Wards on the bad guy's home

[zenten]

So the PCs are probably going to be storming the bad guy's home.  Said bad guy is a wizard.  How powerful should I make the wards be?  Just off the base complexity would be too weak I think, but I'm not sure how far to go in terms of additional aspects/declarations/etc.

[polkaneverdies]

Iirc you were the person whose players were about to take on tessa. If that is the case I would just keep in mind Tessa had a hand in making the circle that held the archive. She was also trained by the main brains behind that circle. Her wards would be quite impressive imho.

[sinker]

If this is his home I'd go nuts. Wizards seem to be A) paranoid, and B) capable of ridiculous power given time to prepare. If this has been his place of sanctuary for centuries or years or even months then he would likely have some pretty strong defenses.

Things to consider when creating these defenses: Does he care about collateral damage/harming innocents? Who are his enemies, what is best against them? Is he subtle? Direct? A little of both?

[ARedthorn]

I agree that the base complexity given (weakest of NPC/PC's lore/disc/conv + any enhancement bonuses) is weak tea... most of the time, a dedicated caster's gonna end up with Wards:4, and while that's technically on par with battlefield weaponry, it's at the low end of the scale (barrett .50 cal), and I typically think of Dresden's wards being more on par with a main battle tank.

Reflective Wards ought to be tough enough to be able to bounce any spell the caster would consider threatening- and maybe a skosh more... which most likely means he'd make it strong enough to bounce anything he could throw at it. (Not many people who don't own guns bother going in for kevlar.)
Land-mine wards are pretty straightforward (deal weapon damage, no real accuracy bonus that I can imagine)... and just raw Weapon:4 w/ no accuracy bonus seems low to me for the descriptions we've seen of such wards (typically designed to be able to seriously harm to some pretty big, bad things)... but the base complexity is a decent starting point.

What I'd do:
For the barrier/border/reflective wards, set it up at a total strength roughly equivalent to his most-used rote +2 (so that it'd bounce what he has to offer even on a good attack roll).
For the land-mines, use the base complexity, and then for every +2 to the strength, give the players an FP in a group pool.
Anything else you apply in the way of features (in the theme of land-mines: spells set up to go off when the ward is attacked or breached, but not direct damage... like for example, a ward that veils everything inside when breached), use the same total strength as the land-mines or the reflective wards (pick one)... and give the player pool another FP per such feature.

This way- the wards are a bit more appropriate to the wizard's power level, but the players get some FPs to help pay for the extra complication/threat (complication due to extra features, threat due to deadlier land-mines).
They'll probably need them.

[wyvern]

I'd probably default to overall strength of about lore+6, for someplace that hasn't been a home for all that terribly long.  That's assuming the wizard spends a minor and moderate consequence on setting the things up, and figuring about four more aspects worth of tags dedicated to improving the duration from "a day" to "a year".  Such a ritual would likely take a week to set up, and maybe another week to recover from, and - unless the PCs happen to know just the right time to attack when the ward's being refreshed - was probably set up months ago.  If the wizard has an extra minor consequence slot (mental or physical), add another +2 to that strength.

On the other hand, if you're looking at an ancient manse that's been in a wizarding family for generations... then, honestly, you're probably dealing with ward strength that's effectively a plot device, falling in at lore+12 or higher.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'd use the players' abilities to determine the ward strength rather than the wizard's. Decide what level of challenge you want the ward to pose, then pick a strength for it based on that.

[sinker]

Ooh, I like the idea of giving them FP for added difficulty. Gives you the chance for a more realistic defense, but gives the players a chance to penetrate it.

[zenten]

Iirc you were the person whose players were about to take on tessa. If that is the case I would just keep in mind Tessa had a hand in making the circle that held the archive. She was also trained by the main brains behind that circle. Her wards would be quite impressive imho.

Yup, it's Tessa's place.  It's just a temporary home for her while she's in Ottawa for a few months though.

I'd use the players' abilities to determine the ward strength rather than the wizard's. Decide what level of challenge you want the ward to pose, then pick a strength for it based on that.

I'm horrible at eyeballing this.  I always end up low balling such challenges, and it leaves the players bored.  Last game I sent in mercenaries based on what made sense instead of what I thought the players could fight, and it worked out much better.

[zenten]

On the other hand, if you're looking at an ancient manse that's been in a wizarding family for generations... then, honestly, you're probably dealing with ward strength that's effectively a plot device, falling in at lore+12 or higher.

One of the PCs (with help from the rest of the group) has created a ward with a strength of 18 in game before (only works against spirits though, since she was a focused practitioner at the time).  Having Tessa do something lower than that (the stats I'm using for her gives her a Lore of 4) seems weak to me.

[Belial666]

Tessa is a powerful spellcaster. Not as powerful in magic to the gal I'm currently playing, but the same general rules apply. So here's how you count ward complexity for a single-day ward;

1) Lore plus any Specialization, Focus and Sponsor bonuses. For Tessa, that's 5 + 2 specialization +1 focus +1 sponsor for damaging wards, or 9.
2) Add any shifts from minor consequences, of any kind. For Tessa, that's 2 base, +4 from high conviction/endurance.
3) Add one declaration for any relevant skill of 5 or higher, which the caster is assumed to have succeeded in. For Tessa, that would be +6 shifts for a Lore, a Conviction and a Discipline declaration.
4) Add a moderate and a serious consequence for another +10, as Tessa has supernatural or even mythic recovery and can recover them real fast and another +4 or +6 from the rapid recoveries of minor consequences from the recovery itself.
5) Add any fate points or Sponsor Debt Tessa is willing to pay. Let's assume +6 for 3 fate and debt total.


That's a 43-shift Ward for Tessa, which might be capable of containing the Archive. And yes, she can make it in a few hours, as evidenced in the novels. Of course, you might want to have your players face a smaller Ward instead.

[UmbraLux]

So the PCs are probably going to be storming the bad guy's home.  Said bad guy is a wizard.  How powerful should I make the wards be?  Just off the base complexity would be too weak I think, but I'm not sure how far to go in terms of additional aspects/declarations/etc.

I'd default to 2 x Lore (the same limit as potions) then start counting aspects related to paranoia or fear and any reasons the NPC knows of to secure him or herself.  Treat each reason or aspect as a +2 to the ward strength.  (Not because it added to the spell but because it gives the NPC a reason to add to the spell.)

[Belial666]

If there is no reason the NPC should not add to the spell, then assume theyhave added to the spell. Human sacrifices are a dime a dozen, after all.

[Becq]

If the players have any spellcasters among them, I'd use their castings as a guide.  Pick a typical complexity used by the player spellcaster, then adjust it based on any factors you feel are relevant, including relative Lore ratings and any 'special circumstances' that might justify a more powerful ward.

For example, let's say that your players generally throw around Thaumaturgy in the complexity 10-15 range.  Ok, the ward starts at 15.  But the NPC is a powerful Kemmlerian Necromancer with a Lore of 6 (and a Sponsored Magic granting an additional +1 complexity) compared to the player's Lore of 4.  So we bump the spell up to 17.  And the NPC has an aspect that indicates he is paranoid of intruders, then bump it up another +2 to 19.  Done.

If on the other hand the players routinely narrate complexity 75 spells, then use that as a baseline instead, with the same sort of adjustments from that baseline.  Since different tables use different standards for interpreting the rules, this gives you a simple way of scaling the spells to match your playstyle -- basically by assuming that the NPCs narrate their spells in much the same way that the players do.

[zenten]

Becq: That's a really good idea.  Based on the stats I'm using for her and how the PCs have done thaumaturgy that would give her ward a complexity of around 20, which seems reasonable to me.