My question is:is it possible when you create the focused practitioner at the Up to your Waist power level with 7 refresh to buy channeling(one of the musts) and thaumaturgy to start with or a practitioner doesn't have access to thaumaturgy and evocation till he grows up by exercising?Templates are starting points to assist character creation. They are not limits on character growth or advancement. (D&D style classes don't exist in DFRPG.) In other words, yes it is possible to buy powers not on your starting template's list.
Also,if for example a player uses a fireball spell to attack a monster, what skilla the monster will roll for defence?In general, you roll the skill which fits the situation. For most ranged attacks it's going to be Athletics to dodge. However, if a character is hiding and an attacker is throwing out random area attacks, you might well choose to use Stealth as the defense. Just one possibility of many...
Templates are starting points to assist character creation. They are not limits on character growth or advancement.
Are you sure about that? Maybe I've missed something in the rules (it's been a while since I carefully went over the creation rules) but Templates are Templates.Yep, don't think templates are even mentioned in the character advancement section. Yet it does mention the potential of completely rewriting characters, including high concepts.
At the very least there are cannon examples of people breaking away from their template. As of the most recent books Billy no longer fits the Were-form template.
When the hell did that happen? Give me a page or chapter, I may need to re-read Ghost Story?
First, templates *are* supposed to be fairly solid. That is, your template (and high concept) are supposed to govern which powers you have access to. A Werewolf that gains some spare refresh (or who has some to spare to begin with) can opt to take on appropriate 'optional' powers listed on the template with very little justification -- those powers are options for the template. But the same Werewolf can't simply sprout Evocation, regardless of how many refresh have been gained.While I realize some groups play this way, I haven't seen any support for it in the text. Have I missed something? As noted previously, I wasn't able to find any mention of templates in the character advancement section at all.
While I realize some groups play this way, I haven't seen any support for it in the text. Have I missed something? As noted previously, I wasn't able to find any mention of templates in the character advancement section at all.Here are a couple of quotes:
The book does state templates are "crucial" to character creation...but they don't seem to matter much afterwards. Which makes sense given the growth of characters in later novels.
You must take all of the powers that are mandatory for the character template you’re using, so make sure you have those figured out first. After that, you may only take powers that fit your character template and the high concept selected for your character—a vampire can take powers that would give him supernatural strength and speed, but a wizard cannot.
Supernatural powers also come at a greater price beyond the simple math of your character’s refresh rate. No supernatural ability may exist in a vacuum—it must come about due to specific reasons rooted in your character’s concept. At the very least, this usually means that the supernatural abilities must clearly derive from your character’s high concept (page 54), but other requirements may exist as well—see the Types & Templates chapter starting on page 72 for the particulars for each character type. The end effect is that all supernatural abilities have requirements that must be fulfilled before they can be added to your character; these are usually outlined in the template you have chosen for your character.As to Scions, they are a custom template, with the Changeling presented as an example. And even "Changeling" is more of a meta-template; any given Changeling doesn't necessary have access to all of the options listed in the Changeling template (which is why the options section says the following, in effect requiring the Changeling template to be further tailored:
During character creation, you and your GM must work out a set of supernatural powers that the character could inherit from his faerie parent (usually by looking at the list of musts and options for the appropriate faerie template in What Goes Bump).Other Scions templates would behave the same way: you create a list of potential powers that are appropriate to the Scion based on his heritage, and the Scion can choose powers from that list to start with, and draw further powers from them later as the Scion's heritage begins to make itself more apparent.
That 'other requirements may exist' (bolding added) is hardly strong evidence that templates are meant to be absolute, and, as said, the prior quote comes from character creation, not advancement.Did you read the entire quote? The portion you quoted was the exception to the general rule given in the previous half of the sentence, which was that, "supernatural abilities must clearly derive from your character’s high concept".
Keep in mind that, just because you’re volunteering to take your refresh to zero or beyond, it doesn’t mean that all of Supernatural Powers becomes a shopping list. The restrictions of your high concept still apply
Here are a couple of quotes:Neither quote is about Character Advancement. The first is from the Character Creation section where it does call templates "crucial". The second quote is from the Supernatural Powers section and appears to be targeted at concepts more than templates. In any case, it's a positive "must justify" statement and not a proscriptive one.
Did you read the entire quote? The portion you quoted was the exception to the general rule given in the previous half of the sentence, which was that, "supernatural abilities must clearly derive from your character’s high concept".
Did you read my entire post? Did you note that the issue of high concept was in no way addressed, nor at all affected, by the point(s) made therein?Right back at you. In my original post, I stated my view that high concept = template. You must link your high concept to you template (or each of your templates, if you have multiples). All a template is is a written list of all of the powers that are justified for a particular concept. So saying that templates aren't strict limits but that high concepts are is semantics; the 'Wizard' template comprises a list of all of the powers that a 'Wizard' high concept justifies. Its kind of a chicken and egg relationship.
I only stated that the provided quotes are not strong evidence for templates being strict limits. Justification under high concept is another matter entirely.
Neither quote is about Character Advancement. The first is from the Character Creation section where it does call templates "crucial". The second quote is from the Supernatural Powers section and appears to be targeted at concepts more than templates. In any case, it's a positive "must justify" statement and not a proscriptive one.If you move down two posts, you'll see a quote from YS92, which is indeed Advancement. It makes it very clear that a new power that takes a character to 0 refresh can only be chosen from the same, 'justified' list of powers (aka template).
Functionally, I'm not sure there's much difference between 'templates only being a starting point' and 'being able to freely add or switch out templates'. If not, are we just disagreeing over terminology?To some extent. However, adding a new template requires changing your high concept to include the new template, and might also have some additional prerequisites, depending on the template. And in Fate, a simple change to high concept can have a significant impact. There's a huge amount of difference between these three (very simplified)characters:
HC: Pyromancer
-2 Channeling (Fire)
-2 Inhuman Strength
HC: Pyromancer Squire to the Winter Knight
-2 Channeling (Fire)
-2 Inhuman Strength
HC: Biomancy-Enhanced PyromancerThe first one (which I believe to violate the game design) gives no indication what the source of one of the character's powers is. We know he is a practicioner of mortal magic, but the strength has no justification.
-2 Channeling (Fire)
-2 Inhuman Strength
To be honest Becq it does seem odd to me that you would insist on having a template, but then be ok with custom templates (which could in theory be just as unbalanced as not having one) and multiple templates.They absolutely can be, and peer review is the answer to that. Ie, the GM/table judges whether or not the custom template is reasonable. Existing templates should be used as guidelines.
Page 92 requires new powers to fit the concept...if it mentions templates I'm still missing it.