Temporary magical weapons: What's the best way?

[Baron Hazard]

This thread seems to have become the goto thread for the evocation spin house rule. Here is my... two cents on it... though i'm still weary of it and so these are more based in concerns and aren't firm yet:

I suppose I am okay with a spin-rule on evocation, that really limits your 'free' attacks to the same sort of 'free attack' someone with a gun has. Though I am leery at the progression of it as skills begin to climb... it has implications that can't be fully understood at beginning games.

I think I may require spin to only effect Rotes.

I am undecided whether i will require a focus to be used to benefit from Spin.

I will post this in the other thread too, to get feedback from others on these concerns/ideas.

[luminos]

I understand spin on defense, because that rewards an otherwise meaningless margin of success, with a benefit, but spin on anything else is not something I'm keen on.  Magic is already rather powerful in the game, I don't think I'd allow anything to negate the mandatory stress, except at extremely high refresh games where 1-2 shift spells are largely meaningless.

[feliscon]

I understand spin on defense, because that rewards an otherwise meaningless margin of success, with a benefit, but spin on anything else is not something I'm keen on.  Magic is already rather powerful in the game, I don't think I'd allow anything to negate the mandatory stress, except at extremely high refresh games where 1-2 shift spells are largely meaningless.

Spin on a control roll also rewards an otherwise meaningless margin of sucess. Normally you either control the spell or you don't, it's a binary outcome. The rule can also only completely negate the stress cost for calling power at your Conviction or lower, as it only ever reduces the cost by one (and if you're calling power at your Conviction then you're not likely to generate Spin on control unless you're conviction is extremely low anyway).

[CMEast]

Well let's take this spin rule and see how it might possibly be abused. So it has to be a rote spell and the control roll must be at least 3 shifts higher than the difficulty of the spell.

A 3 power spell requires 6 discipline and can be used to create manoeuvres or deal damage as a 'Good attack' with Weapon:3 without mental stress.
Or you can pay stress to cast a 'Fantastic attack' at Weapon:6 doing twice the amount of damage and probably taking an opponent straight out rather than just tickling him with the 'good' attack.

Hmm, I guess it could be seen as fair for those mages that have run out of stress, but a rote with a fate point added on to the control roll would be pretty lethal still.
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How about this, the spin doesn't reduce stress by one, instead it reduces the power by one (or adds one free power, either way). This means that for the 'Average attack' spells we were originally talking about, it could cost no stress because the spell is effectively a zero power spell, no power no stress. That would also mean spin could deal one extra damage for other spells, but still cost mental stress.

I think that might be a fair way of seeing it. That 'Good Attack' spell would now be considered a 'Great Attack' as it's been controlled so well it hits a weak spot or something.

[feliscon]

See, I think that adding plus one to the effect when rolling spin is too powerful and broken... However, look at something like this.

Inhuman Strength and Superb Weapons gives 3-4 damage at range for 'free' or 3-5 damage in same zone. (-2 Refresh)

Evocation and Superb Discipline, Fair Conviction gives 2 damage at range for 'free' if you take a Rote for it (-3 Refresh, though admittedly a lot more flexible)

Pure Mortal with a handgun and Superb Guns: 2 damage at range for 'free' (-0 Refresh, 3  more damage with shotguns/rifles)


Seems entirely reasonable to me.


Also, some people seem to be under the impression that the rule only applies to Rotes... If you're going to limit it to either Rotes/normal spells then it should really not apply to Rotes since you're technically not rolling and therefore not generating spin. It's even less potentially unbalancing if limited to just normal spells than it is if you can use it on Rotes as well.

[luminos]

hey, its your game, so if you convince your GM to run with it great.  But it seems you are trying to 'balance' a small part of evocation against the rest of the game, when evocation as a whole is already balanced for its cost.  This feels like making a powerful ability more powerful simply for the sake of getting free stuff for a character you want.  You compare evocation effects with what a pure mortal can do with a gun, but you neglect the fact that the evocator has access to guns, but the pure mortal doesn't have access to evocation, which gets to pick its weapon value on the fly, and which can do a hell of a lot more than throw damage around.

[Tsunami]

Ok, now i'm thoroughly confused...

Evocation generates shifts... since the Control Roll is the Attack roll at the same time, the shifts add to damage. So at least for attacks, there is no meaningless margin of succes.

Maneuvers are a different matter, controlling the summoned power is everything that counts here. So yes, i can see how thats an issue, but it'S not really a large issue the way i see it.

Regarding the original Topic of this thread:

How about using a bastardisation of the duration rule.

Make this Fists power a Weapon:2 "Attack" evocation. Add 3 shifts for duration. -> Power 5 evocation.
Use Fists in the next three rounds to attack with said Weapon:2.
I'd house rule that you cannot attack with that Weapon:2 Evocation on its own, so no attack in the exchange in wich you cast it. But thats a more than reasonable tradeoff i think. And since you still need to roll for the following attacks it's not much of a problem in terms of balance.

It reduces the stress required for use of the Chi-fists, but does not totally eliminate it.

You could compare it to a continuous stream of fire directed at a target, that you need to target again each round. Only istead of using discipline to target it, you use Fists.

Of course it takes a measure of common sense to decide what to allow here. Because if you increase the power level of that Attack it can get unbalanced quite quickly. 3xWeapon:4 instead of 1xWeapon:7 is much more powerful than 3xW:2 instead of 1xW:5.

[feliscon]

hey, its your game, so if you convince your GM to run with it great.  But it seems you are trying to 'balance' a small part of evocation against the rest of the game, when evocation as a whole is already balanced for its cost.  This feels like making a powerful ability more powerful simply for the sake of getting free stuff for a character you want.  You compare evocation effects with what a pure mortal can do with a gun, but you neglect the fact that the evocator has access to guns, but the pure mortal doesn't have access to evocation, which gets to pick its weapon value on the fly, and which can do a hell of a lot more than throw damage around.

Some fair points, but actually it's not my game, and I'd apply it/want to apply it in games where I GM or don't even play a caster. I don't think it's a good rule because of the mechanical aspects, I think it's a good rule because it's, in my opinion truer to the books and I think that makes it worthwhile even if it is a little unbalancing, which I don't believe it is to a significant degree.

[John Galt]

also mortals get 2 extra refresh and don't have as much need for a high conviction.  Wizards can take guns too but they rarely have the skill points left over to do so effectively, and never have the stunts to use them as effectively as most true mortals would.  The average gun nowadays is going to have about a clip size of 15 and a weapon rating of 2 in this game, so I see no reason for pure mortals not to have a weapon 2, uses: 45 item on them at all times.  So it doesn't seem that ridiculous to me for Wizards to have something similar with spin rules on evocation.  Even at fully submerged the best he'll be able to do is a weapon 2 or weapon 3 attack whenever he wants, which isn't any different than a true mortal.  And as for unbalancing, well, that wouldn't happen until a 12+ refresh game.  And to be honest any mortal playing at that level should have a lot of leeway from the GM to compete anyway (advanced technologies, items of power, etc) so I don't think it would necessarily make wizard's overpowered even at higher levels.

[CMEast]

But it seems you are trying to 'balance' a small part of evocation against the rest of the game, when evocation as a whole is already balanced for its cost.  This feels like making a powerful ability more powerful simply for the sake of getting free stuff for a character you want.

If you read... well, pretty much every post I've made here, you'll see that's the last thing I want. I'm trying to create a weaker character here, not a stronger one. Instead of throwing around big spells, he uses little spells. Unfortunately the rules make small spells a waste of time, due to the cost of them. A weak focused practioner will have already spent -2 or -4 refresh on a talent without getting the full use out of it, so making him pay more refresh is crippling and redundant considering what he should already be capable of doing. Removing channelling entirely for something like claws limits the character even further and still doesn't really recreate the character concept.

The concept isn't broken, isn't abusing the rules, isn't overpowered at all. It fits right in to the dresden universe (I'm not trying to create a magical plumber that jumps on the heads of his enemies and doubles in size if he eats a mushroom or a man of steel that can leap tall buildings here), the concept of a weak/young/untrained magic user is pretty classic for any universe that has wizards in and there are a whole bunch of abilities they have which will make them slightly more effective in a conflict.

I don't care if it's a +1 or a +2, if it applies to damage only, to the chance to hit only or to some other aspect of the conflict. It doesn't need to be a 'free' ability, precisely the opposite, it should still cost, but it shouldn't cost the same as some reality-breaking evocation. If I wanted to have an all-powerful character I would.

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You're right Tsunami, for some reason I thought that the power of the spell was the power of the attack for a rote as there's no control roll but you're right, the power of the attack equals your discipline and so there are no spare 'shifts' that can be used as spin. I'd say a maneuver would generate extra shifts but with only one free tag, I'd have the same problem as my old ideas. Adding tags on would increase the power level massively again which defeats the entire point.

Your idea to add duration to the evocation spell is pretty much idea number 2 in my original post and still doesn't really work for the same reason. Either it costs lots of energy to go for the 3 or 4 rounds, or it costs little power with the need to top it up mid-combat and only working on alternate rounds. As you said, it can also be abused a little too easily as, I think, can any idea when Weapon:X is variable on the power spent which is why I started down the aspect/manoeuvre route.

[Ala Alba]

Honestly, I'd throw in with JG and feliscon on evocation spin. Admittedly, it would probably work even better if there was such a thing as fractions of stress, so that instead of reducing the stress to zero, it only reduces it to a quarter or something.

As it is, though, it does give a much better reason to go for a low power/high control type of character, as well as giving more reason to use low powered spells.

[Wordmaker]

I'm actually curious as to where in the books we see temporarily enchanted weapons? All of the magic weapons I can think of fall under the Item of Power or Enchanted Item rules.

I'm still of the opinion that using an evocation maneuver to give an item a new Aspect like "flaming sword" is a good way to go, and the easiest.

[CMEast]

Well that's true Wordmaker, however you can only tag the aspect once without spending fate points. It seems both odd and generally weak to have to spend fate points for each time you swing your sword, especially as you spend your first standard action just creating the manoeuvre in the first place. Of course you can add further tags for each additional 3 shifts of power you spend, but that doesn't work either.

The benefit of aspects is that it can be used for a variety of different spell effects, plus it adds the possibility of it being compelled against you which is interesting (fiery swords are dangerous).

I think you're right Ala Alba, at the moment Feliscon's house rule seems to work best at the moment, though it doesn't fix the problem it at least provides a fair rule for this particular situation. Other ideas are welcome though as we've got four more sessions of pathfinder to go before we start our Dresden campaign in London

[feliscon]

 Feliscon's house rule seems to work best at the moment

It's not actually my rule, can't remember who to credit off the top of my head, sorry. Though I do seem to have become the Evocation Spin rule's unofficial champion on the forum 

Honestly, I just think it fits the source material better, and should be a part of everyone's game, but I won't try to force it on people who disagree.

[Deadmanwalking]

Eh, it can get bad. I mean, my current Warden on the PBP Forum could get Weapon: 4 effects using that rule...which seems to make mundane combat, with blade or gun (something Wardens clearly need to use in the books) somewhat obsolete and unnecessary.