Dresden meets Fate Core

[Phantomdoodler]

So regarding thaumaturgy, maybe something like this:

Thaumaturgy
Permissions: You must have an appropriate aspect related to your magical training.
Cost: 1 Refresh

Normally, you can use all forms of thaumaturgy, but you may choose to be a focused practitioner, focusing on one form of thaumaturgy or one thematic type, such as necromancy. You do, however, gain +1 to all rolls involving your specialism. 

Thaumaturgy is the magic of symbolic links; you cast a spell on a small scale, invest it with energy, and use symbolic links to expand the power and scope of the spell. For very powerful spells you will need top fuel the spell with greater magic by tapping into storms, leylines, emotional energy, pain or even blood sacrifice.

Preparation
You need to build a construct to hold the energy in your spell. Create as many aspects as you feel is necessary as preparation for this; it usually take one scene for each create an advantage action and will require Average (+1) skill results but the Gm may assign higher values when he wants more drama and tension. Once the preparation is complete, you must make a Lore roll to build the construct; this typically takes a scene and your result determines the spells complexity. If you are desperate, you may inflict or take consequences; each consequence increases the spells complexity by the consequence's value.

Powering the Ritual
Now you need to gather power into the spell construct. Make a Focus roll with a difficulty equal to the complexity of the spell. For each additional exchange spent gathering power, you may add 1 to your skill result.

• If you fail, the ritual fails and all the preparation is wasted; perhaps you are distracted while casting. You may choose to succeed, but you must take fallout or backlash just like an evocation spell.
• If you tie, you ritual is ready to be cast, but you must take a point of mental stress. If you cant do this, the spell fails and the preparation is wasted.
• If you succeed, you channel the energy into the spell.
• If you succeed with style, you channel the energy into the spell and gain a free boost; you may use this to increase the complexity of the spell by 2.

If the spell construct isdamaged or your concentration is broken in any way before releasing the spell, the spell fails and you must take fallout or backlash.

Releasing the Spell
Decide what you are going to do with the spell:

Solve an improbable or impossible problem: Take an overcome action using the spell's complexity. The Gm sets the difficulty; for example, tracking someone with magic might require a Legendary (+8) result.

Creating Lasting changes in people and things: Take an attack action using the spell's complexity. Depending on the effect this will either be resisted by Physique or Will, and cause physical or mental stress. Any consequences inflicted result in lasting transformations.

Provide Inaccessable knowledge: Create an aspect using the spell's complexity. Characters may defend using Will.

Allow interaction with the supernatural: Take an overcome action using the spell's complexity. The supernatural entity can resist your attempts with Will.

Shape magical energies into a physical form: Create an aspect using the spell's complexity. This is typically Average (+1), but higher difficulties may be needed for complicated veils, wards or conjured items; a veil that is a one-way mirror may need a Good (+3) skill result, while conjuring a field of animated frogs might require a Legendary (+8) result or more. Any aspect created provides a passive opposition of Mediocre (+0), and you may actively defend using your Will. If you gain a success with style you gain an additional free invoke for every 2 shifts of success above 3[size=78%] [/size]

Duration: A standard spell has a duration of "till the next sunrise" unless the spell is an attack or overcome action. You may reduce your shifts of success; each shift reduced increases a spells duration by one time increment:
a day, a few days, a week, a few weeks, a month, a few months, a season, half a year, a year, a few years, a decade, a generation, a mortals lifetime, several lifetimes etc

For instance, Harry needs to summon Chauncy the demon. He first needs to build a summoning circle to contain him. He reckons 11 complexity should be enough to resist Chauncy escaping for the duration. He makes a Lore roll to research demonology, Resources to create a new silver summoning circle, Scholar for more research and Will to meditate before the ritual. He makes all of these rolls, so makes a Lore roll at +8 to build his construct, getting a result of 10. He decides to take a consequence from a migraine, boosting the complexity to 12. Harry is now ready to power the spell and decides to spend 10 exchanges casting the ritual so he needs to make a Focus roll at +9. Fortunately he makes that and can finally release the spell. The Creating the Summoning Circle aspect will require an Average (+1) result. Thats 11 shifts of success, providing 3 invokes and a passive opposition of 11. Before summoning Chauncy, Harry goes for a lie down...

[Phantomdoodler]

Evocation
Permissions: An aspect reflecting your magical training such as White Council Wizard or Focused Practitioner.
Cost: 1 Refresh

You may use Will or Focus to achieve magical effects. You must choose 3 elements to be trained in, or may choose to be a focused practitioner; you can only use a single element, but gain a +1 bonus to all rolls involving magic, when using it.

Overcome: Use Will to solve a problem with magic using brute force, such as blowing down a wall or jumping over a pit. Use Focus to solve a problem with magic using finesse and fine control, such as picking a lock or lighting a fuse. Counter a spell using Will, resisted by the Will of the caster.

Create an Advantage: Use Will to alter the scene or an individual with magic in an obvious manner, such as a wall of fire or quicksand. Use Focus to alter the scene or an individual with subtle magic such as a veil or changing the emotional mood. You suffer -1 for each zone of distance to your target.

Attack: Use Will to harm a target in a direct manner such as a fireball or force bolt. Use Focus to harm a target in a subtle way, such as removing air from their lungs. You suffer -1 for each zone of distance to your target.

Defend: Use Will to defend against a magical attack. Use Will to defend if you have an appropriate aspect in place.

Rote Spells: Choose a number of Rote spells equal to your Lore. If you attempt to cast any spell, other than a rote spell, you must take one mental stress. Each rote spell should have a name, preferably in a foreign language.

Stunts:

Sorcery Sharpshooter
When using magic at range, you may ignore the normal range penalties. You must still be able to see your target, however.

Arcane Refinement
Choose one element or type of thaumaturgy. You gain a +1 bonus to either Will, Lore or Focus actions, when casting magic of that type.

Insta Shield
You may use Will to defend against physical attacks, but you must take a point of mental stress when doing so.

Magical Thug
When making an attack with magic, if you take a point of mental stress your attack has a Weapon Rating of 2.

Magical Heavyweight
Requirement: Magical Thug.
Your magical attacks have a Weapon rating of 2. If you take a point of mental stress your attack has a Weapon Rating of 4.

Selective Targetting
When using magic, you may effect more than one target without having to split your result.

Additional Element
You may use an additional element when using magic.

Walking Spellbook
You may choose an additional 2 rote spells

[Phantomdoodler]

Enchanted Items
If you have the Thaumaturgy extra, you may create magical items. In game terms these are bought as Stunts. If any rote spells benefit from bonuses gained from items, you can only use those rote spells with the item.

Sample items:

Blasting Rod
Any magical attacks made using fire gain a Weapon rating of 2.

Shield Bracelet
You may defend against physical attacks using your Will.

Enchanted Leather Duster
This leather coat has an Armour rating of 2.

Warden Sword
This sword has a Weapon rating of 3. For 1 Fate Point, you may either counter an enchantment with a Fantastic (+6) skill result, as long as your blade strike the target, or the weapon is treated as a Weapon 6 for one attack.

Harry's Staff
You gain +1 to all Focus rolls when using fire-based evocations.

[Haru]

For instance, Harry needs to summon Chauncy the demon. He first needs to build a summoning circle to contain him. He reckons 11 complexity should be enough to resist Chauncy escaping for the duration. He makes a Lore roll to research demonology, Resources to create a new silver summoning circle, Scholar for more research and Will to meditate before the ritual. He makes all of these rolls, so makes a Lore roll at +8 to build his construct, getting a result of 10. He decides to take a consequence from a migraine, boosting the complexity to 12. Harry is now ready to power the spell and decides to spend 10 exchanges casting the ritual so he needs to make a Focus roll at +9. Fortunately he makes that and can finally release the spell. The Creating the Summoning Circle aspect will require an Average (+1) result. Thats 11 shifts of success, providing 3 invokes and a passive opposition of 11. Before summoning Chauncy, Harry goes for a lie down...

This is a great example of what I meant. Look at the book. The whole summoning and binding Chauncy part takes up about 3 sentences. In other words: it is not important to the story. The interesting part is what happens when Harry talks to Chauncy, can he get him to give him the information he needs, and what will be the price? So in this case, thaumaturgy would merely be the justification to start a social conflict with Chauncy, I wouldn't even really roll for that.

Now look at DB, when Harry summons the Erlking. The whole thing, gathering ingredients, getting the incantation and the final summoning take up a huge part of the book. Because it is a key point of the story.

Now let's look at a chase scene.

First we set it up. The perp just grabbed something important off you and runs off. Now there are a lot of things that can be done.

First, the obvious: You run after him. This will be a straight up athletics contest. Both roll athletics and add um their numbers, and the one who has more shifts at the end of 3 rounds wins.

Now we can go another way. Instead of running after him, I could say "I'm too old for this shit!". Instead of getting into an athletics contest I can't win. Instead, I'll play to my strength. So you declare that just as you run around the corner, he gets into a car and you note down the license plate. Or you say you have seen him in a pub once and start to look around there. Now it becomes a contest where you can use investigate and the perp will use driving/athletics/deceit or others, depending on how he tries to get away.

And then we come to thaumaturgy. It pretty much does exactly what the above does, only you use your magic skill instead of investigate. You declare that while the perp got away, you were able to grab him by the hair in the struggle and have some of it. And then you can follow him that way, and it becomes a contest where you use magic against the perp's attempt to shake you.

I know, this seems counterintuitive at first, since the perp can't really actively defend against your spell. It basically is there to represent how he is moving around to shake someone. You'll need to get to him, too, even if you know where he is. And while you move to his position, he can move as well, and you have to keep track of that, and so forth. It is a very dynamic situation, but I think that's exactly what makes it way more interesting than just gathering energy. You could even allow the wizard to spend consequences in order to boost a roll. Though come to think of it, everyone should be able to spend consequences in a contest. The perp, for example, could cash in a favor or something, that is represented as a consequence.

I hope you get what I mean when I say "thaumaturgy can be more versatile than what the DFRPG rules make of them."

[Phantomdoodler]

Ok point made. I understand - thaumaturgy should be handled narratively, rather than to simulate the process in game terms. In a roleplaying context, its harder to do that way though. It requires a lot of judgement calls by the gm as to what a players spell does because as the Gm you are saying, "ok, three hours later after a lengthy ritual, you now have a ward in place of x strength" How do define how powerful a spell would be ? I suppose its a case of the player stating what he wants to do and the gm coming up with a cost: whether thats time in research or having to do something dramatic or dangerous. Want to create a heart exploding spell? Well thats going to take a while to set up. You will need storms, energy from an orgy, blood sacrifice etc etc. According to the books, it seems relatively easier to create elaborate rituals. I cant seem to find anything that backs up the "gather power slowly and hope you dont screw up Discipline roll no 23 or your brain will explode" rules as they stand.
    Its taking me a while to get my head around your concepts, but they may solve the tedium that is thaumaturgy. I think it may be helpful to create a guide as to what sort of effort is required for thaumaturgy, depending on what you want to do, and have that tied in some way to a players skills. Kind of a power level kind of thing. The player decides on a power level for the effect of their spell,which determines the cost the player must pay to get the ritual sorted. This effect is not automatic - this merely sets up a specific conflict, challenge or contest.   

So something like this- admittedly, it needs a little work:


Choose a power level, up to your Lore. The also determines the kind of construct you need to create.

Average (+1)
Create a ward, veil or barrier that you can defend with your Will. Attack a target at range with Will. Conjure a small, simple item.
Construct: A symbolic link to your target and a minute or so to prepare a simple circle.

Fair (+2)
Create a ward, veil or barrier that you can defend with your Will+1. Attack a target at range with Will and Weapon Rating 2. Conjure a small, simple item.
Construct: at least two symbolic links, a ritual space such as a lab or library, an hour long ritual.

Good(+3)
Create a ward, veil or barrier that you can defend with your Will +2. Attack a target at range with Will and Weapon Rating 4. Conjure a small, simple item.
Construct: several symbolic links, a decent ritual space with good sized library, a ritual lasting several hours

Great (+4)
Create a ward, veil or barrier that you can defend with your Will +3. Attack a target at range with Will and Weapon Rating 6. Conjure a complex item, or several simple items.
Construct: Powerful symbolic links (fresh blood, child), an elaborate ritual space such as a lab or library, a night long ritual, blood sacrifice

Superb (+5)
Create a ward, veil or barrier that you can defend with your Will +4. Attack a target at range with Will and Weapon Rating 8. Conjure a very large complex item, or thousands of simple items.
Construct: Several Powerful symbolic links (fresh blood), an elaborate ritual space such as a lab or library, a day long ritual, leylines, sexual energy, human sacrifice.

Fantastic (+6)
Create a ward, veil or barrier that you can defend with your Will +5.Attack a target at range with Will and Weapon Rating 10. Conjure a huge complex item, hundreds of small complex items, thousands of simple items.
Construct: Several Powerful symbolic links (fresh blood), an elaborate ritual space such as a lab or library, a ritual lasting several days, leyline nexus point, sexual energy, human sacrifices

[Haru]

Yeah, this idea of a narrative approach is a real brainteaser, I had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around it, too.
Now, it even bleeds over into other systems.

Which doesn't mean I have the eternal truth and all the answers, this is not supposed to be an "And thy lord sayeth thou shall play like this!" sort of thing, I just feel that people tend to over complicate things, me included.

One of the big question with Fate, and that goes double for Core: "What happens, when the roll fails?"

So here you are, prepared to start this great scene, where the wizard is going to chase down the bad guy with a spell...
...and the setup roll fails and you don't do the spell. Which reduces the overall coolness of the game, because you've just robbed yourself of this cool spell casting scene. Or you go ahead and do it anyway, but then what was that roll for?

For example, a player of mine wanted to create a pre-cast spell for a rescue mission. He wanted to have plants grow out of a prepared flower bed in a box, where he would sit in a circle in the middle. He wanted to have that thing pushed out of a truck into the building they needed to go in and catch all the bad guys with a 10 shift block in the relatively big cargo hall. He ended up having to gather 7 aspects to be able to fuel the spell, and that's where we left the last session. I went along with the block idea, because at the time, I felt it was the best thing to do.
But then I had a far better idea: I'll put those 7 aspects into use as 7 temporary fate points to buy powers and build a "plant creature", that the wizard can "turn" into like a were-creature. He then sits in the middle of this flower bed and goes through the scene fully controlling that bota-warrior. The alternative would have been him sitting there and concentrating on the spell, while the rest of the gang is off doing their stuff. Which is incredibly boring. Sure, he could have caught 50 bad guys easily with that version of the spell, but I can just as easily only put 5 guys in that scene and have him actively fight them. Way more action ergo way more fun.

Let's see what we can do with the things you mention.

Wards:
Mostly, this can be seen as an aspect on things. "Warded" on your apartment, for example. Then there are a number of ways you could go. The bad guys are coming after you, but you don't want to fight them, you could spend a fate point on you apartments "Warded" aspect and say "you know what, my character is beat up and tired, he needs rest. Let's say the wards keep them out, and we'll deal with things in the morning."

If you want to make it more interesting, for example in a conflict, you can make it a character at the power level of the wizard that cast it. So a wizard with his magic skill at good (+3) would get a ward character that has a skill pyramid up to good as well. Give it a stunt that allows it to take an attack instead of another character, as long as he is behind it, and you're done.

Or treat it as a contest. Harry vs. the zombies comes to mind. Harry's magic roll vs. Grevaine's magic roll. In this case, I think Harry even took a concession here, when they tried to make a run for it.

Veil:
Straight up "Create Advantage". The Aspect you create allows you to roll your magic skill for defense, just like you would with a shield, since it is just another type of shield, really. And it might grant you other opportunities, like being able to ambush someone.

Attack (or other lasting effects):
Make it a conflict, or a contest, depending on your taste. It's just not all that interesting to go *roll* "You're dead." This goes for pretty much every lasting effect. If you win the conflict or contest, the effect takes place, if not, you got a mean headache and the target got away. If you want to bring in weaponry, you can create advantages before you cast the spell, so that a specifically potent symbolic link could be a weapon:2 in that conflict. Too high a bonus, and you won't even have to roll (like your +6 bonus, that's 3 aspects on every roll for free).

Conjuring:
Usually, you don't conjure something just for the fun of it, it is part of solving a problem. So you just solve that problem with magic, with the usual rules, maybe a contest, maybe just an overcome action, and you describe it as conjuring something to help you. Grevaine, for example would roll an overcome action with magic to open a door and describe it as one of his zombies ripping it out of its hinges. Harry would describe it as blasting it open with sheer Forzare. A pyromancer might conjure up a magmaworm that crawls all over it and burns a hole into it. But they'd all face the same roll.


So, wall of text, I apologize, but I hope with the examples, you get what I am trying to say. Maybe it'll help you get more into the fate core spirit.

[Phantomdoodler]

So to make things clear, this is how you could handle thaumaturgy:

1. Take a number of create advantage actions. This represents the preparation of your ritual; as a rough guide, each action takes a scene (30 minutes) but could be longer depending on the skill used. You must have at least one symbolic link to your target, and for true ritual magic, items representing the five senses, elements and the heart and mind. For a short cut, you can inflict or take consequences; a mild consequence is worth one invoke, a moderate is worth 2 invokes, a serious is worth 3 invokes and an extreme consequence is worth 4 invokes (a human sacrifice would provide 10 invokes). Depending on the situation, the Gm may not need to actually have the player's roll all of these actions; he would just assign a number of invokes the player has, based on the time they are spending in preparation; around 1 invoke per hour, per player.

2. Depending on the nature of the spell, use Lore to make an attack, overcome action or create an advantage action, which can be in the form of a challenge, contest or conflict. When creating an aspect, such as a ward or veil, if there really isnt any drama or need to make a roll, just assume the aspect is created. Any aspects created are resisted by your Will.

In a way then, thaumaturgy acts as a kind of uber evocation. I would add the following effects:

Duration: Normally thaumaturgy lasts until the next sunrise. For each invoke used from preparing the spell, you can extend the spell's duration by one step: a day, a week, a month, a season, a year, a decade, a century, a millennium etc.

Range: So long as you have a symbolic link to a target, you can use your magic at great distances. This applies to divination, summoning and transformation/disruption magic; you couldnt create a ward on a building across a city, for example. The Gm may apply penalties for long distance transformation/disruption spells; maybe -1 per 100 miles.

Barrier Strength: Normally if a veil, ward or containment circle is attacked or being resisted, you defend with your Will. For wards you may also add the threshold of the protected area. Rather than using an invoke for a temporary +2 bonus or reroll, you may increases the barrier's strength by 1 for each invoke used. For wards, the Gm can limit this to the ley line strength of the area; Edinburgh, for example, probably has a ward strength of around 50, owing to the ley line nexus. Other locations will probably have far fewer; the gm can effectively set a limit for his campaign, to stop players amassing unbreakable wards for their homes.

Extras: Sometimes you want to create spells with a special effect; maybe a veil that allows one way sight or only works against vampires, or a ward that has a wardflame. Each extra should cost one or more invokes depending on the strength of the extra.

Area: Spells tend to have a larger area than evocation magic; Veils cover a car-size area, Wards are attached to a building, containment circles cover an area you mark out using chalk and attack-type spells affect one target. If it makes sense to the spell, you can use an invoke to increase the spell's area to cover an entire zone, plus one additional zone per invoke used.

For example, a number of white council wizards need to create a veil big enough to cover an entire conference centre, requiring an additional 10 invokes. If time was of the essence, the Gm could play this out for drama. Since this isnt the case, the Gm determines that since the wizards only have a couple of hours, they put up the veil with a ward strength equal to their highest Will (+6).

Water: Water hampers the effects of magic. Any long distance magic will simply fizzle out when passing over a large body of water. Rain will also hamper a spell caster, applying a penalty to all rolls; a light shower may be -1 or -2, heavy rain could be -3 or -4, and a torrential downpour could be -5 or worse (maybe roll four fate dice to determine the weather condition- any penalty denotes the amount of rain- of course thats more appropriate for weather in britain...). A Gm could also apply a penalty if casting a spell near a large body of water.

[Phantomdoodler]

So here are my current rules are I am playtesting at the moment:

Evocation Rules
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3SDKhovdJzjWERtSWpSOG1EOVE/edit?usp=sharing

Thaumaturgy Rules
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3SDKhovdJzjOGRCcHpKVmRPdWc/edit?usp=sharing