In a story from 2016,
Is it because it's a Warden's sword that he can use it to deflect spell blasts or has everyone been allowing melee weapons to do this in their games?  Am I misreading the rules somehow? 

Under the RAW for such items,the item is good for only a single exchange (or two or three,depending on Crafting stuff) and that's it. 

How does the community feel about an enchanted item that only bestows a single trapping of a skill, but for the duration of an entire scene, especially the social skills or non-combat skills
Examples:
The Riding trapping for the Survival skill,
The Tracking skill for Survival skill.
The Detect Lies trapping for Empathy.
the various trappings of Rapport and Intimidation as well.

I bring these up since using the social skills and the others listed above is really what I'd call a 'long action' that takes more than an exchange or even a second, but several minutes or more of work.  At the same time, I don't think this necessarily displaces Stunts, as these items can be stolen, lost, or otherwise neutralized.

Since there's some fair argument that wizards can be instakill (and I've seen the evidence in my last session), I've decided to nerf them a wee bit:

1) Limiting foci bonuses to a wizard's Lore, with Evocation and Thaumaturgy bonuses tracked separately.
1a) Two full shifts of success translates into one extra damage shift instead on the usual 'one for one.'  I've decided this also applies to enchanted items.   This does not apply to Thaumaturgic rituals (but does apply to Evothaum).

Given how simple it is for a wizard to place even fragile Aspects upon himself to 'tag' later for an alpha strike, I do not believe these house rules are especially tough.  Your thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

For the record, my game has just reached 11 Refresh/37 skill points stage for the players, so it's still rather 'young.'  Takes place between books Four and Five (I've also allowed 'vanilla' mortals to raise skill caps above +5 before paranormals do, just for the sake of balance. 

Looking for the thread that "nerfs" wizards by limiting the damage bonus for spells to their Discipline bonus or something like that?  I'm coming to swing around in that direction.

Given the Paranet Papers on how Debt can be accrued with Sponsored Magic (at least for the Winter Knight):
Would people allow a player with Sponsored Magic to take a point of Debt to Declare he has a particular Stunt? 

I've a new player joining the group.  She's new to the system but played in other RPGs. 
Problem arises here: Sweet as she is, she's not-so-good (though not altogether hopeless) at role-playing out social interactions.  She can do conversation and all, but were I to say as GM, "You wanna talk him out of something using Rapport?  Okay, gimme your spiel and roll dem bones..."  It kinda comes out flat.  Kinda need some GMing advice here.

Have a player running a character that's a Rune Mage (Template: Focused Practitioner).  Said PC stole some mead from the Norse gods, drank it and acquired some extra powers (Inhuman Strength/Speed/Recovery).  Without going into too much detail, the PC was caught and has to serve Freyja for a couple years--seems the PC only drank half and gave the rest to her comatose war veteran brother, allowing him to start along the road to recovery and (temporarily) denying Freyja an Einherjar. 

Problem is, those "extra powers" need to be linked to her High Concept.  All I can think of is "Freyja's/Freya's Favorite Runemage."  Does anyone else have any ideas, as originally this wsa the PC's Trouble instead?  Alternate trouble was "My Strength is in my Family"

This situation sometimes develops in my games: PC has a Skill of 7 and is making a Declaration.  Since the default number is almost always Good (+3) to make, this means that an Aspect is almost automatically placed on a a scene or opponent. I'm thinking of house ruling that a die roll of -4 before modifications always fails, just to avoid automatic success ("There's no such thing as a 'sure thing' at my table, folks!").  Has this come up at your tables and if so, how do you deal with it?