A man who can command spiders. Of course, spiders, being spiders, aren't precisely intelligent, so he needs to keep his orders very simple and short...

A man who, regardless of financial situation, always has enough spare change for small purchases in his pocket...

A mime who can force others to mirror his motions...

Someone who can see how people's acquaintances link up to others, Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon-style...

A receiving-only telepath with schizophrenia. It's difficult telling apart the voices in one's head from the voices in everyone else's heads...

A Pretender, with the ability to become anyone they want with a brief period of preparation...

I can't remember if specific situations was +2 or +3 in the book, but this sounds about right actually especially since the specific situation is dependant on a series of actions to kill someone. You might change kill to "take out" though.

Also my player relented a bit and came up with this instead as a stunt:

Finesse: Whenever appropriately described and legitimately possible your character may modify skills with athletics performing actions with grace and style.

I think it was +2 for specific situations, +3 if you have to pay a Fate point for it... But then the +3 stacks with any OTHER stunts that enhance the same bonus.

A couple of hints with this. Maneuvers place aspects. They don't actually do anything real. Also if you haveto increase the power to do somelike like this it makes the concept of a wizard who is not very strong in the power but with a lot of control not doable. It seems that discipline is limited by conviction except in one specific case. Attacks. Then you can use the extra shifts you get on a roll. I just don't think it should be like that. There should be something good about having a high discipline low conviction. You may not be a powerhouse but you should be able to have some type of advantage.

Oh, yeah... D'oh.

I was looking at counterspelling and decided that its not quite up to snuff, I mean Im sure its useful but it doesn't seem worth specializing in, sort of how transportation and worldwalking feels like a bad investment every time I read through it.

Figuring that maybe some stunt love is what is needed to get it on track, I worked these up. What do you guys think? Any other ideas on how to make counterspelling useful?

Wizarding Duelist. Whenever you Counterspell a spell you may sacrifice your next turn in order to immediately return fire with an Evocation of your own.

Efficient Counterspeller. You are extremely adept at counterspelling magical effects. Whenever you attempt to counter a spell you may treat your attack on the spell as having +2 shifts of power.

Important thing to consider: Will these stunts be based on Conviction or Willpower?The former of those two examples might be either (though I'm inclined to say Discipline for that one), while the latter is certainly Conviction-based.

That said, I can think of another appliccable stunt - under Conviction, methinks:

Not On MY Watch You have a remarkable affinity for interfering with other spellcasters. Whenever someone is casting a spell in your presence - Evocation, Thaumaturgy, whatever - you can sacrifice your next action to immediately impede the spellcaster with a dampening effect - rolling as normal to Counterspell, but instead of cancelling out any effect, block a number of shifts of Power equal to what you yourself thrust into the Counterspell. For example a Firebolt cast with 7 Shifts of Power and a Discipline of 7, faced with a Counterspell at 6 Shifts of Power is reduced to a single Shift of Power... Still enough to sting an unfortunate target, but less likely to incinerate on the spot...

Also, I should like to point out that one of the most dangerous individuals in the book, even if not the most powerful in a personal scuffle, is John Marcone... The only mortal signatory to the Unseelie Accords, with the skill and strength necessary to hold his own as a Freeholding Lord...
He's capable of handling himself in personal combat, and for the love of all that is Holy, do NOT engage him in social combat...

I don't know what kind of pure mortals you guys play, but I've done 20+ stress in a single hit with my pure mortal and I didn't even spend a third of my fate to do it. As the power level goes up pure mortals are just going to get more and more fate points which means you can do those 20+ attacks with greater frequency. If done properly a pure mortal is a force to be reckoned with.

Let's see, starting with a Guns skill of +5, throwing in couple of stunts for +1 to hit and +2 to damage on hit, give it a Weapon rating of 3 for a rifle, +2 for free tag of "In My Sights", lucky roll of +4 brings us to an Attack at 12, with effective Weapon:5... before any Fate Points are spent. If you have another Guns stunt that add 3 to damage for a Fate Point, we're up to Attack 12 and Weapon:8 for a single fate point, minus whatever the unfortunate target managed to defend with... Am I close?

Yeah, 20+ stress attacks from a mortal are quite plausible, far as I can tell. Or in the words of the Team Fortress 2 Sniper - "Boom. Headshot."

Mmm, the Changeling Prosecutor I play sports a disturbingly deadpan absurd kind of humor... A lobbyist asked for support, and received a bookend... Another politician wanted to add my prosecutor's voice to his cause, and was granted it... leading to awkward situations when my prosecutor's "Inhuman Voice" aspect started to affect him... Also, he knows nothing about his mother, save she is an Unseelie Noble. He knows that Grimalkin is, for all purposes, an Unseelie Noble. He prefers not to think too much about that...

Let me clarify something; related to Bobjob's question. The 26-shift Spell was in my game and was an Evocation not Thaumaturgy, though sponsored magic was involved. I'd like to break this down further in light of our last session where a 39-shift attack was pulled off by the same character. I'm going to break it down here because something doesn't seem right about it and as it has currently caused a huge rift in our game right now and is currently costing 2 players out of eight I'd like to get it clarified so we can see if this can be prevented in the future as a 39-shift hit absolutely destroys my ability to produce challenging opponents that won't kill the mostly-mortal characters by sneezing!

So here's the breakdown, as far as I recall;
Shift 6 spell declared, well within the range of his conviction (+4) + focus item(s) to control and cast.
The roll nets him +2 for a total of +8
So Far One point of mental stress.
He takes 3 more mental stress voluntarily then takes a Mild Consequence to pay off 2 of those, thus another +3
total is now +11
With 2 mental Stress.
Tagged at least 4 separate aspects; two or so on himself and two or so others from other are tags available. So that's +8 more
Total is now +19
Used 4 points of Sponsor Magic for another +8
Total is now 27
Dropped 4 fate Points for another +8
Total is now 35!
2 Wool-gathering Maneuvers for the additional +4
So the total ended up at 39.

Mind you this is all before Dodge, Armor (which was ignored due to the attack hitting its natural weakness).
Even with an optimal dodge roll it could only subtract 8 from the hit, with taking one of every consequence in the book would only get it reduced by an additional 20 hits...so that's 11 Physical Stress after all is said and done, on average probably 15 stress. Double that particular target could take...

Is this right? It sounds horribly wrong but I don't know where the failure occurs. Should he have been taking a lot more stress? Should there have been fallout or a much more difficult roll? I'd want to get this clarified for future reference and so I can figure out how it can be fixed. Yes it was a one-shot deal for that scenario but it could be replicated and I don't want to have to deal with that every session.
I understand there will be later consequences form his sponsor, but that is a matter for another time, not to mention other RP consequences.

...Wait, if it was declared at 6 Shifts of Power, that should be the end of it, shouldn't it?
The rules state it quite clearly, after all (Art of the Spell: How To Do It):
1: Determine Effect - Element, etc.
2: Describe spell type - Attack, Block, Maneuver or Counterspell.
3: Decide on number of shifts of power.
4: Make Discipline Roll. Invoke aspects/foci/whatever necessary to try to reach the Power level you decided on. After rolling, he may NOT add any additional shifts of power, RAW...