I'm going to play a Soul-Fire wielding caster.  It's going to be a water-themed caster, for the most part which is why the rotes are they way I have them but I still have pretty much the full flexibility of Soul-Fire.  So a light spell would be a large globule of water that floats in the air and glows, for instance.

Conviction: 4 Lore and Discipline 5
Foci:
+2 defensive control
+1 defensive power

I was working out my rotes and here's what I came up with:


I'm not really looking at min/maxing so much as seeing if I missed anything as far as evo-thaum goes.  With evo-thaum, I could have a skill replacement as a rote...so I'm looking for interesting "think outside the box" useful rotes that you may not get with regular evocation.

Other than attacking a ward and adding the extra shifts of success to weakening the ward, is there any other, more subtle, way to bring them down?

Could you counter-spell them?

So I'm running a game where winter temperatures are a big factor.

Question:
Do toughness powers/armour protect you from exposure/environmental damage?

Let's say you're a fairy with a catch of iron, are you more resistant to cold?

I'd allow recovery powers to heal it up quicker...but actually protect you?  thoughts?

My group over on PbP are having a discussion around mental combat.  I've read all the different PoV where it's OP and stuff, but I want to find a solution to make it balanced.  Maybe people have their own solutions they can share. Here's some of things I've thought of and any comments criticism is welcome:

1.  You must have an aspect that revolves around using spirit as an attack form.
Like Molly, she all about subtle, mental stuff.  You'd have to invoke that aspect to initiate mental combat with someone.

2. Sponsored magic which gives you access to this form of evocations

3. Discover an opponents aspect to tag to initiate mental combat.  Kind of like what you do do initiate a grapple.

4. Have a separate conflict that runs paralell to a physical one.  The attacking caster would dodge all physical attacks at mediocre because (s)he's unaware of his physical surroundings

5.  You must open your Sight.
Evocation requires line of sight and you can't target someone mind without seeing it.  Opening the sight allows you to "see" the mind and initiate mental evocations.  The attacking caster would have to defend against the sight every exchange (which might be fairly easy against mortal - but makes mental conflicts with things like Outsiders and creatures of the Nevernever much more dangerous).  This also makes doing physical attacks harder because the power of the Sight acts as a block.

You can defend against mental combat (assuming you have the ability to do so) without opening the Sight, but if you want to fight back, you'd have to open the Sight.

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I like #5 the best.  It seems a very elegant way of doing it and offers some risk to "evil" casters doing mental magic as well as risk for PC's who want to One-shot non-human creatures.

Your thoughts on any or all these?

I understand that invoking an aspect can add +2 to controling a spell but can I use it to add to the Power of a spell?

Example: 
Scene aspect: Large Campfire
Conviction =4
Discipline =4
Stress boxes 0000

I want to do a zone-wide explosion
I want to make it a weapon 4 attack.
Therefore my total Power is 6

I cast it and now my stress boxes look like this 00X0 (assuming I control it)

Could I have tagged the campfire (to increase the power of the spell)?
Basically I'd cast a Power 4 spell X000
but have to control 6 shifts of power

My impression has been that any aspect can boost power (not just consequences).  This would allow you to boost spells beyond what you might normally be able to (without actually taking a consequence).

Now that I look at it, though, that gives a lot of advantage to spellcasters who have high discipline...

Just trying to figure out how per session items would refresh in pbp.  ALso, how to know when you can refresh your FP's.

Scenes seem a bit easier...but even that can get a bit blurry.  Do people have any tricks they use?

After the last game I GM'd I ran into a mechanical issue that I need help fixing..

Background:

I basically said that the company has a "tainted reputation"  An Epic+8 aspect hanging over its head.

My plan was an extended test(contacts, resources etc..whatever appropriate), each roll takes "a few weeks" until there are enough shifts to undo the aspect.

Immediately, the player asked, "what can I do now!  How can I reduce the time?  I have piles of FP's to spend!"

Part of the reason for this happening is a compel on the characters trouble and to get them out of the city to explore the world and repair the company's reputation.

I'd originally offered him and aspect to be laid for every "mission" he completed for the company.  he could then tag that for a +2 when he does each roll of the extended test.

But he wants to do stuff now.  Stimy the rumours before they get out of the city etc...  But the whole challenge is designed to take a long time.

How can I play this out?  What kind of actions can the player do.  I don't want to railroad him and I want to give him free choice.  He's specifically going to be changing an aspect to represent the new "responsibility" his character has taken on.

Another idea was to set it up as a mini-game.

Like work spaces.  The quality of your workspace dictates the highest roll you can acheive.  In that sense, the "quality" of the company dictates the highest amount of shifts the player can get.  He can perform tasks to increase the quality of the company. 

Any ideas?