Attack:
Roll Discipline + Focus Item
Strength = Conviction + Specialization
Reduce Strength by 2 for each Zone affected
Caster can choose to limit the Spell Strength
Was it your intention to remove the 'split' in specializations and just have them effect the power of the spell? And only focus items effect the control/to hit roll?
Maneuver:
Roll Discipline + Focus Item
Strength = Conviction + Specialization
Difficulty to Remove Aspect = Strength
Reduce Difficulty by 1 for each Exchange added
Reduce Difficulty by 2 for each Zone affected
What exactly does adding duration to a maneuver get you, since maneuvers applied with a skill last for the scene unless an action is taken to remove them.
Let's say I want to blind you with a bright light.
I've got discipline 5, conviction 5, and a +1 (control?) focus item. I do the flashy thing. You try to resist with your alertness with the justification that. while you might be momentarily blinded, you can still sense where things are.
I roll (+, -, _, _) on the fudge dice for at attack total of 6. Do you compare your alertness with the attack/control roll (6) or against the power of the spell (5)?
Let's assume you fail in your defense and are
blindedThen, your action rolls around, you decide to "rub your eyes to get the spots out of them" and roll alertness again. If the target number supposed to be 5 (the strength of the spell)?
Block:
Roll Discipline + Focus Item
So it's your intention to remove 'power' from block and instead have the block based on the 'control' roll? This is sort of a bad idea, as it makes control an even better proposition. Right now, control is great on the attack, but you need both control and power on the block. This makes a character built for something like control 7, power 4 not ideal on the defense. Whereas, in your rule change, control 7, power 4 guy is still great at defending.
And while I think your compel for fallout or backlash rule looks alright, I think your previous rules make it much less likely for wizards to
miss that the regular rules.
If I want to make a combat wizard at 8 refresh, I can take superb discipline, conviction 3, and then use my focus item slots to produce control 7 attacks and control 7 blocks, and still have plenty of skill slots left over to do other stuff. A wizard under the regular rules also needs conviction, as they need the base power conviction brings to do good blocks.
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Thaumaturgy:
Some of your complaints sound a bit like complaining about the contacts skill:
You never roll it in combat, and it's always
some guy who tells you stuff.
The 'interesting' parts of thaumaturgy are whatever zany stuff you do to get enough complexity to cast the spell, not the actual ritual itself. If works the same way in the books, almost all of the page count in thaumaturgy is spent on the declarations (
bluc play-doh,
ring of barbed wire,
long cleansing shower, and do on).
That's the interesting part.
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Enchanting
While enchanters are powerful, I'm not really convinced that they are overpowered. While they are very strong on the defense, their inability to get bonuses to hit like evocators can limits their offensive ability, and their limited uses clamps down on thier non-combat utility some too.
While it's possible to build an evocation offense, enchanted item defense character it actually takes a lot of your character focus to get there, meaning you can't do some other interesting stuff.
Since all elements are 'equal' wouldn't a good justification lets you apply your already useful evocation specialty to power up whatever enchanted item you want?
