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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Victim on June 12, 2010, 02:42:01 AM
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So after more than ten sessions of our Big Easy game (run by, and written up here by mroehler - go check it out) it's becoming increasingly clear that Evocation attacks are more effective than an equivalent refresh of other abilities.
Why? Because Evocation attacks are the most accurate - which then turns into damage. Sure, evocations can have big weapon values, but a lot of powers offer bonuses to damage. The real difference: most attack forms max out at around the skill cap, plus 1 or so. The sword of the cross adds 1 to Weapon attacks, the vampire powers can +1 situationally, a stunt can add another +1 in the right conditions. Not too many examples there (Target Rich Environment is the only stunt in Your Story that adds to attack). OTOH, with Refinement, an evoker can grab up to twice the skill cap in bonuses from powers. Granted, that's a pretty extreme example (kind of like the Red Court Infected + Knight of the Cross + DIY sword master stunt).
More reasonably, we can look at what a character in our game has: Evocation, with 2 points of Refinement: 1 for specializations, and one for a bigger focus item. So that's +4 Offensive Control on a focus, and then +2 Control, +1 Power from specializations in the caster's favored element - basically, +6 attack, +1 damage, for -5 refresh. -5 Refresh can also get you a plain old +6 damage (claws, Supernatural Strength). This isn't exactly the most expensive ability. Our character has a skill cap of 5, so he's throwing 6 Power, 10 Control air evocations with his starting skill selection (it's actually 6, 11 now since he increased his Discipline).
Let's take a look at how that stacks up to some monsters.
The Black Court Master Vampire defends at 4, and packs 8 stress with 2 Armor from its Supernatural Toughness. With +0 rolls, it gets hit by 6, so the spell does 10 damage after armor. That's bigger than its stress track, so it must take a consequence after every shot. Ouch. Even if the caster isn't overchanneling - which is free, since 4 one stress hits are equivalent to hits of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 (in any order) - he can deal out enough damage to essentially skip the stress track entirely. Moreover, without a 7 point difference in rolls, the attack WILL hit.
How about Ursiel? With only a Good Defense in ranged combat, he gets hit by 7 for 11 damage after armor. So he's immediately in consequences as well.
Looking through other monsters, even a Fantastic defense roll is pretty freaking rare. So even with a more balanced spread on a focus item (say, +2 Control instead of 4), these attacks essentially don't miss. This situation isn't really surprising: powers seem to add far more damage or toughness than they do to accuracy or defense. Mythic Speed at -6 is +3 versus ranged (and a near autowin against melee); Refinement can be +2 attack per -1. Who needs maneuvers to hit for serious damage?
With a bit of overchanneling, a tag on the consequences from the first shot, and a bit of luck, it's not unreasonable to put down some badass, Supernaturally Tough enemies who are willing to take serious consequences in 2 shots. At the same time, the most effective single target attacker can also be the most effective area attacker with whole zone evocations - people with Grenades don't have a 10 in Weapons, and can't decide to include an even bigger area when needed.
Sure, an evoker only has a few shots without seriously hurting himself (we can assume someone interested in serious evocation has at least Good Conviction for 4 mental stress, and may have 5 for an extra mental consequence), but it doesn't take all that many when you do lots of damage and nothing can dodge.
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So that's been the problem as its appeared in our game a few times.
1: We think that the crux of the solution should be that the attack roll for a spell should be made with Discipline only. Control bonuses help to control the power of the spell, but don't apply for comparing to the target's defense. It's still just one roll, with Control bonuses being subtracted out.
Since attack value is a skill, it's essentially going to be in roughly the same range for combat focused wizards as other combat focused characters - the evoker can do a lot of damage, but they don't have a special advantage when attacking. Maneuvers are still important in terms of landing a hit, and not just if you're trying to avoid an attack that would otherwise kill a mortal.
With that change, a mage's juice doesn't go nearly so far since they can't reasonably expect to hit some guy for like 12 damage, more spells will be wasted shots, they may have to use magical maneuvers to make sure they can land a hit, etc. That kind of seems like a serious problem - being a guy who can throw out 4 or so 7 damage attacks (which isn't so unreasonable) would kind of suck compared to being a guy who has unlimited attacks at Weapon 6. And Control just took significant hit to its utility relative to power (not that Power > Control is an especially safe place to be :) ). That leads us to idea #2:
2: Spin on the Control roll reduces the mental stress dealt by the spell, at the standard rate of 3 extra successes reducing stress by 1.
A high control caster can get significantly more attacks at baseline levels of power. Maneuvers, especially to apply scene aspects, don't require too much power, so there's a reasonable chance they'll be free (except for the action cost, obviously).
Even better, overchanneling to get extra power at the expense of more mental stress is no longer free. If you already have 1 stress, then a 2 stress hit hurts just as much a 1 stress hit (without armor). OTOH, with a chance to cast a spell at reduced stress, a caster might be able to avoid taking stress with normal spells, but even a spell with Spin at Conviction +1 would deal mental damage.
Of course, these changes are slightly more complicated than the base rules. There's an additional calculation for an evocation attack. We don't use Spin normally, so that's another complication.
We also couldn't come up with a great way to deal with high power blocks. Just like an evocation attack could have a huge accuracy, an evocation block can have a big defense value - one that significantly exceeds other characters' attacks. Before, these defenses could be breached by high accuracy evocations, leaving the turtle mage vulnerable to other attacks until he could recast the shield (and a shield can be a significant investment). With our house rules, not so much. It seems like the only real countermeasure would be stacked maneuvers and declarations. Our group couldn't actually think of a great way to deal with a mighty shield - maybe eroding the block ala attacking a threshold? However, no character in our game going that route. Also, a character who gives up a lot of active abilities to be nearly invincible seemed like less of a problem in a group than the person who can potentially blow through an encounter in an action or two.
So, thoughts?
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I dont know if thats needed, I mean, Generally, if a wizard is fighting a baddy, the baddy is going to have 6 physical stress boxes and consequences. Thats a huge advantage over the poor wizard who at most is going to have 4 physical stress boxes. Your average ghoul is going to fill the wizards highest stress box on a near miss, where it just meets the wizards defense roll. Thats pretty serious stuff. If the wizard fails by one or more on the defense roll, he is going to have to take a consequence, No doubt about it. And thats only a ghoul. They are a Refresh -6 monster. A refresh 12 monster like a Uber ghoul? This guy is running around with a weapon 6! Even if the wizard roll a defense at exactly what the ghoul rolls for attack he is forced to fill his largest stress box and take a consequence.
Sure, Wizards have the big nasty spells, but monsters, in general, have the more physical stress bars and can pretty much incapacitate a wizard in one hit unless they take a consequence.
Another thing to consider, are you guys giving your baddies fate points and letting them use it on defense and attack rolls? I find that will even the playing field between a wizard and a supernat monster pretty damned quickly. Use it to reroll those less than stellar rolls, or add a +2 when it is the safer option. They'll start becoming much more of a threat.
lets move on to a refresh -14 critter, the black court vampire. This guy has 7 physical stress bars and armor 2! hot Dayum, That means vs a 5 shift evocation effect rolled with a discipline/control of +5. If the wizard rolls +4 the vamp will fill his highest stress box if he rolls a total of +0. Thats pretty tough. And he is still throwing around Weapon:4 claws, 5 if the wizard is bleeding.
It just seems to me that throwing the right kind of stuff at a wizard is going to nuke him pretty fast, regardless of how powerful their evocations are. Its a pretty fair trade.
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i delt with something similar to this and honestly their isnt a completely right answer in my opinion. We just left it like this saying "hey they are freaking wizards they should be dangerous".
One thing we did house rule (sorta related) is that speed powers give whatever bonus they would give to athletics to dodge on attacks (as it seems being faster would definately help you hit better with guns, weapons, fists, and well almost anything really). So after playing two or three dozen sessions with this house rule i can tell you that it does seem to make the high hit most wizards have reasonably less important seeming as most fast monsters can pull out hits just as nice. (and honestly it seems to fit while not being broken or anything)
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Sounds like your wizards are Being Prepared. Let the other characters be prepared too, by building up aspects they can tag and bringing along equipment.
Yes, Spellcasters in DFRPG are going to be more buff than other characters with the same Refresh. This is explained by noting that their stunts are supposed to stack, while others that can be stacked are nerfed in the expectation that they will be. If you don't like it (because Stress isn't being a limiting factor) you'll need to adjust non-spellcasting stunts up, or spellcasting stunts down.
You could also try giving an additional +2 Refresh to all non-spellcasting templates.
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Sounds like your wizards are Being Prepared.
You said a mouthful right there. Lets think about that. Prepared. Harry in the books gets his butt handed to him all the time, and barely makes it out of most situations. He isn't prepared.
When Harry is prepared he can and all while killing and laying low other threats.
Try to keep your players off balance, have them attempt to do things other than fight in combat, etc. Keep them off guard and only let them prepare towards the end once they have things figured out. It will make the roller coaster ride that much tense and they will love you for it.
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I dont know if thats needed, I mean, Generally, if a wizard is fighting a baddy, the baddy is going to have 6 physical stress boxes and consequences. Thats a huge advantage over the poor wizard who at most is going to have 4 physical stress boxes.
Not really. Most enemies, according to the rules, don't take their full assortment of consequences. And a mild consequence recovers pretty easily.
Moreover, all PCs without toughness powers are in pretty much the same boat defensively. However, those characters probably can't create Fantastic+ blocks, or have enchanted items to back up their defense. For example, the WCV template is also pretty expensive and lacks toughness. Werewolves don't have toughness or recovery.
Spending an equivalent value of refresh on non-evocation attacks (for example, Strength powers) won't do any more to counter the ghoul's tendency to maim people. But it will deal less damage (6-7 damage, 5 attack) compared to the wizard's counterattack (6 damage, 10 attack). It's not like I'm comparing a guy with a bunch of combat focused powers and skills to a character lacking in those areas.
Plus, you're kind of helping my point: if many characters can't go toe to toe with ghouls for very long in the first place, then the mental damage cost of an evocation isn't going to be huge issue. The fight can be over, one way or the other, before that restriction acts as a limiting factor.
I mean, I never said that taking Evocation made you invincible. I said that it gives you a better offense than other Supernatural abilities.
It's kind of cheap to call normal ghouls only 6 refresh. They have a lot of high combat skills. In a straight up fight, they're going to be more dangerous than the standard RCV (worth almost twice as much).
Prepared... In our biggest fight so far, the wizard forgot his focus item. He got ambushed by an RCV noble with Supernatural Toughness. His two shots of lightning counted a lot more than her attacks. :) He wasn't exactly running in there with a stack full of Assessments from advance planning - if you invest a lot in throwing power around, it can work pretty well even if you're not prepared in advance. Also, it's tons easier to be prepared when your main weapons aren't obvious, illegal, and traceable - like the explosives and assault weaponry some people have.
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Are your NPCs burning Fate Points on dodging? Because with even a few of those they can dodge an Evocation attack or two, and your non-mook enemies should really have at least a few Fate Points. And that's one of maybe 5 Evocations the Wizard gets for the entire combat. And any non-mooks should be able to take a hit or so with a Mild and a Moderate Consequence...which is what I give my mid-level badass critters.
And while the Evocation user in my game is only a 5 shift spellcaster and thus I can't legitimately use him as a good example of how powerful such things can be, I can use him as an example of how Spellcaster endurance works, and the Mental Stress limitation on Evocation has absolutely applied in something like three out of four fights he's been in, so it's a legitimate drawback IME.
I honestly think this is just a case of the most powerful PC in a particular group (which there's always one of) resulting in the appearance of imbalance. I mean, going by my game, someone with Inhuman in all the physical enhancement powers, Claws, and maxed Athletics and Fists would look like it completely outclassed any of the other options, but that's an illusion based on my particular group.
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This is kinda where I am in my game. I play a werebear with Claws, Inhuman Strength and Superb Fists.
In a fight against some goblins, I smacked one around for something like 10-11 stress in a single hit. Same fight, our gun-nut Pure Mortal placed a couple maneuvers and ended up nailing another goblin for 10-11 stress. The two practioners in our group didn't do so well. They were effective but didn't approach either my combat ability or my compatriot.
It's all about the situation.
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Right now Im playing in 3 Dresden games, two as spellcasters and one as a red court vampire (full template, and she managed to keep her soul through a death curse, yes, it is very much like angel, but I wanted to play a damned vamp!)
My vampire has the full inhuman suite of powers, and claws. She has Superb Discipline, Stealth at 4 (6 with cloak of shadows), fists at 4 and might at 4 (5 with Inhuman Strength).
She is really bad ass, Im generally leading in with a stealth attack (ambush), laying a consequence on somebody, tagging it for a grapple, where I burn some fate points and set up at least a 7 or 8 strength block on any of the enemies actions. Then I lay start to feed. Oh yeah, here is where I do a block each round and start giving him physical stress (3 guaranteed each round, 4 if I've hurt him, which in the example I have), I tag the new consequences I put on him as necessary, fate points if I need it, and once I've killed my opponent I take advantage of my Taste of Death portion of Blood Drinker. Clear all my stress tracks and heal a mild and moderate wound.
I basically disabled an opponent from the get go and dealt damage each round. Thats nothing to sneeze at and I'm not a spellcaster.
Another player in the party is playing a norse god of rock. He has an Axe item of power, His weapons are ranked at 4 and he is swinging a weapon: 8 around with supernatural strength. He also has the berserker stunt bringing his weapons to 5 and the axe he uses to weapon: 9. Then he starts invoking his aspects. It gets pretty damned nasty from there. Oh, and his alertness is higher than mine is for initiative, he ranks in at a nice 8.
Compare that to my spellcaster in the chest deep game. His name is Timothy Hargrove, and so far, Hes killed a ogre in one hit, then basically got geeked, barely survived the fight while the werelion in the group fought another ogre to a standstill, and the face killed two people, and intimidated the other two away. Basically Tim got one pretty bad ass moment of glory before everybody was like "Geek the Freakin Mage, he just threw a eight rebar spears at our ogre!" On the other hand, before that my wizard was pinned down by a bunch of refresh -3 thugs with automatics. Why? I cant use magic to kill mortals, I had to be very careful with those guys!
Thats really one of the ways to piss in the wizard's cereal, throw pure mortals at him, and make sure he is aware of the first law consequence. Other people can deal with mortals just fine, wizards? They might have some difficulties.
My warden in a submerged game hasn't really gotten a chance to really get into some nitty gritty combat. So far hes helped take down an ogre by shanking him in the kidney with his silvered dagger, and he took down a blampire by tagging two aspects placed by other players and using his sword conjured from pure soulfire. (Skill at Weapons 4, Sword at Weapon: 3, it ignores one rank of toughness abilities, and satisfies the Holy catch).
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I agree with the OP here. In the same game as the RCV and the rock god, my poorly-designed half-Outsider with Evocation can toss around Epic rotes as a non-issue - he is at least as proficient in combat as the rock god (little less raw power but he makes up for it with zone attacks and zone maneuvers) and more so then the RCV (one of his rotes grapples; it's not nearly as good as her grapple, of course, but he can follow it up with Weapon:8 attacks). He also has Superb social skills from Marked By Power, and an alternate form with Beast Change, Claws, Spider Walk, Aquatic, and Supernatural Recovery that allow him to deal with practically any eventuality short of death and get through it. He has all this versatility and is STILL a major combat heavyweight, and it's all thanks to the -4 spent on Evocation and a single Refinement. Dropping Evocation to Water Channeling (which I should have done originally) would change nothing, since focus items would keep his offensive bonuses almost exactly the same and he can afford to take consequences with Supernatural Recovery. He'd just lose Air and Earth magic, which barely matter to him as it is.
Magic needs a little reworking, and I think Victim's idea of dumping control bonuses to attack is a very good one.
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Evocations are absolutely the most powerful thing that we have encountered in our game so fare. The full blown wizard in my group can seriously dish it out. He is a bit min/maxed with both discipline and conviction at superb plus a focus. However he has a serious drawback. He can dish it out for about four exchanges.
The other PC we have is a scion of a Norse god. He has superhuman toughness, and recovery + strength at inhuman, plus pretty high weapons skills too.
Before the last session we had, we decided to let both characters duel just for the heck of it. Both PC have the same base refresh. The scion has a couple more fate points to spend. As it turned out the wizard had a LOT of trouble bringing down the scion. Mostly because he is good in the short fight, while the scion can go on and on and on without even breaking a sweat. I'm not saying, that the scion was stronger then the wizard. It was a more or less balanced fight.
That said I don't feel that evocators are OP. House rules don't seem necessary. What I have learned is simply to produce appropriate opposition in the future to get interesting fights...
An other thing: Don't forget that there usually is a huge downside on characters that are powerful in combat. They tend to have a skill build that leaves them very vulnerable in other types of conflicts. In the past several sessions I had a lot of fun by confronting my players with skilled social combatants and situations where the combat skills wouldn't help them much. And oh my god did my NPC own them. What I'm trying to say is, that you can hinder your PC in other ways then just normal combat. Do it. Social Conflicts are more fun then I would have thought.
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Evocations are powerful, yes. However, a wizard;
1) Almost always loses initiative vs anything with Speed powers. He gets grappled. He is then taken out.
2) Almost never notices something with Stealth 6 (anything with cloak of shadows and a great stealth) so he gets ambushed. He gets grappled. He is then taken out.
3) Orges are immune to Mortal Magic.
4) Against a submerged wizard, A Tentacled Horror (or anything else with Mythic Toughness) usually needs 3-4 hits to take out. After the first hit, you can bet the wizard will be grappled.
5) Faeries with glamours vs perception can surprise a wizard. Faeries with Faerie Magic can strike back at him.
6) Mental Attacks are bad for wizards. Especially if they are ranged and they are Weapon 4
7) 9-10 mortal thugs at -1 refresh each with guns or baseball bats. He can't use lethal magic unless he wants or has lawbreaker. And he needs 10 spells which he doesn't have.
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This is going to be a bit of a rant.
A wizard, spending nine points in refresh to optimize has combat capabilities, will be able to outshine any non-wizard PC spending nine points of refresh to optimize combat abilities, and still be able to do all kinds of things that the non-wizard couldn't even attempt. This isn't to complain, and the source material supports the idea of magic users being at the top of the power rankings when it comes to mortals, but it is a fact that a min-maxed spellcaster can outshine every other type of PC, even at things those PC's are specifically designed for. Perhaps the biggest part of the problem is that it is casually easy for a spellcaster to get bonuses to hit. If someone wants to house rule that these to hit bonuses don't work that way, I have no problem with it.
Of course, it's the GM's job to make situations complicated enough that a wizard can't just bulldoze his way through it, so making the game about more than just killing the biggest demons will mitigate these concerns enormously.
Evocations are powerful, yes. However, a wizard;
1) Almost always loses initiative vs anything with Speed powers. He gets grappled. He is then taken out.
2) Almost never notices something with Stealth 6 (anything with cloak of shadows and a great stealth) so he gets ambushed. He gets grappled. He is then taken out.
3) Orges are immune to Mortal Magic.
4) Against a submerged wizard, A Tentacled Horror (or anything else with Mythic Toughness) usually needs 3-4 hits to take out. After the first hit, you can bet the wizard will be grappled.
5) Faeries with glamours vs perception can surprise a wizard. Faeries with Faerie Magic can strike back at him.
6) Mental Attacks are bad for wizards. Especially if they are ranged and they are Weapon 4
7) 9-10 mortal thugs at -1 refresh each with guns or baseball bats. He can't use lethal magic unless he wants or has lawbreaker. And he needs 10 spells which he doesn't have.
1) This applies to anyone who doesn't have speed powers themselves, not just wizards
2) This applies to every available PC
3) So, there is one monster specifically designed to give wizards a hard time.
4) Against a tentacled horror, you can bet that it will take non-wizards a hell of a lot longer than just 3-4 hits.
5) Applies to non-wizards as well. At least wizards have enchanted items that can make blocks to stop hits from opposing magic.
6) Ah, yes, the wizards kryptonite. So their is one type of threat that a wizard will have trouble against, and everything else, he is good against. Whereas with almost every other template, there is one type of threat that the character can be min/maxed to do good against, and every other kind of threat will give him trouble, or the character will be balanced and he won't excel against anything and still have trouble from some threats.
7) This is actually a good point. However, there is a strong prevailing attitude that wizards should never be forced to deal with the consequences of killing someone unless the PC decides that he wants the opponent to be dead instead of just unconscious.
Once again, I'm not complaining about it. I'm just pointing out that the "drawbacks" that wizards face are things that most other PC's won't have any advantage over. Whether or not this is a problem is something that will largely depend on how a group approaches the game. If that approach is a combat heavy numbers oriented one, then wizards should be pruned down a bit. If the approach is a narrative one, focused on character interaction and problem solving with combat thrown in to heighten the tension, powerful wizards can work out.
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If a wizard is optimising in the group, let the other PCs optimise too:
A ranged attacker with skill of 5, true aim, target-rich environment, dual wielding and shot on the run or equivalent is refresh -4 and has Epic attack and Defense most of the fights. He has Weapon 5 with Desert Eagles. Agaist someone with Athletics 3, he does stress 9 hits. Against athletics 5, he does stress 7 hits. And he still has 3 stress he can use to match the basic wizard.
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I agree with the OP here. In the same game as the RCV and the rock god, my poorly-designed half-Outsider with Evocation can toss around Epic rotes as a non-issue - he is at least as proficient in combat as the rock god (little less raw power but he makes up for it with zone attacks and zone maneuvers) and more so then the RCV (one of his rotes grapples; it's not nearly as good as her grapple, of course, but he can follow it up with Weapon:8 attacks). He also has Superb social skills from Marked By Power, and an alternate form with Beast Change, Claws, Spider Walk, Aquatic, and Supernatural Recovery that allow him to deal with practically any eventuality short of death and get through it. He has all this versatility and is STILL a major combat heavyweight, and it's all thanks to the -4 spent on Evocation and a single Refinement. Dropping Evocation to Water Channeling (which I should have done originally) would change nothing, since focus items would keep his offensive bonuses almost exactly the same and he can afford to take consequences with Supernatural Recovery. He'd just lose Air and Earth magic, which barely matter to him as it is.
Magic needs a little reworking, and I think Victim's idea of dumping control bonuses to attack is a very good one.
True, but remember, my character can take all of a 3 Mild consequences, two moderates, a severe and an extreme in one scene, given the appropriate circumstances, and your grapple is dispellable, and will almost always be a less powerful block than mine. I've looked at your character, and while you are very strong offensively, you are very weak defensively. Zeke is running around with a 2 alertness, and 1 in Lore. Hes almost always going to be the bottom of the barrel for initiative, and his +3 athletics isn't going to stop many bad guys from eating his face.
@ Luminos: Throw some white court vamps with the full suite of incite emotions upgrades. That wizard is going to be pretty screwed pretty quick. Mental Stress for a wizard is really nasty. Throw some red court vampires at him and have them attack with addictive saliva, same story.
1) This applies to anyone who doesn't have speed powers themselves, not just wizards
Yes, but there are lots of PC templates that have speed powers, which is probably intentional.
2) This applies to every available PC
Except where you bring in those templates that have inhuman strength and pcs that have a decent rank in the might skill (which a wizard probably wont because he needs every skill for other stuff)
3) So, there is one monster specifically designed to give wizards a hard time.
And then there are white court vamps with ranged mental attacks, red court vamps with addictive saliva, black court vamps with domination, and a bunch of other bad nasties to take into account. There are allot of ways to scare a wizard pretty badly.
4) Against a tentacled horror, you can bet that it will take non-wizards a hell of a lot longer than just 3-4 hits.
True, but Non Wizards are more likely to survive the retaliation from such a creature.
5) Applies to non-wizards as well. At least wizards have enchanted items that can make blocks to stop hits from opposing magic.
Its pretty difficult to pull out anything more than a +5 block in a magic item with any reasonable number of uses per session. A challenging spellcaster, like so many have mentioned, will be throwing attacks with allot more than +5 accuracy around.
6) Ah, yes, the wizards kryptonite. So their is one type of threat that a wizard will have trouble against, and everything else, he is good against. Whereas with almost every other template, there is one type of threat that the character can be min/maxed to do good against, and every other kind of threat will give him trouble, or the character will be balanced and he won't excel against anything and still have trouble from some threats.
Umm, no? A wizard is very vulnerable to mental attacks, yes, but he is still just as vulnerable to being eviscerated as everybody else. Most wizards taking a hit are going to fill their highest stress box and take a mild consequence to keep from getting taken out, like I pointed out above. Wizard's however dont have access to toughness powers, which means that in a group with other supernaturals, a wizard is going to be more vulnerable to physical attacks than any bruiser, and more vulnerable to mental attacks than everybody else in general.
7) This is actually a good point. However, there is a strong prevailing attitude that wizards should never be forced to deal with the consequences of killing someone unless the PC decides that he wants the opponent to be dead instead of just unconscious.
Who says the bad guys have to be -1 refresh mooks. Throw a wizard against a 9 refresh pure mortal? Thats gonna be a tough fight.
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You've convinced me I've overstated my case. I'm still sympathetic to the views of the OP, but I don't think its a big enough of a problem to worry too much about.
Also, I'd kind of like some ideas on how to make a 9 refresh pure mortal effective against a full wizard.
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High Concept: The Witch Hunter
Trouble: Shoot First, Ask Questions Later
Other Aspects: I Love My Gun and My Country; Are You Feeling Lucky, Punk?; Nothing Like the Smell of Napalm in the Morning!; Experienced Gunsmith; Expert Marksman
COST POWERS
-1 Duel Wielding (Pistols)
-1 Maverick with A Gun (Pistols)
-1 No Pain, No Gain
-1 Fleet of Foot
-1 Too Fast to Hit
-1 Demolitions Training
-1 Hand Eye Coordination
-1 Swift and Silent
-1 Gunsmith
SKILLS
5 Guns, Craftsmanship
4 Alertness, Athletics
3 Endurance, Stealth
2 Discipline, Intimidate, Empathy
1 Presence, Deceit, Conviction
Stress: P OOOO M OOO S OOO +1 Mild Physical Consequence
Armor: Bullet Proof Vest (Armor: 2)
Equipment: Two Smith and Wesson Model 500 Revolvers (Weapon: 4, see Below), Grenades (Weapon: 4), Flash Bangs (Applies a zone wide sticky aspect "Im BLIND!")
Maverick With a Gun: You are extremely competent with one type of gun (pistols, rifles, shotguns, etcetera, you choose one), you gain a +1 bonus to all guns rolls when using that weapon.
Gunsmith: Like Car Mechanic, but for Guns, specifically pistols, +1 bonus on any other type of gun.
This guy uses Craftsmanship to apply aspects to his two Smith and Wesson Model 500 revolvers (these babies shoot a 50 caliber round with a 10" barrel). He routinely applies three aspects to them, one is "Perfectly Maintained", the other is "Hand Made Ammo", and another is "Perfectly Aligned Barrels" or some such (I don't know much about guns, so Im just making guesses for applicable aspects on the weapons). He can Freetag each of these once per scene, possibly once per gun, but I think that is stretching it.
They are weapon 4 (He uses hand made ammo, and it is more effective than the average round, so Im upping the weapon rating from 3 to 4).
Duel Wielding his pistols, he attacks with a +7 to Hit, and at Weapon: 6, before free tagging the aspects on his pistols and using a maneuver like "In My Sight"
He has at least two fate points to start any given scenario with. So lets total all this awesome and see how badly he can shoot a wizard, with a pistol.
Invoking the aspects "I Love My Gun and My Country" and "Expert Marksman", Tagging the aspect "In My Sight" (granted by a maneuver, this is), and free tagging the aspect "Perfectly Aligned Barrels", he adds +8 to his Guns roll, so he rolls 4dF+15 using Weapons: 6. Lets say our wizard has about a 3 in athletics, and he rolls a 7 total. The Witch hunter is going to roll a 0 on the attack. 14 Physical Stress, the wizard needs to take a Mild, a Moderate, and a Severe, and fill up his second stress box.
Now, the witch hunter can of course do this via an ambush, in which case the wizard is taken out unless he also takes a Extreme Consequence. If the wizard rolls say, a -4 and the Witch Hunter rolls a 4 he'll still be taken out.
Also the witch hunter is skilled with explosives, and can use them to blow up the wizard, which is kind of neat, he has flashbangs and grenades too, and can move and use the total defense option to escape if the wizard gets the tip off, running away with +7 Defense rolls.
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Given half a chance, a wizard can hex the gun. That's auto-ruining it for anything modern.
So use a Zeliska 60 caliber gun. Not only does it fire 60 caliber bullets that have three times more energy than a .45 (weapon 4) but it's a damn old gun.
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If he tries to hex the gun, the guy can always invoke "Expert Gunsmith" and freetag "Perfectly Maintained", and roll a discipline (maybe craftsmanship?) to defend versus the hex.
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Well, the gun is a revolver, so thats old school enough, and not overly complicated like say, an automatic, Im gonna say its going to take at least a 7 strength hex to keep a revolver from working, and we'll consider "Perfectly Maintained" as a complication on the required hex value, bringing it to a 9.
Even cars without electronics under the hood start to have problems—if it was on the road starting in 1950, there may be some trouble, with a few notable excep- tions. Some smaller firearms may be affected, though conceptually simple ones still work pretty well, at least for a time. Older automatic weapons may malfunction.
If it’s from the Twentieth Century, it’s probably broken. The late Nineteenth Century’s tech is also prone to troubles. Simple guns may stop working at inopportune moments. Even steam-powered stuff may experience sudden failure.
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That's for involuntary tech failure. Consider a wizard intentionally trying it...
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No, thats not for involuntary failure, thats for deliberate hexing, I pulled that bit off the chart for deliberate hexing. The chart says "Deliberate Hexing Table". It would be handled as an evocation attack with the shifts of power being the strength of the hex. Im saying that to hex a revolver like that you would have to do a 9 shift hex, on the fly, taking mental stress, and rolling control without any focus or specialization benefits.
Which means that your average 5 conviction/5 discipline wizard is going to have to roll 4 +1s, to pull it off.
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Whoops, wrong chart.
Problem is, against a smart wizard you may still fail Instead of having a 5-shift block against your attack roll in his protective item, he's going to have a 5 shift block against your perception. I.e. a veil that displaces his image or makes him invisible or whatever. It doesn't matter how high your attack is-only your perception.
For Air or Water, he gets a 5-shift escape defense. You attack him, he gets an athletics 5 instant sprint effect that puts him beyond your range or around a barrier.
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Yeah, hexing guns is tough. Harry wouldn't be nearly as worried about them if it wasn't.
More generally: Wizards are not unbalanced, IMO. Too much of their required Refresh loss is of no use in combat (Thaumaturgy, except for Item Slots, and The Sight). That does leave -4 or -6 Refresh of direct combat abilities they can have...but even assuming those are more effective Refresh for Refresh than other such abilities 7 or 8 points devoted to such things will still pull a devoted combatant ahead.
I can, for example, casually build an Epic (+7) swordsman who can use Weapons for either defense or Weapon: 7 attacks for about -6 Refresh. That's right on par with about as nasty as a truly focused combat Wizard (who max out at 8 or 9 shift Evocations). He'd also likely be on par with a Wizard in out of combat activities. Heck, you could buy him Thaumaturgy.
Now, characters who take Evocation without Thaumaturgy or the Sight can be a bit more problematic, but even they are beatable, though only with difficulty if you allow them really hardcore defensive Enchanted Items (which I'd advise against).
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High Concept: The Witch Hunter
Trouble: Shoot First, Ask Questions Later
Other Aspects: I Love My Gun and My Country; Are You Feeling Lucky, Punk?; Nothing Like the Smell of Napalm in the Morning!; Experienced Gunsmith; Expert Marksman
[SNIP]
This guy uses Craftsmanship to apply aspects to his two Smith and Wesson Model 500 revolvers (these babies shoot a 50 caliber round with a 10" barrel). He routinely applies three aspects to them, one is "Perfectly Maintained", the other is "Hand Made Ammo", and another is "Perfectly Aligned Barrels" or some such (I don't know much about guns, so Im just making guesses for applicable aspects on the weapons). He can Freetag each of these once per scene, possibly once per gun, but I think that is stretching it.
[SNIP]
Love this concept. I could see him with .50 Dragoons.
(http://www.littlegun.be/arme%20americaine/colt/colt%20dragoon%201848-01.jpg)
Image shows a Cased pair of 2nd model Colt Dragoon revolvers, European-style engraved, ivory grip plates ornated with a gold inlaid monogram, powder flask of solid silver made by the goldsmith Wilson & Co. Case of rosewood and copper alloy. Manufactured in 1849 for JJ Van Syckel, wine trader in Philadelphia and local celebrity.
1849, Monogramed, Gold Etching, and ivory grips lots of love went into making those pistols. I can see them surviving even the nastiest of hexes.
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Two easy ways to level the playing field against uber-optimized spellcasters:
1) Include opponents who fight with different "weapons" in battle-- monsters/mortals who use mental/social attacks in the same combat as physical ones. Basically, hit them where they aren't optimized. Nicodemus could be seen as doing this, taunting Harry before or during combat. Fill up his consequences with Social/Mental taggable aspects and keep him from using them to fuel spellcasting.
2) The Evocator's "Three Pump Chump" weakness is well-known. Bad guys (especially smart, plan-ahead types who have a chance to learn the PC's capabilities) will send a couple expendable enemies in and let the Wizard think it's the real attack. then the second wave of heavier-hitters comes in when the Evocator has already played himself out. Don't use this too often as it can become a "screw you, player, I'm the GM!" kinda button, but once in a while to really mess with the player's super-munchkin is a great thing.
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Okay, we've seen some of the same arguments repeated here.
1. Grapples: How does a grapple work? Well, it's basically a block with an extra requirement (that you burn a tag or invoke), but with extra goodies you can inflict as a supplemental action. A grappled person can still attempt any action to go against the block though, and attacks or spells can break the grapple as well.
So how is that bad for wizards? Well, it's not. A spellcaster who acts with 10-11 (like the character in my first post) will be able to blow through even an 8 power block - and thus grapple - reliably. And with the need to tag for effect instead of bonus, a 6 power grapple seems more likely (5 Might+Inhuman Strength). Of course, that's with a focus item. Maybe our grappler uses his supplemental action to impose a Disarmed maneuver to make the wizard drop his blasting rod. But then the odds are actually even! Our wrestling monster drops by 1 from the minor action to 7, and the wizard's control sans item is also 7.
The idea that a grappled wizard is totally screwed, while common in the fiction, is not really supported by game mechanics.
A grapple+disarm strategy will also be extremely effective against characters with primary Guns or Weapons. They won't just lose a bonus when disarmed, they might lose the ability to apply their top relevant skill at all!
2. Mental attacks screw wizards.
I'll admit that, for their conviction and discipline ratings, a character using evocation is rather vulnerable because they're using up that stress track for their own powers too.
However, that's for characters of the same discipline and conviction skills - which will be quite high for the combat evoker, since those skills determine the power of their magic. Other characters have less of a reason to buy discipline, so it will probably be lower. Hence, mental attacks are more likely to hit those characters, and then will hit by a larger margin (thus doing more damage) when they do it.
Someone mentioned a Weapon 4 mental attack. Let's say our mental attacker gets a 4 on its attack (a +0 roll, with accuracy equal to power). A 5 Conviction, 4 Discipline wizard defends at 4 from Discipline and has 4 mental stress boxes. The spellcaster has around a 40ish percent chance to avoid the Great mental attack. He can absorb a glancing hit with his top stress box. On a defense roll of -1 to -3, he scrapes by with some stress and mild consequence - which his extra Mild Mental slot can take. Only on a roll of -4 does he need to suffer a Moderate consequence to avoid being taken out.
A character prioritizing more conventional combat skills (or anything else besides Discipline and Conviction) might end up with something like 2 Discipline and 1 Conviction. That's a defense of 2, and 3 mental stress boxes. Weapon 4 versus 3 stress means that all hits, no matter how minor, will inflict a mild consequence. Against the same accuracy 4, +0 roll, he needs a 6% chance +3 roll to avoid the attack. At least a moderate consequence will be suffered on a defense up to and including +0. On a sucky -4, our guy takes 10 damage and thus requires a Mild AND a Severe (or an Extreme) to remain active.
Is getting hit with a mental attack bad for a spellcaster? Heck yeah. But it's worse for someone without the mental defense skills. And buying a Great Discipline exclusively for mental defense is somewhat expensive (unless you're also using it for Feeding Dependency or something as well). Anyone can get hammered by high power mental attacks.
3. Ambushes are great. Yeah, they are.
In fact, they're so great they work pretty well against everyone. The vampire with 6 Stealth from Cloak of Shadows has something like a 2 out of 3 chance to get the drop on someone with Great Alertness - which seems like a pretty high skill. Most characters don't do so well when they only have a Mediocre defense. It doesn't seem unreasonable to say that the combat evoker is impacted less than other combat characters, since their base defense skill is probably lower. Shapechanging type characters (eg, Wereforms) may be especially vulnerable with Human Form, or may just need to spend actions to transform so their early rounds are further disadvantaged.
4. All combat ability leaves Jack a dull boy...
Well, not really. We're talking about a skill set defined by the top 3 of Conviction, Discipline, and Lore. I'll freely admit that Conviction is kind of bad - especially since an evocation using character will be using up those extra boxes. Having a bigger total stress can help against 3-4 size hits where having the box is the difference between a consequence or not. But the guy dealing mental stress to himself probably isn't to have more total available boxes compared to other characters. Discipline is the skill for mental defense, and can also block Intimidate. Lore covers knowledge of magic, detection of magical stuff (replacing some uses for Alertness), and your basic rituals. They have some utility in mental and social conflicts, as well as some knowledge uses. Most of them are more useful outside a fight than a skill like Guns or Fists.
Also, Evocation is a pretty versatile ability. You can use it to make area or structure attacks like Craftsmanship, create a shield for Athletics, Veil like Stealth, as well as serving as an attack skill. The Alertness, Fist/Weapon/Gun, Stealth, Might guy who sneaks up on the wizard, attacks, wins initiative and then grapples is more skill intensive. At Submerged, a 1/3/3/3/3 skill column leaves the evoker with 1 Great skill open, and then all Good to Fair skills for non combat or secondary combat abilities. The equivalent at a Great skill cap actually leaves you with a few extra points at 25 points. Even if the powers I've listed in the OP are technically affordable at the lowest starting level, they don't seem especially appropriate, so I'm not going to worry about the skill structure at that level.
A Conv/Lore/Disc skill apex also works well for thaumaturgy or ritual, which often goes with evocation in templates. That's really expensive in terms of refresh though, even if it does provide a powerful weapon in combat, and versatile toolset out of it.
5. Cofeekid's gunslinger:
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but: :D
Of course, you fabricated the ability to create freely taggable aspects on your guns out of nothing (unfortunately, adding an arbitrary damage bonus based on expert crafting isn't without precedent). Declarations about your equipment might be appropriate, but those don't seem like they'd refresh per scene. And why 3 aspects, not more? A house rule that grants massive bonuses to equipment attacks actually seems like a bigger change than one that provides a penalty to evocation attacks. Especially because of 2 major problems: First of all, not all attacks use a weapon, so those attacks couldn't be boosted with gear bonuses. Second, evocation uses equipment. Why settle for a vanilla magic wand or staff when you can pimp out your blasting rod with cooling vents, a reflex sight, custom grips, an experimental cartridge system, etc?
Also, you don't have the resources to support a Workshop that could handle even difficulty 3 projects. But the whole workshop rule seems really stupid anyway; I'm pretty sure we're ignoring it anyway.
I only see one stunt that can boost an attack, so his attack would default to 6, not 7.
Also, a Weapon Focus (effectively) stunt doesn't seem appropriately situational compared to the example attack booster. It's pretty easy to apply like 90% of the time. Even if Target Rich Environment is going to apply in 90% of the fights, it will lose utility as you drop enemies and even the odds. Unless you lose, I guess. :)
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So far, we've been using these rules in 2 sessions with our wizard. He retooled a bit, dropping to 8 Control, 6 Power and picking up more defensive items. Now, when he gets in a good hit, he's hitting for about 10 or so, instead of like 16. It's not like he became a combat lightweight. I think he also appreciated the ability to cast without stress in our recent zombie apocalypse adventure.
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1. Yeah, wizards can break grapples, that's hardly the only way to beat them.
2. The big mental attack I can think of is Incite Emotion, which is Deceit + 2, and thus very likely to be attacking at 6 or 7 or so, so it's alot worse for anyone you're attacking...and now that I thik on it, probably as scary offensively as Evocation itself, if not more.
3. True enough, but they really do hurt people without Toughness powers more...and Wizards are very much in that category. Pretty much by definition.
4. That's one or two more than a combat focused character actually needs, and fails to cover actual defense rolls that don't cost you your offensive action.
5. I dont necessarily disagree with most of it, but Grevane actually has a Weapon Focus stunt very explicitly.
Argument #6, which you fail to address, is that the Mental Stress cost of Evocation is actually a rather large down-side to having and using it.
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Thats really one of the ways to piss in the wizard's cereal, throw pure mortals at him, and make sure he is aware of the first law consequence. Other people can deal with mortals just fine, wizards? They might have some difficulties.
Mooks with Guns? Throw up a shield with an item as a free action and zap them with a low power area attack on your turn. Any decent wizard can take out several zones full of mooks in a single exchange without worrying about killing any of them.
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Mooks with Guns? Throw up a shield with an item as a free action and zap them with a low power area attack on your turn. Any decent wizard can take out several zones full of mooks in a single exchange without worrying about killing any of them.
You are assuming they are mooks, why, oh why, does everybody assume that a pure mortal has to be a mook? hendricks is not a mook, and he is formidable, Murphy, also not a mook, and also formidable.
5. Cofeekid's gunslinger:
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but: :D
Of course, you fabricated the ability to create freely taggable aspects on your guns out of nothing (unfortunately, adding an arbitrary damage bonus based on expert crafting isn't without precedent). Declarations about your equipment might be appropriate, but those don't seem like they'd refresh per scene. And why 3 aspects, not more? A house rule that grants massive bonuses to equipment attacks actually seems like a bigger change than one that provides a penalty to evocation attacks. Especially because of 2 major problems: First of all, not all attacks use a weapon, so those attacks couldn't be boosted with gear bonuses. Second, evocation uses equipment. Why settle for a vanilla magic wand or staff when you can pimp out your blasting rod with cooling vents, a reflex sight, custom grips, an experimental cartridge system, etc?
Also, you don't have the resources to support a Workshop that could handle even difficulty 3 projects. But the whole workshop rule seems really stupid anyway; I'm pretty sure we're ignoring it anyway.
I only see one stunt that can boost an attack, so his attack would default to 6, not 7.
Also, a Weapon Focus (effectively) stunt doesn't seem appropriately situational compared to the example attack booster. It's pretty easy to apply like 90% of the time. Even if Target Rich Environment is going to apply in 90% of the fights, it will lose utility as you drop enemies and even the odds. Unless you lose, I guess. :)
You dont need resources for a workshop. You need it to have a starting workshop. Your plain jane with resources 0 could roll a +4 on resources and buy a rating 4 workshop. Your character can always cash in a favor from somebody who does have resources to get a good workshop too.
Also, there is precedent for aspects that you can tag for free once per scene, look up addictive saliva. There is a part that talks about getting a free tag on their consequence (which is an aspect) once per scene. Considering that tagging an aspect like "Expertly Crafted" wouldn't make it any less crafted, I felt it was a good place to use the "One Tag per Scene" precedent set forth by the Addictive Saliva power.
Who says attacks that dont have a weapon rating couldn't benefit from aspects. Think of a sniper rifle. Does adding a scope make the bullet more powerful? I think not.
As for the Weapon Focus stunt, it is perfectly fine it provides an always on effect (always on is shifts divided by two, and a stunt provides a 2 shift effect) in a specific case. Normally a Always on effect doesn't need to work in a specific case. So its perfectly rules valid.
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You are assuming they are mooks, why, oh why, does everybody assume that a pure mortal has to be a mook? hendricks is not a mook, and he is formidable, Murphy, also not a mook, and also formidable.
Not an assumption since this was what brought it up in the thread.
9-10 mortal thugs at -1 refresh each with guns or baseball bats. He can't use lethal magic unless he wants or has lawbreaker. And he needs 10 spells which he doesn't have.
But if you're throwing full power anything at the wizard, he can just open up on them; it will take a minimum of 14 stress to take them out of the fight in one hit. They won't die assuming you don't want that to happen, the winner of a conflict decides what happens to the loser. The same goes for the mooks too, they're just easier to take out since they stop fighting once they take a consequence.
Impossibly tough characters make the entire concept of automatically "lethal magic" a misnomer in game terms unless you declare that you are/were trying to kill your opponent. A character drops a hand grenade at their feet and doesn't bother to dodge, meh. It's a 4 Stress hit, you fill in your 2 stress box and take a mild consequence; you go for burger talk with your buddies about how weak grenades are and you're 100% fine in 30 minutes. A spell with 4 shifts in power and 2 in area should be no different and no more lethal, than a hand grenade.
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Grenades get an attack roll, by dropping one at your feet, you forego a defense, and the attack roll probably counts as +4. So call it a minimum 8 stress hit, really. So you take an Extreme Consequence and go to the hospital immediately...
Also, what in he world makes you think mooks are as tough as PCs? They don't even have Consequences (or more accurately don't use them). Nor do they all need to bunch up in a single zone to be effective. Or they could be mixed among civilians. Being mooks doesn't make them idiots. A Wizard can take them all out if the come in all bunched up...but two squads of five, both with point-men out front in a separate zone to scout, and a rear-guard another zone back? That's a little harder.
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Impossibly tough characters make the entire concept of automatically "lethal magic" a misnomer in game terms unless you declare that you are/were trying to kill your opponent. A character drops a hand grenade at their feet and doesn't bother to dodge, meh. It's a 4 Stress hit, you fill in your 2 stress box and take a mild consequence; you go for burger talk with your buddies about how weak grenades are and you're 100% fine in 30 minutes. A spell with 4 shifts in power and 2 in area should be no different and no more lethal, than a hand grenade.
If this is how you are playing, then you're doing it wrong. The narrative comes first, and the mechanics exist merely to serve it. By dropping the a grenade at your feet and taking the hit, you are saying that you want to have the narrative flavor of getting blowing yourself to hell, so you might as well take a severe/extreme consequence from it, no dice rolled. If you decide that you can fry little girls with lightning bolts just for looking at you funny, and get away with it by continously making implausible descriptions of how they survivor, the GM has every right to use the narrative against your character and make the next mook die that you try to hit with heavy magic.
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If this is how you are playing, then you're doing it wrong. The narrative comes first, and the mechanics exist merely to serve it. By dropping the a grenade at your feet and taking the hit, you are saying that you want to have the narrative flavor of getting blowing yourself to hell, so you might as well take a severe/extreme consequence from it, no dice rolled. If you decide that you can fry little girls with lightning bolts just for looking at you funny, and get away with it by continously making implausible descriptions of how they survivor, the GM has every right to use the narrative against your character and make the next mook die that you try to hit with heavy magic.
After some sessions of play and similar situations I'm with luminos on this one. If you don't want to kill your opponent, then don't hit it with heavy duty stuff, because it is bound to kill someone some day. It is a question of relations. If a Evocation Attack Action is designed to be Weapon: 5 it should be comparable to any other Attack with a Weapon: 5. There is a reason why the wizards of the books only use their aggressive magic (excluding enchanted items like the force rings) when they truly want to hurt some. It's because it is potentially lethal to do so.
If you just want incapacitate someone or show somebody who he is up against use other types of actions. Make it a maneuver. A good example is Elaines Mind Fog (YW 299). There are other examples in the book. In my opinion maneuvers are the way to go if you just want to knock somebody unconscious via magic.
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After some sessions of play and similar situations I'm with luminos on this one. If you don't want to kill your opponent, then don't hit it with heavy duty stuff, because it is bound to kill someone some day. It is a question of relations. If a Evocation Attack Action is designed to be Weapon: 5 it should be comparable to any other Attack with a Weapon: 5. There is a reason why the wizards of the books only use their aggressive magic (excluding enchanted items like the force rings) when they truly want to hurt some. It's because it is potentially lethal to do so.
I don't know, from my reading of the mechanics, there's nothing saying that you have to kill someone when you "take them out" with a shotgun either. You always get to dictate the outcome, maybe they pass out from blood loss or shock, maybe they're paralyzed, maybe they're lying on the ground groaning, conscious, but only capable of crawling away. Perhaps they are largely uninjured, and merely have to retreat under fire, neutralizing them as a threat long enough for you to get away clean. In a sword duel, you could narrate that they are disarmed, and you have your blade at their throat, drawing a single drop of blood. It seems to me that you have a great deal of freedom here.
When it comes to evocation specifically, I would imagine that you have even greater freedom. You use electricity to "taze" somebody, air to sleeper-hold them into unconsciousness, earth to leave them in the bottom of pit, spirit to put them in a trance, etc. The only real requirement is that your "taken out" result makes narrative sense, which shouldn't be too hard assuming a certain degree of player creativity.
If you just want incapacitate someone or show somebody who he is up against use other types of actions. Make it a maneuver. A good example is Elaines Mind Fog (YW 299). There are other examples in the book. In my opinion maneuvers are the way to go if you just want to knock somebody unconscious via magic.
Maneuvers are only going to apply aspects, right? I mean, you could try a compel for them to go to sleep, but that probably won't work against anybody important enough to have fate points, at least not in a combat situation.
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1. Yeah, wizards can break grapples, that's hardly the only way to beat them.
2. The big mental attack I can think of is Incite Emotion, which is Deceit + 2, and thus very likely to be attacking at 6 or 7 or so, so it's alot worse for anyone you're attacking...and now that I thik on it, probably as scary offensively as Evocation itself, if not more.
3. True enough, but they really do hurt people without Toughness powers more...and Wizards are very much in that category. Pretty much by definition.
4. That's one or two more than a combat focused character actually needs, and fails to cover actual defense rolls that don't cost you your offensive action.
5. I dont necessarily disagree with most of it, but Grevane actually has a Weapon Focus stunt very explicitly.
Argument #6, which you fail to address, is that the Mental Stress cost of Evocation is actually a rather large down-side to having and using it.
1: Sure, magic isn't the only way to break grapples. But my point is that grappling a wizard is hardly the end of the world. Some comments here have suggested otherwise. If the grapple doesn't even have a good chance of blocking one spell, trying for a grapple may not be the best strategy. OTOH, a really tough monster might find it useful for reducing damage below a critical amount.
2: The wording for the +2 with Incite Emotion seemed to leave open the possibility that it would only apply when placing maneuvers or blocks even after the ability gains the power to make attacks.
But yeah, Incite Emotion with the upgrades is pretty freaking brutal: there are no supernatural mental defense or toughness powers, many otherwise formidable combatants will have weak mental defenses, the power can be subtle, Incite Emotions can help in both physical and social conflicts, and it may have an accuracy bonus.
Again though, notice the trend, an attack with an inherent bonus to accuracy is very strong for its cost.
3: Yeah, getting ambushed does hurt a lot more if you don't have a toughness power. However, always on toughness powers don't really seem common in the default character templates and source material. Red Court Infected have Toughness and Recovery, and Changelings can easily justify them. But the Catch of cold iron/steel is easy to satisfy purely on accident with mortal weapons.
Also, spellcasters can pick up enchanted items to add armor or a block to address moments of vulnerability like that, or bad luck. But that's not quite the same topic.
4: That's true. That does essentially free up one highish skill. However, Discipline and Lore do have more non attack use than Fists or Weapons
5: His stunt only applies to maneuvers, which seems more limited than something that applies to attacks.
6: I didn't address the downside of having limited ammo because it's a legitimate downside. It's one that you can try to cover to cover with an additional attack skill (maybe around Fair), doing maneuvers or Assessment actions in between shots, or items. OTOH, grenades or explosives also seem likely to have ammo scarcity.
Still though, I feel that the ability to double the accuracy of other characters (so you essentially never miss AND deal lots of extra damage) is more than worth the downside. The better your offense, the less you need additional shots. It's a real drawback, but it's worth living with it. If you can take a tough enemy or a group in only a few actions, then you don't need to be able to attack dozens of times.
Also, I think there's a potion that can help too.
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it will take a minimum of 14 stress to take them out of the fight in one hit.
Starting on page 327, there are some guidelines for how many consequences NPCs should take before being taken out.
While it's theoretically legal to blast a bunch of normal folks with magic and then narrate a non lethal take out result (perhaps the thugs aren't even hit directly - they just flee after witnessing the powerful magic display :) ), it's not even strictly necessary. An overchanneled block will leave the wizard pretty safe (or lock down the thug's offensive options). After bubbling up (or turning invisible, etc), the wizard can probably do without direct magic attacks.
IIRC, Elaine's mind fog was almost as illegal as just killing people, so I can't really recommend using it. :)
Note that my experience has been with our wizard usually being pretty careful about not shooting humans with high power magic, even when it's been to our tactical disadvantage. Stupid vampire addict acting as a human shield. :) It's not like he's been reaping the benefits of player chosen take out results while dosing tons of mortals with chain lightning.
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An unaddressed benefit is that some evocations can also target Might apparently, granting them another effective accuracy boost besides just raw control bonus.
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1. Oh, sure, I'm not saying grappling wins or anything.
2. True, but those are hardly the only accuracy boosters available.
3. Um...Emissaries of Power, Were-creatures (in animal form), Scions, Changelings, all sorts of things get it. I'm currently running a DFRPG game with 7 players, five of whom have Inhuman Toughness, so it's not as uncommon as all that.
4. Depending, but Athletics is pretty awesome, too.
5. Hmm, I just re-read it and maybe you're right. Still, you can always take Duelist and Target Rich Environment and have +1 pretty much all the time anyway.
6. True, but bullets don't, nor do sword slashes.
And 'doubling' is a significant overstatement, you're talking about a 10 vs. about a 7 with a properly designed non-wizard combat character.
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I don't know, from my reading of the mechanics, there's nothing saying that you have to kill someone when you "take them out" with a shotgun either. You always get to dictate the outcome, maybe they pass out from blood loss or shock, maybe they're paralyzed, maybe they're lying on the ground groaning, conscious, but only capable of crawling away. Perhaps they are largely uninjured, and merely have to retreat under fire, neutralizing them as a threat long enough for you to get away clean. In a sword duel, you could narrate that they are disarmed, and you have your blade at their throat, drawing a single drop of blood. It seems to me that you have a great deal of freedom here.
When it comes to evocation specifically, I would imagine that you have even greater freedom. You use electricity to "taze" somebody, air to sleeper-hold them into unconsciousness, earth to leave them in the bottom of pit, spirit to put them in a trance, etc. The only real requirement is that your "taken out" result makes narrative sense, which shouldn't be too hard assuming a certain degree of player creativity.
Maneuvers are only going to apply aspects, right? I mean, you could try a compel for them to go to sleep, but that probably won't work against anybody important enough to have fate points, at least not in a combat situation.)
You understand the rules correctly. I never said it is impossible to just stun somebody with evocation. I just said it's improbable, because it is so dangerous that no wizard would do it lightheartedly. From where the rules are concerned you can dictate the take out, true. But please take a look onto the narrative standpoint and answer me this. Why do we not see more incapacitating magic in the books. This has to have a very good reason and this reason is, that pulling something like this of takes an amount of control that no wizard other then the most powerful are comfortable with. The possibility of doing it wrong and dealing lethal injuries are to great.
Example: The Wizard decides to do the least powerful attack possible with evocation. Its Weapon: 1 (equivalent to a baseball bat) and he describes it as a hit of force over the head. He rolls his discipline (Discipline: Great +4) roll + + - 0 on his Discipline Roll. So he hits pretty well. The mook rolls his athletics which he has on average against it to defend. He does poorly, rolling - - 0 0. Weapon: 1 + 6 Shifts from poor defense + 0 Armor = 7 Shifts. The mook has to take either a mild and moderate or a severe physical if he wants to avoid the take out. As take outs have to be within the realm of reason as a GM i'd argue that the attack is very unlikely to just incapacitate with a damage like this.
It comes down to this: it is possible. No argue there. But it is very very very dangerous and as it is, it's most likely that you'll only use it as a last resort. Look at the examples for sleep/stunning in the book. The Aspect can be invoked for effect you know. As a GM i'd even allow the free tag to go towards a compel of the aspect. Look at maneuver rules. Keep in mind that evocation maneuvers work differently then normal maneuvers... For me it's the way to go.
In my humble opinion it is important that you can do a lot with magic, especially with evocations, but you shouldn't be able to do just anything that you want. Otherwise the importance of things like thamuaturgy is diminished by a really great deal. (Most of the sleepe spells in the book are under the thaumaturgy examples, and they are maneuvers.
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Here is the problem though, Why on earth does it make sense that a highly controlled evocation is worse than a less well controlled one?
Consider two sample evocations that could be used for stunning purposes. Sorcerer A uses a seven shift force attack, rolls only a Great control roll but takes three backlash to keep it from going berserk. The target (the one from your example) rolls a great defense roll so no shifts on the aiming roll but the target takes seven damage and is taken out. I would be seriously inclined to agree with you in this case.
Consider Wizard B, who brings the attack you describe and gets seven shifts of damage off of weapon:1 but a fantastic control roll for six shifts of damage? Does it make sense to punish Wizard B (who likely had to sacrifice skill points that could have gone into conviction and thus raw power) for trying to control their power (by establishing a "fantastic" level of control over their power)?
The argument that sleep maneuver spells are the answer fails to consider that a lot of these spells violate the Third or fourth laws of magic. I guess you could house rule that they are not, but now we have imposed two house rules to deal with a problem that can be controlled with a single, narrower rule.
P.S.: baseball bats are Weapon:2) YS:p.202
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Here is the problem though, Why on earth does it make sense that a highly controlled evocation is worse than a less well controlled one?
Consider two sample evocations that could be used for stunning purposes. Sorcerer A uses a seven shift force attack, rolls only a Great control roll but takes three backlash to keep it from going berserk. The target (the one from your example) rolls a great defense roll so no shifts on the aiming roll but the target takes seven damage and is taken out. I would be seriously inclined to agree with you in this case.
Consider Wizard B, who brings the attack you describe and gets seven shifts of damage off of weapon:1 but a fantastic control roll for six shifts of damage? Does it make sense to punish Wizard B (who likely had to sacrifice skill points that could have gone into conviction and thus raw power) for trying to control their power (by establishing a "fantastic" level of control over their power)?
The argument that sleep maneuver spells are the answer fails to consider that a lot of these spells violate the Third or fourth laws of magic. I guess you could house rule that they are not, but now we have imposed two house rules to deal with a problem that can be controlled with a single, narrower rule.
P.S.: baseball bats are Weapon:2) YS:p.202
Yep, thats exactly the problem. It's discussed in the other thread too right now. How do we solve it?
I'm / was faced with this in the game I run and the resulting debate has brought me to the point were I consider not to allow intentional knock outs by (Evocation) Attack Action at all, just to be rid of frustrating gaming nights.
EDIT: added an intentional
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IMO, you can absolutely knock someone out with a properly designed Evocation...but it has to be properly designed. Blasts of fire? Not a good idea. Entropy bolts? Ditto. Localized earthquakes, or even hitting people in the head with raw force? Likely to cause brain damage. All of these remain true even at low Weapon ratings, and no matter how much Control you have.
Now, Taser blasts of lightning, choking people out with bands of force, or yanking the air from someone's lungs, those all work fine. Even at decently high weapon ratings (though if you lose control, even these could be deadly), but they're also rather specific to certain elements (which may or may not be your primary), may use defensive stats other than Athletics (which could be either good or bad depending on the opponent), and are likely to be different from your existing Rotes (unless you're a specialist in non-lethal combat).
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If this is how you are playing, then you're doing it wrong. The narrative comes first, and the mechanics exist merely to serve it.
Yes and the winner of a conflict gets to narrate what happens to the loser. If that doesn't include death, he doesn't die.
There's a couple of threads on this subject running at the same time, another died out a day or two ago and I'm amused by how much hate there is for Evocation. The most flexible power source in the universe, powered by the will of the user and people want to flat out deny that it has any flexibility or any ability to control the results with that will.
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Did you read my last post? Of course you can control it...but you don't do that by somehow not burning people to death with infernoes of flame, you do by using it to do something else, like the listed options above.
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You can do it with fire too, or at least I don't see why you couldn't. Burn out all the oxygen around them, they asphyxiate till they pass out, then give 'em some air. Or, hit them with quick intense bursts of heat to cause incapacitating pain but minimal tissue damage, like that controversial microwave pain gun the army has now.
Honestly, I still think you should be able to do it with a shotgun. Maybe they're non-lethally wounded and incapacitated, or they're not even wounded but are under such an intense barrage they are forced to retreat or keep their heads down long enough for you to get away; from my reading of the rules, the player gets to narrate any taken out result they want, as long as it's plausible.
As an extension of that, I don't really even think you need to describe explicitly non-lethal evocation attacks, so long as you can plausibly describe people surviving whatever attack you do throw at them.
Re: The lack of "less-than-lethal" evocations in the source material, I think most of that can be explained by selection bias. The caster we see the most of is Dresden, who is infamous for his lack of subtlety and control. Further, non-Dresden non-evil wizards fighting with mortals is probably where you would expect to see the most use of magical "tasers" and I don't recall seeing too many fights like that.
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You can do it with fire too, or at least I don't see why you couldn't. Burn out all the oxygen around them, they asphyxiate till they pass out, then give 'em some air. Or, hit them with quick intense bursts of heat to cause incapacitating pain but minimal tissue damage, like that controversial microwave pain gun the army has now.
* puts on the GM cap my players made me for these specific situations *
If you could explain in real-life physics how to use fire to burn away the oxygen around a persons face without causing second and third degree burns, or worse, then sure, but I can't think of anyway you could do that. Also, there is a looooot of difference between fire and microwaves. That is why the pain gun you mention is controversial and trying to do the same thing with a flame-thrower is not even considered an option. ;)
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* puts on the GM cap my players made me for these specific situations *
If you could explain in real-life physics how to use fire to burn away the oxygen around a persons face without causing second and third degree burns, or worse, then sure, but I can't think of anyway you could do that. Also, there is a looooot of difference between fire and microwaves. That is why the pain gun you mention is controversial and trying to do the same thing with a flame-thrower is not even considered an option. ;)
Well, since we're (presumably) not playing a game about physicists who fight vampires by night, how about I throw out some magi/techno-babble patter and you tell me if it sounds plausible enough to work for Harry?
1. Fire magic grants some ability to control heat flows generally. An example can be seen from the case where Harry makes a big gout of flame, taking the heat from Lake Michigan in order to freeze a portion of it to run across. Depending on level of control*, a mage could create fires in the vicinity of a target, but pull enough heat away from the target not to cause lethal burns.
2. As far as I understand it, the microwave gun works on the same basic principle as a microwave oven, you hit water and fat molecules with microwaves, exciting them, causing heat. Now, in the gun, the heating is supposed to be limited to the outermost part of the skin, decreasing the amount of long term tissue damage. Again, with sufficient control*, you should be able to use fire magic to create a similar effect. Also, we may be more willing than the army to see some tissue damage, so long as it isn't lethal.
However, I would like to restate that even without explicitly "less-than-lethal" evocations, I think it should be possible for reasonably creative players to come up with plausible "taken out" results that don't involve killing.
*For the purposes of this discussion, I think it's safe to assume pretty solid control, since here we're talking about evokers who are getting +8 or +10 on their control rolls.
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I think it comes down to three camps here.
Camp A) We never risk accidentally killing our target. We narrate what happens to them so there is no "accidental death".
Camp B) We don't risk accidentally killing our target, as long as what we do is theoretically survivable.
Camp C) You better be really careful, accidental killing is a likely possibility.
Now, I happen to think Camp A is slightly wrong, why? Here is an example. Billy has the Gun O' Death. Its a magical artifact that guarantees death. Always. Now, according to Camp A, Billy shoots Mandy with the Gun O' Death "but he didn't mean to kill her." So she survives.
That is just a little silly, I think, I know, it is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point that some times, no matter what kind of narrative you apply to attack, somebody is gonna die.
Personally, I subscribe to Camp B. Accidental death shouldn't be something forced on the player as long as he doesn't go overboard. There is no surviving the Gun O' Death, so maybe Billy shouldn't use it all the time, maybe the Gun O' Severe and Painful Wounds would be more appropriate for him to use.
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I'm actually somewhere between camps B and C. I think that accidental death should at least potentially apply whenever the circumstances make surviving so unlikely as to break suspension of disbelief (ground zero of explosion, hit by Weapon: 6 blast of mystical flame, pure mortals shot in the head, etc.), and I even offer them an out by spending a Fate Point to make that 'really unlikely' occur. But that's not exactly the same criteria as 'theoretically survivable'. It needs to be reasonable for them to survive, not just possible for accidental death to not be a factor.
This actually hasn't come up yet in my game, interestingly enough. Might have to do with lacking a Wizard and fighting mostly non-human things.
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I think it comes down to three camps here.
Camp A) We never risk accidentally killing our target. We narrate what happens to them so there is no "accidental death".
Camp B) We don't risk accidentally killing our target, as long as what we do is theoretically survivable.
Camp C) You better be really careful, accidental killing is a likely possibility.
Now, I happen to think Camp A is slightly wrong, why? Here is an example. Billy has the Gun O' Death. Its a magical artifact that guarantees death. Always. Now, according to Camp A, Billy shoots Mandy with the Gun O' Death "but he didn't mean to kill her." So she survives.
That is just a little silly, I think, I know, it is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point that some times, no matter what kind of narrative you apply to attack, somebody is gonna die.
Personally, I subscribe to Camp B. Accidental death shouldn't be something forced on the player as long as he doesn't go overboard. There is no surviving the Gun O' Death, so maybe Billy shouldn't use it all the time, maybe the Gun O' Severe and Painful Wounds would be more appropriate for him to use.
I believe that RAW is in Camp B.
YS203, "The outcome must remain within the realm of reason—very few people truly die from shame, so having someone die as a result of a duel of wits is unlikely, but having him embarrass himself and flee in disgrace is not unreasonable."
So could you narrate the Gun O' Death as non-lethal? Not likely.
However, "realm of reason" is up to the table to decide. At my table, Billy could use the Gun O' Death and not kill his target. How? Didn't shoot at the target. Made attacks against their composure track by using a BFG to intimidate, maybe shooting things nearby. Enough stress means taken out. Since it was against composure, it's within the realm of reason at my table that Mandy surrenders instead of getting shot to death.
Just my 2c.
-EF
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Personally I'm in Camp B, but only insofar as the winner cannot over state the terms of their victory. If the winner decides that the loser does not die, the loser is alive, full stop. If you, as the GM, want some control over the way your NPCs shuffle out of the scene (or off the mortal coil) you need to offer concessions, otherwise the outcome is up to the PC to dictate. I realize that it's odd to think of death as a concession rather than a result of taken out, but that's really how the system works.
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One important thing to keep in mind, I think, is that a successful attack doesn't necessarily mean you physically connected with the target at all.
Suppose I'm in a sword duel, and succeed on an attack with 4 shifts. My opponent takes a 4 stress hit. Did I break the skin? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it was a near miss, or I hit him but it was just a graze, we can't say either way a priori.
Suppose I succeed again with 4 shifts. He takes a moderate or minor consequence, did I break the skin? That's up to my opponent to decide. Perhaps he twisted his ankle trying to keep up with my fancy footwork on the uneven ground, or is merely extremely fatigued, we can't say.
Suppose I succeed again with 4 shifts, and the opponent is taken out, did I break the skin? That's up to me to decide. Maybe I slit him open, or maybe I merely disarmed him, knocked him to the ground, and I have my blade at his throat.
At least, that's my interpretation of the mechanics.
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One important thing to keep in mind, I think, is that a successful attack doesn't necessarily mean you physically connected with the target at all. ...
I can't disagree with any of that. I think a lot of the problems come from specific kinds of attacks, such as fire. In those cases, many of us just find a lot less wiggle room for narrative loopholes. In the end, as others have said, it is going to come down to a decision by each group and any hard rule would just be ignored by those that disagree anyway. Personally, I just have my players declare what they are doing before they roll and apply whatever effects are appropriate based on their rp and rolls. :)
[offtopic]
2. As far as I understand it, the microwave gun works on the same basic principle as a microwave oven, you hit water and fat molecules with microwaves, exciting them, causing heat. Now, in the gun, the heating is supposed to be limited to the outermost part of the skin, decreasing the amount of long term tissue damage. Again, with sufficient control*, you should be able to use fire magic to create a similar effect. Also, we may be more willing than the army to see some tissue damage, so long as it isn't lethal.
Yep, that is how microwaves, both the oven and the gun, work in concept. Assuming the high control, and assuming that we aren't taking about fire heating something else that then effects the target, fire would directly apply heat to the skin, even at a single candles strength, causing first, then second degree burns within seconds and third degree not long after that. The microwaves will start by putting energy into the fat and water of the body, the outer layer of skin in this example, and begin to heat it up. This process isn't slow, but without googling the exact numbers it isn't going to get to second degree burn stage as fast as the candle. The discomfort is going to come from the heating up, while fire starts off the bat applying heat. If you want to test it for yourself, grab two slices of bologne (or however that word is spelled :p). Put on in the microwave for about 5 seconds, then hold the other slice over a candle for about 5 seconds and note the difference.
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Here's my interim house rules for evocation:
1
By agreement, the PCs should keep their base (including foci) evocation power + control totals at (refresh +4) or lower.
So, for example, in a submerged game, the limit would be a total of 14 (power + control).
This prevents the more extreme ends of evocation min-maxing.
2
Allow counterspells to be used defensively, like evocation blocks.
Advantage:
the counterspell is a power vs power contest, so if your opponent is using low power, high control attacks, you are better of using a counterspell against the attack, rather than a block.
Disadvantage:
defensive counterspells are not persistent, like evocation blocks are.
This rule is there to shut down jokers who make their evocation attacks very heavily control biased. For example, a submerged character under rule 1 can still have a power 4, control 10 base attack. But as you'd only need a power 4 counterspell to shut them down, that route isn't as attractive as it could be.
This also limits wizards to blocks of (refresh +4)/2 (example: power 7 at refresh 10), which will hopefully keep their defenses powerful but hittable too.
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This still lets wizards throw around very powerful attacks, but hopefully keeps them from getting too out of hand.
Another rule house rule I'm considering is to limit refinement to +1 power or control instead of +2. You can go 'unbalance' by getting +2 via foci for the same point cost, but this makes better foci vs straight up power or control more of a trade off.
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I'd skip that final one. The first two on their own should be quite sufficient to curtail people, and Specialties being required to use the Skill Pyramid is already limit enough.
Personally, I'm pretty sure Counterspells can be used as you describe, at least potentially. I mean, all spells cost an offensive action (including Blocks) but if you saved yours you could totally counterspell like that.
Which leaves only the first as a real House Rule, and while I consider it unnecessary, is perfectly valid, and should keep the real min/maxers from having a field day.