Hi everyone! I had some questions regarding some unorthodox tracking spells. Currently my players are attempting to perform two rituals at two locations for tracking purposes.

Ritual #1
A pretty calm ghost that resides within one of the PC's antique shop flipped out and began manifesting and attacking players. Once his temporary insanity subsided there was a conversation and one of the Wizard's used the sight to discover that he'd been hit by some sort of dark magic. The group is currently attempting to use the ghost as a focus point and track the spell back to its creator.

Ritual #2
Part of the party was attacked by two Black Court Vampires. They killed one and captured another. They are currently attempting a ritual using the BCV as a focus to track down his maker.

First, these rituals should work fine right? I mean, Thaumaturgy is all about making the impossible possible.

Second, I want to make sure I'm doing the Complexity for these rituals correctly. Thus far I have both at:
8 Shifts to create the effect of Tracking which is based on a required +8 Survival.
8 Shifts to cover making the spell last "A Few Hours"
5 Shifts to cover the base Disciple of the Target which is +5.
21 Shifts Total

Lastly, I know for the Complexity Wizards can help each other out. So maybe one player makes a Declaration they have a grimoire to help out the caster (Lore). Or maybe they know someone who can help with some required knowledge (Contacts). But what about for the Power portion? Anyone have any experience with 2-3 Wizards working together on a single ritual. Each contributing their own power to the spell?

Note: I usually just use Cheer Saving Thaumaturgy from Paranet Papers, but these spells are kind of big deals as they lead to a pretty key NPC.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

For the conflict where you want the players to realize the Fomor are not allied with The Fisherman I would just do that as storytelling. No real reason to bring mechanics into it unless it's something you want them to have the possibility of discovering, but not required to. If you want it in mechanics then having them roll things like Alertness (or maybe Investigation if they're actively discerning who's on who's side) or you could even use something like an Empathy roll for "Reading People" to help them to determine who's who in the fight.

For the chase I would probably do it as an Extended Contest (YS pg. 193-194). You could do this as Cat & Mouse, but it may be more fun to throw some extra stuff in to create a sort of Custom Skill Challenge.

Example
Obviously you'd want this to be very narrative heavy, and likely more than just one PC would be making rolls. This is just the general idea of what I mean.

For stat blocking The Fisherman himself I'll need a bit more time. I'm heading to class.

Hope this stuff helps!

That's not quite how I meant that.

My idea was that, if the vampire wants to make person A attack person B, it needs to first maneuver to put an appropriate aspect on person A (something like "Foolish Mortal!" or "Feel your will seep away" or "Eyebite" or whatever - intimidation or deceit would be the skill(s) to use).  Once it's done that, it can then roll its discipline against person B's athletics (or fists or weapons or whatever else) as a direct physical attack, with the special effect of the attack just being "Person A, your arm moves against your volition and you find yourself trying to stab B." - it doesn't take up person A's action, and they can stop the puppeting by a discipline or conviction roll to remove the aspect the vampire placed.

Edit: Note that the vampire could also use this to attack person A, trying to make them stab themselves or jump off a cliff* or whatever.  And in this case person A could defend with their choice of discipline or athletics (or whatever else seems appropriate).

*Edit2: If you use the 'jump off a cliff' example, don't use the book's rules for falling damage!  It's just a weapon: 2 attack from the vampire's "breath weapon" power - the 'jump off a cliff' part is a special effect, not a mechanical one.

I really like this version. My question is since the vampire's opponent would get another turn what's to stop them from breaking the maneuver? Like let's say the maneuver is "Eye Contact". On the target's turn what if they sprint two zones away? Or simply close their eyes? Maybe I'm thinking of it too literally? Or just need to simply go the route of something like "Foolish Mortal!" instead? Thanks!

I'd give a +1 rebate for the IoP

Maybe another for the physical immunity(if he always carries it on him), since the source of his catch is always 'readily available' if you know about it.

Kind of like Nic's noose.

I haven't watched Once Upon a Time but, certainly, no magical dagger appears in the fairy tale.  Is there some kind of connection made between the two stories?

Hi, thanks for the reply. I've included my responses in a spoiler tag below for those who do not want spoilers from the TV show Once Upon A Time.


Spoiler-Free / tl;dr
No IoP rebate due to not keeping the dagger on his person, but rather hidden away. And I may change the rebate to +1 for The Catch since the dagger link could be discovered by a good Wizard's library (or Bob lol).

EDIT: Anyone have any ideas on summoning him based on his name? Not his True Name, but just like how you may call Mab by chanting her name three times. This works with fae in the Dresden Files, but as I've built the character to be a human with a mantle of power like the TV show (not a Sidhe) I'm not sure how that works. Obviously one could use a ritual circle, and attempt summoning/binding, but I more so mean just randomly trying to summon him by calling out to him. This is done a lot in the TV show, people call to him and he appears.

Yep. By default, Fate Core has five Aspects per player character.

That five includes High Concept and Trouble from DFRPG right? I have a hard time sometimes keeping track of the 35 PC Aspects (7 per PC x 5 PC's) plus any NPC and/or Scene Aspects relevant at the time. I wonder if that's why they lowered it.

First off, thanks for sharing this!

Do we know how well something like this can be implanted into DFRPG Campaigns?

I haven't really looked at any of the other FATE books, because I assumed it was pretty different than the somewhat modified DFRPG version, no?

Like I think the newer editions of Fate Core lower the amount of player character Aspects maybe? I could be way off though.

Anyone able to shed some light on the compatibility of this (and other Fate books) with the three DFRPG books?

Thank you!

Below is a character from the campaign I'm running. During a conversation tonight with the other PC's about the DFRPG system the topic of this character came up and we began to second guess it's layout. After looking further I think everything is good, but I figured I'd run it by you guys to be sure. The character is the son of a mortal woman and a Fetch, making him a Changeling (YS pg 74). Please take a look at the current character sheet and then I'll explain in greater detail after it.

ASPECTS
HIGH CONCEPT: Changeling Mercenary For Hire
TROUBLE: A Fetch Killed My Mother
ASPECT: Family Of Monster Hunters
ASPECT: Gotta Catch Em’ All!
ASPECT: Grateful To Dorian Grey
ASPECT: Duval Detective
ASPECT: I Ain’t Fraid Of No…
ASPECT: Johnny’s Biggest Fan

SKILLS +36/36
SUPERB (+5): Lore, Scholarship
GREAT (+4): Deceit, Presence
GOOD (+3): Conviction Discipline
FAIR (+2): Contacts, Empathy, Intimidation, Rapport
AVERAGE (+1): Burglary, Craftsmanship, Investigation, Resources

STUNTS
No Stunts taken at this time.

POWERS
TRUE SHAPESHIFTING [-4] (YS pg. 177)

MODULAR ABILITIES [-6] (YS pg. 177)

HUMAN FORM [+1] (YS pg. 176)

REFRESH
BASE: 10
SPENT: 9
ADJUSTED: 1

STRESS
PHYSICAL: OO
MENTAL: OOOO
SOCIAL: OOOO

CONSEQUENCES
MILD (ANY):
MODERATE (ANY):
SEVERE (ANY):
EXTREME (ANY):

Question #1: Is Human Form something that can actually be taken here? According to the book it grants +1 Refresh as long as "you specify at least 2 points worth of Supernatural Powers". The character constantly uses -4 Refresh in Powers via his Modular Abilities (Which actually uses -6 Refresh due to the -2 Refresh "cost" of Modular Abilities.). The thing is, he is never in a "Regular Joe" form. His "resting form" (a.k.a. "I'm in this form unless I otherwise specify.") utilizes Powers via Modular Abilities. So can you still gain the +1 Human Form bonus for having the "capability" to become a "Regular Joe"? Even if you never choose to do so? The reason this is important is without that +1 Refresh from Human Form his character would be using -10 Refresh, which would make him a NPC.
 
Question #2: The character's "resting form" (Mentioned in Question #1.) uses the Physical Immunity Power (YS pg 186) at a whopping -8 Refresh, however, this is mitigated by attaching The Catch (YS pg 185). The Catch is Cold Iron as he is a Changeling with Fetch heritage. Since he is protected from everything except something specific he gets a +0. Then, since The Catch is something anyone could reasonably access (cold iron) he gets a +2. And finally, since pretty much anyone with knowledge of the supernatural would know a child of fae is weak to cold iron he gets another +2. This means he is able to take the Physical Immunity of -8 Refresh at the cost of -4 Refresh. His Modular Abilities has just enough to cover this. He sometimes switches to something like Inhuman Strength (YS pg 183) and Supernatural Toughness (YS pg 186) for a total of -6 Refresh. When doing something like this we've been playing it where The Catch only gives him a +3 Refresh discount (Since Catches cannot reduce the total cost of your Toughness Powers below -1 Refresh.). And if he was to take something like Inhuman Speed and Inhuman Strength he'd get no Catch discount at all as he has no Toughness Powers taken at that time. All of this seems to be how it should be played, but I wanted to make doubly sure.
 
At the end of the day the subject was brought up, because I think the other players feel a bit... "un-needed" with him around. His base Skills (As you can see above.) are set to be super high in regards to Social capabilities. Then if he needs to be combat oriented he just shuffles the Skills to be so and throws whatever Powers he needs at the moment onto himself. He does not play the character as a "ball hog" (To use a basketball term.) on purpose, but I think some of the other players may feel the character lends himself to be so just based on his design.
 
We're almost to the end of our second campaign arc, so unless something in the character is actually wrong rules/mechanics wise we won't be changing him in any way. I'm mostly curious in making sure the character is "legal" and then seeking advice on how to make sure the other characters don't feel like they are sidekicks to a one-man show. Sorry if any of this seems super simple, but this is my first FATE game, first DFRPG game, and first time GM'ing any game system at all.
 
Thanks in advanced.