Are evocation blocks not rolled too, like the blocks from enchanted items?
Is the sample compel in the social conflict appropriate, or should it have required not interrogating the goons at all?
Reasons of why I wrote the extensive stuff on declarations:
There have already been plenty of questions posted here:
Can you make multiple declarations with one skill?
Can you make declarations with any skill?
etc.
I wanted to head all those questions off; here's explicitly how to make declarations.
Next, why aren't all declarations 'equal'? If I have superb resources and got the workspace stunt, what does having a superb workspace allow me to do that my resources didn't let me do already? If I can make as may declarations with one skill as I want, why can't I make all my declarations with my best skill. Sire, the other players will probably throw dice at me if I whip out the thesaurus and try to make 15 lore declarations, but how many are acceptable? And would they still throw dice if I tried to make 5 Lore, 5 resources, and 5 workspace declarations? Or is it the fact that I'm making 15 declarations the reason they are throwing dice at me?
And then, while reading the 'how to summon a demon thread', the assumption was that you would always take the safe way out, and only summon control -4 power. Sure, this might take 20 or 30 exchanges, but how long does that take anyway? And why would I want to rush things?
So I wrote something that answered all those questions too.
I figured that almost all of the time, time for thaumaturgy would be limited by time in the game world. You have to have the binding circle complete before the moon comes up, you have to find your buddy before the sun rises, stuff like that.
If you want to allow the PCs to do some thaumaturgy while someone is breaking down the door, then they can try completing the ritual in one pass by calling a whole lot of power invoking aspects to control it. And you can say the the 'about five minute' ritual they do is quick enough that they get it done before the door is broken down.
The rules already explicitly cover stuff like exactly how many evocations I can throw, by tracking my stress meter. If the rules were going to be that light, they could just say you could only throw 'a few' evocations before you got too tired.
Evocation blocks are rolled...but it's purely a control roll, anything in excess of the Power channeled is wasted.
My question was along the lines of this:
Do I roll the dice to modify the power of the block, like if I were defending with athletics?
In the example combat, when Jing-Wei is dodging gunfire fire with lore; she rolls the dice each time there is an attack and modifies her lore each time.
That seems to be the right way to do things, so my question was, do I do the same roll off for evocation defenses? Or do you not roll the dice for them?
As for the rest, looks like we disagree about rules complexity.
But more generally, are there any places in my house rules that are unclear? Do there seem to be any way to exploit them? Is there anything in them that seems to contradict the fluff?
If the total complexity of the ritual is equal to below your base complexity, you don't have to do any preparation at all. You can do the whole thing in your head.
You can make a number of declarations equal to your skill (or workspace, etc) level minus two.So you would need an Workspace 3 to use +2 skills.
Ow, my aching knees
Normally, magical shields persist for the whole exchange, so the block should stay up the whole exchange
The second goon rolls 4df and gets (0, 0, 1, 1) adding his good (+3) gun skill, and his tagged aspect gives him a total of +7 to hitCant tag the aspect a second time.
The defense provided by the Lucky Dictionary collapses, the goon has a margin of success of +0, and he is using a weapon:2, so Jing-Wei takes 2 points of stress:Not shure about this, if the Block gets canceled out, does it still decrease the attack?
I was under the impression, that an exchange would be a round (in D&D Terms), and the whole combat would be the scene.
Cant tag the aspect a second time.
Not shure about this, if the Block gets canceled out, does it still decrease the attack?
I was under the impression, that an exchange would be a round (in D&D Terms), and the whole combat would be the scene.Yes, I was just explicitly pointing out that the block works against multiple attacks, rather than stopping just one. In theory, it can block every attack you take that round.
Cant tag the aspect a second time.Two goons, each with Lying in Wait they each tag their own aspect once.
Not shure about this, if the Block gets canceled out, does it still decrease the attack?Yes, it just doesn't defend against any following attacks.
The rules imply it, I just went ahead and made it explicit. Harry does something similar in, erm, White Night I think, when using a spell to contact Elaine. It's also why I throw in the comment about not being able to drive while doing that...
Isnt that a normal rule?
Or do you mean by "in the head" like [...]
I like the 5 minutes of preparations HR.So you would need an Workspace 3 to use +2 skills.The stuff about workspace is mostly there to make the High Quality Workspace stunt explicitly worth something.
Question: Do failed declarations carry an penalty besides lost time?No.
That I dont like. Anther needed skill for Wizards? (Discipline, Lore, Conviction, Resources, Endurance)That rule is there for a few different reasons.
Not shure I like the 5 Minutes per exchange rule. (But I like it better than speed of plot or how can I fasttalk the GM into as little time as possible.)When first writing, I hadn't intended it to be a literal five minutes per pass. For example, if the PC pulls of some shenanigans to do the whole ritual in one pass, then you can just declare that it took "exactly 2 minutes and 47 seconds" or something. But when you want to know about how long the whole multipass ritual took, saying that each power draw takes "a few minutes" would only confuse matters.
Normally, magical shields persist for the whole exchange, so the block should stay up the whole exchange
True. How's this relevant?Got the wrong impression from the phrasing, I read "whole exchange" to mean whole encounter...
1Wanted to write, they need still to sleep. But with the right powers, they dont...
To help keep a cap on guys who want to do huge thaumaturgy when they have several days to do nothing.
2
...And note that being restricted is only worth a -1.
Ah, so with Diciple 5 and an +1 Focus for Controll you can still safely do Rituals for weeks?
Is that your indent?
Note that you'd need control +1 for every aspect of thaumaturgy that you wanted to do. Also, having 6 control lets you safely summon 2 power a pass, so your rituals can go twice as fast. The endurance limit can also be gotten around that way.