Targeting and control....

[zenten]

Yup, mostr recently she took out Tessa (not by herself, but she did do most of the heavy lifting.)

[Silverblaze]

I wholeheartedly approve.

[Mr. Death]

I realize this is a little late, but this is something our group has discussed, and we've always considered the backlash shifts as part of the attack roll, on the logic that the "control" part of controlling a spell includes controlling where it's going. I believe there's something in the text along the lines of saying with backlash, the spell works as intended because the wizard paid the price for it, and we interpreted "works as intended" to include it going where the wizard told it to go.

[grimward]

That's how we run it too. If I cast a 5 shift evocation and only roll a 3 for discipline I can take a 2 stress backlash hit and have the effective discipline roll be 5. It's worked well so far.

The guy with the gun can't take stress to increase his roll, but it also doesn't cost him anything to pull the trigger, and he can do it a lot more often than a wizard could. Also, sometimes the tradeoff might not be worth it to the wizard, so the spell just goes off half cocked and sloppy. Again, something the guy firing a gun doesn't have to worry about.

"Billy B. rolls a 4 for his guns attack, D. McBaggleton rolls a 5 on his athletics to dodge. Bullet flies off into a wall." As opposed to the wizard. "Sparkles rolls a 4 on discipline to control a 5 shift Fireworks Jubilee spell, he can either take another mental stress to control it (and McBaggelton may still roll well enough to dodge), or he can let a point fly out into the environment as fallout." Higher risk, higher reward for the wizard, and I think that taking extra mental stress to control a spell fits in with that concept.

[computerking]

That's the way I still run it, despite some of the answers I got in this thread. I'm following one of the Golden rules: K.I.S.S.: It's just simpler to have Spell control/targeting be one total, outside of Rotes.

[Becq]

I don't see anything that would make me think that taking backlash adds to the Discipline roll.

I read it as saying that if your Discipline roll is less than the shifts of power to be controlled, that the difference is how many shifts are uncontrolled.  If the Wizard does nothing, the result will be Fallout, which means that the uncontrolled shifts are taken out of the spell (the power or the spell is reduced) and does something else instead (GM's choice).

The Wizard has two options to mitigate this.  The first option is to invoke aspects.  By increasing your Discipline roll, you increase your control, and therefore the shifts of power are not uncontrolled after all.  As a side benefit, this also improves your attack roll since your Discipline roll counts for both.

The second option is to accept backlash, instead.  In this case, the uncontrolled shifts taken as backlash remain as part of the spell.  This means the power of the spell is not reduced, but does not change the Discipline roll.

[Shadowman17]

The way I see it, since backlash is something that you can take when you fail, it makes sense that you can't completely recover from that failure. I'm actually bringing this issue up to my group this weekend. We've actually been acting on the assumption that it does help targeting, but I think that it should change. We'll see how it goes, with two of my players being wizards.

[Mr. Death]

The way I see it, since backlash is something that you can take when you fail, it makes sense that you can't completely recover from that failure.

The backlash itself--stress and/or consequences--is already the price of that failure, though.

[computerking]

Yes, it can be looked at that way, but once again, if you know you're pretty much going to miss anyway, taking Backlash seems pointless. It's an extra level of complexity that bogs down the gameplay, especially if Fate Point Bidding Wars start. I consider Targeting to be a part of the spell, and Backlash as taking great pains to make the spell go exactly where, and exactly how hard you want it to hit(in the case of an attack).
It may not specifically state that it increases the Discipline roll, but it does indicate that the spell is controlled by taking Backlash. And to me, targeting is a part of controlling a spell.

Ant to bring up a previous statement:

The rules could probably be interpreted either way.  However, from things Fred has said about consequences adding to rolls, I think spending backlash to increase the targeting roll was the intent.  Besides, if it didn't, you would seldom, if ever, choose to take backlash on an attack.

[Orladdin]

If I am correct, here, the point of contention is based around whether or not the backlash "brings-up" the Discipline roll used to target your spell.

Example:
My hypothetical example wizard Crackin McFadden decides to cast a 7-power thunder spell.  He calls up the power, rolls his Discipline and gets a 5.  He takes the 2 backlash and dishes out the spell.  His opponent, Higgs Oucherson rolls a 6 defense.
Case 1 is that his backlash "dragged-up" the control of the spell up to a 7 and he would hit.
Case 2 is that even with the backlash, he missed because his targeting was inferior to the enemy's defense.

I contend that Case 2 is correct, and here's why:
Rotes.

Rotes were mentioned before, and I'd like to go back to that for a second to stress a point.  Rotes state that you automatically control the spell, but you still have to roll to target.  So, does this mean that if your targetting roll is lower than the power of the rote, you count as having a targetting roll that equals the power of the rote?  It doesn't make sense.

If rotes are "always controlled" (as in RAW) and some of you guys are suggesting that Case 1 is correct, or that "control" is a minimum for how well you target, that would suggest that if Crackin McFadden made that same 7-power spell into a rote, even if his Discipline was rolled at a 5 in the future, he would have an effective 7 minimum.  After all, the power is "controlled" automatically, "dragging-up" the roll.

Is that a clear example?  Backlash should not effect your targeting.

[Tedronai]

Rotes are an explicit special case not useful as a precedent for this question.

[Mr. Death]

That does bring up another question, though: If you have that 7 shift rote, and your effective Discipline and Conviction are both at 5 (meaning on an even roll, you'd take 3 mental stress for the power, and 2 stress for the backlash), and you roll Discipline to fire it and get a +2 to hit that 7, do you still take that backlash?

[Orladdin]

Rotes are an explicit special case not useful as a precedent for this question.

I argue that they are valid to this discussion. 

They specifically use the terms "control" and "targeting".  They specifically make it clear how those two terms, while handled by the same roll, are not necessarily the same numerical value at all times.

It's a classic example of taking a logical argument to an extreme that everyone can agree on and seeing that the argument based on a fallacy falls apart at that extreme, leaving the correct argument intact.

[Tedronai]

That does bring up another question, though: If you have that 7 shift rote, and your effective Discipline and Conviction are both at 5 (meaning on an even roll, you'd take 3 mental stress for the power, and 2 stress for the backlash), and you roll Discipline to fire it and get a +2 to hit that 7, do you still take that backlash?

The explicitly separate Targeting roll of a Rote does not affect that Rote's Control regardless of how well or poorly the Targeting roll turns out.

They specifically use the terms "control" and "targeting".  They specifically make it clear how those two terms, while handled by the same roll, are not necessarily the same numerical value at all times.

Rotes explicitly break the standard rule that Targeting and Control are both handled by the same roll.
The rules governing Backlash contain no such exemption.
Rotes are not a suitable precedent.

[Orladdin]

@Tedronai:

If control and targeting are always supposed to be equal, why do they use separate terms for them then?

Control and Targeting are two separate variables that just happen to be initialized to the same die roll to reduce play complexity.  The fact that the control variable is then changed to a higher number through the application of backlash does not effect the targeting variable.

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It should also be remembered that taking that backlash doesn't just help make the spell work; it prevents nasty fallout from threatening your allies.