Evocation for focused practitioners question

[nadia.skylark]

So, one of the ways I've seen to represent focussed practitioners with refinement is to give them full evocation, but with their elements being sub-categories of one element--for example, a hydromancer might have evocation with the elements of water, ice, and entropy/disintegration.

What I'm wondering is if it would be reasonable to do this, only instead of evocation elements, to have one or two of those slots filled with related thaumaturgy themes (and if so, should you up the refresh cost)? For example, in Paranet Papers it describes healing and shapeshifting as refined water magic, so would it be acceptable to give a hydromancer evocation with the elements of water, biomancy, and transformation?

And if this isn't a good way to represent this, does anyone have suggestions for a better way? (Besides sponsored magic.)

[Taran]

My first question is, what would a transformation evocation look like?

Much of the game is narration.  So I find it helpful to know how you see it playing out in a game, especially if you are circumventing sponsored magic.

[nadia.skylark]

My first question is, what would a transformation evocation look like?

Well, it's the evocation version of this:

Transformation and Disruption

Thaumaturgy that fundamentally, lastingly changes the target—whether it’s the target’s body, mind, emotions, or even luck—falls into the category of transformation and disruption. Often, this is dark stuff—curses, mind control, destructive shapeshifting, and death magic.
Of all the methods available through thauma- turgy, these are the ones most prone to run afoul of the Laws of Magic (page 232). Regardless of what the spell changes, this is a violent act to the target: people and things are very good at being what they are, and this sort of magic forces them to be what they aren’t.
As such, these forms of thaumaturgy rely on the same mechanical principle—most of them inflict consequences or temporary aspects on a target. Entropic curses inflict aspects that reflect bad luck and other kinds of misfortune. Emotion magic inflicts aspects related to emotional states (lust, anger, fear, etc.) that the victim can fall prey to. Mind control is just that—the aspect, when compelled, forces the victim to act in a certain way. In rarer cases, a curse might actually be fully transformative, changing the shape or nature of a being permanently.
Because these forms of thaumaturgy func- tion via consequences, a wizard needs to make sure that the spell is complex enough to over- come any resistance the target might be able to raise (defense rolls, stress tracks, etc.), as well as add enough shifts for the desired level of consequence (0 for a temporary aspect, 2 for mild, 4 for moderate, 6 for severe, 8 for extreme). Anything that is fully transformative must be powerful enough to achieve a “taken out” result on the target, which can be extremely complex (see “Contests and Conflicts,” page 265)—which isn’t to say there aren’t sorcerers out there prac- ticing that kind of black magic. Sadly, there are plenty.

So, lower power due to being evocation, so probably not the really severe stuff that this can do, but more towards the lower-power end of the spectrum.

Much of the game is narration.  So I find it helpful to know how you see it playing out in a game, especially if you are circumventing sponsored magic.

Ah. I'm not actually that interested in circumventing sponsored magic: I'd like to find a way to do this without sponsored magic, but if the answer is "there isn't one," then I'm fine with that. I excluded sponsored magic from suggestions simply because I already know about that option, so there's no point in having people post that sponsored magic would do this.

[Sanctaphrax]

Evocation isn't limited in power so much as in complexity. You can't get too fancy with it.

As long as you keep that in mind, you could certainly use something like biomancy as an evocation element. Turning your fingers into lances momentarily isn't really so different from launching a lance of pressurized water.

And if this isn't a good way to represent this, does anyone have suggestions for a better way? (Besides sponsored magic.)

A better way to represent what, exactly?

The more esoteric associations of water magic? Because I think those are represented reasonably well by the element itself.