Let's say we have a caster with discipline 5 and conviction 4 attacking a character with athletics 3
The spell will look like this:
Caster:
1.
PowerDecide on how much power you want to draw. Each point of power translates to 1 shift of weapon stress if you successfully hit your target. Anything up to your conviction score will cost you 1 shift of stress total, any point of power above your
conviction will cost you 1 additional shift of casting stress. So depending on how much power you want to draw, you'd take mental stress like this:
| Power | Stress |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 |
| 4 | 1 |
| 5 | 2 |
| 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 4 |
And so forth.
Say we are a bit in a hurry and want to take out this guy as quick as we can. We decide to do a spell with 6 shifts of power, taking 3 shifts of mental stress. With
conviction 4, you have a mental stress track that looks like "OOOO", it will now look like "OOXO". If you hit your target with the spell, you add 6 shifts of stress to the attack.
2.
ControlNext, we need to control the power we call up. To do so, we roll on our
discipline score. The result of this will also be your attack roll.
a) If you roll equal to or above the power you decided to use, everything is fine and the spell works as planned, and we go to the Target. For this example, let's say we rolled a +6.
b) If you roll below your chosen power level, you are in a bit of trouble. You have 2 ways to make up for the missing shifts:
backlash and
fallout.
i)
Backlash is a way to keep the spell going the way it was intended. You take stress equal to the number of shifts that are missing from the control roll. So if you rolled a +4, you'd be missing 2 shifts of control and would need to take 2 shifts of backlash stress. This is not added to the casting stress from step 1, it's an additional hit. However, you can decide if you want to take this as physical or mental stress if you decide to take this.
ii)
Fallout is the other option. It means you let go of the additional power, letting it disperse into the air and ground around you. This also means that something bad happens to you, depending on how much power was missing and the type of spell. The GM usually has the last word, but you and the rest of the group have a say in it as well, of course. The spell goes off at a lower level, depending on how much you missed. Like with backlash, say we rolled a +4, so the spell would go of as a power:4 spell and release 2 shifts of power into the atmosphere.
And you're done on the casters side, now it's the target's turn to defend himself.
Target:
3.
Defenda) We said the discipline roll was 6 shifts. Since this is an attack spell, that means your target has to defend against a 6 shift attack with a weapon:6. With athletics 3, your target rolls a +4. That means he is 2 shifts short of your attack and gets hit for 2 shifts by the attack. But since you hit him with a weapon:6, that gets added to the 2 shifts, resulting in an 8 shift hit total.
b)
i) Your discipline roll was 4. Since you decided to take backlash, this is a 4 shift attack with a weapon:6, the power of the spell is the same. Your target rolls a 4 again, resulting in a 0 shift attack. Again the weapon rating of the spell gets added to that, for a total of a 6 shift hit.
ii) Your discipline roll was 4. Taking fallout reduced the spell's power, so it's only a weapon:4 attack. Taking the defense roll of 4 again, your target takes 4 shifts of stress.
And that's pretty much it. The rules for stress, consequences and taken out are the same as any regular attack, but if you want me to go over that as well, I'll gladly do so.
