I apologize if this has already been addressed (I tried searching and didn't find anything, but it might just be that my search-fu is weak or I just wasn't thinking of the right search criteria).

In the Dresden Files campaign I finished a couple months ago (here), one of the characters was a wizard built to do tons of evocation damage. That was fine. But in play he consistently did obscene amounts of damage with Evocation (upwards of 20 stress on more than one occasion) and it felt broken. After talking about it for a bit, it came down to the fact that every fate point he spent on his casting roll effectively became +4 damage, instead of just +2 damage.

Has anyone else run into this? I explain in detail below what was happening, as well as the house rule I made for the rest of that campaign. I'm curious if either someone can point out where we were making a mistake or else comment on the house rule I made and/or what they've done in the same situation.

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What Was Happening: The Discipline roll used in casting serves two functions -- controlling the spell and hitting the target. Therefore, any invocation or tag that is used on the casting roll gives a +2 to both. If you plan on invoking and/or tagging on the roll, then you can up the Power of the spell (as long as you can afford the Mental Stress), which increases the damage of the Evocation attack. The +2 from the invoke/tag also adds to your targeting roll, which adds damage 1-for-1 if you exceed their defense roll.

Now, this player loves to be compelled and often has a decent pile of fate points, despite being a low-refresh wizard (also, he tended to save his fate points for fights for expressly this purpose). So when he got into an important fight, he'd plan on pouring at least 3 fate points into the first spell he cast (and he used an Enchanted Item for his main defense, so he was able to jump straight to the blasting).

The amount of damage he would do was unbelievable (he wiped out at least one tough opponent with Supernatural Toughness completely in one hit). He had a Superb (+5) Conviction, which increased to +7 Power for offensive Evocation in his favored element with specializations and focus items. He would plan on taking a Minor consequence and fill in his last Stress box (expecting, usually accurately, to one-shot them), so he'd set the Power of the first spell at 14. Meanwhile, he had a Superb (+5) Discipline, increased to +8 Control with specializations and focus items. He'd then spend 3 fate points on invocations for +6 to his roll (he might spend a little more or less after he saw his roll and the enemy's defense roll), which was enough to control the 14 Power spell unless he rolled really badly (and even a terrible roll only meant a couple shifts of failure). So, on several occasions, he rolled 14+ on his attack roll (so no enemy ever even came close to dodging) and then he did around 14 (targeting roll) +14 (spell Power) - (the opponent's defense roll) - (armor). Even a good dodge combined with good armor let tons of damage through. I know he did over 20 stress of damage at least twice in the campaign. Even if he didn't kill them, they were so fried with Consequences that they were finished off quickly by the rest of the party.

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House Rule: It's very possible that I was doing something wrong above or that the book addresses this issue, but if it does I couldn't find it. So I made the following house rule for the rest of the campaign:

• Any invokes or tags used for Evocation casting had to be applied to Control or Targeting, not both.

The logic I gave was that it was effectively two rolls combined for speed and simplicity and that applying the invocation to both was getting double the bonus (and conversely, only getting to apply the invocation to one wasn't in any way being "robbed"). The player was cool with this. It significantly lowered how much damage he did, but he was still the heaviest hitter in the group. It did add a little complexity and he had to keep track of which side he had chosen for any invocations or tags, but it wasn't bad.

(Note: The player intentionally set his character up to be a frighteningly powerful loose-cannon type and was quite cheerfully open about the fact that he was pushing the system and power-gaming as much as he could. Having a Superb (+5) in both Conviction and Discipline and then focusing his specializations and focus items into offensive Evocation were just two examples.)

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Anyway, thoughts? comments?

-John B.

So as I understand it, when performing Thaumaturgy at the speed of Evocation with Sponsored Magic, you can use an effect from Thaumaturgy then you use the Evocation casting rules using the Thaumaturgy effect's Complexity for the Power.

Assuming I'm understanding that right, I had a question about Thaumaturgy effects that require you to Take Out the opponent, such as Transformation spells.

So let's say a wizard has a form of Sponsored magic that let's them turn people into squishy animals at the speed of Evocation (this doesn't seem out of line for faerie magic, I'd say). 

If it were done with a Thaumaturgy ritual, the Complexity would need to be high enough to overcome their defense skill and roll, fill up all their Consequences, and take them out in one shot.  So it seems to me that Transformation is handled as an attack that you have to succeed at completely in one shot.  This is supported by the fact that killing spells are technically transformation spells if I remember right.

So for transformation spells at Evocation speed it seems to make sense mechanically to do the Transformation as an attack, with the Taken Out result being described as transforming them.  Any consequences along the way should reflect the process of transformation (whether the stress, pain, or injuries of resisting or even partial transformation). 

Most importantly, what that would mean is that instead of using the huge Complexity of a hostile transformation spell (which isn't really feasible with Evocation), you'd create a weapon power and then attack each round.  In other words, it's no different from blasting them with a fire blast over the course of the battle, except that if you take them out you have a frog instead of a charred corpse.

Is this how you would do it?  Is this talked about in the book and I missed it?


Thanks,
John B.