How would you stat Harry's crystal from Turn Coat?

[Watson]

I recently passed Turn Coat on my second read-through of the DF books and started to think about Harry's crystal that he uses at the end of the novel. How would you stat it in the game?

It creates some kind of force field that is very strong and would (according to Harry) create a huge explosion if tampered with (yet the persons inside the "bubble" should be unharmed). It is also portable (at least before it is activated - I assume that once it is active it can't be moved). It also took Harry the nights and weekends of some three months to create. Also, Ancient Mai seems to think that she can dispel it without too much of a problem (unsure if that is true, though).

It seems to act like a ward with a land mine attached, but those ought to be neither portable nor possible to make without first having a threshold.

Could it be created as a complex Enchanted Item with several "layers"? But in that case it would eat up loads of Harrys Enchanted Item slots...

What do you think of this one..?

[devonapple]

My opinion: the simplest way is to treat it as a Ward that he had, despite everything telling us that it is impossible, made portable, reflected by the extreme difficulty he narrated. Rule-breaking, I know, but sometimes the narrative of a work of fiction is going to trump the rules of the RPG it inspired.

That said, I'm certainly in favor of it being modeled using the Enchanted Item rules.

[ARedthorn]

Or... a difficult-and-long-as-hell thaumaturgical ritual... setting up a strong block on the gem.
+extra shifts for covering multiple people in it's vicinity;
+extra shifts for duration (it had to last the night, at least);
+extra shifts for delay (so the spell wouldn't decay while it was waiting to be triggered);
+maybe 1 or 2 more shifts to set the trigger and allow a delay at all.

I don't recall it obviously having a ward-like reflective function... but any built-in landmines could be done the same way, albeit, again, much increasing the difficulty of the spell.

My only concern with doing it this way is that it creates precedent for players to do massively powerful and difficult stuff off-screen for later... then later, have instant nuke, just add minor effort of will. Worse, precedent perhaps for them to try and do this retroactively.
Thaum can get pretty broken pretty fast- the only thing that really limits it's potential is that it takes the player using it to it's full potential more or less out of the game for a while. If they're willing to do so, or you have a good setup for what you'll allow players to get away with during down-times that you're happy with... cool. Otherwise, this isn't feasible.
The EI rules are the safer way to go in that way.

[Becq]

I recently passed Turn Coat on my second read-through of the DF books and started to think about Harry's crystal that he uses at the end of the novel. How would you stat it in the game?

Perhaps something like this?

Harry's Crystal [-0]
Description: You possess a crystal like the one that Harry Dresden had in Turn Coat.
Musts: You must be Harry Dresden, or be well-loved (or well-hated) by Jim Butcher or your GM.
Skills Affected: Varies.
Effects:
Plot Device. Harry's Crystal is capable of doing anything that the author (or GM) needs it to do.  Many of these things may well violate the laws and/or rules of the Dresdenverse or the DFRPG, but that's ok.  The player has no direct control.

[Sanctaphrax]

Based on the long-established principle of "Thaumaturgy can do anything", I call it Thaumaturgy. Not a ward, though.

ARedthorn's writeup looks good to me.

It's important that the crystal protects other people from the user as well as it protects the user from other people. That helps a lot with the balance of the thing and should therefore make it way easier to cast.

Or maybe Harry just spent a FP to Declare a crystal into existence. Or maybe it was his way of buying off a Thomas-related compel. I dunno.

[Haru]

Puh, that situation is a tough one, but I think it mainly comes down to a taken out result. If you look at it, what it mainly does is take Molly and Marcone (and Thomas, I think) out of the fight with the concession that no more harm will come to them, and to give it a bit more substance, Harry makes a lore declaration, that he is prepared for just such an occasion. So it is a "no death result when taken out" sort of device, or at least used as such.
If you look at it like this, a simple maneuver spell wrapped in a potion (because you can declare those) should be enough. Activate on taken out, tag aspect, don't die. Maybe tie it to condition, like the crystal would shield you from death by hostile means, but if you where to activate it while drowning, it wouldn't do anything. And another item could allow you to breath and floats you to the surface, if you in fact are drowning. You would still be taken out, just not to the very far end.

[ARedthorn]

That's pretty elegant, actually, IMO. In the moment, I like it.
If, however, the OP was looking more for something they could plan on doing, or have in their arsenal/bag-of-literal-tricks/spellbook/etc... considering how useful such a thing could be (powerful, even)... I'd be wary of making it that simple or easy.

[Silverblaze]

Is it possible to start a ritual at one site, complete most of it, then move it elsewhere and finish it?

(say a briefcase nuke ward?)

He clearly worked on it on several occasions putting a lot of time into it, perhaps it had component parts and he then put it all together someplace else (the island.)

Just a theory.

Like devonapple said: novels will not always translate well to RPG (unless you just name it plot device and say "it works").

[Watson]

Some really good suggestions!

I really like the fact that the system is so flexible that there are multiple ways of handling it and I especially like the way Haru suggests (even though I perhaps would not solve it that way, despite being very elegant).

Technically, it might be possible to "pause" a Thaumaturgical ritual and then continue later ("activating the ritual/item"), but that would make Thaumaturgy way overpowered.

[Silverblaze]

I agree it would be overpowered.  However, thaum is pretty Op as it is.  It is pretty much limited by player imagination and well the GM allowing such nonsensery to occur.

Not sure there is a good balanced way to create the crystal.  You could just declare some wards to be mobile?

[Watson]

I like it being a one-of-a-kind item of sort (that is also a one-shot-item), otherwise the characters could go around with these wherever they go. I lean towards classifying it as a "plot device", but it would be good to be able to replicate it using the rules in the game (somewhat, at least).

But again, after re-reading the books, I have come to the conclusion that not all things done in the books do have a functional mechanic in the game (or at least not one that would not be exploited by the players and used over and over).

[Silverblaze]

I like it being a one-of-a-kind item of sort (that is also a one-shot-item), otherwise the characters could go around with these wherever they go. I lean towards classifying it as a "plot device", but it would be good to be able to replicate it using the rules in the game (somewhat, at least).

But again, after re-reading the books, I have come to the conclusion that not all things done in the books do have a functional mechanic in the game (or at least not one that would not be exploited by the players and used over and over).

Good.

That is a conclusion every player of this game needs to come to.

[archmagelite]

The way i'd rule it in my game, and thats a stipulation.

Its a thaumaturgic block one use spell thats tied to an item. In that sence its a scene wide block spell, perhaps several spells to create a defence/offence terrain change to a single battle. Ie a area block, and a few landminds. To get this to work would be a major casting, probably a whole week of declarations like you'd use to make the family houses wards.

How many spells to an item? Depends on the items quality. A fist sized uncut diamond, resource 6 or 7 would be able to hold several spells, probably its "Quality Rating". Theirs probably also a lore limit to how much an item could hold say the quality rating times the lore skill of the caster's a good base.

Kind of a Defensive Doom Box from the tv series.

I wouldnt permit declarations for the "summoning" of one of these, its a thematic ritual, probably a story in and of itself how you came about the knowledge to make this thing. Maybe done during the week between sessions.

Its it powerful? Yes, is it more powerful than a 30shift ritual to murder someone with their fingernail clippings? Probably not.