In my current preparation for starting up the DFRPG I have looked a bit into a few aspects (!) of the game that I think that can be abused by the players. My recent finding is the enchanted items, when maximizing the rules. What about this one?
The player creates a Wizard, and sets Lore to +5 and chooses Crafting (Strength) as the specialization for Thaumaturgy (meaning that all items will have a default power level of 6, and that the maximum power level is 10 (or is it 12?)). He then chooses to have all four focus items to be replaced by eight enchanted item slots, and creates two items; one wand (offensive fire evocation, strength of 6) and one duster (defensive spirit block, strength of 6).
He then sacrifices two enchanted item slots to increase the strength of the wand to 8. Finally, he sacrificed the last four enchanted item slots to increase the strength of the duster to 10. Both items can only be used once (but he can take one mental stress to increase the number of uses by one for each point of stress).
This means that, for one point of mental stress, he can make an attack of strength 8 – without risking any backlash/fallout (if this were considered a Rote spell, just as a comparison, it would be equivalent of having an effective Conviction and Discipline of 8 ). In regards to the duster, he can for each attack choose to activate the defensive spells equal to a block of strength 10 – without risking any backlash/fallout (if this were considered a Rote spell, just as a comparison, it would be equivalent of having an effective Conviction and Discipline of 10!). A defensive block of 10 would avoid most attacks, and if they went through, he could use it as Armor 5 instead – for just 1 point of mental stress, without any roll!. In combat, why should he ever bother using “normal” magic?
Please let me know in case I have used the rules in an incorrect way, or if you don’t think this is overpowered.
