I personally don't see a whole lot of use for sponsored thaumaturgy at the speed of evocation. Maybe to make a quick circle or snap a quick tracking spell, but other than that I don't see how thaumaturgy is as powerful or more powerful.
Curses done in combat instead of over minutes/hours/days. Forget long term family curses--hit em with a bad luck curse in the middle of battle and watch the environment turn against them.
Conjured backup, en mass, as quick as you can cast. To pull an example from anime, Naruto's signature move, Kage Bunshin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeAdRT1UO2A&feature=related) No Jutsu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOAw6QHRNGo&feature=related).
Emulating Supernatural Powers, like Gaseous Form, Toughness, Speed...
Mind magic--like Corpsetaker's whammy, or other mental attack--in the time to cast Fuego!
Or, if you're fond of playing with the Nevernever, doing a fair impression of Nightcrawler from the X-Men is certainly possible.
And so forth. Remember, Thaumaturgy is the nuke option for magic; if you have enough skill, and enough time, and enough creativity, you can achieve just about any effect. Ebenezer pulled down a satellite with it; the Merlin conjured a ward that held off an army with it. Harry wiped out the Red Court with it.
Seems like you've got the cost down Ren. If you've really got a player looking at this I would really suggest that you carefully and thoroughly read the sponsored magic section including all of the sidebars. There's a lot of rules there and sponsored magic is one of the powers that really requires the most GM commitment to make it work.
Also if I'm not mistaken Bear, each point of debt incurred by a player is one free compel of that player.
The nature of the compel is still in question, though. For instance, a compel towards the character's emotions (like Harry getting angry) is one thing.
A compel to go take out the god-level enemy of the patron is quite another.
During the final battle with shagnasty, Harry used everything he had - magic, fate points, sponsor soulfire, all of it. If it worked 1-1 on sponsor compels, Harry would have been forced to go run a cathedral or something.
And bibliophile got to it first but the benefits of thaumaturgy at the speed of evocation are things like in-combat healing spells, summonings, conjurings, etc (which normally can't be done in combat at all).
Yes, but it still costs mental stress to cast and it's still done at the max evocation power levels of the caster.
Evocation speed thaumaturgy is cast using evocation rules. That means that the sponsored mage won't be able to cast 15 shift spells. AND they will still cause mental stress. I don't see how it wouldn't be more efficient to just shoot force lightning or something in combat.
Speaking from experience I created a healing Rote for a soulfire sponsored caster. Seemed to work well (even if it was limited by my conviction), then again it was a core tenant for the character to sacrifice herself to help others, so it wasn't uncommon for my rotes to involve physical stress and consequences (as backlash) and she was a little beefier than most casters (great endurance).
As for debt the books are sometimes not great examples of the system, however Harry could still have quite a bit of debt in theory, or he may have dealt with it during the year in-between books. A sponsor compel can be towards anything that benefits the sponsor's agenda, and Harry generally does as much as he can to help (and protect) others. I'd say that counts toward the white god's agenda. A better question is (changes spoilers) what he's going to do about his deepening debt to mab.
Note: This post really spoils the short story the Warrior:
You're on a case. It's a serious one - people you love like family are at risk (again!) because of you. A guy you love like a brother, someone sent you pictures of his kids (kids that you've watched grow up). The meaning is clear. You have to drop everything and help....
But you've got those compels. Thrice you are compelled. Each time you make a positive impact on someone's life, which is nice but it doesn't help you with your friend's problem, does it? You don't even know why you're doing it until you have a little talk with someone who points out what you've done.
And that's the best example of soulfire compels we have. Subtle, indirect actions that make a huge difference in people's lives and half the time you don't know how big of a difference you're making.
Richard
Pele - that's a bit harder. She's got an agenda that goes beyond the "Be good / be bad" ones of Soulfire/Hellfire. Maybe the PC does some minor action, just part of a bigger scene, and later finds out that he helped someone pollute the ocean
Richard
Luckily, my character is an x military, alpha male, warrior type. In fact, his raze everything to the ground mentality is what got him noticed by Pele in the first place.
Considering she is a really chaotic, violent, yet strangely benevolent goddess, I don't think my character would be too at odds with her agenda... and that helps things.
I was going to talk to my GM about it this weekend, but I was thinking a great Pele compel after my character gets a bit more powerful would be to go after Fomor like in "Aftermath"
aquatic in nature and apparently oceanic in nature
I think being compelled to go on dangerous crusades like this would be awesome for the story, not the least of which because my character is one of the only real hard hitters in the (rather large) group we started with, so there's a really good possibility it may cause group conflict or force my character to go on hunter-killer missions by himself.