However, the threshold imposes 2 refresh worth of penalty to the vampire's powers and the vampire loses its supernatural strength - it is reduced to inhuman. Furthermore, the threshold imposes a -2 penalty to all of the vampire's rolls. Therefore, the vampire rolls at +4 against your Ward of 6, and its chances to break through are lower.

I'd have thought that since the ward and the threshold occupy the same boundary, and wards are supposed to be an advanced immune system for thresholds, that the ward takes precedence, so there's no reduction in the vampire's power until they try to breach the threshold itself (i.e. once they've reduced the ward to the same value as the threshold). I may be wrong - if so point me to the relevant paragraph.

I'm also puzzled as to how it reduces the vampire's attack roll as well as their damage bonus from their strength - the rulebook says that it only reduces damage by reducing the atatck roll if the damage bonus has been reduced to 0 - which it hasn't been if they've still got inhuman strength.

Now, if there was a hostile caster of some sort, attempting to cast spells at or into the cottage, in order to breach the Ward around the cottage, either to damage the Ward of someone/something inside, they would need to be able to direct a Legendary (+11) shift spell, just to get 1 shift of effect past both the Threshold and the Ward.

The way I understand wards is that the caster would only need to get +9 shifts to breach the ward. Thresholds don't add on to wards, they simply allow them to be created over a large area. Without a threshold you can only establish a ward over a very small area (so there's no problem with warding a locker, or a toilet seat). If you have a threshold to work with you can cover the area covered by that threshold. Thresholds generally are very weak compared to what's easily achieveable with a ward. You have to be somewehere really special to have a threshold above 4 or 5, a basic ward can quite easily be double that, with bells and whistles on top.

From YS p277

Wards don’t have a “scale” concern, the way that veils do, and they cannot move. They are almost always tied to a particular place’s natural
thresholds—think of them as a super-boosted immune system—so they are limited by the size of that threshold. Without a threshold they can only be set up to cover a small area at most—usually a point of transition such as a doorway or intersection.

From the box on page 109 (emphasis mine):

Powered Props

A player may want to take a prop aspect for an item that has supernatural power attached to it, to signify a “trademark” item (think King Arthur and Excalibur). This is a great idea, but keep in mind that your character may need to invest other resources (such as stunts, or time and effort) to possess props of particular power. In other words, it’s not enough to give yourself an aspect saying you have a Sword of the Cross—you’ll also have to buy the sword as a facet of your supernatural abilities. Or to look at it a different way, the prop aspect is more about the relationship you have with the prop than it is about the prop itself and what it does.

To my mind the human with a frost sword just as an aspect wouldn't work. Harry's pentacle works because of what it means personally to him, it holds no power to drive off vampires that another pentacle wouldn't - in the same way that a christian priest could pick up any crucifix and drive away a black court vampire, it wouldn't have to be his own personal family heir loom crucifix.
It does give him other effects that are part and parcel of what it is, but they're not supernatural as such - for example it's silver, it's inherited, so it fulfils the Loup Garou catch, it's not a magical item because it does so. Harry uses it as a focus for his light spell, but doesn't have to. Again, it's not actually the item that's responsible for the light.

Let's all take a deep breath, and try hard not to flame each other. I assume you have positive intent, please respond with the same courtesy.

*sigh* The problem with forums like this is that the reader gets to assign tone to the post that simply isn't intended. I suggest you re-read my post and rather than envisioning someone yelling its contents at you like a drill instructor or a dalek, imagine someone amiably discussing your proposal over a drink. And do me the courtesy of not accusing me of flaming because you've misinterpreted the tone of my post.

The +2 pure mortal bonus is a game balance mechanic. It's useful because powers are much more powerful per point of refresh than stunts are. the +2 refresh helps balance that.

Yes, exactly, it's a balancing factor for someone with no supernatural abilities whatsoever.

The point of this post was trying to imagine something that doesn't have any powers at all, but still explores supernatural declarations. I understand your opinion that this is a concept that either:

a) shouldn't be explored at all

or

b) should lose the +2 refresh and might as well take powers.

Then you understand wrongly. To cover the points raised here (and again, imagine this as an amiable chat rather than an attack on you).... First up, you've just said that you want a character that has no supernatural ability, but can nevertheless make declarations that are supernatural in nature. There's a world of difference between what you're proposing as hedge magic, and making a normal declaration using a mundane skill. Using hedge magic you're creating something that doesn't already exist. Using a mundane skill means that you are taking advantage of something that already exists. Mundane declarations have to have logic behind them - you couldn't (as joe average) be stripped of all possessions and thrown naked into a cell, and then use a mundane resources declaration to say "I have a keychain flashlight on me!", certainly not without serious rationalisation as to why you'd still have it (and I'm thinking about the watch in Pulp Fiction as an example here). Using hedge magic you could make the declaration with no logical reason as to why you'd have a light source.

Point a: um, we are discussing it! I already said that I have no problems with the very minor spell casting effect using fate points rather than a purchased power but it would have to be carefully policed - full blown Wizards have to beat a difficulty of 3 to put an aspect on a scene magically, you want to be able to do that automatically without a test in the same way that a declaration works, but with the flexibility of spellcasting.

Point b: I don't quite see where you're coming from on this. The +2 bonus is exactly that, it's a bonus for playing a character with no supernatural abilities whatsoever. The moment you add an ability to use magic at any level (even if it is as minor as this) you remove the character from the category of pure mortal and no longer get the bonus. The way I see it when you're creating a character the +2 for being a pure mortal should be the last thing you deal with on your character. Think of it this way... in a 10 refresh game you create your character on the basis of 9 points worth of stunts. After you've finalised everything, if you've got no supernatural abilities you then get given 2 extra points of refresh to spend either on more stunts, or as fate points. You shouldn't be approaching character creation from the point of view of "Well, I'm a 12 Refresh character" from the start.

If you're able to cast minor effect spells by spending fate then you arguably have taken a power, you're just not spending points on it. You've still got (in a 10 refresh game) your full compliment of 9 available points to spend on stunts, and the ability to use minor magic. The only 'must' for this character is a High Concept that they can invoke for the effect.

I seem to remember a line in the section on the First Law (I may be wrong on the location of the line - it may be in the inflicting consequences to power a spell section), that seems to say that hurting a willing victim to power a ritual is as bad or worse than harming an unwilling person.

I'd agree with the general point of view that using someone with supernatural regeneration as a living battery for thaumaturgy is likely to change your personality for the worse over time. It's not as immediate as gaining Law Breaker, but it's certainly something I as a GM would be looking at if it was a regular occurance. And if it became too regular I'd probably insist that one of the character's minor milestones was spent re-wording an aspect to reflect the change to a slightly darker view. If the willing victim was the same one time and again I'd probably insist on a similar aspect change for the victim.

You'd arguably reach a stage where the wizard simply starts assuming it'll be OK to use the victim to power a spell, and the victim will reach a stage where they will quite happily bleed to death (or have their minds reduced to jelly) because "the wizard would never hurt me!"

The rule book seems to view channelling and ritual as true magic. So anyone who has either one also counts. There's an argument that anyone with sponsored magic also counts too.

Is Mat's Luck just an aspect of a ton of Fate points and some mortal stunts or is it an ability that chewed up Refresh?

I'd say it could easily be handled with the Aspect of "Dark One's Own Luck". Part of me wants to say that ta'veren ought to be a power - it certainly can have huge effects on the character and those around them, but since people aren't usually permanent Ta'veren (with noteable exceptions) I'd be more inclined to model it as a temporary sticky aspect. Invoking that for effect along with "The Dark One's Own Luck" strikes me as a great way to model Mat's inability to lose during his night preparing to leave Tar Valon. The book after-all doesn't dwell on each game, just gives a sense of the mounting winnings as he feverishly makes his way around the city. I can see a couple of compels in there as well forcing him to keep on playing even though he's getting seriously freaked out.

I thought males were just as capable of linking as females are, but you can't create a circle greater than thirteen people without members of both sexes. I could be wrong though it's been years since I've read the series.

I can understand why you've mis-remembered. Males are unable to link. It takes a female channeller to initiate a link. Up to 13 women can link at any one time without a male channeller present. If the number in the link rises above 13 it requires a male channeller to take control. Generally male channellers are individually stronger than female channellers. Females generally have more affinity for air and water, males for earth and fire, both sexes have similar affinity for spirit.