 Power). I haven't really thought through how Sponsored magic would work exactly, but it makes sense to me that it should thematically and mechanically.


There are a couple repercussions of this that I can think of that I'll discuss below. Please point out anything that I'm missing or overlooking or miscalculating.

Mental Stress: Since every spell causes a single stress no matter what its Power, Mental stress is simply a counter ("pouring extra power in" is represented by consequences, not stress). So at Conviction 1-2 you can cast three evocation spells without consequences, while with 3+ Conviction you can cast four evocation spells without consequences. Really, this isn't all that different and actually lessens some of the calculations ("well, I've already filled stress boxes 1 & 3 so I might as well go for a stress 2 or 4 Power, since a 1 or 3 are going to roll up anyway..."). It's a pretty minor thing either way, but unless I'm overlooking something I think that 1 stress per spell will work fine in practice without substantially how Mental stress limits evocation.

Evocation Attacks: Discipline is still slightly better than Conviction for attacks, which I'm okay with. An extra point in Conviction or an extra point in Discipline both give +1 damage, while Discipline has an edge because it's more likely to hit targets with good defense skills and/or armor and because you're less likely to suffer Backlash or Fallout. Conviction isn't completely irrelevant: Attacking multiple opponents or hitting a whole zone both require a minimum Power and can't be done unless your modified Conviction is high enough, whatever you Discipline is. Plus, there are other benefits to Conviction (see below). But all in all, a balance is ideal, but higher Discipline is better than higher Conviction for evocation attacks. And I'm okay with that.

But apart from the balance or Discipline and Conviction, how does it affect damage and the power of evocation? In practice, it's costly to get a Weapon rating higher than your modified Conviction. But for most wizards, that still means Weapon ratings of 3 or more (7 or higher isn't that hard to get at character creation). When you add in that they can get significantly more powerful attacks with consequences or sponsored magic, I don't feel like they're too weak.

On a personal note, it also resolves something that's always bothered me, which is that the difference between a wizard with Conviction 3 and Conviction 5 isn't all that big in practice in the RAW. In the books Dresden is described as being very innately powerful, but I don't think the RAW captures that well compared to other wizard builds.

Other uses of Evocation: Modified Conviction is more important than Discipline in every other use of evocation except attacks.

• Most effects have a minimum Power (e.g., Maneuvers are 3 or the target's affected skill)
• The strength of blocks and armor is based on Power, not the control roll
• All modifiers (duration, area of effect, etc.) increase the required Power
• More powerful spells are harder to counterspell (a masterful but weak warden with Conviction 1 and Discipline 7 would be a lot easier to counterspell than they would be to dodge)
• The more Power you have, the easier it is to counterspell other people's spells
• Conviction also determines how many spells you can cast

So overall I'm pretty happy with the balance of Discipline and Conviction with this house rule. I also think it stacks better in comparison to other "combat" powers of similar cost (e.g. Supernatural Strength if you consider the drawbacks of Evocation to effectively be a "price discount")

Thaumaturgy: As far as I can see, Thaumaturgy isn't much changed. It will never cause mental stress unless I tweaked the house rule (like saying that you can do up to 2 below your Conviction for no stress, while 1 below or equal to your Conviction causes 1 stress). Also, since the only way to get more Power is consequences (Thaumaturgy doesn't allow Conviction to be modified by specializations or focus items), Conviction becomes a pretty hard cap on the fastest you can possibly cast a spell. Control (Discipline) is still more important because you don't want to have the spell blow up.

It seems to me like the balance of stats is similar to RAW thaumaturgy, with Conviction getting a small boost in that it's a more fixed cap on casting speed than it used to be.

Again, I might be missing something.


Anyway, I'm not set on the above house rule by any means. But I was thinking about ways to prevent the insanely powerful attacks that I talked about in the original post (where each fate point effectively gives +4 damage) that are easier than my original house rule yet don't make Discipline significantly better than Conviction, like the second idea above of saying that only successes above the higher of Power or attack roll add to damage.

So, thoughts? Comments? (Note: Pointing out any big flaws and ripping it apart won't hurt my feelings--I'd be grateful.)

-John B.

[gojj]

Regarding mental stress: how my group does it is if you want to pump up your spell with stress its a stress box for each point. For example, if you wanted to increase your spell's power by two you would have to fill in your one, two, and three mental stress boxes instead of just box number three. In my opinion this is more effective than limiting how much power someone can throw into a spell. If they want to throw down a legendary attack (assuming they have Superb Conviction with no focus items) than they can just tick off all of their mental stress boxes, but they won't be able to cast anything else without harming themselves in some way.