theoretical powergaming: maxing out an evocator

[Dan from Chicago]

Take 11 refinements, apply them all to evocation upgrades. There are ten 'slots', control and power for air, earth, fire, water, and spirit. After 10.5 refinements(2 to open up new slots with one bonus each, 8 refinements providing 2 bonuses, 1 refinement providing 1 bonus and 1 focus slot), you get the following:

1 at +4
2 at +3
3 at +2
4 at +1

as far as I can tell the progression stops there. Without another slot, there's no way to move up farther. At this point the character has received at least 11 skill points(probably 2-3 times that many). Should be more than enough to get all three relevant stats to 5, if not higher. Assuming you use focus item bonus to balance out imbalances between control and power, you can toss out the equivalent of 9-10 shifts as a rote without breathing hard. In your weakest element you'd run at 6 shifts.

Granted the character is minimum -18 refresh. Still pretty scary though

Of course, you'd be completely neglecting half of wizardry

[Tbora]

You would be better off applying the majority of those refinement to a focus item on a single element, that way you get max possible build.That is like the only way to get around to "no stacking" thing for evocation.

[luminos]

Pretty nice, but you can get the same effect for much cheaper by using focus items.  

Evocation -3 (Element +1 control)
Refinement (Element +1 control, +1 power)
Refinement x3 (Item slots)

-7 refresh

You can have up to 10 shifts of power for this guy's rotes depending on how you distribute his item slots, and he works in a Chest Deep game.

[Dan from Chicago]

I don't think you could get 10 shifts with that build ... not without incurring serious stress or risk. At most you'll have 2 of the three casting skills at 5, with 1 at 4. let's say lore and conviction at 5, discipline at 4. That means a single focus items could have at most 5 points in bonuses. Call it +3 control, +2 power. freebie bonuses get you +1 power, +2 control or vice versa. That gives you 8 shifts, more if you want to take risks of fallout or backlash. As far as I know you can only use one focus item at a time, so whatever focus item you use will have to be balanced between control and power so the lore limit comes into play pretty quickly. Using all the refinement slots gives you 8 bonus points, so you could do +2 offense/defense control/power. So 8 shifts for offensive and defensive applications each in a single element using focus items is fairly realistic.

Focus items have their own limits.

[John Galt]

For 18 refresh a pure offensive evocator should have at least weapon 20 rotes... he'd just be awful at defense for his level and screwed if a GM took his toys.

[Dan from Chicago]

but there's no reason for an evocator who used refinements to increase elemental power and control to be pure offense. The split between offense and defense only to focus items.

And my build doesn't have toys to take away

[Tbora]

Sure, but its still infinitely less potent.

[Tsunami]

I think you got the progression of refinements a bit wrong

With those 10 slots you can get the following by way of refinements
Control (+5; +4; +3; +2; +1)
Power (+5; +4; +3; +2; +1)

thats 30 points in total including the 1 from evocation
   15 Refinements (28 points & 2 more elements)
   1 Refinement (1 point & 1 Focus item Slot)

We assume the three skills at Superb (+5)

that gives us evocations at 10 shifts

Now we add a Focus Item (we have 3 slots, 2 from evo., 1 from refinement)
we add 4 more refinements for 8 more focus slots, and we get the following focus item

Generic Item for one element(off Control +5, off Power +5)

We end up with offensive Evocations in the peak element at 15 Shifts, controlled and targeted with a skill of +15.

this costs us the measly bit of -23 refresh...

[Dan from Chicago]

Sure, but its still infinitely less potent.

Funnily enough, I just started a thread on this. It's only infinitely less potent if you assume that each of the elements is a perfect substitute for the others. If they are ... if there's nothing you can't accomplish as easily with water as you can with fire and vice versa, you're right, your build is far more refresh point efficient than mine is. If however, if the thematic differences between the elements has a game mechanic effect(and I would argue it should), than my build has both enormous power and flexibility.

[Dan from Chicago]

I think you got the progression of refinements a bit wrong

With those 10 slots you can get the following by way of refinements
Control (+5; +4; +3; +2; +1)
Power (+5; +4; +3; +2; +1)

How? As I understand things, the power/control 'tower' function like skills. You can't have more in a higher level than a lower. So if you're applying points one at a time, you get to the point where you can't boost a bonus to 2 without more at 2 than 1. Can you save up points to apply them in blocks?

[Nomad]

You can. You don't have to spend it as soon as you gain. Just chalk it up as "My character is working on improving his control but he hasn't mastered it to a better level yet" and spend it later. Maybe you could beg for a debt withyour story teller at the price of additional compels or an "extra" non-permanent trouble aspect until you gain another point for an extra point in advance like mortgaging your house to fund additional research and live testing. And getting "perpetually broke"aspect for a while...

[Deadmanwalking]

How? As I understand things, the power/control 'tower' function like skills. You can't have more in a higher level than a lower. So if you're applying points one at a time, you get to the point where you can't boost a bonus to 2 without more at 2 than 1. Can you save up points to apply them in blocks?

You're actually applying them two at a time (since that's what you get from one Refinement, by default), which works fine, for example:

+4
+3 +3
+2 +2 +2
+1 +1 +1 +1

Could go immediately to:

+4
+3 +3 +3
+2 +2 +2
+1 +1 +1

[JustinS]

You can actually get to
+10/+9
+8/+7
+6/+5
+4/+3
+2/+1

55 total, less 3 from your starting bonus, and the two from the new elements is 52,
or 26 Refresh on Evocation bonuses, or 28 total refresh on refinement counting the elements.

At this point, you likely have a skill cap of 7, and a good chance of one of your casting skills there.

So call it effective Power 16/control 16 for your signature Evocations.
Plus get a +3/+3 attack item (you with a lore of 6) for another 3 refinement, and you attack at 19/19

Add a +1/+1 defense item and you are all set for a refinement 40 Wizard...

[Deadmanwalking]

Uh...you're Specializations max out at your Lore (see YS p. 183), so +7/+7 is as high as someone with a skill cap of 7 can manage, and that requires the full 28 levels of Refresh you're talking about. +7/+6 is alot cheaper at only 14 levels.

Both are better than The Merlin himself is capable of (since he has 'only' Fantastic Lore).

[ashern]

This is all well and good, and I've learned some more rules clarifications from this.  But I'd be more interested to see how much power a submerged level master evocator could manage, since that's a lot more likely.