Earth magic responsible for weapons skill?

[nadia.skylark]

They already don't. Aim is Discipline + control, not Conviction + power.

I thought that if you rolled a 10 or whatever for your attack, that was the value your target had to beat to avoid the attack. In this case, wouldn't that be conviction + power?

The thing is, it gives the wizard essentially a free attack that's far more powerful for the high attack roll than is available to anyone else and it frees up the Mental stress boxes for defenses and maneuvers, when without this stunt, a wizard would have to more carefully balance his resources.

A normal wizard might have to choose between whether to use his stress boxes to attack or defend -- with this stunt, they're free to put up an enormous Block against all attacks, then attack at their leisure for free.

I realize that you'll probably just think that this makes the power more problematic, but you really should be able to use this power for defense and maneuvers when appropriate, not just attack.

But the majority of the time, the players are going to have them, while other stunts that add +1 to attack or +2 to stress tend to have more narrow applications than just, "Have the weapon you're probably going to have most of the time."

What's the point of a stunt to get +1 to an attack when I'm surrounded by targets if I can instead take a stunt to get +1 to attack all the time? What's the point of a stunt to unload the clip of a gun for +2 stress when I can just take a stunt to get +2 on every attack with the gun?

Actually, would allowing stunt bonuses to stack help to fix the problem of wizards being so much better at combat than other characters?

This all seems too complicated.  Why not just say that his weapon skill is complimented by his discipline?  Thematically appropriate and it adds a +1 to his weapon skill if his discipline is higher than weapons. 

This is a -1 refresh stunt - at most.

Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.

And change of plans: instead of only allowing power bonuses to help with aiming, I'm just going to say that you get a flat -2 penalty to the roll, because even if it's more math, it makes more sense to me and also deals with defense and maneuvers, where the "only to aiming" thing was specifically geared toward attacks.

[Taran]

Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.

I have to disagree,  This is literally what complimenting a skill does and why it was put in the game.

Morgan is really good with swords.  His weapons skill is 4 or 5.  He’s amazing at earth magic: like 6+ skill after specialization.

His earth magic helps his sword fighting.  In this game, the mechanical term for that is ‘compliment’.   His earth magic skill compliments his sword skill which boosts his weapons to 6. 

So, even when he’s out of spells, his ability to manipulate the metal in the sword boosts his attack to 6.

I mean, feel free to ignore this but i feel it’s a lot less complicated, requires no limitations and is not overpowered but is still a solid boost.  And it’s based on other stunts.  You could even expand the stunt to affect other items other than swords.  Like having it compliment a Might Check when trying to bust down a metal door if you feel it’s underpowered.

[Mr. Death]

I realize that you'll probably just think that this makes the power more problematic, but you really should be able to use this power for defense and maneuvers when appropriate, not just attack.

Well, yes. If you're rolling everything from 10 for free thanks to a single -2 refresh power, that's just plain broken.

Actually, would allowing stunt bonuses to stack help to fix the problem of wizards being so much better at combat than other characters?

That doesn't really fix the problem so much as just play into the inflation.

Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.

There's already a way to resolve that:

High Weapons skill, reasonably high casting skills.

Evocation is already powerful even with only "good" instead of "optimized" skills, so having Discipline and Conviction at 4 or 3 isn't really a handicap, especially once focus items and refinements come into play.

Morgan's good with a sword -- but he's certainly not at Shiro's level. What this stunt does is let a caster effectively be leaps and bounds above the guy who's described as literally the best at swordfighting even before Fidelacchius's +1 to hit power comes into play.

Honestly, this is sounding more and more like a complicated, easily-abusable solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist. It's really not hard to build a Warden character that has good Swording ability and good casting ability. Off the top of my head? At Submerged, you could easily have Weapons at 5, Discipline and Athletics at 4, Conviction at 3. Between Specialization and the four focus item slots, that can bring your effective power and control for a given element back up to 5 or even 6.

And there you go -- a character who is super good at swording, and can hit as hard as Dresden, no complicated penalties or conditions necessary.

And change of plans: instead of only allowing power bonuses to help with aiming, I'm just going to say that you get a flat -2 penalty to the roll, because even if it's more math, it makes more sense to me and also deals with defense and maneuvers, where the "only to aiming" thing was specifically geared toward attacks.

That doesn't really fix it; it's one refinement away from getting right back up to 10, so it's really only delaying the same result.

I have to disagree,  This is literally what complimenting a skill does and why it was put in the game.

Morgan is really good with swords.  His weapons skill is 4 or 5.  He’s amazing at earth magic: like 6+ skill after specialization.

His earth magic helps his sword fighting.  In this game, the mechanical term for that is ‘compliment’.   His earth magic skill compliments his sword skill which boosts his weapons to 6. 

So, even when he’s out of spells, his ability to manipulate the metal in the sword boosts his attack to 6.

I mean, feel free to ignore this but i feel it’s a lot less complicated, requires no limitations and is not overpowered but is still a solid boost.  And it’s based on other stunts.  You could even expand the stunt to affect other items other than swords.  Like having it compliment a Might Check when trying to bust down a metal door if you feel it’s underpowered.

Agreed with basically everything here.

[nadia.skylark]

I have to disagree,  This is literally what complimenting a skill does and why it was put in the game.

Morgan is really good with swords.  His weapons skill is 4 or 5.  He’s amazing at earth magic: like 6+ skill after specialization.

His earth magic helps his sword fighting.  In this game, the mechanical term for that is ‘compliment’.   His earth magic skill compliments his sword skill which boosts his weapons to 6. 

So, even when he’s out of spells, his ability to manipulate the metal in the sword boosts his attack to 6.

I mean, feel free to ignore this but i feel it’s a lot less complicated, requires no limitations and is not overpowered but is still a solid boost.  And it’s based on other stunts.  You could even expand the stunt to affect other items other than swords.  Like having it compliment a Might Check when trying to bust down a metal door if you feel it’s underpowered.

What I meant by "doesn't replicate what I want it to" is that your suggestion isn't earth magic-specific.

Also, it's got nothing to do with manipulating metal--earth magic, according to Paranet Papers, is about enhancing your instincts.

What do you think about the possibility of adding one's earth magic power bonus to their weapons/fists skill?

Well, yes. If you're rolling everything from 10 for free thanks to a single -2 refresh power, that's just plain broken.

That doesn't really fix it; it's one refinement away from getting right back up to 10, so it's really only delaying the same result.

Okay. So what do you think about my suggestion above?

That doesn't really fix the problem so much as just play into the inflation.

I don't understand your answer. The problem, as I understand it, is that due to refinement bonuses being able to boost one's skills much higher than you can with stunts (because stunts don't stack) wizards hit harder in combat. The limitation is usually that they can only make a limited number of attacks, so anything that increases or removes the limit is a problem.

To fix this, you can:
A) not allow anything that increases or removes the limit
B) weaken anything wizards do that is covered by the increase or removal of the limit
C) give other characters something similar to wizards' refinement bonuses

What I was asking was "is allowing stunts to stack a good way of fulfilling option C?" but what you seem to be saying is "option C is invalid" and I'm not sure why.

There's already a way to resolve that:

High Weapons skill, reasonably high casting skills.

Evocation is already powerful even with only "good" instead of "optimized" skills, so having Discipline and Conviction at 4 or 3 isn't really a handicap, especially once focus items and refinements come into play.

Morgan's good with a sword -- but he's certainly not at Shiro's level. What this stunt does is let a caster effectively be leaps and bounds above the guy who's described as literally the best at swordfighting even before Fidelacchius's +1 to hit power comes into play.

Honestly, this is sounding more and more like a complicated, easily-abusable solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist. It's really not hard to build a Warden character that has good Swording ability and good casting ability. Off the top of my head? At Submerged, you could easily have Weapons at 5, Discipline and Athletics at 4, Conviction at 3. Between Specialization and the four focus item slots, that can bring your effective power and control for a given element back up to 5 or even 6.

And there you go -- a character who is super good at swording, and can hit as hard as Dresden, no complicated penalties or conditions necessary.

I get that you don't like optimization. But other people do.

[Taran]

What I meant by "doesn't replicate what I want it to" is that your suggestion isn't earth magic-specific.

Also, it's got nothing to do with manipulating metal--earth magic, according to Paranet Papers, is about enhancing your instincts.

It is related to earth.  If his discipline is 4 and his weapons is 5, he wouldn’t get the bonus to weapons.  If his earth specialty pushes his earth control over 5, he gets a +1 to weapons. 

As far as fluff goes, it doesn’t matter.  So instead of it being his manipulation of metal, his specialty has honed his instincts.  Mechanically, it is still his earth magic that compliments his weapons skill.

But if it’s just honed instincts, shouldn’t it affect more than just weapons? Like dodging and alertness?

It sounds more like an aspect to me.

[nadia.skylark]

It is related to earth.  If his discipline is 4 and his weapons is 5, he wouldn’t get the bonus to weapons.  If his earth specialty pushes his earth control over 5, he gets a +1 to weapons. 

And if his discipline is 5 and his weapons is 4, it's got nothing to do with earth magic.

What do you think of my suggestion of adding his earth magic power bonus to his weapons score?

As far as fluff goes, it doesn’t matter.  So instead of it being his manipulation of metal, his specialty has honed his instincts.  Mechanically, it is still his earth magic that compliments his weapons skill.

But if it’s just honed instincts, shouldn’t it affect more than just weapons? Like dodging and alertness?

When I wrote up an earlier version of the power upthread, I added an upgrade to address this. You could throw alertness in there as well.

It sounds more like an aspect to me.

Everything could be an aspect. I could just have a "wizard" aspect and not buy evocation. But there's a reason that wizards don't do that.

[Sanctaphrax]

A normal wizard might have to choose between whether to use his stress boxes to attack or defend -- with this stunt, they're free to put up an enormous Block against all attacks, then attack at their leisure for free.

Potentially worrisome. Still think it's worse than just throwing nukes though. Especially when you take enchanted items into account.

I realize that you'll probably just think that this makes the power more problematic, but you really should be able to use this power for defense and maneuvers when appropriate, not just attack.

Okay, that makes it worse. I don't think that's a good idea.

That was kind of my point. If Breath Weapon is the game's model for a "free" magic attack, this proposed stunt blows it out of the water.

It's not the game's model for a free magic attack at all. It's the game's model for an unarmed armed attack. And this requires more arms than anything else; it combines weapon reliance with focus reliance.

And of course, Breath Weapon is already a very questionable way to spend your Refresh, optimization-wise.

But the majority of the time, the players are going to have them, while other stunts that add +1 to attack or +2 to stress tend to have more narrow applications than just, "Have the weapon you're probably going to have most of the time."

I think it's totally appropriate for combat stunts in general to apply "probably most of the time". If a player takes a stunt that gives them +2 stress against black court vampires and their minions, in a game that's about hunting black court vampires, or a player takes Target-Rich Environment in a solo game, I think that's totally working as intended.

That's right, you don't -- thing is, there's a problem when a 6-refresh Pure Mortal is able to trounce monsters that, in canon, give full-fledged-wizard Harry consistent trouble.

I actually think it's good that Harry punches below his weight. He starts at Submerged and rises fast; him being comparatively bad at fighting means we can realistically have Harry-like stories at the normal power levels.

I thought that if you rolled a 10 or whatever for your attack, that was the value your target had to beat to avoid the attack. In this case, wouldn't that be conviction + power?

You roll Discipline + control to control / aim spells. Conviction + power is used to draw the shifts of power that fuel the spell.

Actually, would allowing stunt bonuses to stack help to fix the problem of wizards being so much better at combat than other characters?

It's an open question whether wizards even need nerfing. If they do, though, I don't think that's a good way to address it. A game where the swordsman has five semi-overlapping +1-to-hit stunts seems like a pain in the neck.

If you want a quick and easy Wizard nerf, say that enchanted item blocks require an action to activate.

Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.

I don't think this is a question of replicating anything. It's a question of rebalancing the game. Morgan is already represented very cleanly by the rules, he's just not spending his skill points efficiently.

With that in mind, I don't think adding a custom Power to the game is likely to be a good solution to your problem.

One idea I've toyed with: compress Discipline and Conviction into Will. Instead of using Discipline + Conviction, spells use Will + the skill you'd normally use. So you'd use a combat skill to use combat spells, Investigation to use divination magic, and so on. Would make it almost inevitable for fight wizards to be great swordsmen / martial artists / whatever.

What do you think of my suggestion of adding his earth magic power bonus to his weapons score?[/b]

I think that's a very bad idea. Would make it trivial to get a Weapons skill that's absolutely unattainable for anyone who isn't a spellcaster.

[g33k]

...
I think that's a very bad idea. Would make it trivial to get a Weapons skill that's absolutely unattainable for anyone who isn't a spellcaster.

Agreed.  Murphy should be dangerous with a katana (or a P90) in-hand; even if it's not one of the Swords of the Cross, Murphy should be a credible threat to ordinary Vamps (whether Ramp/Blamp/Whamp), and even to Master-caliber Vamps if they don't take her seriously, if they try to take her with mere combat.  Not the obvious winner -- she's still an underdog vs. an Ortega or a Mavra or a Lara -- but a credible threat.

Spellcasters shouldn't be able to out-do ANY/EVERY mortal within their own specialty, which is what this represents.  I mean, this SPECIFICALLY represents a spellcaster out-performing a master swordsman; but once we establish the principle, it applies equally to the master of any other skill or craft.

A spellcaster should be able to BEAT the master swordsman, sure... but with Fuego, or Ventas Servitas, or what-have-you; not by grabbing a blade and out-fencing the mortal; at least not by so much that they make it look like a no-contest match!  They shouldn't be able to out-bookkeep a top-tier CPA.  They shouldn't be able to out-shoot a specialist sniper, etc.  Out-perform them, in various ways, with magic?  Absolutely.

===

That said... Morgan was reportedly a SERIOUS badass with a blade.  So that should be represented SOMEHOW ...  But I think Murphy with a katana would take him, if his blade were not magical...

[nadia.skylark]

You roll Discipline + control to control / aim spells. Conviction + power is used to draw the shifts of power that fuel the spell.

But this isn't standard spellcasting; it's the easy evocations power, you can just use it with your fists or with a weapon.

One idea I've toyed with: compress Discipline and Conviction into Will. Instead of using Discipline + Conviction, spells use Will + the skill you'd normally use. So you'd use a combat skill to use combat spells, Investigation to use divination magic, and so on. Would make it almost inevitable for fight wizards to be great swordsmen / martial artists / whatever.

Could you elaborate? This sounds really interesting!

I think that's a very bad idea. Would make it trivial to get a Weapons skill that's absolutely unattainable for anyone who isn't a spellcaster.

Agreed.  Murphy should be dangerous with a katana (or a P90) in-hand; even if it's not one of the Swords of the Cross, Murphy should be a credible threat to ordinary Vamps (whether Ramp/Blamp/Whamp), and even to Master-caliber Vamps if they don't take her seriously, if they try to take her with mere combat.  Not the obvious winner -- she's still an underdog vs. an Ortega or a Mavra or a Lara -- but a credible threat.

Spellcasters shouldn't be able to out-do ANY/EVERY mortal within their own specialty, which is what this represents.  I mean, this SPECIFICALLY represents a spellcaster out-performing a master swordsman; but once we establish the principle, it applies equally to the master of any other skill or craft.

A spellcaster should be able to BEAT the master swordsman, sure... but with Fuego, or Ventas Servitas, or what-have-you; not by grabbing a blade and out-fencing the mortal; at least not by so much that they make it look like a no-contest match!  They shouldn't be able to out-bookkeep a top-tier CPA.  They shouldn't be able to out-shoot a specialist sniper, etc.  Out-perform them, in various ways, with magic?  Absolutely.

===

That said... Morgan was reportedly a SERIOUS badass with a blade.  So that should be represented SOMEHOW ... 

...What about adding half the power bonus? I agree with you that I don't want to have wizards outdoing everyone else at everything, but I'm still trying to figure out a way to represent earth magic as looking like really good mundane combat.

Or what if the stunt/power allowed you to make earth magic maneuvers related to combat as a supplemental action without the usual supplemental action and without taking stress?

But I think Murphy with a katana would take him, if his blade were not magical...

Well, not Murphy. We have WoJ that Murphy doesn't really do much with swords on a regular basis, although she knows how to wield them from martial arts training. She's more a fists and guns type of person.

Shiro should be able to beat Morgan definitely, though. Maybe Michael, too, although Morgan has had a century of practice...

[Taran]

Before we dive too far into homebrew, let's refocus the question: You want a good representation of Morgan.

So, then, we must ask: How good of a swordman is Morgan when you consider his 'honed instincts' derived from his earth magic ?

Shiro is listed at Fantastic which, according to the ladder is:

Š Fantastic (+6) and above skirt the boundaries of natural human capacity.

He's +7 to block.  But he's supposed to be the best swordman alive(RIP Shiro)

So, maybe you put Morgan at +4 or +5 (Great or Superb)

Š Great (+4) and Superb (+5) indicate veteran or masterful capacity, or the combination of extreme talent and good training.

So the question is this:  How good a swordsman is Morgan without his magic?  With his buffed instincts, If you add specializations, we can quickly add +3 or 4 shifts.  Which which puts his 'mortal' skill at +1 or +2.

According to the ladder, a +2 skill is:

Fair (+2) and Good (+3) indicate journeyman or “professional” capacity, or a nearly inhuman degree of talent.

If the homebrew stunt/power pushes his skill any higher, then he's only a novice swordsman without his earth magic. 

I think he's a very skilled swordsman.  Like, +3 to +5.  I think 'honed instincts' is going to net you a +1 or 2 max, which puts him on par with Shiro.(and I feel that's generous)  So, if it was me making the stunt or power, I'd keep that range in mind.

If you want to add more, then Morgan is either a very poor swordsman who relies entirely on his magic for his skill or he's an expert/proffessional swordsman whose supernatural ability makes him better than Shiro.

Whatever you decide, your stunt or power should reflect that.

[nadia.skylark]

Before we dive too far into homebrew, let's refocus the question: You want a good representation of Morgan.

So, then, we must ask: How good of a swordman is Morgan when you consider his 'honed instincts' derived from his earth magic ?

Shiro is listed at Fantastic which, according to the ladder is:

...

If you want to add more, then Morgan is either a very poor swordsman who relies entirely on his magic for his skill or he's an expert/proffessional swordsman whose supernatural ability makes him better than Shiro.

Or Shiro is seriously under-statted, which is what I think. He should definitely have a base weapons rating of +7 (if the Merlin can have his conviction and discipline that high, I believe that Shiro can have his weapons that high) plus a bunch more stunts to up his power. (I don't remember which stunts he does have, and I can't look because I don't currently have access to my copy of Our World, but I remember very distinctly thinking that his expert swordsmanship was just not very well shown in his write-up. As I recall, he has way fewer stunts enhancing his combat ability than Murphy does as of Paranet Papers, and given that he's described as "Mozart with a sword" I'd say he's very definitely supposed to be better than her.)

[Taran]

OW says Shiro is +6 and +7 to defense.  Even if you push it by 1 shift, my point still stands:  the more shifts this ability gives Morgan, the crappier he is naturally.  I think he's only slightly worse than micheal who has a skill of +5 

A normal joe has a skill between +1 to 3 in most things.  Most people have weapons skill at +0 to +1

also: I'm reposting this edit I made in the last post.

Edit:

Or what if the stunt/power allowed you to make earth magic maneuvers related to combat as a supplemental action without the usual supplemental action and without taking stress?

Doing it as a supplemental would give you a free tag every round and, if it didn't cause stress, you could do it for infinity. 

How about something like this: 'You may use your earth magic to 'hone your instincts', making you more alert for danger and quicker and deadlier in combat.  You may use your Earth magic to create the Maneuver: 'honed instincts'.  The aspect lasts for the scene and you may tag the aspect twice.'

It could even be one of his Rote spells.

[Sanctaphrax]

To expand on what I said a few posts back, I think all these Power concepts are likely to fail because the basic problem has been mis-identified.

The game doesn't need ways to represent using magic to be better at mundane fighting. It has a million of those.

The thing that all this is meant to address is that having high Weapons and Evocation is generally a bad idea optimization-wise. And that puts Wardens in a weird place. To deal with that, you'll want a different approach.

That said... Morgan was reportedly a SERIOUS badass with a blade.  So that should be represented SOMEHOW ...

Great or Superb Weapons and an appropriate Aspect covers that.

But this isn't standard spellcasting; it's the easy evocations power, you can just use it with your fists or with a weapon.

Power writeup that I can see doesn't say anything about that. Says that you can cast without stress, not that you can cast with the easy evocations rules.

Could you elaborate? This sounds really interesting!

There's not much to say; I never did anything to develop the idea.

...What about adding half the power bonus? I agree with you that I don't want to have wizards outdoing everyone else at everything, but I'm still trying to figure out a way to represent earth magic as looking like really good mundane combat.

It already can look like really good mundane combat. Completely by the book.

Or what if the stunt/power allowed you to make earth magic maneuvers related to combat as a supplemental action without the usual supplemental action and without taking stress?

No way. A free Aspect every round is crazy strong.

[nadia.skylark]

OW says Shiro is +6 and +7 to defense.  Even if you push it by 1 shift, my point still stands:  the more shifts this ability gives Morgan, the crappier he is naturally.  I think he's only slightly worse than micheal who has a skill of +5

True. I figure that Morgan probably has a base weapons ability of +4/+5. With his magic, he's good enough to nearly kill the Red King--and a lot of that has to be stressless sword attacks, or he would have taken himself out before he got that close (unless you think the Red King doesn't have a bunch of really powerful bodyguards. Morgan had to take them out, plus take out any mooks that got in the way, plus defend himself from all the vampires).

Doing it as a supplemental would give you a free tag every round and, if it didn't cause stress, you could do it for infinity.

...so it's basically an overly-elaborate +2. I suppose I should go back to "just add half your earth power bonus."

How about something like this: 'You may use your earth magic to 'hone your instincts', making you more alert for danger and quicker and deadlier in combat.  You may use your Earth magic to create the Maneuver: 'honed instincts'.  The aspect lasts for the scene and you may tag the aspect twice.'

It could even be one of his Rote spells.

I'm not sure if that's broad enough. Here's what Paranet Papers says about earth magic:

The contrast to air, earth magic relies on instinct and intuition—basic, primal impulses operating on a supernatural level. The least structured of all the elements, earth magic manifests in reflexive command of the basic forces of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, and perhaps weak and strong nuclear forces) and seeming to always be “on the ball.” It’s not neat and precise like air magic, or chaotic like fire magic—the effects are unplanned and improvisational, coming from the gut, yet they always seem to work extremely well.
We know of overt earth magic doing things like creating earthquakes or changing the direction of gravity, but it can also manifest
as extreme ease of action on the wizard’s part. Instead of a literal shield, an earth block might look like a series of coincidental dodges, with the wizard just instinctively knowing which way to move to avoid the attack. Instead of some electromagnetic distortion zapping people, an earth attack might look as though the wizard was really, really good at hand-to-hand fighting, always managing to slip past the opponent’s defense.
Perhaps the most advanced application of earth magic doesn’t look like magic at all— just the right things happening in response to anything the wizard does, always working out in his favor.

This is what I'm trying to represent mechanically. ...Actually, no, that's not true. I've gotten so caught up in this discussion that I forgot what I'm actually trying to do, which is to add an addendum to the easy evocations power (here: https://www.paranetonline.com/index.php/topic,53054.0.html ) that says "if you're using earth magic and happen to have a sword or something, you can use the sword in the attack to get its weapons value."

To expand on what I said a few posts back, I think all these Power concepts are likely to fail because the basic problem has been mis-identified.

The game doesn't need ways to represent using magic to be better at mundane fighting. It has a million of those.

The thing that all this is meant to address is that having high Weapons and Evocation is generally a bad idea optimization-wise. And that puts Wardens in a weird place. To deal with that, you'll want a different approach.

This is true.

Power writeup that I can see doesn't say anything about that. Says that you can cast without stress, not that you can cast with the easy evocations rules.

Then I mis-wrote it. Sorry.

No way. A free Aspect every round is crazy strong.

Do you think I should just have this as a 1-refresh upgrade to the easy evocations power that says "you can incorporate weapons into your earth evocations done with this power and get their weapons value"? I've been trying to make it separate so that people can use it without having "easy evocations"-type spellcasting for all their elements, but that doesn't seem to be working.

[Sanctaphrax]

Do you think I should just have this as a 1-refresh upgrade to the easy evocations power that says "you can incorporate weapons into your earth evocations done with this power and get their weapons value"?

I guess that would at least be worth testing out.

I still don't think any of this really addresses the issue of Warden optimality though.