FATE Core and DFRPG

[Aminar]

Take a look at this summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wdDSLo9voAUbjTbDnKkbIW7LMWVKOnifHmwiFqw6A8c/edit

Creating the shield aspect allows you to defend with Discipline as long as it's active.
The shield is active as long as you concentrate on it (a supplemental action), or until you fail to defend and 1 or more points of stress gets past the shield.

I'm not sure how wards would work yet...

What if you're not the shieldholder.  Does the shieldholder make the discipline rolls then?  That seems...  Broken if my whole party while the AOE shield is up can get the Wizard to roll +7 defense rolls for them...  I did read the summary.  There are just things I'm confused on.

[Dougansf]

What if you're not the shieldholder.  Does the shieldholder make the discipline rolls then?  That seems...  Broken if my whole party while the AOE shield is up can get the Wizard to roll +7 defense rolls for them...  I did read the summary.  There are just things I'm confused on.

"Only 1 Evocation can be sustained in this way at any given time."  So you can't create a handful of shield aspects, just 1.

I agree that the caster making the defense rolls wouldn't work, but I'm not sure what a non-caster would use to control a shield.  It would largely depend on the type of shield created.  Possibly keeping it Discipline would keep it more likely to stay caster only.

I used this system in a play test, and used the Full Defense action to defend for a friend.  Worked out very well.

That said, to protect all your friends in a zone, a barrier would work better.

[Aminar]

Per Character...
A pair of wizards defending the party could probably be nigh on impervious.  Heck I'd take channeling SHield spell on anything possible...

But I can see somebody tagging, I'm behind a shield for a +2 using one of the free invocations. 
Grumble.  Trying to make this work could be broked...

[Ard3]

Disclaimer: I am bit rusty with DFRPG and have breezed through Fate Core once.

As far as I understand the amount of shifts caster uses on this only increases the amount of free invocations. They are usable for caster only, unless he uses 2 shifts to make it zonewide or uses his own action to defend another. Alternatively, create armor 1 per 2 shifts.
It can be used as a passive obstacle (Block ?) with base strenght of 2 shifts. Or to roll active defence with Discipline instead of Athletics. Caster can use those free invocations on both of these with normal +2 per invocation. Others can use the +2 on their own defence rolls .

With free invocations, once something breaks the shield it is gone and all remaining free invocations are lost. Caster must use supplemental action every round he wants to keep the shield on, even when no invocations are used.
Alternatively, caster can create armor 1 per 2 shifts. How each shift is used must be decided while casting. Armor remains after taking stress and stays as long as caster maintains it.
I dont know what happens when these are mixed and shield is pierced. Probably easier to make it either invocations or armor choice.

Shielding others is strong, but free invocations run out pretty fast agains a group of characters. Either caster uses his own actions to generate more, and takes stress normally from casting, or the shield aspect is invoked with fate points.
Strong, but not broken in my opinion.

Armor might get pretty crazy pretty fast. Lets say 10 refresh wizard, 7 power and control after focuses(focii?) and specializations. With 6 shifts that is armor 2 for everyone in one zone, easily controlled. Other than supplemental action every turn, caster can keep this up indefinitely and still throw power and control 6 spells around.
And that is not remotely optimized. Problem with armor is that other than taking out the wizard, there is not much opponents can do.

What happens when ally, for one reason or another changes zones? Does the protection disappear? What if he returns to that zone and caster has been maintaining the shield?

[Aminar]

Disclaimer: I am bit rusty with DFRPG and have breezed through Fate Core once.

As far as I understand the amount of shifts caster uses on this only increases the amount of free invocations. They are usable for caster only, unless he uses 2 shifts to make it zonewide or uses his own action to defend another. Alternatively, create armor 1 per 2 shifts.
It can be used as a passive obstacle (Block ?) with base strenght of 2 shifts. Or to roll active defence with Discipline instead of Athletics. Caster can use those free invocations on both of these with normal +2 per invocation. Others can use the +2 on their own defence rolls .

With free invocations, once something breaks the shield it is gone and all remaining free invocations are lost. Caster must use supplemental action every round he wants to keep the shield on, even when no invocations are used.
Alternatively, caster can create armor 1 per 2 shifts. How each shift is used must be decided while casting. Armor remains after taking stress and stays as long as caster maintains it.
I dont know what happens when these are mixed and shield is pierced. Probably easier to make it either invocations or armor choice.

Shielding others is strong, but free invocations run out pretty fast agains a group of characters. Either caster uses his own actions to generate more, and takes stress normally from casting, or the shield aspect is invoked with fate points.
Strong, but not broken in my opinion.

Armor might get pretty crazy pretty fast. Lets say 10 refresh wizard, 7 power and control after focuses(focii?) and specializations. With 6 shifts that is armor 2 for everyone in one zone, easily controlled. Other than supplemental action every turn, caster can keep this up indefinitely and still throw power and control 6 spells around.
And that is not remotely optimized. Problem with armor is that other than taking out the wizard, there is not much opponents can do.

What happens when ally, for one reason or another changes zones? Does the protection disappear? What if he returns to that zone and caster has been maintaining the shield?

I'd assumed  zone wide on my calculations. 
The free invokes do run out fast, but I'm sure Smart wizards can compensate...

As to the Armor.  I'd take it the same way I've done every other exploitive thing my party has done.  Make it less effective next time.
You do that, the local crime scene finds out and starts using Armor Piercing Bullets giving them an automatic +2 against armored targets.  They won't do that just because you wear body armor, but they will if the wizards start making giant walls.  If it keeps up they figure out circle traps, Running Water, etc.  It keeps the players thinking and feeling clever.
Now, two wizards can still make zonewide armor really high, but I don't think armor spells stack.  Magical interference and all, unless they both have aspects or powers that suggest they are excellant team players.(Or at least that's how I'd phrase it.  Make them both spend 1 refresh on Pack Instincts(AKA teamwork training.) 
So neither option is exceedingly broken...  I suppose.
Although there are still blocks.  It's just creating an advantage that requires an overcome roll of a certain strength really...

[Ard3]

I am still bit fuzzy about advantage things. Need to carefully re-read that part.

I think it was general rule that armor doesnt stack. Only the highest applies.

With two wizards one could maintain armor and the other generate free invocations.

[Aminar]

I am still bit fuzzy about advantage things. Need to carefully re-read that part.

I think it was general rule that armor doesnt stack. Only the highest applies.

With two wizards one could maintain armor and the other generate free invocations.

(Stacking RPG's is stupid frequently.  Why wouldn't the armor the guy is wearing and the magical barrier not stop a bullet better?)  Answer-Game Balance.  Which can really mess with the narrative when the inexperienced player argues the point for too long(that would be me when I first started.  Now I practically always wind up the DM/GM so I get my own say.)
It's stupid.  I can argue magical barriers not stacking because getting two spells to mesh that well is unlikely.  Hence making them work for it.
But that's an argument old as time. 
I take the narrative law of collective awesome as far more important than game balance.  When my character's ram up 5 armor worth of stuff it'll work.  And then the next battle gets harder.(And I average a roll of -2 which keeps the PC's winning almost flawlessly.)

[Ard3]

Official rules have to have some semblance of game balance.
Each group is free to modify rules how they see fit. Personally I prefer to paly first with rules as written and see if there is something that needs to be modified.

The most important rules I know are 2 variants of rule zero: Thou shalt have fun and when rules get in the way of the story, ignore rules and tell the story.

I feel that. I think my roll distribution is about a triangle. Fail often and rarely get above average rolls. There was one session where I was completely unable to roll below 80 on a d100. (lower was better, 96+ autofail).
Then all that came back once when I rolled about half of my rolls as crits. With 10% crit chance

But back to topic. There is that magic system toolkit coming soon, maybe there are something similar or reworked DF style magic.

[Aminar]

Official rules have to have some semblance of game balance.
Each group is free to modify rules how they see fit. Personally I prefer to paly first with rules as written and see if there is something that needs to be modified.

The most important rules I know are 2 variants of rule zero: Thou shalt have fun and when rules get in the way of the story, ignore rules and tell the story.

I feel that. I think my roll distribution is about a triangle. Fail often and rarely get above average rolls. There was one session where I was completely unable to roll below 80 on a d100. (lower was better, 96+ autofail).
Then all that came back once when I rolled about half of my rolls as crits. With 10% crit chance

But back to topic. There is that magic system toolkit coming soon, maybe there are something similar or reworked DF style magic.

Not in what I'vce got regrettably.  It's a suggested bunch of magic systems, but none of them go much into defense.
In addition they... don't have refresh costs most of the time.  Fatecore has dropped refresh costs in favor of adding skills for magic systems.
So Harry would have to invest in Thaumaturgy and Evocation as skills and likely pay less refresh for them.  Converting that is interesting, but there isn't much of anything on shield style stuff in it so far.

What there is is barriers between Zones and the ability to use said power as a defensive action.  So In thoery Harry could roll Discipline for evocation as a defensive roll.

[Ard3]

Ok. I didn't have kickstarter account so I used quick option and used PayPal method of getting core. Sadly that means I dont have anything except the core book yet. I did buy the expansion level one, so I should get them some day.

[InFerrumVeritas]

(Stacking RPG's is stupid frequently.  Why wouldn't the armor the guy is wearing and the magical barrier not stop a bullet better?)  Answer-Game Balance.  Which can really mess with the narrative when the inexperienced player argues the point for too long(that would be me when I first started.  Now I practically always wind up the DM/GM so I get my own say.)
It's stupid.  I can argue magical barriers not stacking because getting two spells to mesh that well is unlikely.  Hence making them work for it.
But that's an argument old as time. 
I take the narrative law of collective awesome as far more important than game balance.  When my character's ram up 5 armor worth of stuff it'll work.  And then the next battle gets harder.(And I average a roll of -2 which keeps the PC's winning almost flawlessly.)

The general idea is having chainmail under your bulletproof vest doesn't provide quantifiably better protection than the bulletproof vest would on its own.  Your magic shield is so good, whether your have a steel plate or a tshirt under it doesn't make a difference.  If it's getting through the shield, that steel plate might as well be a tshirt.

[Aminar]

Because momentum doesn't do anything?  That attack that was slowed down by the Armor 3 Magical barrier is suddenly going to not be afftected by other armor.
With the chainmail under the bulletproof vest they defend against different things.Bulletproofing does jack against bladed weapons most of the time and chainmail versus bullet is not going to end well for the guy in chain mail.  I get that.  In D&D it's assumed your Full Plate includes the chainmail underbits anyway.  But when it comes to two different sources, It is just silly.  ANd the same does applyt to Wizaards working well together and making stronger armor.  They should be able to. It's cool, but takes work to manage.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Because momentum doesn't do anything?  That attack that was slowed down by the Armor 3 Magical barrier is suddenly going to not be afftected by other armor.
With the chainmail under the bulletproof vest they defend against different things.Bulletproofing does jack against bladed weapons most of the time and chainmail versus bullet is not going to end well for the guy in chain mail.  I get that.  In D&D it's assumed your Full Plate includes the chainmail underbits anyway.  But when it comes to two different sources, It is just silly.  ANd the same does applyt to Wizaards working well together and making stronger armor.  They should be able to. It's cool, but takes work to manage.

They can.  By maneuvering and working together.  Not casting the same spell twice.

[Aminar]

They can.  By maneuvering and working together.  Not casting the same spell twice.

That's a pretty impractical use of stress given the fact the number of manuevers it would take to give a boost equal to a Wizard's spell power level(about3) means they are better off splitting into an offensive caster and a defensive caster who holds his action until someone throws out a big attack(which only works once RAW)

Teamwork should be rewarded...  But defensive teamwork rarely does in RPG's.

[InFerrumVeritas]

That's a pretty impractical use of stress given the fact the number of manuevers it would take to give a boost equal to a Wizard's spell power level(about3) means they are better off splitting into an offensive caster and a defensive caster who holds his action until someone throws out a big attack(which only works once RAW)

Teamwork should be rewarded...  But defensive teamwork rarely does in RPG's.

Why cast a spell?  Maneuver to make the other person cast better.  Don't waste a spell/mental stress.  A maneuver grants a +2 if you pass the tag.  Make a declaration too, and now you've got +4.  Not insubstantial.