1. 4 complexity is pretty weak. Thaumaturgy at speed of evocation is lame. Remember, a character can only involve an aspect ONCE in an act, so if your player invokes an aspect to up the allowed complexity (which costs a fate point to begin with), that same aspect can't also be invoked for +2. Furthermore Thaumaturgy at the speed of Evocation requires all the shifts of power to be gathered at one time. So unless your player has comparable Conviction to the complexity of the ritual, this will inflict mental stress. Then there is the Discipline control roll.
when would his spells NOT fit the Lord's will, if he stays in character?
One of my players has a devout character with Soulfire. This is his only magic, at -5 refresh. We're new to this and are still trying to suss out what all of the rules and powers mean, but his understanding of soulfire makes it sort of... overpowered.
Because soulfire essentially says "all the spells of thaumaturgy" and every other sponsored magic (minus hellfire) includes "with evocation's speed" clauses, he believes that in essence he can do any thaumaturgical effect that the Good Lord wants him to have at the speed of evocation, which essentially negates the entire speed penalty on thaumaturgy (when would his spells NOT fit the Lord's will, if he stays in character?) So at -5 refresh, he's gotten full thaumaturgy, faster than normal, channeling, plus all of the soulfire benefits vs toughness, at the cost of having to be in alignment with god's will, which he pretty much always will be.
I'm kind of at a loss, how is this not better than buying regular thaumaturgy plus channeling for the same -5 refresh? In exchange for having to -essentially - stay in character, he gets a big boost versus any toughness plus ignores the primary limitation of thaumaturgy (the speed)? The only thing I can see is that Soulfire doesn't explicitly say "at evocation's speed" . So does that just not apply here?
You're right, reflective wards that don't go away when bypassed and last a full day are lame. Veils that cover entire building instead of just individuals are also lame. So is any of the other absolutely amazing things thaumaturgy can do with the same number of shifts it takes evocation to do even basic stuff. The player who thinks he gets everything at speed and methods of evocation is dead wrong, and he should know it if he reads the rules for soulfire. It is still damn poweful, even without speed and methods of evocation, because for the price of thaumaturgy and channeling, you get thaumaturgy, channeling, and instant toughness ignoring abilities.Lame as in "no where near as effect as thaumaturgy as thaumaturgy." ::)
Amazing, so on warehouses, one small aspect of thaumaturgy out of the whole conceptual framework is no more powerful than evocation.Actually you partly right.
I was reading the Veils and Wards sections and noticed that Veils are +1 complexity/shift per zone while Evocation blocks (and in fact every other demonstrated instance of zone expansions) are +2 shifts per zone.
Is this because the veil section was written earlier and thus didn't get an update when it was decided zone coverage was really good (and thus deserved to be +2 instead of +1)?
Honestly? I'm not sure there. I could see allowing Veils to be special-case as they don't protect against damage, they simply protect against discovery.
Fred
So, I've had a couple of people agree that soulfire does not explicitly say "at the speed of evocation", which means it might not apply at all. I'm totally cool with soulfire, as is, if it doesn't allow the speed. Otherwise, I need something that keeps him balanced with the other members.
As to Sponsor Debt, it wouldn't count as Debt if it didn't cause some sort of conflict for your character. Even the most stalwart of characters has to have things they care about. Sponsor Debt should put those things in jeopardy for the Cause. Find out what the character cares for and make him make the tough choices.
If he is a goody two shoes all around with no family or lover or any other interesting ties to the world ::) then have him make Superman's choice, where he has too many people to save and not enough of himself to go around. Compel the character to burn himself out, taking Consequences all the way, in order to be able to accomplish everything the Almighty wants him to do.
On the other hand, you could also try and make him have to make cloudy ethical decisions. Make a very sympathetic bad guy, like the budding black sorcerer that Molly was. I bet he wouldn't want to kill a little girl, but he also has to find a way to stop her from ... oops, too late, she's already committed evil, now what Mr. Righteous Crusader?
No one can tell you if your player is powergaming or not. That's a personal call. Some people you can give ultimate cosmic power to and they won't unbalance your game. Others you kind of want to slap on a safety helmet, a lot of padding and hand them nerf weaponry and they'll still try to justify taking over the world.
If you're fine with it outside of it having evocation speed... then it's all good. Neither the RPG description and the things Harry does make it sound like it would have allow that sort of speed with the versatile effects of thaumaturgy. I may be wrong but I'm actually not thinking of any examples of Harry using it for anything but evocation actually.