Calculating hexing for a powerful caster?

[Belial666]

OK, say a caster has an effective base power of 6, a specialization in her highest element for +3 power and +2 control and foci giving +5 offensive power/control. She is three centuries old or so.

1) What do you use for Hexing? Her base of 6? Her specialized base of 9? Her offensive power total of 15?
2) What tech could she potentially Hex if she intentionally hexes for 15 shifts (hexing is offense), given she's 300 years old?
3) What kind of damage would she do accidentally by simply being around?
4) What kind of hexing damage would casting a 15-shift spell (but not intentional hexing) do?


This is kind of needed since the campaign takes place in a major city (London). If she frequently takes out whole blocks worth of electronics, things might be bad.

[MijRai]

I'd say if it was from 1970 or later, and within... 10-20 feet of you under normal circumstances, then you would automatically hex it. If you are using magic, boost the ring around you to 20-50 feet, and make it hex anything from after 1950 or so. Besides that, I'd say you'd be able to hex anything if you tried.

[FangGrip]

Do whatever best fits the story.

[Lukas the Dead]

Maybe she can make a catapult fall apart or a pulley system fail?

However, doing any of that is really a waste of power as it can all be accomplished more easily through other forms of evocation. Even if you are going for stealth, you could come up with a cheaper water or spirit evocation. My opinion is that most Hexing past 5 or 6 on the Deliberate Hexing table (YS 258) is wasting power (Partly because the things you're are going after getting big enough and simple enough to not need fine control). If she's three centuries old she likely had better ways to do it.

[Becq]

"Very old wizards get a bonus to hexing simply
from their age, which is why Harry can routinely
drive a Volkswagon Beetle while some members
of the Senior Council still have their sanctums
decked out like it’s 1599. This chart assumes
that the wizard is around fifty years old or
younger—as a guideline, set the “1 Power” category
wherever the wizard would start finding
the technology truly alien (so that special wizard
who was actually born in 1599 could probably
hex everything on the chart at 1 power)."

This assumes intentional hexing; a 300-year old character would probably start being mystified at Industrial Age stuff.  So around level 7 on the chart would probably be your baseline for deliberate hexing.  (Catapults are much older technology than anything on the chart, but such a character could probably still affect them with a sufficiently powerful hex, and 15 shifts relative to level 7 would likely affect anything even remotely technological no matter how ancient, so long as moving parts were involved.  Levers might qualify...)  Deliberate hexing is a spell, with the required shifts determined relative to your position on the chart.

Accidental hexing is a compel:

"Accidental hexing is handled as a function of
compels, usually of the wizard’s high concept
(or any appropriately emotional aspect)—something
gets hexed, it puts the wizard in a bind,
and that means the wizard’s player gets some
fate points."

So when the wizard becomes emotional or starts flinging magic around, the GM can choose to throw this at them.  But note that for it to be a compel, it has to somehow disadvantage or limit the options of the character being compelled.  So having the power to the streetlights die just when you're trying to sneak into a building isn't going to occur as a compel ... unless the GM decides that in doing so it alerts the clued-in special-ops commandos with the infrared goggles to the presence of a magical threat.  If so, enjoy the FATE point!  On a normal basis (when the wizard is calm and not casting), however, no accidental damage should occur.  Unless the GM thinks it should.