First, concerning rote spells. If Harry were to cast his Fuego rote he does not have to roll to control the power but still rolls his Discipline (+3) with a +1 from his rod for a attack roll. Doesn't matter if roll isn't good enough to control because that has already been established. This roll is opposed by the target. If Harry got a +6 and the target got a +2, Harry's Fuego rote could do 8 shifts and it would cost him 1 box on the mental stress chart. Is this correct?
Control is established already due to it being Rote (this is the advantage of Rotes). He still has to try to hit the target. Damage (shifts) is dependant on the amount of power you use, so that would come from his conviction and any applicable foci rather than how good his "to hit" roll was. Shifts are the number of steps higher on the ladder you are in comparison to the opposing roll (or difficulty). A +6 shift on the "to hit" roll does give you options for how fancy your hit was (split it up over multiple opponents, a more accurate shot, etec). Mental stress would be 1 for the using the Rote and +1 for any additional levels of conviction that he would want to commit to it.
First, concerning rote spells. If Harry were to cast his Fuego rote he does not have to roll to control the power but still rolls his Discipline (+3) with a +1 from his rod for a attack roll. Doesn't matter if roll isn't good enough to control because that has already been established. This roll is opposed by the target. If Harry got a +6 and the target got a +2, Harry's Fuego rote could do 8 shifts and it would cost him 1 box on the mental stress chart. Is this correct?
Um, no. The damage of an attack is always based on how well you hit + Weapon rating. The power put into the spell determines Weapon rating, not full damage in and of itself, so if he hits by 4 shifts...he will indeed do Weapon Rating + 4 damage (since he hit them in a vulnerable area, or something like that). Splitting the attack is also impossible with a Rote, they are set in what they do, a multiple target spell would be a separate Rote. And Rotes are always the same amount of power and thus stress.
I caught that error after reading your post.
Conviction equals the amount of power and can raise the amount of stress. The YS251 example talks about Fuego at conviction +8 which is 2 higher than his conviction bringing the total amount of stress to 3.
Thanks for the help folks!
I'm trying to get this down. Let's say I want to use a force attack to drop a car on a bad guy ;D. How would that work? Would my Power that I gab need to equal the difficulty shown on the Might chart, then I make a Discipline roll to hit? What about the damage? Could this damage be counted as real world damage and satisfy the Catch for things that are immune to magic?
Thanks for the help folks!
I'm trying to get this down. Let's say I want to use a force attack to drop a car on a bad guy ;D. How would that work? Would my Power that I gab need to equal the difficulty shown on the Might chart, then I make a Discipline roll to hit? What about the damage? Could this damage be counted as real world damage and satisfy the Catch for things that are immune to magic?
@luminos i do understand that stress =/= damage, but it can..in one game i played i saw our magick user go down because he casted 3 spells (granted, one of them he powered up). my concern comes more as: 1 spell stress 1 = 1 stress 2 spells at stress 1 = 3 stress, etc.
and really it fits pretty well. Harry rarely evocates more than 3-4 times in a fight so that combined with his enchanted items seems pretty fittingActually, there are several fights in the books where Harry casts more than 3-4 times. Some handwave it by saying the spells you cast are just the ones that matter, and there are other spells thrown that are just flavor.
Actually, there are several fights in the books where Harry casts more than 3-4 times. Some handwave it by saying the spells you cast are just the ones that matter, and there are other spells thrown that are just flavor.
So...how many of those don't involve Sponsored Magic. Because Sponsored Magic explicitly offers a way around the limit (gaining Sponsor Debt)...and is pretty much involved in every big fight from Dead Beat onward.So, let's start with Summer Knight (it's fresh in my mind), with the big battle in the sky. I'm using the paperback, in case it matters for page references. Starting in Chapter 31, and extending into Chapter 32:
You have a far more generous view of Harry's advancement than I do. I don't see the campaign raising the skill cap up to Fantastic (+6) that early in the series, particularly after reading "Harry's Power Ups" on OW 137.
Perhaps you can tell me what consequences Harry took in that scene...
While recovering Stress is dependent on the GM, I'm pretty doubtful that 30 seconds of conversation qualifies as a full refresh. If you go that route, the fight at Wal-Mart in Summer Knight can easily be separated into five different scenes, which seems excessive. I think this is a case of people trying to fit the situations in the rules to the books, rather than the other way around.
Because it is no different than any of our campaigns. Harry has adventures, with downtime between adventures. When you start adding in all the short stories, and the things Harry does behind the scenes that we don't see, he's about as active as the characters in many ongoing campaigns.
for those who are thinking that the system can in fact cover the spellcasting in the books, take a look at Ramirez in the fight in White Night:
for those who are thinking that the system can in fact cover the spellcasting in the books, take a look at Ramirez in the fight in White Night:
He explicitly does 8 significant spells, not counting anything covered in the bit about "Blast after hideously ruinous blast..." which implies many attacks (although it could technically be statted out as either a split attack or a zone wide attack, so maybe it is mechanically only one big one). So minimum of 9 spells in a scene. For a young warden with no access to sponsored magic of any kind. He is listed as having conviction 4, so 4 boxes fo mental stress, no extra consequences. that means a maximum of 7 spells after consequences, maybe 8 if he somehow took an extreme consequence and we didn't notice. but we still can't get to the mimimum of 9 needed to play out that scene.
So yeah, The RPG system of a game based around a wizard can't handle the spellcasting in the books it is based off of.
However, as I mentioned, the writeup for Ramirez in Our World is incomplete. Only one Rote spell is listed, yet he can have a up to 3. He is also listed as having taken a Refinement, presumably for more focus and/or enchanted item slots, but here too the writeup has him shorted. Per the Spellcaster rules for Evocation and Thaumaturgy, each one provides 2 focus item slots (4 total). The writeup has him using 4 focus item slots, 2 each on his staff and glove for +1 power and +1 control with water offensively and defensively respectively. He then uses 2 enchanted item slots for his willow sword. Given that he has already used up his allotment of focus item slots for his staff and glove, he would have needed to spend that point of Refinement on getting additional focus or enchanted item slots. He should therefore have either 2 unused enchanted item slots or 1 unused focus item slot. This leaves the possibility open that Ramirez might have an item like Harry's Force Ring, which might be set to fire the green blasts...
As far as I can tell from his write-up Ramirez fully used his Refinement, as he has four slots worth of focus items, his Warden's sword (two enchanted items slots) and an additional specialization in Water evocation (effectively, his "GM" allowed him to split the benefits of his Refinement into a new specialization and his sword).