More interesting to me is that she also changed her speech when confronted by both Cavendish and by the Enemy. The fact that Cavendish could have quite likely taken offence to Folly's normal speech patterns makes me suspect that Folly can force herself to speak directly to others, it's just hard for her (she mentions that her Master keeps himself from falling apart through willpower).

I wonder if Folly's direct speech with the enemy is a clue as to the enemy's nature, somehow.

She also talks directly to Efferus, so I think it's more about etherialists being a special case in a similar way to how Grimm is a special case when aboard Predator (and yes I think that is significant).

I don't think that Folly can force herself to speak directly to others who aren't in her exceptions, I think the reference to willpower is that he still mostly gets on with life ok and keeps his compulsions to a relatively narrow area. He still can't use doorknobs even to go treat a dying girl, or function without his collection even to save the poisoned crew.

As someone with Asperger's the etherialists really stuck a chord with me. I'm fortunate in that I'm high functioning and CAN overcome the way my mind works in some cases through willpower, but there's always a cost and mental energy is a preciously scan resource sometimes. I get how it could be impossible to break the patterns even in life or death situations for some people, and I was pretty happy with how it was portraid and other characters reactions to it.

Well it's not really a house rule, as the time taken to prepare for a ritual isn't clearly defined in the rules in the first place. Harry uses thaumaturgy in combat to defeat Bianca, and arguably the spell he uses to kill the loup-garou is thaumaturgy as well (more energy efficient by neccessity of him being nearly drained, using the pentacle to create a circle, focussing the power over more than one exchange). Not to mention all the smaller quick spells like his tracking spells and binding the loup-garou that seem like they're fast enough to pull off in combat provided someone can cover him long enough to not get the circle broken by an enemy (I think that's the more serious practical limitation of thaumaturgy in combat, not time requirements).

If you want casters to have to set up the circle first, have them do a manouvre with Lore to put the aspect 'Casting Space' on the scene. This represents them drawing a circle, and opposed manouvres to remove the aspect represent attempts to disrupt it and ruin the spell.

• 2 Shifts for each level of Weapon
• 1 Shift for a "stunt" allowing the caster to use Fists to direct the attack
• 1 Shift to change the duration from Exchange to Scene.

If you wanted to make it a little easier to cast, you could remove the requirement for the shift to let the caster use Fists for the attack.

That makes it sound like 4 shifts for Weapon: 2 rather than one shift per Weapon point, and I don't think you need the 'stunt' anyway, saying it uses Fists to attack is within the rules already and in fact technically makes it less effective for most casters as it limits the range to within the same zone. I also think that the ritual would probably have 15 mins/one scene as the basic duration and increase from there with extra shifts applied to duration.

Eh, it can get bad. I mean, my current Warden on the PBP Forum could get Weapon: 4 effects using that rule...which seems to make mundane combat, with blade or gun (something Wardens clearly need to use in the books) somewhat obsolete and unnecessary.

In the books Harry specifically says that Wardens carry the swords because they're not allowed to kill with magic... Also, Luccio uses her 'needle of fire' as her weapon of choice, which Harry describes as "fire magic not unlike my own, but infinitely more intense and focused and far more energy efficient." I think if you have Epic control, a 4 shift rote without stress is reasonable. It seems fairly standard for more experienced casters to be able to do that kind of thing.


Also, if you're going to base it on specialisations rather than Spin, surely Control makes more sense than Power?

hey, its your game, so if you convince your GM to run with it great.  But it seems you are trying to 'balance' a small part of evocation against the rest of the game, when evocation as a whole is already balanced for its cost.  This feels like making a powerful ability more powerful simply for the sake of getting free stuff for a character you want.  You compare evocation effects with what a pure mortal can do with a gun, but you neglect the fact that the evocator has access to guns, but the pure mortal doesn't have access to evocation, which gets to pick its weapon value on the fly, and which can do a hell of a lot more than throw damage around.

Some fair points, but actually it's not my game, and I'd apply it/want to apply it in games where I GM or don't even play a caster. I don't think it's a good rule because of the mechanical aspects, I think it's a good rule because it's, in my opinion truer to the books and I think that makes it worthwhile even if it is a little unbalancing, which I don't believe it is to a significant degree.

I understand spin on defense, because that rewards an otherwise meaningless margin of success, with a benefit, but spin on anything else is not something I'm keen on.  Magic is already rather powerful in the game, I don't think I'd allow anything to negate the mandatory stress, except at extremely high refresh games where 1-2 shift spells are largely meaningless.

Spin on a control roll also rewards an otherwise meaningless margin of sucess. Normally you either control the spell or you don't, it's a binary outcome. The rule can also only completely negate the stress cost for calling power at your Conviction or lower, as it only ever reduces the cost by one (and if you're calling power at your Conviction then you're not likely to generate Spin on control unless you're conviction is extremely low anyway).

Yeah, lesser dragon scions work, but I get the impression that only True Dragons can take human form and are not animalistic enough to avoid a serious squick factor there... However, a half lesser dragon/half komodo dragon would be awsome 

Well we don't really know enough about Dresdenverse Dragons to be sure, but I'd say things like Breath Weapon (obviously), Supernatural Toughness (scaly armoured skin), Supernatural Strength, Human Guise (Ferrovax doesn't always look like a giant winged dinosaur), and quite possibly spellcasting would all be valid options for half-Dragons.

To be honest though, given how powerful WoJ has implied True Dragons to be half-dragons might well not fit into Submerged unless they were really weak examples.