Houserule proposal: first Rote spells in scene give no default stress

[gojj]

But remember, you can flavor a role however you want. Example:
At the table: Bob roles a +2 on the dice, giving his character Miles a 6 weapon: 5 attack. The GM rolls a -4, so the attack takes out the vampire.

In the story: The vampire dodged yet another one of Miles' spells. How freaking fast where these thing? "Come on Warden, is that really all you have? How you ever expect to win this war?" It ducked behind a bookcase and gave it a mighty shove, attempting to flatten Miles. Oh hell no, you might have a beef with me, but you leave the books out of this. "Schlag!" A gale erupted from Miles' outstretched hand, knocking the bookcase the other direction. The vampire, startled by the sudden surge of power, leapt out of the way. Now, vampires are extremely quick and agile, but even they cannot ignore all of the laws of physics, especially the one about objects in motion staying in motion. Miles aimed at the spot where the Vampire would land, gathered his will yet again, and roared "Bewegung!" The blast caught the vampire square in the chest, knocking him through one wall and halfway through another, which is saying a lot considering they were made of concrete reenforced with rebar. Miles walked up to the broken body of the vampire and looked into its wide, surprised eyes, and said "Like that" before decapitating it with another force of will.

This may be a bit extreme, but the point is that you can flavor your spell as multiple different spells no problem. The mechanics don't so much tell the story so much as they summarize it. You can boil down a  30 minute martial arts fight into one contest, one roll, if you really wanted to.

[Mr. Death]

Exactly. It's the same thing as how the book says you could roll Survival once to represent surviving over a period of time in the wilderness. The rules are an abstract, not an absolute.

[Melendwyr]

We've been over this before.  The book examples do not involve Harry casting meaningless spells that do nothing, followed by an effective spell with definite consequences that would be represented mechanically.

He casts lots and lots of spells, all of which have described effects with what would be mechanical consequences in a game.  They can't be described as 'color', they are significant actions.

[Taran]

In a play by post my character cast a huge spell and obliterated all the enemies.  I described it as having burned my characters hands even though she took no backlash.  I am going to describe the wounds as healing.  She has recovery but did not actually use the power but I wanted to illustrate that she could heal.   It was all description for effect. 

Would you not allow this in your games?  Or does every single mechanic need a literal description?

[Mr. Death]

We've been over this before.  The book examples do not involve Harry casting meaningless spells that do nothing, followed by an effective spell with definite consequences that would be represented mechanically.

Point of fact, they do. Changes in particular has that as part of his duel with Arianna, where Harry says he's constantly using Spirit to tear down stones to throw at Arianna to no effect, for at least a minute.

He casts lots and lots of spells, all of which have described effects with what would be mechanical consequences in a game.  They can't be described as 'color', they are significant actions.

Where, exactly, is he doing this? I don't recall it happening, so please tell me which sequences he's casting this many spells.

[Melendwyr]

In a play by post my character cast a huge spell and obliterated all the enemies.  I described it as having burned my characters hands even though she took no backlash.  I am going to describe the wounds as healing.  She has recovery but did not actually use the power but I wanted to illustrate that she could heal.   It was all description for effect. 

Would you not allow this in your games?

I have no problems with people enacting consequences on themselves that the rules don't mandate.  I do have problems with people ignoring the consequences that the rules DO mandate - which means that I'm very concerned about what the rules do and do not say.

At present, the rules do a great job of representing wizards early in their careers... but don't represent the increase in their magical power well.

[killking72]

Do you really think my players - or most people playing the game - aren't going to have serious issues with the GM if the people and monsters they're challenging suddenly revitalize and lose all their stress mid-combat, just because the GM decided to arbitrarily declare a rest break?  It's not good storytelling and it's not good game play.

This is actually a common problem I find among people. They don't actually understand how recover works, or what stress is. Stress is only how close you come to damage in a fight, every time Dresden narrowly dodges an attack, or just BARELY got out of the way. It's a really good rule that when combat is over, stress clears, but RECOVERY doesn't start, that's the big thing. In that fight, Dresden had stopped being attack, I believe in the book it specifically says that Marcone's goons had taken up the fighting in front of them, so that means Dresden was in the eye of the storm.

Now going off the rule that stress clears at the end of combat, and that he casted the spells correctly and got his stress to line up to where he only had to take his mild consequences, he could have gotten off 10 spells.

[solbergb]

Stress also includes attacks that hit but aren't important to the narrative ever again.

Eg, you get knocked around, bruised and a bit of road-rash on the gravel.   Nowhere else in the book is it mentioned beyond saying how nice a bath feels, or included in a litany of other stuff being treated.   Stress, not consequences.

The same attack results a later situation where your scabs open and you bleed in a later conflict, causing either a bad result (bleeding on your new tux in a social situation) or a good one (your buddies track you by your blood trail and show up in the nick of time).  Consequence, not Stress, even though the injury might be narrated the same way.  In one case, the injury is important in a later scene, so it must have been an aspect that could be compelled or invoked.

Hell, in some situations, having your clothes torn up in a fight is more important than having an arm break given what's likely to happen next.  Mild social consequences might be something to negotiate for, instead of a physical injury.  Can't begin recovery until you have a chance to repair the clothes.  Craft or Resources or maybe deceit/glamor would be what you heal with, instead of Scholarship/medicine.

[killking72]

i also think some of my problem with the game is my lack of understanding of the rules.

Then don't comment on how the rules are broken and terrible. Oh my sweet baby jesus. That's like someone playing league of legends in bronze saying blah item is broken, or this champion needs a nerf.

Yes, when you start out as a caster, the rules suck. They suck an incredible amount of dick, and in my group I tried to change them. Fast forward to 2 years later (different character) I feel bad for playing a wizard. Legitimately feel broken. Yes, if all you had at your disposal was a base wizard with no refinement, focus items, or enchanted items, you'd feel useless too, I know I did. Taking evocation/thaumaturgy gives you 4 focus item slots, and focus items in turn give you rotes. Rote spells are assumed to not need a discipline roll for controlling the spells only for aiming a predetermined shift spell, so there's no chance of you having to take fallout or backlash

Harry's blasting rod RAW gives him a +1 to control, and allows for him to cast his rote Fuego!, which I believe is a 6 shift attack when he has his blasting rod. That means, even though his discipline with the rod is only 4, he takes the 1 mental stress, and gets to, with very good luck, one shot something. If someone rolls an effective 0 athletics roll to dodge his Fuego! rote, and harry rolls an effective 4 on his discipline, he's hitting some poor sap for 10 damage. That's 1 stress, for a 4 stress box, mild, and moderate consequence, and that isn't a rare occurrence for a wizard that knows his stuff. Also wizards can just dump stress and consequences in a zone attack, and with FP and maneuvers, can fry a horde of almost anything.

Now look at thaumaturgy. Thaumaturgy is stupid OP. It lets you craft enchanted items. Use magic as an investigation roll (divination), use ghosts/demons to get information, craft potions, giant zone border, and really really complex veils. In combat, summoning ghosts/demons can get you information that can get you an aspect on something you're going to fight, or just solve regular problems in your story, divination can give you an investigation roll equal to shifts of power equal of your spell (which my guy usually gets 8 shifts of effect) which can then give you aspects or just help you learn impossible things, and in direct magical slugging, enchanted items are the most useful.

Right off the bat, with thaumaturgy you can make a ring that will do damage=adjusted lore + aim roll - defense roll, to a target. So if you have a +1 no prep complexity focus item and a lore of 4, you now have a ring that will do a flat 5 shifts + your aim roll. If you built a wizard, or even a practitioner with just thaumaturgy, who's really good at crafting (specialization in crafting) you can now straight add an extra use, or an extra shift of power to every item you have, for free, just for declaring your you have a specialization in crafting. Not to mention the power you can put into your no prep lore with focus items. This also applies to potions as well which I'm not going to talk about because I'm too lazy to explain all you can do with them.

Fighting with magic isn't exclusively about just spamming evocations into an enemy and hoping he goes down before you run out of ammo. You have to be resourceful, and I would argue that thaumaturgy has the same, if not more use in combat, than evocation does.

Let me set you up a scenario of a submerged crafting wizard with a lore+discipline of both 5, and 2 points in refinement (Adding the +1/+1 to crafting, and 2 focus item slots). 6 focus item slots. Let spend 2 of them to have a focus item giving +2 to lore. Now what would happen if you put your remaining focus item slots into enchanted item slots. You now have 8 slots to make focus items, with a base 8 damage with 2 extra uses, or a base 9 damage, with 1 extra use. Lets go 8 damage with 2 uses. You can then shove your remaining 7 slots into uses, having an enchanted item with 8 damage, 5 (unadjusted) aim, and 9 uses. Combine that with your ability to cast evocation spells, and in one fight you have over 10 magic attacks. Hell, if you wanted to be really annoying, you could build an enchanted armor coat the equivalent of a tank. Just have a coat with base block of 9 shifts and 1 extra use, throw your 7 other enchanted item slots into it, make it a block of 16 with 1 extra use per session, that's enough protection to block your 4 stress, a mild, moderate, and severe consequence twice a session. If you half the block strength you can just make it a passive armor 8 with 2 uses a session, half it again and you can make it always on (that's a house rule I believe) for an always on armor 4.

Don't think one directional, think with portals

[Mr. Death]

There's a couple misunderstandings you're under, here.

Yes, when you start out as a caster, the rules suck. They suck an incredible amount of dick, and in my group I tried to change them. Fast forward to 2 years later (different character) I feel bad for playing a wizard. Legitimately feel broken. Yes, if all you had at your disposal was a base wizard with no refinement, focus items, or enchanted items, you'd feel useless too, I know I did. Taking evocation/thaumaturgy gives you 4 focus item slots, and focus items in turn give you rotes. Rote spells are assumed to not need a discipline roll for controlling the spells only for aiming a predetermined shift spell, so there's no chance of you having to take fallout or backlash

You don't need focus items for rotes. You can have rotes without any foci at all.

Harry's blasting rod RAW gives him a +1 to control, and allows for him to cast his rote Fuego!, which I believe is a 6 shift attack when he has his blasting rod. That means, even though his discipline with the rod is only 4, he takes the 1 mental stress, and gets to, with very good luck, one shot something. If someone rolls an effective 0 athletics roll to dodge his Fuego! rote, and harry rolls an effective 4 on his discipline, he's hitting some poor sap for 10 damage. That's 1 stress, for a 4 stress box, mild, and moderate consequence, and that isn't a rare occurrence for a wizard that knows his stuff. Also wizards can just dump stress and consequences in a zone attack, and with FP and maneuvers, can fry a horde of almost anything.

This is incorrect. If Harry is casting a 6-shift rote with an effective Discipline of 4, he's still taking 2 shifts of backlash -- he just doesn't risk taking more with a bad roll.

[solbergb]

Actually I routinely stat up my casters with rotes that are higher than my conviction.

What are the higher stress boxes on my character sheet for anyway?  Also if you're going to take a consequence for casting a spell anyway, whether it's two stress or four why not get the full benefit of it?    So yeah, if I have a lore of three+, I'll usually have a 1 stress, 2 stress and 4 stress rote, likely using focus items to get enough discipline to control the 2 or 4 stress rotes (sometimes I just accept I'll be invoking an aspect or having backlash/fallout to control the rote if high enough discipline isn't in the cards)

So instead of getting, say, four rotes with 6 shifts each that I can easily control, I'll have a 6 shift, a 7 shift and a 9 shift rote that take more stress to activate, but make better use of my stress box resources (after 3 spells, I'm taking a consequence anyway to get the 4th, and if I'm gonna take a consequence I might as well get a 7 or 9 shift effect instead of a 6 shift one....)

But that's just the spell track.  If I'm looking at a warden type, somebody who expects to get into fights, that person is going to have a way of laying down the hurt with no spell at all (weapons, guns, something) or he's going to have enchanted items that accomplish the same thing with enough uses to get me through a hard battle (see Dresden's ring, his potions, his belt buckle in one adventure, an animated electrical cord+plug in another etc).    He might also have social skills, to get advantage through banter (Dresden's constantly using intimidate in fights to piss people off instead of just blasting them) and if none of that seems like enough, most wizards with thaum can spend a few minutes generating several spells that give them other advantages the next time they get into a fight in a day when they've been filling their consequences up.

Of course I'm willing to play 1 conviction spellcasters, spellcasters with zero lore skills, etc.  My generic wizard though is going to be able to routinely bust out 7-9 attack roll/7 shift area and single target attacks/maneuvers/blocks/etc (I tend to use extra shifts from high mental stress attacks on areas) in their specialty and a little less in areas they aren't as good at (generally similar power, less accuracy).   That's the benchmark you're looking at without any points spent in refinement, and at least 30 skill points to play with.  It's a measure nobody but a caster can manage, not even with military explosives..you're looking at more like what a fully crewed APC might bring to the table, maybe even a main battle tank.

Yeah, I can only do 3 of those a fight, 4 with short term consequences, 5 if my conviction is 5 for some reason.  More if I have sponsored magic.  If you can't win a fight with those, you should probably be thinking about running away or conceding anyway.  If you're not sure, use your non-spell options and keep your powder dry.

[Haru]

Don't think one directional, think with portals

Portals? Where we're going we don't need any portals!

Basically wanted to say what Mr. Death said, but he was faster.

[killking72]

This is incorrect. If Harry is casting a 6-shift rote with an effective Discipline of 4, he's still taking 2 shifts of backlash -- he just doesn't risk taking more with a bad roll.

I always have practitioners with equal conviction and discipline. I thought the rule was that it's automatically assumed you can control the spell, and in normal spellcasting if you don't control the spell you take backlash

[Haru]

I always have practitioners with equal conviction and discipline. I thought the rule was that it's automatically assumed you can control the spell, and in normal spellcasting if you don't control the spell you take backlash

It's assumed that the control part of your discipline roll is 0, so you can't go negative. So if you have a total control of 4 and cast a 5 shift rote and roll a +2 on the dice for a +6 total, you take 1 shift of casting stress and 1 shift of backlash, because the control for the rote was only a 4, even though your roll total was enough to control all 5 shifts.

[killking72]

It's assumed that the control part of your discipline roll is 0, so you can't go negative. So if you have a total control of 4 and cast a 5 shift rote and roll a +2 on the dice for a +6 total, you take 1 shift of casting stress and 1 shift of backlash, because the control for the rote was only a 4, even though your roll total was enough to control all 5 shifts.

Yea my GM just told me that. God, fuck that option. I'll stay at even or positive discipline practitioners.