A Ward Question

[Todjaeger]

Tedronai is correct.  See YS276 right column second paragraph and YS277 left column fourth paragraph.  It's simply a "landmine" set up as a movement block instead of an attack.

AND

Not sure I'm understanding but, it was the landmine which paid for multiple zones, not the ward itself.  (If I have misunderstood your point please correct me.)

Okay, somehow I misunderstood that the persistent block vs. movement was the result of a 'landmine' so it makes a bit more sense now.  Not sure that I'd require a trigger though, since forcing oneself into/through the Ward does seem to me to be an automatic implied trigger anyway.    Having a special condition and some sort of symbolic link for the caster so that they aren't effected by the zone-wide blocks against movement would seem sensible though.

Looks decent.  I won't use an 8 shift basic ward against the PCs - find it kinda cheesy.  (It's why I limit NPCs to Lore for any given effect.) But there's nothing preventing it in the book.

Actually, that Ward is a defense around one of the character's homes, and the Ward itself has already been damaged once.

Yep!  Temporarily at least...and with the attack reduced by the power of the ward.  Taking the ward down permanently means beating the entire ward by 4+.

AND

Per YS276, shifts are reduced by the block and you can either use excess shifts against a target inside or against the ward itself.  The ward, not the block.  So it will take a bit more than two attacks to take the entire ward down.

I agree, but here is my take on it.  From my reading of YS276-277, the 'strength' of the Ward is determined by the strength of the Block, landmines, selective conditions and extended duration all add to the overall Complexity when casting the Ward, but don't make it stronger. 

So, lets go through an example here of a Rote evocation attack from a caster with Great (+4) Conviction and Discipline where the attack doesn't make use of any specializations or focus items.

Again, the Ward has a Block strength of Great (+4), which gets treated and potentially bypassed just like a normal block per YS276.  Assuming the attacking caster rolls a +0, their net attack works out to Great (+4) due to their Discipline, which is a match for the strength of the Block: Great (+4), but ties go to the attacker so that counts as a 'hit' but with +0 shifts of success, and per YS210 the weapon strength, or in this cast the power of the evocation gets added to the total shifts of success for a net of +4 shifts of success.  If the attacker chooses to apply all 4 shifts of success to attacking the strength of the Ward, that Ward quickly goes from Great to Mediocre and the Block strength is effected as well.  At Mediocre the Ward is still there, but no longer presents much of a barrier, though any special conditions and/or landmines would remain in effect.  A second evocation attack from the same caster and of the same strength would automatically bring the Ward down, since they would need to meet or beat a Mediocre targeting roll, and then do a minimum of 4 shifts of damage to the Ward itself.

I agree with almost everything you said Vargo.  However, I generally put thaumaturgy exchanges at minutes or even hours per exchange.  Unless we're talking thaumaturgy at evocation speeds at least. 

So it's significant if thinking in combat terms.

I myself generally set non-combat Thaumaturgy exchanges to 15 minutes per change, about the length of a non-combat scene usually.

-Cheers

[computerking]

I myself generally set non-combat Thaumaturgy exchanges to 15 minutes per change, about the length of a non-combat scene usually.

How many exchanges pe roll if trying to cast In combat?

[devonapple]

How many exchanges pe roll if trying to cast In combat?

/smartass/ All of them?

Anywhere from 50-150 exchanges depending on the type of conflict.

[Todjaeger]

How many exchanges pe roll if trying to cast In combat?

I admit, I like Devonapple's reply to this.

For a more serious reply though, I need to make sure I understand the question.  Are you asking, "how many combat exchanges occur during/between Thaumaturgy rolls?"

If that is indeed the question, it's never really come up in one of my games.  Yet.  Of course now that I've made that comment, it will most likely occur this Saturday in the next session...

Speaking broadly, I don't make my casters roll for to succeed at their Thaumaturgy or Ectomancy spell (currently no Channelers or Evocators in the group...) rolls, as long as they can take their time and they have at least Good (+3) in all the relevant skills. 

In the case of the character Eric Holt, I allowed the character to call up and successfully control 1 shift of power every exchange/15 minutes without rolling, since Conviction and Discipline were both Good (+3) and the player wasn't interested in rushing the Ward, as it was mostly being done 'off camera'.  The guideline I was following was skill level -2 = # of shifts safely managed automatically when able to take time.

Incidentally, I'm planning on taking a crack at Harry's Ward as of Dead Beat in the near future and would appreciate any commentary once I post it.

-Cheers

[GryMor]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure that, once you have the preparations done, you get a roll per exchange to call up and control the power of the spell (at least when time is an issue). This is why Harry can repeatedly quick cast his light weight tracking spell. Things get into the 15 minute range per roll range when some of your preparations are activities taken during the ritual rather than acquisitions made before you even start it. That said, I'd expect most spells to be designed with activities during the spell in mind just so they can reach the necessary complexity without huge amounts of even more time consuming (but also more durable) preparations.

[Mr. Death]

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that one of the ways YS suggests spicing up Thaumaturgy is by having you need to cast a spell while the badguys are storming the gates, which suggests casting as quickly as you can in a few minutes, rather than taking hours.

[sinker]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure that, once you have the preparations done, you get a roll per exchange to call up and control the power of the spell (at least when time is an issue). This is why Harry can repeatedly quick cast his light weight tracking spell. Things get into the 15 minute range per roll range when some of your preparations are activities taken during the ritual rather than acquisitions made before you even start it. That said, I'd expect most spells to be designed with activities during the spell in mind just so they can reach the necessary complexity without huge amounts of even more time consuming (but also more durable) preparations.

This was my read on it. Thaumaturgy is lengthy because it takes time to prepare. Actual casting is one roll per exchange. Otherwise you can't have the interesting darkhallow type scene where some baddie is casting a ritual and the PCs are trying to muck it up before he finishes.

[devonapple]

In truth, there just isn't a lot of guidance on it. We know that even the easiest ritual takes at least a minute, and this is presumably for easy, no-prep rituals. But that doesn't necessarily translate into a minute per exchange.

Likewise, conflict exchanges are themselves fairly mutable, from small-scale tactical (1-15 seconds?) all the way up to glacial social exchanges (days, weeks or more).

[Todjaeger]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure that, once you have the preparations done, you get a roll per exchange to call up and control the power of the spell (at least when time is an issue). This is why Harry can repeatedly quick cast his light weight tracking spell. Things get into the 15 minute range per roll range when some of your preparations are activities taken during the ritual rather than acquisitions made before you even start it. That said, I'd expect most spells to be designed with activities during the spell in mind just so they can reach the necessary complexity without huge amounts of even more time consuming (but also more durable) preparations.

No you have it right, when casting a Thaumaturgy spell you get a roll per Exchange to call up the power and a roll to control that power.  The thing to keep in mind is that an Exchange doesn't automatically correspond to a set period of time.  A combat Exchange for instance might only last a few seconds.  From the novels, a Thaumaturgy spell cast in a hurry should still take about a minute.

The guidelines I use for an Exchange when one of my players is using Thaumaturgy is that if they are taking their time to ensure a successful casting, then each Exchange lasts about 15 minutes and they can automatically succeed in calling up Conviction -2 shifts of power and controlling Discipline -2 shifts of power each exchange, with the player deciding how much power they called up and controlled in a given exchange.  That is usually the lesser of the two.

If the player opts to cast a Thamaturgy or Ritual spell faster, then I would shorten the time of an Exchange down to about a minute per Exchange, but require the player to decide how much power they are attempting to call up and control each Exchange, and requiring the player to roll for success or failure...

-Cheers

[sinker]

If they are taking the time to ensure success and have no time restraint then they have no need to roll (or gather energy at any rate, etc) at all.

In a low-pressure situation, you can go ahead
and cast the spell without making any rolls. It’ll
all happen within the space of time it would take
to run a single scene of conflict—often less—
as it’s just a matter of a few exchanges to cast a
spell.

[UmbraLux]

I come close to Todjaeger's method except I don't really use set time frames for preparation.  The time is "what makes sense for the action".  So drawing a circle is a few minutes while running to a curio shop across town and buying Egyptian incense may take an hour...or no time at all if done as a declaration (i.e. you did it the day before). Drawing a complex series of runes takes a few minutes, ritual purification may take a few hours, and fasting may take a day or two.  When they are done as maneuvers rather than declarations, I do use the time chart and PCs can make an action quicker by making it more difficult. 

How much is done as declaration and how much as maneuver generally depends on the situation and whether or not the whole group is involved.

If Discipline is at +5, there's no need to roll to control power as long as they have time to draw it one shift at a time.  With lower Discipline skills whether or not I ask for a roll depends on how much lower and how interesting failure would be.  If you can wait a week and try again without consequence there's not much point in rolling.  But if you're trying to rush that ritual in before the bad guy shows up...   

[Todjaeger]

I come close to Todjaeger's method except I don't really use set time frames for preparation.  The time is "what makes sense for the action".  So drawing a circle is a few minutes while running to a curio shop across town and buying Egyptian incense may take an hour...or no time at all if done as a declaration (i.e. you did it the day before). Drawing a complex series of runes takes a few minutes, ritual purification may take a few hours, and fasting may take a day or two.  When they are done as maneuvers rather than declarations, I do use the time chart and PCs can make an action quicker by making it more difficult.

The time frame I use for preparation is really more to gauge how much time the other players have to do, while the caster is off getting ready to cast something, or being wizardly.  The other reason for using it as a general gauge is that the bad guys also have a chance to prepare things as well, or take actions, potentially interrupting the casting mid-ritual.  The last reason I have for using it as a general gauge is that in my opinion, a caster can really only spend so much time actually casting a spell before they start becoming fatigued enough where they might fail.  What that ends up doing it setting an upper limit to have many shifts of Complexity a caster can handle without needing to roll, and without the risk of catastrophic failure.  From my perspective, something like 8 - 12 hours of casting without interruption would be a 'normal' upper limit for a caster to manage in a single day, with about 4 Exchanges of casting per hour (roughly...)  Again, these are the rules I generally follow for 'off camera' casting.

Now depending on the nature of the spell being cast, and just what some of the desired preparations are, I might well require more or less time to gather materials, etc.  It is also likely worth noting here that Harry mentions in the short story Last Call that much of the materials required for black magic and the like can be purchased at a local grocery store...  Now, for items that are 'special' which are desired for the spell, like a vial of WCV blood, or venom from a Red Court vampire, those I might require the player(s) to get in-game, with the time spent in-game counting towards the prep time.

The basic idea premise I follow is that Thaumaturgy is there to make the game interesting, and allow players to do things they otherwise wouldn't be capable of.  I just don't want it to end up bogging the game.

If they are taking the time to ensure success and have no time restraint then they have no need to roll (or gather energy at any rate, etc) at all.

Quite true, that is why if a character has at least Good in the relevant skills, they can't screw up if they take their time which is why I don't require their characters to roll.  It they're taking their time that is...

-Cheers

[JediDresden]

So here is my first attempt at the ward I would like.  Please tell me if I am way off.

•   Duration of a few months, 5 shifts
•   Basic barrier / power 8, 8 shifts
•   Gravity Sink Landmine (persistent block against movement – bullets and flying things are pulled to the ground as well as people without they key will be pulled to the ground and held by extreme gravity – not crushed just held), 12 shifts consisting of:
•   Four zones (10 feet of yard around house on 4 sides), 8 shifts
•   Persistent, for 3 additional rounds of time, 3 shifts
•   Total of 36 shifts, at 15 minutes per exchange it will take 9 hrs to cast trickling in 1 shift of power per exchange.  If 2 shifts are put in it will take 4.5 hrs.
•   With a lore of +5 I would need 29 shifts to be made up through declarations, Aspects and what not.

Does it look right?  Or am I way off.

[UmbraLux]

So here is my first attempt at the ward I would like.  Please tell me if I am way off.

•   Duration of a few months, 5 shifts
•   Basic barrier / power 8, 8 shifts

Duration and barrier look correct.

•   Gravity Sink Landmine (persistent block against movement – bullets and flying things are pulled to the ground as well as people without they key will be pulled to the ground and held by extreme gravity – not crushed just held), 12 shifts consisting of:
•   Four zones (10 feet of yard around house on 4 sides), 8 shifts
•   Persistent, for 3 additional rounds of time, 3 shifts

Keep in mind, landmines should follow evocation guidelines.  That leads to two issues, a potential third is the location of your zones.  First, a block which stops bullets is probably a block against damage not movement.  Second, the block(s) itself needs to have a rating and be paid for with shifts of power from the spell.  Also keep in mind a "persistent" block is modeled after an armor block spell - it will cost two shifts per point of effect. 

As written, it looks like you want a block against damage and a block against movement.  They'll need to be set up as separate landmines even if overlapping.  Regarding landmine zone locations, they need to be inside the ward.  By default that means inside the walls of your house. 

If your group is in agreement, you could extend your ward outside the house - perhaps to the property or fence line.  However you will need to set up some form of threshold to base the ward on - this usually means a physical barrier of some type but, at minimum, should be some form of a physical "Circle" (metaphysical circle not necessarily a circle shape).  It's easier, and safer, to just keep the wards and landmines inside the house. 

•   Total of 36 shifts, at 15 minutes per exchange it will take 9 hrs to cast trickling in 1 shift of power per exchange.  If 2 shifts are put in it will take 4.5 hrs.
•   With a lore of +5 I would need 29 shifts to be made up through declarations, Aspects and what not.

Does it look right?  Or am I way off.

It doesn't look like your math adds up to 36 shifts...though I may be missing something.  Also, your shifts may change as you modify your landmines. 

[JediDresden]

Yeah this was done at work without books or notes from memory.  Sorry it doesn't add up.  Wow I'm kinda embarassed.  So what would I need to change.  I was thinking about 5-10 feet out from the house would be where the effect starts pulling things to the ground.  I guess I could make it 2 landmines, 1 movement and one an armor type against my home taking damage, I just wanted the bad stuff to stop before it got to my home.

How would you change it?