Taking yourself out

[Becq]

I'm surprised that none of you are interested in maintaining something that could be so very good for a story. I guess I can understand if that's RAW, but still, I know that in my games taking your self out via casting (without it being a death curse) will always be an option, because it's wonderfully dramatic.

I would be concerned with the ease of abuse.  How is it good for the story if every fight turns into the Wizard casting a 5000 shift spell (heck, lets go wild and make in 5,000,000 just to make sure!), choosing to take himself out due to casting stress without sacrificing consequences (since they wouldn't make any difference), taking out all of the opposition (and allies as well) in one spell, then narrating the entire result (since he triggered everyone's take-outs) to ensure that he and his friends are knocked unconscious and come to seconds later to see the unconscious/dead forms of all of their enemies surrounding them?

In my opinion, there needs to be an upper limit of some form to how powerful a spell a given individual can cast.  The RAW provides that in the form of Conviction, mental stress boxes, and available consequences.  Which, can be considerable, by the way: 30 (if I'm counting right) if you have Conviction 5 and are willing to blow all of your consequences.  Controlling that many shifts is an entirely different question.

Which brings up another point.  I think it's just fine to allow a Wizard to cast a spell so big that backlash/fallout takes him out (so long as he was able to gather the power in the first place).  In this case, the spell would be cast (though possibly at reduced effectiveness due to fallout).

And I'm also not saying that a Wizard couldn't *try* to cast a spell that he was unable to successfully gather power for, thus knocking himself out ... I'm just saying that in that circumstance, the Wizard would be taken out before the spell was actually cast.

All of which is my own opinion.

[sinker]

I would be concerned with the ease of abuse.

I always find this argument to be silly. There is potential for abuse in many things. It's your job as GM (and to a lesser extent as a gamer at the table) to say "You're clearly trying to abuse that. No." I've never been the kind who would allow a player to do something like that for a silly reason like "The rules say so" (or in this case "I said so that one time").

I do see what you mean though, and now that I've spent some time ruminating I realize that you're probably right. Fallout/backlash is the appropriate mechanical form for the drama I'm looking for. The only case when someone would take themselves out via summoning power would be when they were A) completely out of resources (in which case maybe the death curse is appropriate), or B) Abusing my good graces 

[ways and means]

I personally like the idea of taking yourself out with stress though this is in the case where you are running low on mental stress rather than you massively casting, it works as a last ditch effort or final push because of the narrative nature of Fate it also makes sense to me that the attack is resolved before you lose consciousness or die etc how often in a film would you see someone pass out just before they surpass their limit, the answer is almost never.   

[Becq]

But if you go with that reasoning, then the next question is how many shifts into "take-out" territory can you go?  If you've already used up (or choose not to use) your consequences, and all of your mental stess boxes are marked, then 1 stress is enough to take you out.  So would you only allow the player to pull that much power?  Or maybe 5 stress worth?  If the player asks for 5 stress one time and you ok it, then the next time he *only* needs 7 stress to cast a spell that will take out the last foe and himself in the process, is the 7 ok?  How about 10?  Or 5000?  There has to be a line *somewhere*.  So really it's just a matter of deciding where.

Given that the Evocation rules as written give a clear step-by step process that results in stress due to gathering power to be taken before the spell is actually cast, it seems natural to me to use the RAW as the limit.  Your house rules might well vary, and that's fine, too.  Another alternative, if you wanted to allow a little extra wiggle room without opening the doors completely, would be to allow the player to invoke appropriate aspects to add +2 to their Conviction for purposes of determining stress from casting.  (Though I'm not really convinced that casters are in need of any extra buffs to ensure they are competative.)

[UmbraLux]

I'm surprised that none of you are interested in maintaining something that could be so very good for a story.

Not all of us are against it.

@ Becq - Every shift needs to be "paid for".  If you've got 23 shifts of stress and consequences, a declaration, and a fate point with an aspect to invoke you get a maximum of 27 shifts in the spell.  Trying to go out with a 50 shift spell means 23 shifts are fallout which a) reduces the power of the spell and b) is up to the GM to narrate.  Whatever the narration, it shouldn't be beneficial to the caster's intentions.  If I thought abuse was intentional, I'd probably have the fallout disrupting the controlled portion of the spell as an unintentional block. 

[sinker]

But if you go with that reasoning, then the next question is how many shifts into "take-out" territory can you go?  If you've already used up (or choose not to use) your consequences, and all of your mental stess boxes are marked, then 1 stress is enough to take you out.  So would you only allow the player to pull that much power?  Or maybe 5 stress worth?  If the player asks for 5 stress one time and you ok it, then the next time he *only* needs 7 stress to cast a spell that will take out the last foe and himself in the process, is the 7 ok?  How about 10?  Or 5000?  There has to be a line *somewhere*.  So really it's just a matter of deciding where.

I don't think there even needs to be a line that stays in one place. If at one point it's dramatically appropriate for the wizard to throw 5000 shifts (though I doubt that point would come up in my game) then go for it. It's totally ok to say no next time, or to be more specific to say "It seemed like last time it was really within the spirit of things and everyone had a good time. This time seems different." As long as everyone's clear that that's how you do things then that works fine.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

@ Becq - Every shift needs to be "paid for".  If you've got 23 shifts of stress and consequences, a declaration, and a fate point with an aspect to invoke you get a maximum of 27 shifts in the spell.  Trying to go out with a 50 shift spell means 23 shifts are fallout which a) reduces the power of the spell and b) is up to the GM to narrate.  Whatever the narration, it shouldn't be beneficial to the caster's intentions.  If I thought abuse was intentional, I'd probably have the fallout disrupting the controlled portion of the spell as an unintentional block.

Even beyond that, fallout is determined at the control roll, not at the how much power am I summoning stage.

You simply cannot summon power beyond what you have stress and consequences to pay for, even for a death curse.  It would kill you before you had a chance to shape it into a spell.  TANSTAAFL.  It's not dramatically appropriate for a wizard to evocate up enough power to destroy a small town, it's just ridiculous.

[Silverblaze]

Just need to be a powerful wizard to do it.

Ask Eb.

[computerking]

Just need to be a powerful wizard to do it.

Ask Eb.

Although it wasn't said directly, I'm pretty sure Ebenezar used Thaumaturgy for his Sputnik-mancy.

Which is why I'm in Buzzard's camp: If you want to use more power than your stress track can handle, use Thaumaturgy. It takes more time, but adds to the drama just as much as a last-second, Take-me-out-I'm-evoking-all-my-consequences fast spell would.

[ways and means]

A death curse wouldn't work with your logic as a with a death curse you draw all of your life out of you during casting it meaning given your logic you would die before casting it.

[computerking]

A death curse wouldn't work with your logic as a with a death curse you draw all of your life out of you during casting it meaning given your logic you would die before casting it.

A Death curse is a special case, and could be considered the only exception to the rule (If you consider this the "rule" as the books look at it).

Logistically it makes little to no sense, mechanics-wise, to make the casting process into those parts if it wasn't to prevent a player from overclocking their spell power and taking out the BBEG first shot every fight, allowing their friends to take care of the minions. Such large expenditures of power (I'm referring to going beyond the stress track and consequences) should be few and far-between, hence, the Deathcurse.
I do like the idea of a player using all of their remaining stress track and consequences for a final stab at turning the tide of a fight, it's pushing beyond that breaks the system, because if you can go 1 stress beyond and still stay standing long enough to cast the spell, why not 100? 1000? Yes, this is hyperbolic, but the "Slippery Slope Principle" comes into play here.
If anything, I would believe that since the power got called up, and you are no longer conscious to control it, drawing beyond that level would automatically result in Fallout. Which might just be a pretty good dramatic moment, too. Kamekaze Magi running into the thick of the enemy and Power-purging sounds like a valid, though dangerous, tactic.

[sinker]

Of note all this comparison to the death curse is moot, since a death curse is thaumaturgy, so the shifts to stress model isn't involved. Look it up, YS282.

[computerking]

Of note all this comparison to the death curse is moot, since a death curse is thaumaturgy, so the shifts to stress model isn't involved. Look it up, YS282.

My bad, forgot about that in my zeal to disagree. But as a rules model, moving around that much power perhaps should be the realm of Thaum.

[Becq]

Not all of us are against it.

@ Becq - Every shift needs to be "paid for".  If you've got 23 shifts of stress and consequences, a declaration, and a fate point with an aspect to invoke you get a maximum of 27 shifts in the spell.  Trying to go out with a 50 shift spell means 23 shifts are fallout which a) reduces the power of the spell and b) is up to the GM to narrate.  Whatever the narration, it shouldn't be beneficial to the caster's intentions.  If I thought abuse was intentional, I'd probably have the fallout disrupting the controlled portion of the spell as an unintentional block.

Not at all!  Let's say I decide to cast that 5000 shift spell.  I have Conviction 4, so I'm going to take a 4997 mental stress for casting it.  I can reduce that by as much as 2+4+6+8=20 by taking consequences .. but why bother?  I'll just take myself out and leave the consequences for later.  Now, in my opinion the spellcasting sequence stops right there; the power-gathering step failed.  (If it was important, only 8 shifts were gathered, because the 8th shift was what edged the stress into the non-existent 5th box.)

But under discussion is the case in which we decide the spell goes off regardless.  So I've been taken out, but there's still a 5000 shift spell in the air, with the universe somehow conspiring to gather the remaining 4992 shifts for me.  (Thanks, universe!)  Ok, now I have to control it.  I'm unconcious, so I shouldn't be able to control anything, but we're saying that I can.  So I roll my Discipline 5 and get extraordinarily lucky!  ++++!  That means I control 9 shifts, leaving 4991 uncontrolled.

Now I need to split that between backlash and fallout.  But if I put it into fallout, that would (a) nuke my friends, most likely, and (b) reduce the strength of the spell.  So, what the heck, I'll take it all as backlash.  That's 4991 stress worth of backlash, and I decide again not to take consequences, since I can choose that.  Whoops, looks like I'm taken out.  Again.  Still?  Whatever; my target gets hit by my 5000 shift spell, perfectly focused on him and with no side effects.

How does this sort of silliness make for a good story?  I just don't see it.  My read would be that the hypothetical character tried to cast the 5000 shift spell, passed out (very quickly) from the attempt to gather so much power, with the end result that the power that *was* gathered (ie, the amount that would have created an overflow into a nonexistent stress box) would have then been released as if it was entirely uncontrolled.  Which *could* actually play a role in a story, as the character basically converts some or all of his remaining consequences into an uncontrolled "fallout" spell (in the above example, it would be from 8 to 28 shifts of fallout, depending on the number of consequences taken).  I could see this as a great last-ditch way of escaping from a mook-powered ambush.

[computerking]

Looks like Becq has summed up how I am seeing the issue. Better than I had put it, too. But the bottom line of it is that allowing uncontrolled limitless power shift collection beyond S&C (Stress & Consequences) to create perfect working spells moves the game from the Dresden Files and into the realm of Dragonball Z.