Focused Practitioner + Refinement

[Tedronai]

Dead Beat - a bunch of old men, kind of okay at what they do, but they lack the talent to ever get on the council.
That's a life time of learning and they still haven't made the cut while others make it when they are teenagers.  To me that speaks of inborn talents and limitations.

Richard

Inborn talents and limitations holding back those particular individuals.
Whether that applies universally or not is another matter entirely.  And one that cannot, in my opinion be honestly interpreted from canon, given the blatant fallibility of the narrator on the subject, as exemplified in his about-face with regards to Mortimer.

[Cyberchihuahua]

I would refer to Mort as a highly specialized practitioner, with full Thamaturgy, and maybe specialized Evocation.

As for refinement for a FP, Dresden has said several times in the books that if some one practices enough, they can get scary good at a small number of spells. I believe Bianca was an example of this.

[JStreet]

so would it be fair to rule that one could take Refinement over and over for say... just Spirit/Force, but maybe say it only effects your Rotes? or you only get your Rotes?

[Sanctaphrax]

No.

You can take Refinement over and over for foci, but not even once for specializations. Limiting your specializations to rotes doesn't change that.

It sounds as though you might want to consider writing a new power.

[Arcane257]

Mechanics wise I think Iago said that to reflect amazing levels of talent for focused practitioners just give them high base stats like superb or better. The intended design for them at launch was that if you wanted them to progress was to make them a sorcerer then a wizard stats wise if I remember correctly.

I think what confuses a lot of us is that what Harry would call a wizard and what you would call a wizard powers wise are two different things that use the same name. I often think that the game would have been much better served by the creations of different titles not used in the books. In short try to remember that having all the wizard template powers does not mean you are a wizard in game. You could still be a "hedge wizard" "focused practitioner" "sorcerer"  "ectomancer" or whatever other title you embrace. Its pretty clear from recent books that the white council is in fact not the end all be all of magic and that Harry does tend to spew their rhetoric even though by now one would hope he knows better.

Now if your issue is that you only want to say have Channeling element Fire then yeah mechanics wise you will have to alter the rules. Personally I like the idea of the focused practitioner buying full powers and finding a way to describe them through their focus. I mean just because its from the water element doesn't mean you have to describe the entropy effects it generates as being globes of water it could be the black flames of entropy scattering things back to their basic elements. Remember the book freely admits the five elements are an arbitrary standard and you can always work around them.

In short just try to remember having Evocation and Thaumaturgy doesn't mean you have to describe it that way fluff wise.

Of course this is all just my two cents worth.

[ARedthorn]

If I wanted to create a ____-prodigy (wizard level power or more, with a single element only- the way harry has occasionally described in the books)... I'd take evocation... self-limited to a single element. With a willing GM, in return for that self-limitation, I could break pyramid on specialization (you already can just by having a wide variety of small, subtle foci- the difference at this point is flavor anyway- wanting something a bit more raw talent and less nifty toys).

Or alternately, sponsored magic might be more appropriate to someone like that. Sure, sure, there's no sponsor, technically, but flavor-wise, it fits better. Most of what Morty does is exactly thaumaturgy-at-the-speed-of-evo.

[Sanctaphrax]

Personally, I recommend taking evocation with elements that are all similar to the one you specialize in. Like Water, Ice, Blood, Steam and Acid for a hydromancer.

If that doesn't float your boat, I'd try a variant of Channeling that has no focus slots (and can't be Refined to have any) but that allows uncapped specializations.

[Tedronai]

If that doesn't float your boat, I'd try a variant of Channeling that has no focus slots (and can't be Refined to have any) but that allows uncapped specializations.

I suspect this to be severely problematic at high refresh levels.
The pyramid is there for a reason.

[Sanctaphrax]

You're completely right.

I shouldn't have said uncapped. What I meant and what I think is appropriate is pyramid-less specializations.

We've been over the balance of that before, as I'm sure you recall.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,19934.165.html

Our conclusions were inconclusive. I think it's balanced enough for casual use, but maybe not enough for serious rough treatment.

EDIT: I would seriously consider raising the price to -3 and throwing in a free specialization. That'd make it a touch weaker.