Speed and Method of Evocation . . . without Sponsored Magic?

[Tedronai]

Conversely, I expect them to default to what they're calling it unless specified otherwise.   

They call it 'Thaumaturgy with Evocation's methods and speed'.
The manner by which Evocation summons power is part of Evocation's methods.
Paying an amount of mental stress based on how much power you call up relative to your Conviction is an integral part of how Evocation summons power.

It's not in the least bit contradictory, and requires the most literalistic interpretation of the rules to deny - a denial that can be summed up by, 'they didn't spell it out in every excruciating detail, so it doesn't count'.
Apply that same standard to Beast Change and an entire substantial limitation simply evaporates into rules-meaningless gobbledygook (see the recent thread 'Skill Categories').

[Sanctaphrax]

About compels:

Hm. I don't like that at all. But it is indeed the rules. Thanks for pointing that out - I had skimmed that very page previously in search of something relevant but I missed the commentary.

About mental stress for evothaum:

Little about evothaum is mechanically clear. What specializations do you use? How long do its effects last? Etc.

Nonetheless, I feel confident in saying that it costs mental stress. Making it not do so is terrible in three ways:

1. It's not what the rules say at all, as far as I can tell.
2. It's way too powerful.
3. It's narratively inappropriate.

The first problem is simple and I don't think I need to elaborate.

The second should become clear when you consider the way that everyone reacts to anything that loosens the four-spells-before-consequences limit. While evothaum can't do much damage, it can toss out even more effective blocks than Evocation can. And magical grapples are arguably better than attacks anyway.

Also, if evothaum costs no mental stress, then it's very easy and quick to do. Evocations take only seconds, and by removing the mental stress cost you remove the pain involved in casting them. So what stops a wizard from sitting down and casting twenty evo-rituals every minute?

The third point relates to the fact that sponsored folks generally don't cast twenty rituals per minute. The behaviour that you encourage with the way you interpret powers should be the behaviour that people are expected to display in-game. Our current rules encourage people to play like actual Dresdenverse wizards, and that should stay that way.

In other words, I agree with Tedronai.

[wyvern]

About compels:

Hm. I don't like that at all. But it is indeed the rules. Thanks for pointing that out - I had skimmed that very page previously in search of something relevant but I missed the commentary.

It fits, though.  Having access to sponsor debt as a mechanic improves your flexibility - allowing you to use fate points you don't even have (yet).  This is the price of that: it can end up costing you more in the long run.

Which really fits in with their design of compels in general: the price is always higher than the benefit.  For example:
An aspect invoke is +2 on a roll (or reroll the dice).  A compel is an automatic failure with no roll even allowed, and typically with an additional complication - like setting the building on fire because you missed with your attack spell.
An invoke for effect lets you show up to a scene.  A compel (and yes, this is an actual example from the books) might cause you to unintentionally stand up your girlfriend... because you were ambushed and kidnapped on the way there, automatically losing what would otherwise be an entire scene's worth of conflict.

[Becq]

The thing baking my noodle is: can you use EvoThaum to automatically hit someone for whom you have taken a sympathetic link (via a Maneuver)?

I vote "Yes", but only technically so.  Because one of the capabilities of Thaumaturgy (which gets inherited by EvoThaum) is to wrap up an effective attack roll into the complexity of the spell.  I've already talked about how the ultimate expression of this -- the complexity 26 or so conflict-in-a-single-spell -- is technically possible but impractical due to the control roll.  But you could presumeably due lesser versions of this (ie, the 'inflict a serious consequence' sorts of thaum spells).

So what would this look like?  Say I'm the Summer Knight and I'm using the happy-fun-sparkly Summer Magic to ... oh, say shove a bit of the summer sun up a Red Court Vampire's ... uh ... gut.  Looking at doing this with Thaum, I would note that 8 shifts (beyond the attack roll) would be enough to either inflict a serious or a mild+moderate against the vampire (Hey, look! Sunlight satisfies The Catch! Whee!), and I decide that's good enough for now.  I also need to account for the RCVs defence, which seems as though it would be based on Endurance.  He can roll up to a 6, so I'd need complexity of 14, which means EvoThaum would need 14 shifts of power to do this, and it would count as an attack hitting with an attack roll of 6 and weapon rating of 8 (sun).  Tough for most character-level wizards without taking a few consequences themselves.  A lesser version of this could guarantee a mild consequence for 10 shifts of power.  Of course, if the RCV did poorly on his roll, he might well take a greater consequence, but darn it, these things sometimes happen...

Most of the time, just casting it as an Evocation would be more effective.  After all, if you had the skills to pull off a control roll of 10, then casting a 10-shift attack evocation would inflict at least 14 stress even on the best possible deffense roll.  That's enough for a mild+moderate+severe on that RCV (assuming he is enough of an NPC to even take that many consequences!)  Of course, the EvoThaum option gives you the flexibility of not needing proximity or line of sight, which is a nice bonus (assuming you have the required link, of course).

At least, that's my take on the situation.

[UmbraLux]

...literalistic interpretation of the rules to deny - a denial that can be summed up by, 'they didn't spell it out in every excruciating detail, so it doesn't count'.
Apply that same standard to Beast Change and an entire substantial limitation simply evaporates into rules-meaningless gobbledygook (see the recent thread 'Skill Categories').

Meh.  Don't know where you're going with Beast Change but not sure I care.  As for being literal, I write too many technical and process documents to approach a "system specification document" (which is what a game manual is) in any other way.  Besides, you know what assumptions do, right?   

In other words, I agree with Tedronai.

So you've changed your mind since stating:

Evothaum is not strictly better than evocation. Evocations, unlike rituals, have weapon ratings.

Or did I misunderstand your initial position?

So what would this look like?  Say I'm the Summer Knight and I'm using the happy-fun-sparkly Summer Magic to ... oh, say shove a bit of the summer sun up a Red Court Vampire's ... uh ... gut.  Looking at doing this with Thaum, I would note that 8 shifts (beyond the attack roll) would be enough to either inflict a serious or a mild+moderate against the vampire (Hey, look! Sunlight satisfies The Catch! Whee!), and I decide that's good enough for now.  I also need to account for the RCVs defence, which seems as though it would be based on Endurance.  He can roll up to a 6, so I'd need complexity of 14, which means EvoThaum would need 14 shifts of power to do this, and it would count as an attack hitting with an attack roll of 6 and weapon rating of 8 (sun).  Tough for most character-level wizards without taking a few consequences themselves.  A lesser version of this could guarantee a mild consequence for 10 shifts of power.  Of course, if the RCV did poorly on his roll, he might well take a greater consequence, but darn it, these things sometimes happen...

I'm confused...this is pretty much how I envision thaumaturgy at evocation's speed working.  I thought you were treating it as evocation with a separate targeting/control roll adding to attacks?

[wyvern]

The Beast Change thing: Specifies that you can't increase non-physical skills.  However, there is no definition (anywhere) of what a physical skill is, and many skills include trappings that are both physical (accuracy of weapons attacks) and non-physical (knowledge of weapon types).  This is endemic to the rules book: attempting to treat it as a technically accurate "system specification document" isn't going to work - because it's very clearly not; they make frequent use of common sense terms that are potentially ambiguous if you aim a big enough magnifying glass at them, but which will simply make immediate sense to most people.

So, here's a (hopefully) technically accurate description of evothaum, as I'd interpret it.
1) it has some thematic limitations appropriate to the relevant sponsor or type of evothaum.
2) the effect functions exactly as thaumaturgy - figure out what you want, and determine the needed complexity to do it.
3) once you know the complexity you need, this becomes the required power for an evocation spell.
4) call up power based on conviction, spending mental stress as normal for an evocation effect of the given power.
5) roll control; excess control does nothing; insufficient control results in backlash or fallout as normal for evocation.
6) apply resulting effect as if it had been generated by a thaumaturgical ritual of complexity equal to the total power controlled (which may be less than you wanted if there was fallout.)

This definition, to the best of my understanding, matches what's being used by Tedronai, Sanctaphrax, and Becq.  (If I'm incorrect on any of those, please let me know!)

[UmbraLux]

The Beast Change thing: Specifies that you can't increase non-physical skills.  However, there is no definition (anywhere) of what a physical skill is, and many skills include trappings that are both physical (accuracy of weapons attacks) and non-physical (knowledge of weapon types). 

Thanks for the explanation.

This is endemic to the rules book: attempting to treat it as a technically accurate "system specification document" isn't going to work - because it's very clearly not; they make frequent use of common sense terms that are potentially ambiguous if you aim a big enough magnifying glass at them, but which will simply make immediate sense to most people.

A lack of clarity in the writing is the only major issue I have with DFRPG.  Since that seems to affect online discussions far more than play, I won't complain too often. 

So, here's a (hopefully) technically accurate description of evothaum, as I'd interpret it.
1) it has some thematic limitations appropriate to the relevant sponsor or type of evothaum.
2) the effect functions exactly as thaumaturgy - figure out what you want, and determine the needed complexity to do it.
3) once you know the complexity you need, this becomes the required power for an evocation spell.
4) call up power based on conviction, spending mental stress as normal for an evocation effect of the given power.
5) roll control; excess control does nothing; insufficient control results in backlash or fallout as normal for evocation.
6) apply resulting effect as if it had been generated by a thaumaturgical ritual of complexity equal to the total power controlled (which may be less than you wanted if there was fallout.)

In broad terms, the only item I do differently is number 4.  I leave it using Lore and don't add mental stress. 

This definition, to the best of my understanding, matches what's being used by Tedronai, Sanctaphrax, and Becq.  (If I'm incorrect on any of those, please let me know!)

If it is, I've misinterpreted a few posts - for which I apologize.  My understanding was that some modified the control roll in item 5 to add to attacks / resisted spells.

[wyvern]

The biggest problem there is, your proposed evothaum mechanics don't even match the methods of thaumaturgy, let alone evocation.  Lore is never used to call up power.  It is used to set a limit on thaumaturgy complexity before you need more than minimal preparation (and I've seen some people try to apply that same limit to evothaum; I don't, but I can understand the argument in favor of it).  But even for thaumaturgy, when you actually cast the spell, you're calling up power based on conviction - just usually in much smaller chunks over several exchanges.

Basically, I see my definition as: speed of evocation, methods of evocation, effect of thaumaturgy.  Your definition has the speed of evocation, the methods of nothing-in-the-rulebook, and the effect of thaumaturgy.  Even if you adjust your definition to "power up to conviction at no mental stress" - well, then you'd have speed of evocation, methods of thaumaturgy, which is still not the decription given for evothaum.

edit:

If it is, I've misinterpreted a few posts - for which I apologize.  My understanding was that some modified the control roll in item 5 to add to attacks / resisted spells.

Hm.  You may be right here, that some people modify that.  I wouldn't; if you want an attack spell, evocation will just be better than a similar evothaum spell (assuming that it's within the realm of evocation at all - i.e. not a transformation based "attack" or other effect that's beyond evocation's brute force results.  Otherwise, evothaum obviously wins over evocation, for the simple fact of being able to, say, work through a sympathetic connection at all.)

[UmbraLux]

The biggest problem there is, your proposed evothaum mechanics don't even match the methods of thaumaturgy, let alone evocation.  Lore is never used to call up power.  It is used to set a limit on thaumaturgy complexity before you need more than minimal preparation (and I've seen some people try to apply that same limit to evothaum; I don't, but I can understand the argument in favor of it).  But even for thaumaturgy, when you actually cast the spell, you're calling up power based on conviction - just usually in much smaller chunks over several exchanges.

Thaumaturgy explicitly "allows the wizard the luxury of drawing power from sources other than himself..."  (YS261)  There's no mention of Conviction under "How to do it" on YS262.  Lore (and aspects or consequences if necessary) sets up sources of power and Discipline channels it.  It also states "...casting process is identical to the process for evocation" after having decided the number of shifts / complexity which I link to step 4* on YS250 under Evocation's "How to do it".  That step also does not mention Conviction.

Lore isn't the source of power for thaumaturgy, it's how you know where to get the power.  What symbols to draw, what elements to call on, perhaps even a Name of Power.  In my interpretation of the text, this doesn't change just because you're doing it faster.  Which means thaumaturgy at evocation's speed will seldom be much more powerful than the character's Lore skill plus any applicable foci or specialties.  There's simply not much time to put towards thaumaturgy style aspect creation & use. 

*If you link it to step 3, you're back to deciding number of shifts again.  Additionally, it would lead to taking mental stress during each exchange of calling power in normal thaumaturgy.

...the methods of nothing-in-the-rulebook...

Sigh.  The world is bigger than one person.  There's room for differences in opinion.  Even for different interpretations of the same text. 

[Sanctaphrax]

I haven't changed my mind about evothaum's effects lately.

I don't think Tedronai said anything about evothaum being strictly better than Evocation...I just meant that I agree with him that it should cost mental stress.

wyvern's summary looks fairly fair to me.

I agree that the frequent vagueness of YS is annoying.

[sinker]

You have to go a few pages further to the actual casting of the ritual, Umbra. Check the "For quick reference" sidebar on page YS271. It explicitly states that when casting the ritual one must call up power like in evocation, costing 1 mental stress for each shift that you summon beyond your Conviction. The stuff that you are looking at earlier deals only with the preparation aspect of thaumaturgy.

Additionally Wyvern, EvoThaum still requires line of sight. It's the first thing on the list of differences between Thaum and EvoThaum.

[UmbraLux]

You have to go a few pages further to the actual casting of the ritual, Umbra. Check the "For quick reference" sidebar on page YS271. It explicitly states that when casting the ritual one must call up power like in evocation, costing 1 mental stress for each shift that you summon beyond your Conviction. The stuff that you are looking at earlier deals only with the preparation aspect of thaumaturgy.

Sure, I agree.  I'm simply objecting to the 'take a mental stress whether it's over Conviction or not' - as if it were evocation.

[wyvern]

Additionally Wyvern, EvoThaum still requires line of sight. It's the first thing on the list of differences between Thaum and EvoThaum.

Ah.  Well.  That's what I get for trying to answer questions without the actual rulebooks on me.  >.<  Prior posts edited to remove or at least point out this particular rules fail on my part.

On actually double-checking the rulebook, I think the text at the bottom of the YS288 sidebar is overall the best defense against this whole stress-less evothaum notion: "What the power source is offering in this specific case, then, is a broadening of what you don't have to rationalize."  I.E. the advantage is available effects, not free spellcasting.

[sinker]

Umbra-As I understood it you were debating whether step 4 (calling up power based on conviction) was part of thaumaturgy at all. I was showing where in the book it was discussed.

Wyvern-That's the exact point I made a bit ago though less verbose.

[Becq]

If it is, I've misinterpreted a few posts - for which I apologize.  My understanding was that some modified the control roll in item 5 to add to attacks / resisted spells.

My take is that the effects of EvoThaum are handled exactly as the equivalent Thaum spell.  That is, the caster needs to 'buy' his roll as part of the creation of the spell -- though unless the spell is built as a guaranteed takeout, the defender will still roll (which could cause the spell effect to vary).

Thaumaturgy explicitly "allows the wizard the luxury of drawing power from sources other than himself..."  (YS261)  There's no mention of Conviction under "How to do it" on YS262.

Yes.  But EvoThaum is cast using Evocation's methods once complexity is determined then translated into Evocation-style shifts.  When you're casting EvoThaum, you are sacrificing that luxury, in effect, because you aren't taking the time to painstakingly build up the spell construct and allow power to seep into it.

You have to go a few pages further to the actual casting of the ritual, Umbra. Check the "For quick reference" sidebar on page YS271. It explicitly states that when casting the ritual one must call up power like in evocation, costing 1 mental stress for each shift that you summon beyond your Conviction. The stuff that you are looking at earlier deals only with the preparation aspect of thaumaturgy.

Oh, nice catch!  Even is baseline Thaumaturgy you need to pay mentals for going over conviction in a given control roll, and since EvoThaum is a single control roll, that makes it a slam-dunk.  As to the intitial base mental stress ... well, I guess if a table decided to play without it, it wouldn't make a great deal of difference.  I still believe that the fact that it is cast using Evocation's method (and the explanations that follow) means that you pay stress as you would for an Evocation, but ... *shrug*.

Additionally Wyvern, EvoThaum still requires line of sight. It's the first thing on the list of differences between Thaum and EvoThaum.

Wow.  I totally missed that, despite it being very clear.