Magics Limitations due to Mental Stress

[MrobFire]

I do like how normal casting is portrayed in this system. It seems like this accurately characterizes how Harry is generally completely spent after even short battles in the books,

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at least until sponsored magic comes into play later.

However, it does seem rather limiting that even an expert caster could probably only get off at most, lets say eight spells (mental stress track + consequences and maybe some physical consequences for good measure). We have instances in the books where

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wardens are described as having fought in pitched battles that last most of a day (at least, that is my current interpretation). When Morgan almost took down the Red King in battle are we to believe that he only used on the order of eight spells in the course of that battle?

It seems to me that there are a couple of reasonable solutions/interpretations to this issue:
1) Possibly RAW is sufficient and it's just standard operating procedure for wizards to fight in shifts (I would guess three) so as to trigger the rest between scenes rules to clear the stress track. Thus, whenever we see a group of wardens engaged in pitched battle in the book,

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such as when Luccio and friends are protecting the kids from the zombie hordes,

they were ultimately screwed since they would quickly burn through their magic (i.e. mental stress),

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until Sue showed up to save the day that is.

2) Another possibility is that we should add a couple of stunts that full battle mages would take. I'm seeing one stunt (battle mage or whatever) that allows you to cast magic with no stress if your discipline roll is double the shifts of power you decide to use. You could probably add another optional stunt chained off of the first stunt (call it battle master [originality for the win!]) where simply achieving spin on your discipline roll to control your shifts of power (i.e. power+3) obviates the need to take stress.
3) We could allow for a new mechanic where a pertinent loose (non sticky at least, I can't remember the terminology off the top of my head) aspect on a character can be tagged by that character to cast a spell and the use of that tag would be to cast the spell for 0 base stress. An example of this would be that a character could do a navel gazing conviction maneuver to place the aspect gathered power on him/herself. Then, next turn, could use the free tag of that spell to cast without taking mental stress.
4) Finally, it could be argued that Sponsored magic is much more common than I would have thought and that most mages expecting to enter battle would find one or more sponsors that they could incur debt with in exchange for powering their magic.

A somewhat related question I had was how you would portray the battle in Small Favor where

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the aquarium was cut off in a giant circle which limited the ability of people in the circle to cast magic. Harry had to take a deep magical "breath" and store as much power as possible so that he would be able to use his magic. Mechanically, how would you describe that?

tl;dr Long post is long, what do y'all think about taking mental stress for casting pretty much every spell?

[bibliophile20]

Rotes are your friend.  No mental stress needed, and if you've set up your skills, specializations and foci right, you can easily sling epically nasty death-dealing rays of fire each exchange with no mental stress. 

[bitterpill]

I think your wrong about the mental stress from rotes, the only benfit rotes give is that it means you do not have to roll discipline.

[Drachasor]

Yeah, I just reread the section, no benefit other than you treat controlling the spell as if you rolled 0 on your Discipline.

Sort of makes sense if it reduced the mental stress by 1 (minimum 0), so that simple magic was easy for you...then again, that might get OP as time goes on.

[bitterpill]

Considering FP at submerged who invest all his refresh in refinement can have a base power of 9 that would be utterly de-balancing.

[Drachasor]

It seems to me that there are a couple of reasonable solutions/interpretations to this issue:
1) Possibly RAW is sufficient and it's just standard operating procedure for wizards to fight in shifts (I would guess three) so as to trigger the rest between scenes rules to clear the stress track. Thus, whenever we see a group of wardens engaged in pitched battle in the book,

(click to show/hide)

such as when Luccio and friends are protecting the kids from the zombie hordes,

they were ultimately screwed since they would quickly burn through their magic (i.e. mental stress),

(click to show/hide)

until Sue showed up to save the day that is.

Possibly you can have spells that get rid of mental stress in others.  In a battle situation, this might mean the non-fighting types use spells like this to keep the fighters going.  Or shifts, as you said.

I agree that it does often seem like they use a lot more magic in the books.  However, typically if you actually look at each fight, Harry doesn't cast more than a handful of spells.  He uses some enchanted items to compensate.  Still, there are some fights where he uses 6 or more spells....but the math is MOSTLY right.

2) Another possibility is that we should add a couple of stunts that full battle mages would take. I'm seeing one stunt (battle mage or whatever) that allows you to cast magic with no stress if your discipline roll is double the shifts of power you decide to use. You could probably add another optional stunt chained off of the first stunt (call it battle master [originality for the win!]) where simply achieving spin on your discipline roll to control your shifts of power (i.e. power+3) obviates the need to take stress.

Hmm, maybe just adding that effects to routes, especially the "Discipline Roll more than double".  That plays well into the books where Luccio and others have such fine control they barely need to exert effort to cast spells since they use so little energy.  Also it should scale pretty well compared to pure mortals and such.

3) We could allow for a new mechanic where a pertinent loose (non sticky at least, I can't remember the terminology off the top of my head) aspect on a character can be tagged by that character to cast a spell and the use of that tag would be to cast the spell for 0 base stress. An example of this would be that a character could do a navel gazing conviction maneuver to place the aspect gathered power on him/herself. Then, next turn, could use the free tag of that spell to cast without taking mental stress.

Mmm, but you can use thaumaturgy to place multiple maneuvers on yourself, or magical items.  Seems like this would get broken to me.

4) Finally, it could be argued that Sponsored magic is much more common than I would have thought and that most mages expecting to enter battle would find one or more sponsors that they could incur debt with in exchange for powering their magic.

Well, the sponsored rules are a bit unclear here.  The only official debt all sponsors grant is for invoking aspects.  There's a sidebar on downbelow helping to power spells, but nothing that says this is generally allowed...oddly enough.

In practice in the game, a wizard or the like can compensate with magical items to help give him added offense, much like Harry does in the books.

[Drachasor]

Considering FP at submerged who invest all his refresh in refinement can have a base power of 9 that would be utterly de-balancing.

I liked the idea for half-power though.  If your control is 8 or 9, you can cast the relevant spells at 4 shifts without mental stress.  The FP is still a bit too powerful there, but honestly the GM should probably stop such a person from happening to begin with...that's a little too focused, imho.  That or they could play up the limitations of such a person...as they are way too focused in one area...but still, that's probably just too powerful in general given the massive ability to hit things.

[UmbraLux]

tl;dr Long post is long, what do y'all think about taking mental stress for casting pretty much every spell?

From a meta-game point of view, it's necessary for balance.  From a story point of view, it may work better than you think.  Remember, stress is per scene.  That day long battle you mentioned?  How often did they get several minutes to catch their breath?  Each of those mini-breaks signifies a new scene.  Stress will be cleared though consequences remain.  In any case, he's caught his breath and can cast a few more spells...

[arete]

Do not forget the awesome pot in the book that helps deal with mental stress.

[JustinS]

The easy way to build a battle mage is to take the 'fire breathing' power, using Discipline as the skill, for free power 2, range +1 Zone 'magic' attacks till you get board. You could also use Toughness powers, or a bonus to defense stunt for low powered shield effects.

[BumblingBear]

The easy way to build a battle mage is to take the 'fire breathing' power, using Discipline as the skill, for free power 2, range +1 Zone 'magic' attacks till you get board. You could also use Toughness powers, or a bonus to defense stunt for low powered shield effects.

My character is kind of going the battlemage route, and I am giving him a few physical supernatural abilities so he's not defenseless when out of mental stress.

He won't be as powerful or versatile as a full wizard, but his focus in combat will give him in edge in most fights against similar refresh opponents.

[bitterpill]

How do you justify taking supernatural abilities as a mortal caster? Im curious because I can't think of a way to do otherwise my FP would be taking regeneration.

[UmbraLux]

How do you justify taking supernatural abilities as a mortal caster? Im curious because I can't think of a way to do otherwise my FP would be taking regeneration.

Change the trappings.  It's not a supernatural breath weapon, is a supremely practiced spell.

[BumblingBear]

How do you justify taking supernatural abilities as a mortal caster? Im curious because I can't think of a way to do otherwise my FP would be taking regeneration.

For my character it's because he's an emissary of power.  Changes:

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Harry got all kinds of physical abilities after becoming the winter knight.

Right now my character is fairly low refresh so his only physical ability is tied up in his sponsored magic and his IOP.  I plan in the future to give any additional powers directly to him.  The rational is that channeling all of that power and being around the things he is constantly around has been changing him, making him more supernatural.

For another character, a few ideas on how to get physical abilities:

* A ritual went right
* A ritual went wrong
* The character is actually a changeling
* The character is bitten or scratched by something that infects him
* The character gets a favor from a powerful entity (not all favors have to be sponsored magic)
* The character can have an IOP that gives them abilities
* A certain food, fruit, or serum can give them a power - and a dependency.  This could be an awesome way to get compels and to get a power at a lower cost (due to the dependency).
* The PC (if a wizard) could have made an enchanted item to give a supernatural strength or something.  I'm assuming most GMs would allow this if the PC also took the refresh hit that the power would normally require.

etc.

I hope that helps.

[Sanctaphrax]

As I see it, Wardens have swords for that very reason. Using magic all the time simply isn't feasible.

Some people will let you take a stunt that adds a mental stress box. Whether this is balanced is an open question.

It's probably sensible to say that self-inflicted harm from spellcasting automatically satisfies catches. Which makes wizards with Recovery a lot more reasonable.