Warden Swords and non-Wizards

[Sanctaphrax]

You could do something like that, but it'd still cost a ridiculous number of FP.

[Belial666]

Fate Points, future compels or plain multiple potion slots. The point is that it's ultimately doable within the system, even if unlikely. Which shows just how flexible the system is - and also explains why Harry doesn't have a portable Ward of that strength in every case that would be useful.

Flavor-wise, if it took him a month to make that would translate to many, many days worth of compels mechanically. As FP can be saved from all the (relatively) minor cases he has between the main ones, it's not impossible.

[PatchR]

Why not? There's no limitation on the number of wards one can put on a building. Even the Paranetters who are minor talents have learned how to build up a defense of multiple small Wards - and more powerful wizards have multiple Ward types with multiple different trigger conditions even. Harry is a good example of that. Essentially, the Landmine puts a single shift of power into an alarm Ward and the remaining shifts into the Landmine itself.

I would think so from the dresden books, but YS 276-277 (last paragraph of 276 spills over) reads:

By default, a ward lasts until the next sunrise
unless you add complexity to make it last longer,
which is explained in “Duration and Enhanced
Evocation” (page 265). In addition, any spells you
wish to include as part of the ward construct
add their complexity values directly onto the
ward. It must all be cast as one spell. If you want
a layered defense, you’ll have to spend a bit of
time setting it up.

[vultur]

I wouldn't allow that. Adopting other peoples' items with your own slots is sketchy rules-wise, and besides what we know of Luccio's abilities indicates that she's not that good at Crafting.

Her OW stats aren't that good, but the OW stats for Morgan, Luccio, and the Senior Council are incredibly low-end.

(Actually, the OW stats might be about right for Luccio post-body-swap. But pre-swap, she'd be far more impressive.)

If a power 8 frequency 3 enchanted item is 2 enchanted item slots, and her Lore was Superb, that would mean she has either a frequency +2 strength +2, or strength +3 and no frequency, specializations.  That's not all that impressive for someone who's that good at magical item making.

[Belial666]

In addition, any spells you
wish to include as part of the ward construct
add their complexity values directly onto the
ward. It must all be cast as one spell.

IF you wish to include them in the same Ward construct, yes. But why would you? You don't want your Ward to fire off the Landmine(s) if someone hits it because hey, some poor mortal might do it by accident and wouldn't that be a stupid way to get Lawbreaker? No, you create a second, single-shift Ward construct for an alarm, in case the big one is breached (not just hit). And you attach the landmine to the second one, not the first. As I said before, no limit to the amount of separate Wards you can add to a place. (it's just that a single big ward has the advantage of being harder to dispel or damage and you only pay for duration once)

The Paranetters' multi-ward would be done in a similar way. It is just a bazillion small (3-4 shifts) individual Wards. A sufficiently high roll from a powerful enemy will go through all of them as they got the same block strength but trying to destroy the Wards themselves? You got to hit them individually and that would take a lot of effort. And if you destroyed only some of them, repairs to those would be pretty easy. Good way of keeping out mulltiple low-power enemies instead of one big enemy. The wards in Edinburg would follow a similar philosophy, except they'd be multiple big wards instead of small ones.



BTW, given enough time a Wizard could make wards of ridiculously high strength if they knew how. Harry for example could put a mild consequence into a ritual in every single scene. Assume a scene is half an hour or so. 8 hours of work for a week makes for 200+ shifts of power, easily. Add another 100 shifts of power for the timeskip at a rate of +1 complexity per scene, plus another 50 or so for total declarations and you could potentially have a Ward with enough power sunk into it to drill a hole through the Earth's crust.

[Sanctaphrax]

Fate Points, future compels or plain multiple potion slots.

You can only have one future Compel at a time, and multiple slots can't bring you over the cap.

So we're left with the possibility that Harry accumulated a huge number of FP offscreen despite having only 1 Refresh, and spent them all on this random item instead of doing something really useful with them. Seems implausible to me.

Making it a standard ritual, now that I can buy.

Harry for example could put a mild consequence into a ritual in every single scene. Assume a scene is half an hour or so. 8 hours of work for a week makes for 200+ shifts of power, easily.

If he's not doing anything else over that week, then that week is just one scene. A scene is "a unit of game time, consisting of the amount of time it takes to resolve a single conflict or accomplish some other significant purpose". A single scene can be a thousand years long.

In other words, Harry's ability to fuel a spell with consequences is dependent on interesting things happening while he prepares the spell.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it makes for good gameplay. It'd be dull if wizards could just call up a bazillion shifts whenever a timeskip happened.

[Belial666]

multiple slots can't bring you over the cap.

That's for enchanted items. No such limit exists for potions.

you can only have one future Compel at a time

Once when you make the potion. Then pay it off in the interim. Then boost the potion again on the fly when you use it. Also applies to any FP gathered in the interim, or if you have given it to somebody else to use; you boost it with your FP and compel on creation, the user boosts it with their compel and FP on the fly.

If he's not doing anything else over that week, then that week is just one scene.

The player decides the scene goal. If the GM is being difficult about scene length the player says "I'm gonna do a 5-minute ritual divination to get some new Lore on my ritual" or "I'm gonna do a 5-minute summoning to ask some Loa about my ritual" and so on and so forth. Essentially the player picks something that is short-duration realtime as his goal for the scene and forces a scene change by doing something new every so often. He could even say "I'm gonna take a nap/walk to clear my mind - see ya in half an hour". Or if he's feeling snarky "I'm gonna solve this Sudoku/crossword/whatever as a scholarship conflict for the next half hour" and so on and so forth.

Basically, mild consequences that only stay for a scene give the same +2 bonus as a skill declaration. If you could make a skill declaration in half an hour or so, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to use up a mild consequence. It's the same thing as saying;

"I'm gonna make a big, complex, Archive-strong magic circle for my ritual. It's gonna be 7 layers of magic runes, with a progression of 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 and 23 runes for the layers, and I'm gonna draw/align those runes perfectly"
And then go and make the drawing of each rune a Lore declaration, for a total of 95 declarations. In ancient Sumerian cuneiform of course, so there are enough different runes and the GM can't say you're just repeating the same rune more than once.

[Sanctaphrax]

That's for enchanted items. No such limit exists for potions.

I admit the text is slightly ambiguous, but by my reading the limit is for both.

The player decides the scene goal.

Not really. It's one of those things the game leaves more or less up to the group.

And most groups would be disinclined to allow shenanigans like these.

Basically, mild consequences that only stay for a scene give the same +2 bonus as a skill declaration. If you could make a skill declaration in half an hour or so, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to use up a mild consequence. It's the same thing as saying;

"I'm gonna make a big, complex, Archive-strong magic circle for my ritual. It's gonna be 7 layers of magic runes, with a progression of 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 and 23 runes for the layers, and I'm gonna draw/align those runes perfectly"
And then go and make the drawing of each rune a Lore declaration, for a total of 95 declarations. In ancient Sumerian cuneiform of course, so there are enough different runes and the GM can't say you're just repeating the same rune more than once.

Skill declarations require rolls, dude. And the GM can totally shut you down for being repetitive. Not repeating a rune doesn't make you immune to GM judgement.