Dresden Files RPG
So, we got our first significant (I believe) milestone - another skill point and a chance to rearrange a few things if desired, but not actually another point of refresh. To me, this technically occurred when the group reached safety after the ferry raid at the end of the previous session. For better or worse, advancement in the system seems fairly slow by default.
Our other wizard player missed the one session that got me thinking outside the safe-and-sound box as far as casting goes. My instinct with evocation is to not go over Conviction/Discipline, so as to keep the chance of cleanly casting good with only one mental stress as a payment. But working around the ferry, and especially fleeing at the end, got me thinking "well...it's only stress and consequences." If you need a big effect, that may well be worth it - better to take down someone who's going to beat you to a pulp than plink at them while the inflict... stress and consequences on you.
Casting over Conviction means additional mental stress. Casting over Discipline means the roll to succeed is harder, but even if you fail your roll you can take the difference as backlash (mental or physical stress) and still succeed.
Safe casting is good and all, but sometimes it just isn't enough, especially if outnumbered/outgunned.
I'm still contemplating having my character go more over to the firebird side with sponsored magic. The firebird/phoenix thing seems pretty similar to Summer magic, though perhaps slightly more limited to fire/life aspects - functionally it's not a big difference.
Something I hadn't considered dawned on me, though. This technically (but not very practically) enables combat healing. The main sponsored magic (particularly Summer/Winter) includes the benefit of being able to cast in-theme thaumaturgy effects at evocation speed. That means healing at evocation speed... potentially. The "saving grace" (given that our dear GM doesn't like combat healing much) is that downgrading a moderate consequence is an 8-shift spell. Even if you can do that in evocation time, channeling 8 shifts of power probably costs 3-5 mental stress right off, and likely even more with the actual casting roll to avoid fallout. I doubt this would prove to be a major concern in the game because it's so hard to pull off effects of that magnitude in the single-exchange casting that evocation is. It's something that might be doable once with use of invocations and taking consequences to cast. Healing anything over a moderate is even harder.
Thaumaturgy is still a slowing factor in the game. That's fairly natural considering how open the casting system is. One thing did click in my head when discussing a spell to translate: If a spell is duplicating something that could be done with skills, determine how hard it would be with that skill and you have the complexity of the spell. Seems basic enough, but that's not something that I had set in my head before.
Of course, doing thing outside the realm of skills can still get sticky.
And there's one thing our GM is having trouble with conceptually: rarity of spells.
Again, this mostly comes up withe the example reiki healing spell in the RPG book - it's said to be rare. My character was allowed to know that effect because we had healing under the previous system used in the campaign. The "new" wizard to our group was said to not know it. So, naturally, the first time I start healing someone he wants to watch. And asks to be taught.
Our GM is of the mind that 1) someone taught a new effect like that should probably not be as good as their teaher and 2) there should be some time involved in learning. The game system doesn't reflect this. Neither does the source material. In the novels, wizards are depicted as pretty set in their ways. Harry teaches Molly, but nowhere does an established wizard really learn something that's beyond his set of knowledge. One could argue that should mean no one learns new magical effects, but that's hard to put in place when the magic system in the game is so open.
I don't know that there's a good option there. Either house rule some stuff in, which gets clunky, or make a judgement call when the student learns, but applying penalties or something seems out of place.
We still aren't using Compels or Fate Points all that often. It's hard, perhaps, because we all still have a the mindset of a relatively linear, mission-based campaign in mind rather than a free-form "let's make this an interesting story" framework.
Our other wizard player missed the one session that got me thinking outside the safe-and-sound box as far as casting goes. My instinct with evocation is to not go over Conviction/Discipline, so as to keep the chance of cleanly casting good with only one mental stress as a payment. But working around the ferry, and especially fleeing at the end, got me thinking "well...it's only stress and consequences." If you need a big effect, that may well be worth it - better to take down someone who's going to beat you to a pulp than plink at them while the inflict... stress and consequences on you.
Casting over Conviction means additional mental stress. Casting over Discipline means the roll to succeed is harder, but even if you fail your roll you can take the difference as backlash (mental or physical stress) and still succeed.
Safe casting is good and all, but sometimes it just isn't enough, especially if outnumbered/outgunned.
I'm still contemplating having my character go more over to the firebird side with sponsored magic. The firebird/phoenix thing seems pretty similar to Summer magic, though perhaps slightly more limited to fire/life aspects - functionally it's not a big difference.
Something I hadn't considered dawned on me, though. This technically (but not very practically) enables combat healing. The main sponsored magic (particularly Summer/Winter) includes the benefit of being able to cast in-theme thaumaturgy effects at evocation speed. That means healing at evocation speed... potentially. The "saving grace" (given that our dear GM doesn't like combat healing much) is that downgrading a moderate consequence is an 8-shift spell. Even if you can do that in evocation time, channeling 8 shifts of power probably costs 3-5 mental stress right off, and likely even more with the actual casting roll to avoid fallout. I doubt this would prove to be a major concern in the game because it's so hard to pull off effects of that magnitude in the single-exchange casting that evocation is. It's something that might be doable once with use of invocations and taking consequences to cast. Healing anything over a moderate is even harder.
Thaumaturgy is still a slowing factor in the game. That's fairly natural considering how open the casting system is. One thing did click in my head when discussing a spell to translate: If a spell is duplicating something that could be done with skills, determine how hard it would be with that skill and you have the complexity of the spell. Seems basic enough, but that's not something that I had set in my head before.
Of course, doing thing outside the realm of skills can still get sticky.
And there's one thing our GM is having trouble with conceptually: rarity of spells.
Again, this mostly comes up withe the example reiki healing spell in the RPG book - it's said to be rare. My character was allowed to know that effect because we had healing under the previous system used in the campaign. The "new" wizard to our group was said to not know it. So, naturally, the first time I start healing someone he wants to watch. And asks to be taught.
Our GM is of the mind that 1) someone taught a new effect like that should probably not be as good as their teaher and 2) there should be some time involved in learning. The game system doesn't reflect this. Neither does the source material. In the novels, wizards are depicted as pretty set in their ways. Harry teaches Molly, but nowhere does an established wizard really learn something that's beyond his set of knowledge. One could argue that should mean no one learns new magical effects, but that's hard to put in place when the magic system in the game is so open.
I don't know that there's a good option there. Either house rule some stuff in, which gets clunky, or make a judgement call when the student learns, but applying penalties or something seems out of place.
We still aren't using Compels or Fate Points all that often. It's hard, perhaps, because we all still have a the mindset of a relatively linear, mission-based campaign in mind rather than a free-form "let's make this an interesting story" framework.
Dresden has doodads, gadgets and experience behind him, but he gets -wiped- if he has to keep casting flashy stuff over and over. I think the gaining stress (not casting 'safely') is perfectly in theme with the source material. Combat healing may make some fights a little more trivial (though it sort of transfers the stress from the injured to the caster helping them, heh >.>) and ultimately I think it comes down to paradigm. Personal paradigm is what casting is all about. Harry teaches Molly, but Molly does things Harry has no where near the skill to pull off, likewise, he does things she can't seem to be able to do. She can dig cloaking and messing with minds, he can make the big booms. So, to alleviate your GM's concern about combat-heals unbalancing his fights, maybe your phoenixy/fae fueled mage may think making wounds knit up and the person be right as rain is well within his way of casting, but this new guy watching may just scratch his head and not 'get it' in his line of arcane thinking.
ReplyDeleteThe "problem" we're running into there is that our GM 1) doesn't seem to want to rule out the healing thaumaturgy for the other wizard completey and 2) wants some sort of rules to back up his view. They just aren't there. We talked about Harry vs. Molly as far as veils in the discussion. By the RPG books, Molly is slightly better as such things as-statted (her Discipline is one higher and she has a bonus on Spirit). She's +5 casting veils and he's +3. Additionally, there's the influence of Aspects as Molly has something about subtlety and Harry is just the opposite - so invokes/compels could affect their casting of veils. Of course, as Harry "levels up" over the course of the stories, that gets hazier since his Discipline probably goes up some. But introducing something new like this... it feels to me like you either have to just go with it or forbid it outright (which is hard to justify unless the would-be student has some Aspects against it).
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