[Edit: Just out of curiosity, how do you play your character? Is he the sneaky assassin, burly tank, heavy hitting warrior, resourceful diplomat, etc. Just curious]

Well, he's a young kid. Kinda rash and impetuous, but he has a good heart. He is dismayed by how good of a thug his natural power (Half shadow demon) and his kinetic magic makes him.

He prefers to avoid a fight if he can, and if he's going to fight it would be via ambush tactics. He has some serious staying power in a fight, but would rather avoid it. So his tactic involves bursting from the shadows, clocking a target with his bat, and disappearing into the dark again.

But he's not afraid of a stand up fight. He'll slug it out with the best of them, though he's not as tough as some of the baddies out there. He's a natural user of his magic, so without any formal training his power is unrefined, and usually comes in the form of unfocused blasts of force, when with the right training. he could be slinging superthin blades of force or paper thin walls that stop howitzers.

My focused practitioner had some post-first game adjustments to help him play better. Unfortunately I was just looking him over and I realized that the changes had made my rotes utterly useless!

I have a lore +4, meaning 4 rotes. I have a +1 defensive power item, a +2 offensive power item, Conviction 4 and discipline 5.

My character's magic is spirit (Force) and (darkness).

The only of the four rotes I think I can keep is a shift 5 block spell using his defensive focus, creating a whirlpool of kinetic energy that misdirects attacks around him safely.

That means I need to figure out three more in eight hours from this post. Could anyone give me a hand with some suggestions of things I should need?

I'll need an offensive rote, but I don't know what else I could do. The character prefers melee over ranged.

I'd appreciate some help in this.

But with supernatural recovery I can recover from it better right?
...

In that regard, can someone explain to me how damage works in the game? I've only been in one game session so far and I'm still a little behind on it.

How does damage work? I mean is physical stress like hit points, or health levels? What about consequences? Critical damage?

How does something like recovery powers affect it? Supernatural recovery is more important cause my character has that.

Oh sweet!

Well actually he's a basketball star. Tall, lean and athletic. (Actually has Superb Athletics)
probably capable of going for an olympic sport if he wished to do it.

Unfortunately that sport doesn't have a tool that makes a handy weapon like baseball or hockey.

Any suggestions for something that a basketball star would find appropriate to use as a weapon? Or should I change it to baseball? It does make sense considering his kinetomancy is almost entirely intuitive, with little formal training. (His adoptive parents are minor talents.)

Okay thanks for the answers so far, but it does bring up more questions.

The best way to emulate a reflex-boost via kinetomancy would be to use a spell to tag an aspect upon myself that I can use to give me +2 for relevant actions? Wouldn't that mean not only would I have to take stress to cast it but I'd have to pay a fate point every time I use it? Would that be more efficient than just taking a stress every time I use the spell as an instant action?

The second question I have is how magic works with weaponry. If for example I had a longsword and used a kinetomancy rote to improve the force my blows deliver with said sword, would that be a direct improvement on the weapon's damage? Could I also make that longsword into a focus Item specifically for that? I ask because my character wants to have an edge when in melee against the supernatural nasties and having a weapon that hits REALLY hard would be a good idea.

This is not accounting for figuring out how to make the sword survive hitting a target like that. Unless it is a focus item, in which I think it gets some kind of plot immunity. Examples including when Dresden uses his wooden staff to lever open things that would ordinarily break the item, like bars and whatnot. (he explains that on top of using it as a physical lever he's using it mystically too. paraphrase)

[Edit] I'm thinking of using a Baseball Bat as the weapon focus item. Are there stats for those? [/Edit]

So...

I'm sure this gets asked a lot, but can someone help me understand how spellcasting works?

I mean I kinda understand the core of it, but I don't get how to use it fully or properly in the game. I love the series and get how it is done as a story element, but not how it mechanically works.

My understanding is based on the character I'm playing, who is a Kinetomancer.
So what I understand is:
1. You explain what you're trying to do.
2. You decide on how many shifts of power to use for the effect.
3. If it is less than or equal to your discipline, you don't need to roll to control the spell.
4. If you summon more than your discipline, then you have to roll and try to get high enough to match your shifts of power.
5. If you don't, you have to 'bleed off' the excess by either taking the strain or causing fallout.
6. No matter what, casting a spell causes a mental stress, plus one per shift of power over what I can safely draw with my discipline.

...

So from what I can tell, with a conviction of +4, I can only cast 4 spells within my threshold difficulty or one spell with +3 shifts of power before I'm out of the fight. That seems a little... weak? Any help on understanding this would be great, cause characters in the books can be using magic for significantly longer than just four actions before they're tapped out.

Another thing I am trying to understand is what kind of scale or scope does each shift of power mean. Does hitting someone with a five shift kinetic bolt hurt a lot? What about using a six shift spell to amplify my leap? How far does it throw me? or how fast could I go if i use a five shift speed/reflexes increase? How much could I lift... etc.

Also, a side question about intent and the first law of magic. If I were to use said bolt of kinetic force during a fight with a red court vamp and blew out a load bearing wall, bringing a building down on us but also crushing to death of the poor homeless guy hiding in the next room, did I break the first law?

So in the end I made a somewhat complicated character. He is a kinetomancer f.p. with demonic heritage. He has the fp template and eop template. Took only channeling and he has a few shadow related abilities, as his parent was a shadow demon.