My group had a conversation about this topic a while back, it came to our attention that Focused Practitioners are darn near as powerful as full blown Evokers and Wizards. This is due to them being able to do most everything with just a single element, save a few very specific exceptions. Of course that's before you factor in the refinements and such.

After a while arguing about it, we came to this conclusion: Focused practitioners limits are set exactly were it stops being interesting in the narration or fun to allow them to 'go there'.

So, would I let a pyromancer "heal" his friend with his Ritual ability? Sure would, as long as the narrative is evocative and interesting. Then, depending on the description of that healing it might have some lingering effects

Would I let a Geomancer fling fireballs? No. That's just silly. Plus it doesn't uphold his general theme, and it's no fun for anyone (except maybe the geomancer) when we break verisimilitude for something like that. Then again, if he can give me a really good explanation, like pulling natural gas up (after making a declaration) and then using his magic to "rub" the earth around the gas vent hoping for a spark... but that's not really flinging fireballs so...

On a side note, I think most magical elements could have the right justification for starting particular types of minor consequences into recovery, something I hadn't thought about till this thread.

I have actually run Evil Acts so I'll give you my suggestions.

• The case file is heavy on the non-combat situations - make sure your players are comfortable with or are at least aware of that fact.
• Make sure to spend a considerable amount of time getting the players into their characters. Make sure you ask each player the questions contained in the front of the file, and flesh out the rest of the character's aspects before beginning, instead of using the "come up with it while you play" method. Also, consider not showing the character sheets to the players until they've chosen a character to help them pick a concept first instead of a set of combat abilities.
• Play up the danger of the situation. When I ran it I thought it would be obvious, given the source material, that a publicly visible ritual of this magnitude would be very dangerous if disrupted. My players on the other hand (specifically the bodyguard types) didn't really understand the threat and ended up parotting "I standby on watch." and there is only so many Scene aspects of "Watched by So and So" you can put on a place before it becomes disgustingly boring. It is also possible that I missed a portion of the file that explains what threats are supposed to be present but I remember it being kinda light in that area. Think I would add a threat letter or something more eminent to stir the characters to action.
• Do a lot of planning for the end scene because there are a ton of things going on in it and it may not be obvious what is going on, and bulk up the end baddy - she went down super fast with my crew, but again might have been my inexperience...
• Come up with a list of motive and/or goals for each of the major NPC's in the scene, and make sure that most of them involve one or two of the PC's so that when the social parts of the game are starting you can initiate and know why the NPC would be talking to the characters. I felt like all the NPC's were focused on Prospero and basically had no real reason (outside of "we're in this play together") to interact with the player characters. Looking back, I could have had any number of things come up - like the fey playing tricks or trying to get promises from characters, or the chorus putting their plots or plans into place to humiliate the muse character or something. This would help move things along if your players aren't "jet setters"

I guess my biggest issue with the whole case file was that it seemed a bit thin in the "motivate the players" department. It seemed like a great scenario on paper, but when you put players in a scene were they have to care about some in game event that they are supposed to make happen it sorta fell apart.

In the other case file, Neutral Grounds, the character's are immediately put into a dangerous situation, and probably shot at so they get a sense of investment right off the bat.

Evil Acts on the other hand, talks a lot about a semi-mundane activity (setting up for a play) that becomes exciting later, and unless your players are more into the non-combat/exploration aspects of the game, it can drag.

Then again, my players are all of a D&D mindset where they just want RP to be present to introduce combat - so you're mileage may vary. But I would imagine that even in a non-D&D oriented group the amount of "self-investment" that the scenario requires would be troublesome.

Good luck!

All the mechanics you've listed here are pretty cool, though I'm not sure what the mechanical balance of these would be. But to be honest I think that suggesting specific aspects that describes most of this would be sufficient to get what you're describing here.

Things like "FREE WILLED FREE SPIRIT" or "FIERY SOUL" or "FLAMES OF PASSION"

Then all of these things could be compelled to emulate all the things you've made rules for.

YMMV..

As for wishes, why not make it a form of sponsored magic? Have the character be able to use ALL thaumaturgy at speed and methods as long as the request is in line with a wish from a human. Then you can impose something like the 3 wishes per person, or the human must spend a fate point to make the wish or some such.

Then when the character uses too much magic (through wishes or his own powers/evocation) and takes him/herself out by mental stress, just always make their taken out scene be them falling prey to their passions. Also make sure all consequences that come from this things like "HEATED ANGER" or "BELLIGERENCE" to keep the theme going.

Of course if you just want to have a special mechanic for this for the sake of having a special mechanic then I'm sure some others on the board can help you further!

Is it just me or does anyone else think that the "spend a fate point and get over the catch" thing should be the property of the swords of the cross?

We should come up with other such abilities for an item of power to have...

[-x] Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?... Your Guns skill is always complements your Intimidate skill as long as you carry this item. In addition, you can spend a fate point to increase the weapon rating of this item by 4 points for an attack against an enemy when you tag or invoke an aspect that you have placed with an Intimidation maneuver.

I dont really know what that would cost but I feel like it is significantly different from the holy swords but still yield a similar result (killing them faster).

...
Wizard lays down armor spell on entire group.
...

This may be the best use of a block I've seen... I hadn't thought about a zone wide armor spell. And to be honest, this would probably be the best bang for your buck. An 7 or 8-shift block applied to a whole zone as armor would effectively be able to deflect most small gunfire as well as any Kevlar (Armor:2) for a few exchanges - or else it could be able to stop larger bullets (Armor:3) for the current exchange, ready to be re-upped next round. And both of those would only cost a few mental stress (maybe a consequence if you've got a low conviction).

This may well have sold me on evo blocks.

Wow - great suggestions guys!

Now, to the batcave to flesh this thing out!

I have this idea of an adventure involving an evil doer that acquires a native american totem, or storyteller stick that gives him the power of imagination.

Basically, I am imagining a baddie that tells a story about something happening and the item makes those things happen by basically creating ectoplasmic constructs to play out the story that is told.

I think most of the time this can be handled in a narrative fashion - he tells the story of small monsters attacking someone and the magic creates the scene as it's told. As far as the characters are concerned it's just the way the monsters get to the scene.

What I'm having trouble with, is what this power should function like when the PC's finally get to fight the knave. I'm looking at potentially Sponsored magic, with summoning or conjuring as a component?

Should I even bother figuring it out or just chalk it up to plot? Is this idea totally out of scope for the game?

Ideas?

Hey guys, I'm about to start running a regular game soon, and I've been reading everything I possibly could about the game to learn.

My group and I played through the "Evil Acts" case file, and after we were all done I was left with a few questions.

Most of these I figured out by reading the rules and all the great resources on these forums and the blogs in the community. But one of the questions I have still that I can't seem to wrap my head around is about defensive evocation.

I just can't see why anyone would bother with defensive spells. Specifically, shields.

A shield is described in the rules as a evocation based block against damage, and as far as I can tell it is generally not a good idea to throw up a shield that can actually deflect bullets (with any sort of duration) than it would be to just use your magic to take out a gunner and then dodge the other shots as best as you can.

And in magic on magic combat, it seems almost always better to use maneuvers to set yourself up for a defense if you care to defend at all - in that case it almost always seems best to just fire first. To me this doesn't really seem to fit the feel of the novels - Harry uses his shield very often.

Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I missing something?