I have been rereading the books lately, and I realized that I just don't feel like the rules as written represent the danger of Thaumaturgy as its presented in the books. I mean I realize Dresden is supposed to be more of a brawler type, but even Bob (who has been working with wizards for over 1k years or so) makes it pretty clear that more powerful rituals have a real risk of causing harm.

The problem I have is once you get your bonus up +5 rituals never go wrong for the caster unless they get interrupted. I was thinking that maybe a way to counter this would be to introduce penalty to each roll based off the total complexity of the ritual being attempted. For example -1 per 10 or 5 points of complexity. 

I was also thinking that maybe it would mean that I would have to set a base time per roll, and allow people to speed it up at increased risk or slow it down for less risk. Also I was thinking that declarations could now be used not only to meet complexity higher than Lore + modifiers rating, but also to help reduce the penalty some. (the -1 per 5 makes more sense to me if I add this stuff in)

For example under this system when Harry wanted to use Little Chicago to search for black magic Little Chicago was used to do something more complex than his lore skill would allow and his purification efforts were done to reduce the penalty to each roll.

I was also thinking this would set the stage for me figuring out rules to build more concrete rules for permanent props used to boost ritual magic. The idea being to give mechanics for things like Little Chicago, Dresden's ever improving quality on his floor ring, and such beyond just being a declaration.
(this is still very much a work in progress and I am not sure how I would handle it but I was thinking it would be that permanent props could serve to help meet complexity totals for appropriate spells ie you would have your lore, focus items, + props to determine base number before you start making declarations)

This all very much in flux but I know we have some great minds on this board so I figured I would ask for peoples thoughts on it.

Did we ever get something like an official ruling on this one?

I can argue myself round and round in circles for both sides on whether or not I think mortals using magic that comes entirely from an external source would warp you like mortal magic does. Don't get me wrong it certainly effects you, but in the ways sponsored magic is described as doing... the question is do you eat lawbreaker stunts as well?

Now I do think its pretty clear not all sponsored magics are equal on this point. I think the ones taken to enhance your own magic don't free you from the laws, but what about when you have no ability of your own? Doesn't that make wielding such magic about the same as using a gun/bomb/poison? Balance wise it seems to work because the player clearly has an additional fear other casters don't: IF I piss my sponsor off I go back to being a chump.

Any thoughts?

Also please remember that if we haven't gotten an official word on it all we have is opinion. I ask that you please try to be respectful of others thoughts on this. In other words as much as the idea of Dresden being a serial killer that murders Cheerleaders amuses me on some odd level, I would rather this not turn into yet another thread on the subject. 

Since my first read through of the book I have had this nagging question about Defensive evos of both stripes. Which developers dog did they run over and how can I bring them more into line with offensive spells without unbalancing the other way.

I mean with LTWs and in a roundabout way the Merlin's example we see that being really good at them is possible just most wizards don't have the mindset for it.

The current rules pretty much means the difference between kinda skilled and super skilled for you power level nets you NOTHING. Which seems to go against all the blather we here from Harry about how highly skilled people can do stuff even more amazing than he does with much less power he just slops enough in to get it done.

I was thinking a way to bring Defensive evocations more in line with Offensive, but keep Defensive from getting too good would be to allow that every two shifts over on your target on your control roll add an effective shift of power. So two shifts to add one to your block rating or duration or four to add one to your armor rating.

I tried toying with it just adding straight shifts to your rating, but with that you quickly end up with blocks that are just stupid good. The other idea I had was to just add Half your extra shifts to power and duration as that would let you benefit as much on defense as you do offensively but that too still felt unbalancing.

Any thoughts? Other ideas?

Has anyone done a house-ruled version of this that doesn't feel so over powered? I had thought to maybe just make the caster ether spend a fate point when they cast it to get a free tag so to speak or have it require a tagging action before use so the invoke of a grapple effect felt more in line with the rules. Still feels off to me though so I figured I would ask. I like the idea of spells being able to do grapple like effects I just would like to find a way for them to do so that is more in line with the rest of system.

Or if you think I am totally off can you explain to me what I am missing about the spell? It just seems like a huge amount of bang for your buck, and if it were that easy why isn't every bad guy who could care less about the first law tossing such spells around?