The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Wizard strength level
Mira:
Yeah, the way I understand it a wizard is born with a "raw talent/power" baseline, some are greater than others.. Harry was born powerful, just as some people are born with a high I.Q. But that only carries a wizard so far, he/she also needs to study, train, and gain experience to reach their full potential, not unlike someone who is born very intelligent. As Eb pointed out to Harry when he took on Molly to train, doing so would make him stronger simply because he suddenly will find he has to work at it... And so it has, in areas where he was weak before, veils for example before were barely passable, now they are effective.. His over all strength has improved because he has been forced to study to keep ahead and teach Molly. This has worked in other non-talent ways as well, Harry can now understand and speak in Latin decently.
One thing that has held Harry back before he took on Molly was his own admitted laziness.. He did pretty well without breaking a sweat, so he simply didn't....
groinkick:
--- Quote from: Mira on October 08, 2017, 06:13:39 PM ---
Yeah, the way I understand it a wizard is born with a "raw talent/power" baseline, some are greater than others.. Harry was born powerful, just as some people are born with a high I.Q. But that only carries a wizard so far, he/she also needs to study, train, and gain experience to reach their full potential, not unlike someone who is born very intelligent. As Eb pointed out to Harry when he took on Molly to train, doing so would make him stronger simply because he suddenly will find he has to work at it... And so it has, in areas where he was weak before, veils for example before were barely passable, now they are effective.. His over all strength as improved because he has been forced to study to keep ahead and teach Molly. This has worked in other non-talent ways as well, Harry can now understand and speak in Latin decently.
One thing that has held Harry back before he took on Molly was his own admitted laziness.. He did pretty well without breaking a sweat, so he simply didn't....
--- End quote ---
Exactly. Jim has said that in a lot of ways Molly is a better wizard than Harry. That's not on her raw power, but she's sharper than Harry. Harry's raw power combined with great efficiency at this point in the story would make him overpowered, something Jim wants to avoid. Plus this gives Harry growing room.
jonas:
--- Quote from: groinkick on October 08, 2017, 06:18:55 PM ---Exactly. Jim has said that in a lot of ways Molly is a better wizard than Harry. That's not on her raw power, but she's sharper than Harry. Harry's raw power combined with great efficiency at this point in the story would make him overpowered, something Jim wants to avoid. Plus this gives Harry growing room.
--- End quote ---
Mmm my yes... What I love is since Harry saw Ivy spitfire in SmF he knows just how far he could he really go compared to what he'd seen before. Harry with that kind of skill is mindboggling, and yet fun :)
I'd like to see him get pushed more on that front, a nice 3-1 wizards duel with Harry slugging it out with that Wiley trait lol.
Snark Knight:
--- Quote from: dspringer1 on October 06, 2017, 08:56:12 PM ---* Hades refers to Lady/queen/Mother as Hecate - which is a fellow goddess of the Olympian pantheon. In that panethon,, Hades was considered far more powerful. And there are many gods and many pantheons.
--- End quote ---
They originated as Hecate, but they haven't been sitting on their hands since then.
WOJ (https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/58oz87/spoilers_all_the_full_effects_of_darkhallow/):
--- Quote ---For that matter, how do you think the Mothers and Queens and Ladies established their original base of power? That big old sacrificial, power-sucking stone table in Tir na noth isn't there for its primitive decorative aesthetic.
--- End quote ---
Mr. Death:
I've been avoiding doing this because I know it's kind of an annoying habit, but what we're basically looking at here is the game's mechanics for Thaumaturgy. The relevant bit is that, when doing a spell, a wizard can safely channel energy based on his or her Conviction stat, which in someone of Harry's ability is going to be 5 or even 6. There's a discipline roll involved, but Conviction sets the limit for the most they can move through them at any one time. The way it works is, power up to their Conviction they can call up without taking any stress, and it's one stress per unit of power beyond that.
Normally, a character can have at most 4 stress boxes; so a wizard with 6 in Conviction could channel up to 10 units of power at once without taking a consequence. Consequences come in four strengths (2,4,6,8), and you can take multiples at a time; in addition, having a 5 or more in conviction nets you an extra consequence at the lowest level. Effectively adding 22 units to that max of 10; so, a wizard of Harry's raw strength can, in one go, take on 32 units of power at once. This is a little less powerful than the game book's write-up of the heart-exploding spell, and that spell is engineered to overcome every possible defense a character could have.
Of course, that's wizards of Harry's level. The newest game book, Paranet Papers, adds a couple powers that can make this even crazier. Mythic Mental Toughness adds 6 stress boxes, so the most now is 38. But at that point, the wizard is all but crippled and a slight breeze will finish him off. One unit higher than that, and they're just plain dead.
Like I said, there are some other wrinkles to the system (that discipline roll, for instance; in order to channel 38 shifts into a spell in one go, you'd have to roll a 38, which is ... unlikely. So, effectively, to cram a spell like that into one shot, a wizard would end up taking two hits bigger than the heart exploding spell. Results are almost certainly not pretty), but that's the best way I can quantify what kind of stress a high-powered wizard can take in channeling energy in one blast.
And that, my friends, is why these guys take their darned time for rituals.
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