Kemmlerian necromancy and death curses...

[Xelah]

I don't know about you, but if I was readying myself to take the other guy down with me and they were able to stop it, I'd be pretty damn disheartened. You've just attempted to take the final step and the enemy has just thrown how weak you are in your face. I'd find it pretty difficult to work up that sort of nerve again.

Also, if I were GMing it I'd allow the creation of an aspect that stops them from dying. Assuming this isn't part of the take out/concession, I'd model it as an extreme consequence that turns into one of their aspects, which then stops the character from taking their own life on an ongoing basis. Kemmlerian Necromancy is perfect for this due to the mixed necromancy and psychomancy, so it'd act like an enthralment using necromancy. Thou Shalt Not Die, or something similar.

That's pretty good too, love FATE for versatility, but hate it for mechanical disputes.

[Haru]

I don't think I would measure death curses in shifts. To me, that's something highly significant, it's a plot device more than anything. So I would treat it as such. Killing a player character with a death curse is boring and I would probably just say that the dying character just can't do that. Well, unless it's a player sacrificing themselves to kill the big bad, but not the other way around. Instead, I would go for something more dramatic.
DIE ALONE!

[Xelah]

I don't think I would measure death curses in shifts. To me, that's something highly significant, it's a plot device more than anything. So I would treat it as such. Killing a player character with a death curse is boring and I would probably just say that the dying character just can't do that. Well, unless it's a player sacrificing themselves to kill the big bad, but not the other way around. Instead, I would go for something more dramatic.
DIE ALONE!

Except the power you can throw into a death curse is measured in shifts.  Dresden got "die alone" because the caster knew he wasn't powerful enough to do "die"

 I would call shenanigans on any gm that tried making a death curse from anyone that's been pushed into a severe or extreme consequence worse than a moderate inconvenience.  Their life is literally splattered all over the ground back there.  What are they powering the spell with?  Hopes and dreams?  No.  Dresden goes so far as to explain that all power to fuel magic has to come from somewhere.  Their life in game mechanics is 1 extreme, 1 severe, one moderate, and a few minor consequences.  The only "plot device" level stuff should be well beyond the reach of player characters.

[dragoonbuster]

I don't think I would measure death curses in shifts. To me, that's something highly significant, it's a plot device more than anything. So I would treat it as such. Killing a player character with a death curse is boring and I would probably just say that the dying character just can't do that. Well, unless it's a player sacrificing themselves to kill the big bad, but not the other way around. Instead, I would go for something more dramatic.
DIE ALONE!

Agreed, Haru:

Except the power you can throw into a death curse is measured in shifts.

It's far less interesting, to me, to throw a 30-shift attack (or whatever) at players than it is to work with them to come up with what happens to them when they're slammed with a Death Curse. Plus you have to pause play to do the math for the Curse, and then the math to stop it...that's a lot of not playing.

The numbers are there to make some sense of the game, not define it...that's what the narrative is for. If you don't want to do things by the numbers...you don't have to.

I've had...I think 4 different PCs take a Death Curse at one time or another. Only one took a straight blast to the dome in terms of shifts, and it was by far the least interesting and least memorable of all of them. Losing an eye, having an arm burned to a cinder, being cursed to never find satisfaction in life, those are interesting and fun. Other than the one instance of "blasted in the face," I worked with my players to come up with something that made sense given the narrative and their opponent that they thought would be fun, and they took an Extreme Consequence (at least) that was the "effect" of the death curse. And those have resulted in some great character development and RP for it. In Harry's case with DIE ALONE, I wouldn't fill his Extreme Slot for that but I'd have him change an aspect to fit the curse.

Death Curses are a big deal and don't happen every time a practitioner is killed, remember...you have to have a second's time, know you're about to die, and Harry implies you've got to be trained to actually pull one off, as in Wizard-level training. Those enemies don't show up all the time to start with, and when they do, they're often the Megalomaniacal Bad Guy who doesn't believe they could ever lose to some meddling kids, and that darn mutt! So when the time comes for a real Death Curtse, they should be plot devices. Every time one goes off in the books, it's a rather serious event--and a plot device. Even Simon Petrovitch's Death Curse is one....the dead Red Court don't make a practical difference at the PC (Harry) level--but they play a part in spurring on a Compel to throw Harry into another crazy adventure. One of my favorite developments in the entire series was

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Harry losing the use of his burned hand for a while and everything that went along with recovering from it, physically and mentally/spiritually.

So my opinion is forget X shifts and just come up with something reasonable that will drive more good story because of it.



Now, to answer the question of how to Block something like that? Well, in practical terms, I'm not sure you really can. A Death Curse isn't something you can do if you're Taken Out--you have to do it, effectively, as a Concession. I guess it's possible to set up a giant block ahead of time in anticipation of the Bad Guy shooting off a Death Curse, but that seems far-fetched and unlikely...if you could do that, why didn't you just shut down his power completely from the get-go and avoid the fight and possibility of a Death Curse?

So if you're the one trying to stop the Death Curse-as-Concession, you have no mechanical way to stop it, practically, in my eyes--but you can bargain with the GM, as always. And that's where, if keeping the guy alive would be a big deal to the story or the PCs, "Cool! Let's figure something out..." And then we come up with a way to allow you to stop or block the Death Curse by invoking your HC and taking a consequence or three in exchange.

Maybe you do a cold-blooded takeout like when

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Harry shoots Corpsetaker in the head

and take a Moderate-Severe Mental [Am I A Murderer?] consequence, for example. For the necromantic "stop him from reaching Death" style prevention you specified, maybe your PC starts thinking he's above the Laws of Nature/Magic and starts skirting the edge of Lawbreaking more, and you take a Mental Consequence or change an aspect to represent that. (I don't know the PC well enough to make a specific call, but I think you get my point?)

Whatever exactly happens...it should (a) be a Big Deal when someone uses or tries to use a Death Curse and (b) create some effect that drives/creates more interesting story.

[Rossbert]

I would call shenanigans on any gm that tried making a death curse from anyone that's been pushed into a severe or extreme consequence worse than a moderate inconvenience.  Their life is literally splattered all over the ground back there.  What are they powering the spell with?  Hopes and dreams?  No.  Dresden goes so far as to explain that all power to fuel magic has to come from somewhere.  Their life in game mechanics is 1 extreme, 1 severe, one moderate, and a few minor consequences.

As a reminder, the book specifically says a death curse lets you skip the prep and the tag all your consequences and inflict more (with immediate tags) if you have open slots, so a death curse will always be 20+ shifts if the caster so desires, since it doesn't matter if you have already taken consequences or not. Alternately just go with the plot level power idea.

In cases where they are tagging existing things they are throwing their fear, pain, helplessness or other emotional baggage into the spell. Like whenever Harry would tag his rage or fear for extra juice.

[Haru]

Except the power you can throw into a death curse is measured in shifts.  Dresden got "die alone" because the caster knew he wasn't powerful enough to do "die"

Or Dresden got "die alone", because he's a player character that the player didn't want to lose yet, so the group came up with an alternative solution that would allow the player to keep their character.

I would call shenanigans on any gm that tried making a death curse from anyone that's been pushed into a severe or extreme consequence worse than a moderate inconvenience.  Their life is literally splattered all over the ground back there.  What are they powering the spell with?  Hopes and dreams?  No.  Dresden goes so far as to explain that all power to fuel magic has to come from somewhere.  Their life in game mechanics is 1 extreme, 1 severe, one moderate, and a few minor consequences.  The only "plot device" level stuff should be well beyond the reach of player characters.

Plot device power level doesn't mean so powerful it obliterates everything, it means to do what's most interesting and satisfying for the story right now. I've had a player of mine kill the red king and his brother with a death curse where he exploded in a nova of pure sunshine. Had I counted the shifts, the scene would have been rather anticlimactic. This way, I still sometimes reread it because it is full of awesome.

The thing is, you can measure things in shifts, but you don't have to. When it comes to fighting, shifts make sense, so you have something to compare the opposing parties. But when it comes to a death curse, to me the fight is over and we enter cut-scene territory. You can do anything you like there. I'd be weary of GM fiat as well, but that's why I always try to do something like this with the players, not against them.

And if you come to the conclusion that the death curse isn't enough to take out everyone, the conflict will continue after that cut-scene with whoever is left standing.