Purview of Evocation

[Wordmaker]

Yeah, I remember that scene. I figured Forzare would fall under Spirit, but it still backs the idea that Evocation is much more blunt than real telekinesis would allow, at least in the hands of a mortal wizard with less than a quarter-century of practical magical experience under his belt.

[Haru]

Pretty much where I was going with this, yes. And you can easily model that experience with self-sponsored magic that will grant evothaum for a distinct application.

[Tedronai]

in the hands of a mortal wizard with less than a quarter-century of practical magical experience under his belt.

And a personal approach to evocation that favours power over control.

Molly or Ramirez would likely achieve the same ends (open door, retreive bottle) in far less blunt fashions.

Harry's failings are not suitable evidence for the limits of magic.

[Wordmaker]

That's true. It's another issue which comes down to each group's preferences. The trouble with an unreliable narrator like Harry is that so much is left up to reinterpretation. Of course, that also makes the setting fantastic for adjusting to suit your group's needs.

[Troy]

Yes, since all we have to go on is Harry's point of view, we third-party observers can't really be sure what's possible or not. There are instances in the rule books where the rules say "A spellcaster can't to this..." and in the margins Harry or Bob will pipe up and say, "Well, what about so-and-so, he/she could do that..." So, I would agree that no single Wizard or spellcaster knows what all of magic everywhere is capable of.

Without having to resort to every spellcaster PC write a treatise about their view of magic, what can we do?

I think the first, most obvious answer is to use the character to make sense of things. "Does this application of Evocation make sense for the character and, if so, why?" Aspects are really helpful here. Asking the player of a spellcaster to have at least one Aspect that sort of sums up their philosophy or belief about magic would be a really good idea.

Harry Dresden has NOT SO SUBTLE, BUT STILL QUICK TO ANGER.
Molly Carpenter has SUBTLETY IS ITS OWN POWER.

In the DFRPG they explain how this works to their advantage and their disadvantage. Molly's good with Veils and Illusions and mucking around with people's minds because she approaches magic from that point of view. Subtle magic is her power and doing something that isn't subtle is really hard for her. Harry is just the opposite. Subtlety is not his bag, but power and anger and wreaking fiery vengeance upon things is his specialty. So, when he tries to Veil things, it sucks. But when he tries to blow things up, he succeeds in spectacular fashion!

Another way to avoid breaking the game with Evocation would be sticking to the Inherent Limitations in the book. You can't use Evocation to affect anything that's not within your line of sight. It's too quick and dirty for that. It's pooling up and redirecting energy where you need it to go in the moment. So, no affecting things beyond your line of sight. Another limitation is: Evocations have a very short duration. Usually this means one exchange, sometimes two or three. There are rules for pushing the duration beyond one exchange: it requires extended concentration and/or extra shifts of power. Other limitations I've noticed with Evocation are: one roll, cast spell. You can't build power as you can with Thaumaturgy. You decide on how much power you're going to need and you go for it. To add to that risk you also take Mental stress for every Evocation. That will limit the frequency of powerful Evocations right off the bat for any character that doesn't want to risk unconsciousness and a shattered mind.

You also have the four things that Evocation does: Attack, Block, Maneuver, and Counterspell. Most of that is pretty straightforward. It's the Maneuvers (or Create Advantage) that his been the point of contention for me. I'm trying to figure out it's range and boundaries.

I think that as long as I can stick to the aforementioned Inherent Limitations of Evocation, anything's on the table, right?

If things are done the way I'm thinking, what are examples of that getting quickly out of hand and possibly ruining the fun for everyone at the table or making Evocation the most powerful/useful Power in the game?

I don't want Evocation to be the most powerful ability. I just want something other than a Magic Gun that comes in 5 flavors.



EDIT: I'm also trying to think of a way to incorporate all the various -mancers and Focused Practitioners into both Evocation and Thaumaturgy, or rather, Channeling and Ritual. For example, a pyromancer is easily someone who studies the Element of Fire either with Channeling or Evocation, but how does that work with this Ritual/Thaumaturgy Power? Another example is the mysterious chronomancer. That's some kind of Thaumaturgy practice, but there must also be Channeling or Evocations that work in a similar manner... perhaps the Element of Water, representing the flow of time, a river that can rush or babble, freeze or ... in dire upheavals ... flow backward. Stuff like that.

[Lavecki121]

Sponsored magics work good. There are a couple that work with chronomancy. Another way that I have seen is that you modify the existing elements for a specific -mancer.

Basically if you have a pyromancer his elements are Fire, Plasma, Magma ect. You could have all the things flavored to be what they would have been (plasma = water; Magma = earth) or you could just have it as different things that are fire related.

[Vairelome]

Asking the player of a spellcaster to have at least one Aspect that sort of sums up their philosophy or belief about magic would be a really good idea.

Yeah, I'm a very big fan of this option for characters that have magic in their high concept.

EDIT: I'm also trying to think of a way to incorporate all the various -mancers and Focused Practitioners into both Evocation and Thaumaturgy, or rather, Channeling and Ritual. For example, a pyromancer is easily someone who studies the Element of Fire either with Channeling or Evocation, but how does that work with this Ritual/Thaumaturgy Power? Another example is the mysterious chronomancer. That's some kind of Thaumaturgy practice, but there must also be Channeling or Evocations that work in a similar manner... perhaps the Element of Water, representing the flow of time, a river that can rush or babble, freeze or ... in dire upheavals ... flow backward. Stuff like that.

The short answer is that the system isn't intended to work that way.  A pyromancer or kinetomancer is supposed to be modeled with channeling or evocation, not themed ritual or thaumaturgy--there's a sidebar that says exactly that on YS287.  Similarly, there are a lot of conceptual specialists (like chronomancers) that are intended to be modeled as thematic thaumaturges/ritualists, possibly with some type of sponsored magic for evothaum in a few cases.

You can use thaumaturgy to cast energy manipulation spells that are vastly more powerful than evocation can manage, but that power must be gathered and focused by a lengthy ritual, not called up and sent forth in a combat round.  Anything past energy manipulation is outside the realm of evocation--again, unless we're talking about a specific case of sponsored magic and evothaum.  Thaumaturgy has unlimited scope; evocation has very limited (but useful!) scope.

[Bedurndurn]

Asking the player of a spellcaster to have at least one Aspect that sort of sums up their philosophy or belief about magic would be a really good idea.

That kind of points to the subtle and the explodey parts of that ability being two separate things for people to buy. Part of the problem is that Conviction and Discipline have to be high for every caster (or at least every caster whose concept includes the idea of 'I'd like my abilities to actually work when I use them'), so anyone who wants to throw a Veil at the level of their game's skill cap is also capable of throwing a Weapon: <skill cap> level face melter.

The other complicating factor, if we just pull the Veil part of Spirit out, it's a 2 refresh ability, which makes it as/more expensive than say Channeling (Spirit) that gets the same functionality and a bunch of other powerful stuff. Admittedly, the 2 point glamor ability doesn't cost any mental stress, but is anyone really throwing the 4 or 5 veils a scene it would take for that to matter?

Another way to avoid breaking the game with Evocation would be sticking to the Inherent Limitations in the book. You can't use Evocation to affect anything that's not within your line of sight.

That's a pretty toothless limitation, since other than the other type of spellcasting, what works outside of line of sight anyway? For that matter, just about everything else is much shorter range than 'anything I can see' (e.g. same zone for most physical interaction skills, 4(?) zones for guns).

Evocations have a very short duration.

Again, not much of a limitation since that's true of pretty much all in-combat actions anyway. Evo is actually better than other things, since you get the option for multi-turn blocks and such.

I think the problem with Channeling and Ritual is that they're way too cheap. If we break down their cost, they are effectively:

1 point spent on Refinement (refinement is categorically better than other one point enhancers, since for 1 point you can get +2 to your attack rolls. And it stacks! ) You might say 'But focus items are limited since they could be taken away'. I would reply with, 'You can still cast spells without your items (you just can't break the game's skill cap), if you take away sword guy's sword or gun guy's gun, they can't use their skill at all.'

1 point spent that pays for everything else. Among those things are: adding a long-range, area, spray with Weapon:Conviction attack trapping to Discipline. Adding a stealth trapping that is better than Stealth to Discipline. Adding an ability to create armor from nothing to discipline/conviction. Adding an ability to create a block for all allies in your zone to discipline/conviction. Greatly expanding what maneuvers you can create with discipline/conviction. You get the ability to break any tech you want at range. Each use does cost at least 1 point of mental stress (except hexing), so that's a downside, if and only if, your combat encounters are going to have more rounds than you have mental stress boxes.

Ritual is even funnier since it basically boils down to: "Do everything anyone else can do (out of combat) using Lore. Also do a bunch of other things that nobody else can do at all with Lore." Again, for 1 point to pay for the actual capacity to do things and then 1 point that must be spent on Refinement (2 focus item slots).

The other problem is that there are downsides to being a wizard, which would help balance them out in most systems. However, in Fate, the downsides inherent to you being you that come up give you fate points. If wizards exploded when exposed to the color yellow, that might be a real downside, but most wizard problems are of the form: 'Aww, you're inconvenienced, have a fate point'. 

[Haru]

Ah, I believe I know what you are talking about. The scene in Turn Coat, where Harry puts pressure on the lawyer that hired Vincent to tail Harry. I've read through it again, and he uses Forzare there twice, both in the purview I talked about.
First, he pushes open the door of the liquor cabinet, which is like what I descibed.
Then he tosses a bottle of liquor towards him. He doesn't let it float to him, he uses his magic to throw it towards him. Well within what I said, I believe.

Just had an idea about that scene, so I had to quote myself. I've read that spell as a maneuver to be tagged on an intimidation roll later. But could it be done as an attack? I know it isn't narratively attacking the opponent, but it is an action that is aimed at delivering stress to the target, and that pretty much sounds like an attack to me. So could you inflict stress like this, if you don't exactly hit someone? Would an action/a spell like that be valid? I feel it should be, which opens a lot of possibilities.

[Tedronai]

The other complicating factor, if we just pull the Veil part of Spirit out, it's a 2 refresh ability, which makes it as/more expensive than say Channeling (Spirit) that gets the same functionality and a bunch of other powerful stuff. Admittedly, the 2 point glamor ability doesn't cost any mental stress, but is anyone really throwing the 4 or 5 veils a scene it would take for that to matter?

Glamours does one heck of a lot more than just Veils.  Seemings is the real powerhouse in that combo.

[Bedurndurn]

Glamours does one heck of a lot more than just Veils.  Seemings is the real powerhouse in that combo.

It's not bad. My only play experience with it was the Neutral Grounds game*, where seemings moved the 'disguise' trapping from Deceit, where it is by default, to Deceit, the skill I used for my glamor ability. It would be a bigger change if you were using Glamours off of a high Discipline skill (though that would probably bite you in the butt later on once you actually had to open your mouth about the thing you disguised). Still the ability to make use of that trapping without carrying around the mundane equipment is nice, but evocation gets that with its attacks too.

*Admittedly not the best example. I have no idea why they gave the character who could literally turn invisible (or look like anyone/thing else on a whim) a stunt to give her +2 to hiding in a crowd.

[toturi]

It does (heck, you could justify fire or even water making lightning if you knew enough about physics, I'm sure). I'm not sure how that relates to creating enough air to move the pieces of a lock, though. Can you clarify?

I was thinking to zap the lock with lightning (element of Air).

[Sanctaphrax]

I think the first, most obvious answer is to use the character to make sense of things. "Does this application of Evocation make sense for the character and, if so, why?" Aspects are really helpful here. Asking the player of a spellcaster to have at least one Aspect that sort of sums up their philosophy or belief about magic would be a really good idea.

Harry Dresden has NOT SO SUBTLE, BUT STILL QUICK TO ANGER.
Molly Carpenter has SUBTLETY IS ITS OWN POWER.

In the DFRPG they explain how this works to their advantage and their disadvantage. Molly's good with Veils and Illusions and mucking around with people's minds because she approaches magic from that point of view. Subtle magic is her power and doing something that isn't subtle is really hard for her. Harry is just the opposite. Subtlety is not his bag, but power and anger and wreaking fiery vengeance upon things is his specialty. So, when he tries to Veil things, it sucks. But when he tries to blow things up, he succeeds in spectacular fashion!

That's all Compels, you know.

So when Harry messes up a subtle spell, his player profits. It's not a weakness, since it pays for itself.

You could maybe change that, but it'd require a fair bit of homebrewing.

If things are done the way I'm thinking, what are examples of that getting quickly out of hand and possibly ruining the fun for everyone at the table or making Evocation the most powerful/useful Power in the game?

The classic example is instantly winning every social conflict and every physical fight with a weapon 7 mental attack.

I don't want Evocation to be the most powerful ability. I just want something other than a Magic Gun that comes in 5 flavors.

Even if you just treat Evocation as a gun, it's well worth 3 Refresh. If you want it to do other stuff, you need to sacrifice some of its effectiveness or increase its cost. Or both.

EDIT: I'm also trying to think of a way to incorporate all the various -mancers and Focused Practitioners into both Evocation and Thaumaturgy, or rather, Channeling and Ritual. For example, a pyromancer is easily someone who studies the Element of Fire either with Channeling or Evocation, but how does that work with this Ritual/Thaumaturgy Power? Another example is the mysterious chronomancer. That's some kind of Thaumaturgy practice, but there must also be Channeling or Evocations that work in a similar manner... perhaps the Element of Water, representing the flow of time, a river that can rush or babble, freeze or ... in dire upheavals ... flow backward. Stuff like that.

I suggest you go here. Look at Superior Pyromancy and Time Manipulation.

[Wordmaker]

I was thinking to zap the lock with lightning (element of Air).

I assume you mean with the intent to heat the lock enough to melt it? Otherwise you're talking about running electricity through several small pieces of metal. It'll shock anyone who touches it, but the parts still aren't going to move.

[toturi]

I assume you mean with the intent to heat the lock enough to melt it? Otherwise you're talking about running electricity through several small pieces of metal. It'll shock anyone who touches it, but the parts still aren't going to move.

Yes, an electric arc hot enough to melt the lock. IIRC, I was watching a documentary that used some sort of electric arc to melt through a piece of steel when I made that comment.