Thamaturgy at the speed of Evocation through high lore?

[Belial666]

Portals need no sympathetic link since you are not targeting a creature or object. Also, opening a Portal is a number of shifts equal to the difficulty of the barrier - superb in most cases but where the barrier is thin, it can be considerably less.

So, in a thin enough place, the difficulty is less to or equal than most wizards' Lore. Therefore, initiate the casting by focusing or speaking and gesturing instead of the usual circle (takes the same time and flavor-wise fits better) then in the next exchange simply gather the power and open the way.

[ralexs1991]

I just the part in SK where during the battle above chicago there is a group of sidhe cavalry charging at Harry and crew and the knights actually create wards right there on the spot within what amounts to a few seconds 

[Ophidimancer]

I just the part in SK where during the battle above chicago there is a group of sidhe cavalry charging at Harry and crew and the knights actually create wards right there on the spot within what amounts to a few seconds 

Umm ... wouldn't that just be an Evocation Spirit Block using pure force?

[wyvern]

Possibly.  It could've also been sponsored magic.  Six of one, half dozen of the other.

[MWKilduff]

Or maybe the Merlin, like some High-Council wizards, has some sort of power tied to his specialty beyond vanilla magic. The Blackstaff has a very serious item of power. Listens-to-Wind has serious shapeshifting abilities. The Gatekeeper has some level of seeing the future, perhaps even Chronomancy. Ancient Mai can create serious constructs.

Why not some special Warding Magic for the Merlin that works like Sponsored Magic for wards?

Why not say that the different wizards on the high council do have a sponsored magic in place by right of their positions?  The position of Merlin is enhanced by the number of wizards under him like, or the Blackstaff can tap into all of the talents of the Wardens.  Just a scary and interesting thought...

[Tsunami]

Umm ... wouldn't that just be an Evocation Spirit Block using pure force?

Probably more like a Counterspell-Block.

[Fandraen]

So, given a very high Lore character (Superb, plus several points of Complexity focus bonus), and given that maneuvers can create free taggable aspects (like "There's a suitable circle here", "the enemy is distracted"), and given that we don't have any kind of time-to-exchange conversion: Where do you say "No, you cannot cast now, it's too fast?" I can't just say "not in conflict", because as my player has pointed out, the Lincoln-Douglas debates (social conflict) would have provided *plenty* of time to cast moderately complex spells, let alone really simple ones. And there *is* no "this is a social conflict so it's slow, while this here is a physical conflict so it's fast" division in the Dresden Files.

I can stat up a Thaumaturgist who can toss off complexity four rituals trivially (so, a sticky maneuver a round) and who is likely to take no stress from it most of the time; she'll need to take a minor consequence very occaisionally, when her control role fails. Then again.... maneuvers are maneuvers, any skill should let you do them. The thaumaturgist *can't* be the attack monster the Evocator is, because Evocation's discipline roll counts as the attack roll while the spell strength counts for the weapon; it's effectively twice as powerful as the thaumaturgist's attack. The Thaumaturgist can do much more complex rituals (9-15) in combat time with a bunch of free tags from maneuvers, but then the magician or the party is spending a non-trivial number of in-conflict exchanges setting up for the spell (whether officially spell prep, or used for control and/or paying off for things like transformation effects); but that actually seems pretty cool, and encourages the wizard to enlist the group's cooperation instead of stealing the show solo. (Running around sticking candles in appropriate places while yelling for the party to keep the enemies off of your back while you concentrate seems to fit nicely into this universe.)

So... is there really a problem that results from taking the "you can start casting as soon as you have enough lore + taggable aspects to finish spell prep" literally, and handwaving the exact time?