One house rule I've been mulling over for a while now.

Control ratings from Focus Items and Specializations don't assist the Magic user with hitting an opponent, only to actually control the spell itself.  Basically, someone would only use their Discipline on the aiming portion of the roll, thus eliminating the whole 6+ athletics issue.  One of the side effects of this is it would make Control more in line with the usefulness of Power.  Both have always been fairly useful, but seriously,  Control has always been, by far, the most powerful of the available options.

One of the arguments some people I've spoken with in my group voice against this, is how expensive and limited spellcasting already is.  It would be a bad to make it more difficult to hit an opponent with a spell, thus easier to waste the limited resource.  I've always understood on that, but I've still thought it over trivialized, when you are practically guaranteed to hit every time, unless the GM has some crazy NPC, or the player completely and utterly botch their roll.

The biggest reason I thought this one up, is I never understood why spellcasters should be able to get a constant roll of 8+ easy, without spending a single fate point.  They are the only people in the entire system that have access to a bonus like that, and I've never really understood why that was.  With how the system was built, it felt like it broke it to me, and I just thought of a way I thought would be easy to try and fix it.

My question on Worldwalker comes from the Strange Worlds trapping of the power.
"By dint of using this ability
and not, y’know, dying or getting enslaved in
Faerie or the like, you’ve had enough exposure
to the Nevernever to have a degree of familiarity
with it. All Lore and Survival checks
regarding the geography of the Nevernever
and other trivia involving it are made at +2,
and you may use Lore instead of Survival
while there."

My biggest issue is, for the most part this power, for this price and what is given seems underpriced.  Its like having Ritual for just opening holes between the nevernever and our world, and a super powered stunt.  +2 to Lore AND Survival regarding going around the place and any trivia, AND any roles that would normally be Survival could be used with Lore instead.  It feels like a built in stunt, but like I said, its on steroids.  So I guess this is more of an issue with a power offering too power for its cost, rather than a question >.<

My second part, the question, was that I was thinking on trying to come up with a Stunt to entail familiarity and experience with navigating within the nevernever  spoiler   Then I saw this, and it made me want to cry >.<  Anyway, any hints or precedent in anyone else's games for a stunt of some such similar effect?

Now I may be looking into this too much.  I was just making sure, a sorcerer can take soul gaze like they can take the sight.  It's not mentioned specifically, but I know that the sight and the soul gaze are related to each other.  I may be over-thinking things.  I just wanted to double check, make sure it's not a wizard-only thing.

Well, the first part of her concept started with chi, inner energy and such. Her Channel would be obviously spirit, and moving from there. Her Ritual idea started with the idea of Feng Shui.  By correlating the natural flow of energy of a room or building, placing the furniture in certain places, having specific color and decorations present could actually work as a form of Warding, repelling certain energies, or keeping entities without a physical body at bay.  These where the original ideas that formed the character concept, now shes just trying to narrow down a name to call it by.

Tired, horrible head ache, not doing a good job of articulating today, and I haven't been to the forums in months >.< thanks though for all your input so far everyone, I really do appreciate it

I have a player who wants to play a focused practitioner.  She wants her focus to be Chi.  What would you call a person who uses Chi as a focus, as their method of casting?

Basically, just was wondering on what one could call themselves in this situation. They want to use the idea of mind over body, ranged strikes using only their body's energy, feng shui as a form of protection or warding of the house, ect for now...

Basically, they are going to take Channel and Ritual at the start of the game, maybe turn into a full blow Sorcerer or Wizard at a later time.  This is what they want for the moment though, and you can't really play the whole prefix-omancer game like you can with a lot of other ideas.

Any thoughts?

To reiterate, it's an invalid argument.

Your wall of text appears to boil down to "don't allow X because it might break one or more Laws".  I'm simply pointing out the same argument applies to any purely mortal evocation or thaumaturgy.  They may be used to break one or more Laws.  Unless you're disallowing all such mortal magic, the entire argument is invalid. 

Have I misunderstood your wall of text?  Were you not arguing against allowing animal summoning because it might be lawbreaking?

That said, I do think we're straying from helping the OP come up with a system for his desired magical trappings.

Ok, hehe I understand what you are saying now.  I wasn't meaning to say "No, this is a bad idea, don't do it", I was just making sure he knew the full consequences of the actions he was intending on performing.  Letting him know the laws that may be broken, the gray areas that are stepped into, and all the negative side effects with animals that have their mind's f'd with.

Sanctaphrax, yes technically it won't be true lawbreaking when he forces the animals to do his bidding.  It his however a gray area, in that you are practicing a forbidden form of magic to begin with.  It would make a lot of people uncomfortable, even if you only did specialize in animals.  Honestly, when I start on this particular subject, I immediately begin thinking on the stereotypical serial killer.  A lot of them start off by torturing and killing small animals, before they eventually move on to people.  Its already in his nature.  If he is a person that would break the will of another living creature, then what is to stop him from just moving on to higher life forms?

And yeah, there are a lot of other things he could use this kind of magic for, but he didn't really show a lot of fluffy bunny, tree hugging intent with it.

The big question I have for the OP, is what is the rest of the character concept?  When I first heard it, my first thought went towards DnD Vampires, and their ability to control "creatures of the night" and such.  Is the concept a darker kind of character?  Or is it a kind of druidic concept, with the character being far more in touch with nature.  Both of these kind of ideas could work, and obviously there could be a lot more.  Each one would work very differently though, so I don't think I'll go into any mechanic ideas till I reread over some stuff, and get a response.

Lawbreaker?

How so?

Well, first and foremost, if you are commanding said creatures to kill something, they would then be considered your weapon in the matter.  If you kill said target with your weapon, then obviously, you have their blood on your hands.  Since your weapon was brought to bear with magic, it is now considered a lawbreaker action.

It has been already stated in the novels and the books, for that matter, if you summon a big bad demon and have it kill people, you will be getting the lawbreaker stunt from it.  It is just an extension of your magic, and you are now using it to kill people.

Second, if you are controlling said creatures to attack people for you, you would then be getting into grey territory of the 3rd and/ or 4th laws.  Some more open minded wizards may look the other way, but I know at least a few hard line Wardens that would have a bone to pick with you about it.

The other big thing is once you start using such mind control magic over creatures, why would you continue to use it only on such simple creatures?  Why NOT just bend the will of the pathetic individual your getting into an argument with?  Why not simple shatter his mind?  The setting shows that black magic is black because of its tainting nature, not the simple fact that it breaks a law.  Every action corrupts you in some way, making you into a person who will break that law again and again, because you are good at it, and it gets just so easy.  Its truly addicting.  The downward spiral to upgrading from animals to people would not only be easy, but it would be highly likely.

Now, another thing to mention.  Unless you use a very gentle form of control, pushing the creature to be more likely to perform  your desired action rather than forcing it to attack, there will most likely be a rather nasty sequence of events that follow.  Using such an overt form of magic on the mind of a feral creature for instance.  Strong magic that is used to control minds always ends up leaving some psychic scars.  The result on a simple creature's mind would likely destroy it, unless proper care was given.  Even if it was, the damage would still be done.  Since the action taken against their mind was to be pushed towards an act of violence, the creature's mental state would leave them violent.  They would seem like they were rabid, or overly aggressive, abused.  The creature would most likely fall deeper into this kind of madness until its action's destroyed itself.  If your find with the destruction and degeneration caused by your actions, then that's one thing.

But, leaving a wake of such creatures would be a very EASY trail to follow.  Number of animal attacks increased, with little to no sign of rabies.  Not to mention the very BIZARRE attacks, like a swarm of bats or rats.  Overall, unless you travel a lot, using such a technique in your home frequently would be very reckless and dangerous to yourself.  It would be like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the wardens, saying "I'm here, come chop off my head please!"

Now, for the actual summoning.  This for the most part will be very difficult.  Controlling a critter once its arrived isn't too hard.  If you do it frequently you'll have practice, and will know what your doing and how to do it, obviously.  But summoning for the most part doesn't work like an APB calling all Dogs, Calling all Dogs.  Its normally much more personal, and individual.  If you had the fur, or blood of a neighborhood dog, then that would be simple enough.  Using that direct link, you could put a compelling notion in the animals head that it wants to come to you.  But a similar effect to just any animal that fits the bill and is nearby just doesn't really work.  There would be no way to truly compel on that scale, its just not how it works.  The best I can think up, would be something more along the lines of creating a compelling reason for your desired creature to show up.  For rats, maybe a strong sense of rotting, decaying food.  It would probably also leave a horrific sent nearby.  For dogs or wolves, maybe somehow creating a very powerful sense of a bitch in heat.  This is a little awkward, and i'm not sure how you'd go about doing it, but it would at least present the possibility of working.

I personally think the best you could do would present a compelling reason for them to come, but you could not really Compel them to come, if you know what I mean, hehe..

EDIT: Just realized i didn't put a finisher on this, and also kinda thought of something else that could be done

Now, I think I though of a way you could maybe call some critters towards you.  This actually kinda opens up a can of worms that I wouldn't like at my table, but might be helpful for you to work off of.

Rather than using a true summoning, which i'm pretty sure just flat out won't work..  I think using a form of mental control, psychomancy might.  The same form of magic you'll use to control them, could be used on a much wider range to try to place a compel within the target creature type to come to you or to the area you are at.  Now while this might work, the complexity would be another problem.  The targeting of a very specific creature type might also pose challenge, but I don't think it should be that big of a deal.  And while it may only truly effect the animals you are calling, I think the "call" might be felt by other animals, making them seem uneasy.  Humans may even be able to feel it, but it would probably only amount to a small sense of fear or dread.  An un-explainable feeling.

But the big reason I don't like this, is the simple fact that it could be brought to bear against humans, and just get horrible after that.  While now that I think about it, mechanically, it seems very possible, I just don't like it...  It also reminds me of certain events in one of the novels that involved a lot of people be Fuuuuuuuuuu'd and ... Hmm.. I think a fear eating WCV, but i can't remember, hehe...

Now, I know this is pretty much just a nasty wall of text, and I apologize.  I haven't been able to write very well for a while now.  Just having a problem articulating >.<  Anyway, hope this helps a little bit, and answers a few questions.  Hope i didn't dissapoint too much Masurao, haha...