There are a couple of things which have come up in the past that I never had a very clear way to model and would like some input.

The first is a character who constantly wants to use evocation to throw people one or more zones away. I've recently come up with the solution that he needs to put one shift in per zone he wants to move his target, but with the caveat that if he wants to push them through a barrier, they take shifts of stress up to the amount that the barrier can take before breaking. If he fails to push them through the barrier, both the barrier and the target take shifts of stress but the character is not moved through the barrier. Also, I'm considering making him add an extra shift to represent that it's a specialized effort. But should the target still take damage for being flung five zones in one turn? Also what if he flings them off a rooftop? I'm just not real sure how to model those things. Knocking someone off a ten story building would surely kill them in most circumstances, but how do you reflect that in game mechanics? Also, a spell that flings someone two zones should take two to three shifts by my reasoning, but isn't that a lot of mileage for a small investment if you fling them off a roof and they die?

The second situation I am trying to model is an earth evocator who wants to raise the ground immediately beneath him sufficiently high so that he is in a zone above where he started. If not for the zine change, this would easily be handled by a maneuver placing the aspect On High Ground or something similar. But how many shifts should it take to modify the terrain and transport him upwards one zone? Keep in mind this means that melee opponents will have to climb or leap up to him in order to reach him prior to attacking. It should also apply an aspect to him (at the least one would be easily declarable after) since he'd have great advantage while using ranged attacks in targets on the ground, but he wouldn't have much room to ridge any incoming ranged attacks. I'm just at a loss on how to achieve this in a balanced way. How many shifts would this take? Is it a maneuver? An attack? A block against gravity?

Any help will be much appreciated.

I was batting around story ideas the other day and came up with something I thought might be fun. In our next session, I think I will send my players up against an Emmisary of Pan and that they will have to rescue one of their number who has fallen under his sway. The NPC will have an Item of Power which will allow him to Incite Emotions (peace, wrath, and general desire to party) at range and across zones. The Item in question will be a magic guitar and the rolls will all be done using Performance, which I plan on placing at above the players' skill cap so he can setup Emotional blocks easily. The reason for doing this is that I want to force them to come at the problem sideways instead of just beating the guy down. Also, the NPC will be owner of a bar called PANDEMONIUM, and depending on the resolution they reach, he may become a new face and the bar a new place in the city.