Evocation questions

[crusher_bob]

Are counterspells associated with any element?  Or are they just a straight Conviction/Discipline roll?  Or are they associated with spirit, since that seems to be the element for 'raw' magic use?  Or can you counter with whatever element you happen to be specialized in?

Next, what can the other elements do that spirit can't?  If you put your evocation specializations in spirit, you get your basic attacks and defense with force effects, you can do various force based maneuvers to do things like knock people down, bind them up in bands of force, blind them with light (or darkness), and so on more of less anything you would seem to want.  In addition though, you get the ability to veil things (and maybe have more powerful counterspells too).

So if I specialize in air instead, a lot of my combat options can look exactly the same, but I can't veil things with air...  So what stuff are the other elements capable of that a spirit specialist isn't?  Since veils are essentially stealth, should the rest of the elements have an associated skill, that they can be used for?
something like
air -> athletics, alertness (or investigation?)
earth -> might, endurance
fire -> empathy, intimidation
water -> craftsmanship, deceit
Spirit -> stealth, performance

So, for example, if I want to disguise something, I need to do it with water magic and if I want to find something I do it with air, and so on.

[crusher_bob]

Next, how to the bonuses granted from focus items apply to maneuver spells and 'offensive blocks'?  What about counterspells?

Does it work like this:
I want to cast a maneuver spell that'll apply the blinded to someone.  As this is an offensive maneuver, I get the offensive bonuses from foci.
I want to cast a maneuver that'll apply too fast for the eye to see on myself.  This uses defensive foci bonuses.
What about if I want to apply a beneficial aspect to one of my friends with a maneuver?  Is that an offense or defense? or neither?

Blocks:
I want to bind up the bad guy, so apply a block to his movement; offensive?
I want to make a wall of fire (create a barrier between zones); defensive?

What about the 'block' against magic that Ebenezar was supposed to be doing to Mavra in, erm, Blood Rites?  Is this possible in the game rules?  If so, how does it work, and why isn't it an "I win" button against other wizards?

[Wyrdrune]

from the top of my head, as I am quite busy at the moment, but here are some quick answers:

no, I think, counterspells are not tied to any element, it is more an unweaving of magical energies.

well, the other elements can do a lot, what spirit can't...
spirit cannot set a building on fire. (some times this may be done by intention )
spirit does not have any magnetics (earth) or lightning (air) effects.
spirit cannot conjure a quick mist, but water can.
spirit cannot conjure a slippery sheet of ice on the ground, but water or fire (if you see it as control of temperature) should be able.
spirit may not allow you to jump a few stories high, but an air evocation might make that possible.

it all depends on your imagination what the elements stand for. "your story" gives a few pointers to that. but if you just want to basically clobber people and defend with force shields, spirit is just right.

I think offensive boni only apply to attacks and defensive boni apply only to blocks and armor, but I can be mistaken.

as with characters as strong as ebenezar I would be very cautious as they might bend the rules a lot, and this may be more of a 'plot power'.

[crusher_bob]

But if counterspells aren't affiliated with any element, you can't get any better at them with refinement...  And I'd assume that they are supposed to be something you can get better at doing.

[luminos]

Just pick an element that makes sense, like you do with all evocation effects.  You can go the route of cleansing fire, or running water that grounds out magic, or pure spirit that counteracts the source of the magic, or whatever else you can think of to justify using the element as a counter-spell.

[Deadmanwalking]

The other elements have less tangible advantages than Veils:

Air: Judging by Hyperawareness, you actually can use Air to get initiative.
Earth: It's casually easy to make people defend against your attacks with their Might. That's both hilarious and vicious.
Fire: Fire maneuvers are alot easier to justify making ongoing (as are all fire effects, actually). Also there's the ability to do elemental inversions and get ice, no small thing, that.
Water: This one I have a bit of trouble with, honestly.

[neko128]

Water counter-spell?  A "water veil" or "water shield" to counter a fire spell is the first thing that comes to mind.  How about a more subtle, internal effect to counter a poison or similar attack spell?  Water spells could be used to separate and manipulate existing liquids (blood, gases even)...

[crusher_bob]

I'd prefer that there be some minor advantage to each of the elements, so that you occasionally have a reason to do one over the other.

How's this:

Air
You can explicitly listen in on peoples conversations with air, that you can't really do with the other elements.  Plus probably some other detection related stuff.
Advantage: detection
You can use an air based detection spell to substitute for an investigation roll

Fire
Why is the fireball throwing wizard such a standard trope? If you want everything over there blown up, fire is your go to element.
Fire's gets the AOE advantage since it naturally spreads so easily.
Advantage: area
When changing out power for area of effect, you only have to pay 1 power for the first area instead of 2

Earth:
Harry always talks about how 'once you actually get the earth moving, it tends to stay moving'.  So earth effects last longer.
Advantage: duration
When you are spending shifts to increase duration, or are using another magical action to extend duration, earth spells get one additional free shift in duration.

Water:
Running water tends to ground out magic, if you want to counterspell something, you are doing the same thing.
Advantage: magic destruction
This is the element that counterspells are based on

Spirit:
Spirit handles light, os it gets illusions, of which veils become part.
Advantage: illusion
You can veil things as well as create illusions of things that aren't there at all.

So now, your choice of which 3 evocation elements to know how to do has some effect over what sort of stuff you want do.  There's a (marginal_ reason to want to put points into something other than you main element, and even wizards who are hyper specialized in one element feel slightly different from another wizard who is specialized in another element.

[Falar]

So how would you express all that in raw mechanics?

[crusher_bob]

Something like this:

Air explicitly gets the ability to do the following:
Eavesdropping (investigation sub-ability)
Examination (investigation related ability), for example, you could walk into the bookstore and use an air effect to speed up your finding of Die Lied der Erlking.

The other elements can do detections to find their own element, for example, you could use earth to find the weapon points in a steel bridge, or something.  But air based detection lets you find almost anything.

Fire:
bonus area:
So if we have a power 5 spell that we want to effect a whole are, we'd normally pay 2 power for that, meaning that if would be power 3, area 1.
If it were a fire spell, we only have to pay 1 power for the first area (but 2 for all the following areas) so it would be power 4, area 1.

Earth:
same trick for duration.  If I want to make, say, an earthquake spell: I start with 8 power, I want it to effect 2 areas, and last for 1 extra exchange.  So that would normally be power 3, area 2, duration 1 spell.  But with the duration bonus for earth, it would be power 3, area 2, duration 2. 
In addition, when you make the roll to extend an earth magic spell, you get 1 free shift to duration if you succeed.  Example, I call up my basic earth shield, power 4.  But the next round, I want to to stick around, so i spend an action on increasing its duration.  I get four shifts for duration, so normally, my spell would stick around for another 4 exchanges.  But since it's an earth spell, it will stick around for additional 5 exchanges instead.

Water:
The counterspell ability is now based on your skill and power with water magic.  So any foci, specializations, etc that apply to water also apply to your counterspell ability.

Spirit:
veils, (which generally act as a stealth roll) and illusion maneuvers go here.

[Falar]

So basically you get a free stunt/half-stunt in some areas and some areas can't do things? I'm personally of the mind that if the player can justify something, he should be able to do it. I get your investigation spell thing from air ... but if someone used spirit to find spiritually compatible things as an evocation ... eg, things from the same thing ... why shouldn't he be able to do that?

I mean, I get what you're getting at - but I don't think it really goes with the free and cinematic feel that the rules have. Basically, you're restricting where you should be saying "yes or rolling the dice." From my point of view. Of course, in your own game, you get to roll things how you want to.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, I'm on board with Falar here. You're thinking too mechanistically. Elements do what the mage believes they can (as is demonstrated by the alternate element systems), and so they can do whatever the player can justify them doing. For example, Earth and Water could both likely justify a Veil, and Air might be able to as well.

[crusher_bob]

Yes, my main problem it that right now, there is no incentive to every do anything outside of your specialist element.  And there is a minor inventive to specialize in spirit, since it explicitly gets the ability to veil, but none of the other elements give you an explicit ability.

Notice how Harry uses fire (and sometimes earth) based attacks, and forces based defenses.  This makes him more interesting to read about, but it the game, it makes him weaker.  So a Harry in the game wants to use fire for everything, and barring special effects, his magic is almost identical to someone who uses any other element for everything.

If there was no mechanical incentive to specialize, then people could mix up their elements however they wanted, and it wouldn't matter.  But there is a mechanical incentive to specialize, so there should also be a mechanical incentive to be a generalist.  And, ideally, a way to differentiate specialized wizards who are at the same power level, but use different elements.

So, if we have a sample wizard with discipline 4, conviction 3 and we are going to make him a combat wizard.
He'll take as his evocation specialty spirit power, and get +1 spirit offense and defense from foci.
So he can throw around power 5, control 5 offensive and defensive spells, and can explicitly veil stuff (with power 4, control 4).

We'll take the same stat wizard who wants to attack with fire and defend with water:
Discipline 4, conviction 3; evo specialization in fire power.  Focus items for fire offense and water defense.
So he can throw out power 5, control 5 offensive fire spells, but only power 4, control 5 defensive water spells.  And if he wants to veil stuff he's only at power 3, control 4.

And when they take refinement, the gap gets worse.
Spirit guy gets +1 spirit power and control with his refinement (getting him +2 spirit power, +1 spirit control, in total); he gets better veils (power 5, control 5), and he goes to power 6, control 6 attacks and defenses.

Fire/water guy gets +1 fire control and +1 water power with his refinement and he's at power 5, control 6 attacks and power 5, control 5 defenses and his veils are still only power 3, control 4

----

And since all elements do everything (more or less), there is no reason to be fire/water guy.  Sure, fire/water guy was a very marginal maneuver advantage, since he gets two lists of possibly maneuver aspects to inflict, but with the stress cost of evocations, you aren't going to stack up that many maneuvers on someone.  The spirit guy is happy with stuff like knocked down, staggered, and blinded.

Even with my suggested mechanical changes, fire/water guy still isn't that great compared to spirit guy
Since both (with 1 refinement) can throw power 4, area 1, control 6 attacks and maneuvers, but at least fire/water guy has slightly better counterspells (spirit guy would have power 3 control 4 for counterspells, and fire/water guy would have power 4, control 4 (plus maybe foci bonuses)).

And now we compare all fire guy to all water guy.  The fire guy can throw power 5, area 1, control 6 attacks while the water guy can only do power 4, area 1, control 6 attacks, but water guy has much better counterspells than fire guy (water guy is at power 5, control 5 countspells (plus maybe foci bonuses); fire guy is still at power 3, control 4).  And all air guy can find stuff like nobody's business, and earth guy can make walls of lava that last a bit longer than anyone else, and spirit guy can disappear.

There's still not much inventive to be two element guy, but at least you get a bit of flexibility in exchange.  It's probably still not enough though.

[Falar]

You do know that you can only use refinement to get a +2 in any element without branching out? It's one of the beauties of the system - you literally have to master a bunch of things or you won't be able to be good at what you really want to be good at.

This smacks way too much of "no" style GMing to me and breaks the beauty of the system for me. If you totally redid the system to something that supports a granularity and a non-cinematic style, I think I could see it. As it is, I think it would be a detriment to the system, rather than adding something to it.

Granted, your game, your house rules. I just could never get behind something as limiting as this. If it was all bonuses, then I might be able to see it more. I think Iago said at one point in a totally unrelated place about something absolutely different, that Fate is more about adding things than it is about subtracting things.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, starting wizards are a bit better off focsing on one Element. As are, possibly, the very highest echelons of the White Council (with their ridiculous specialty totals).

Everyone else. Like, say, Harry at books 4+ is actually better off with around two different elements to base their stuff off of. If you have 6 specialties, you need to have two +1s and two +2s splitting them evenly between two elements really doesn't leave you any weaker for practical purposes (or at least can be depending on their Conviction and Discipline).

And Harry has used an Earth Evocation only very rarely when it was needed for a particular special effect he was doing, or he was tapping an Earth affiliated ley line.

Also, thinking about it, most Wizards aren't Harry and do focus on one element: look at Ramirez's Water Magic, Elaine's clear focus on Air, or Molly's complete reliance on Spirit. Or Morgan's Earth magic and Luccio's Fire specialties, for that matter.