Also remember he works in unknowable ways and on many different levels.  Read the short story "The Warrior" for inspiration, Urel's chat with Harry at the end was one of the best scenes that JB has written imo.  You could easly make it where the player is called away to do some "trivial" task, while there is a clear and present danger as vamps eating the rest of the party.

yeah i totally loved the whole butterfly effect thing Uriel had going on in that conversation I hope Jim does that again sometime

Head to the spoiler forum and you'll find one of the sticky threads there lists all the Word of Jim posts.  And the poster has mined all of Jim's talks at cons that are on Youtube (there are links to them).  And all the podcasts that Jim has been on.  And all the interviews.  And... Well, if Jim said something about Dresden on the net then it's recorded there and there's a link to it.

Once you're at the thread, search for Santa (or anything else you want to know about).

There's a lot of good stuff there.

Richard

Thanks

First one is a bit difficult as we don't have the mechanical analogy. What I'd do is have Harry declare how much magical energy he's going to use in advance. I.e. he declares "I am going to use all my mental stress boxes, my mild consequences and my moderate consequence". This has the following effects;
a) In that scene, once he uses up everything he declared he would use, he no longer has any energy. I.e. he can't use his serious consequence by pushing himself - there's no more energy to channel.
b) Once the scene ends, if he has declared mental stress he did not use during the fight, those consequences/stress boxes are still filled up. He had used them to summon up that much magical power - he had just been holding it inside unused during the fight but he can no longer hold it.


Second is very easy. Mechanically, Harry asked Lara to use her Incite Emotion on him to apply aspects - one of the standard uses of that Power. Then he tagged those aspects, increasing his spellcasting rolls. It would be the same thing if Lara had applied those aspects on a soldier fighting for her and then the soldier tagging the aspects to boost his combat effectiveness due to improved morale and/or willingness to fight.

that makes plenty sense to me

I'd run as compelling them to save even those they realllly want to kill

I've got a few

High Concept: Winter Knight Kemmlerian Necromancer
Trouble: My wife and child died in my arms

powers
Evocation -3
Thaumaturgy -3
The Sight -1
Soul Gaze -0
Wizard's Constitution -0
Sponsered Magic Kemmlarian Necromancy -2
Lawbreaker(1st) -2
Lawbreaker(2nd) -2
Marked by Power -1
Unseelie Magic -2
IoP: Sword of Winter's Frost +2
granting
 Inhuman Speed -2
 Inhuman Strength -2
 Inhuman Toughness -2
 The catch trappings of Summer +1

cost -19
basically this character was made for really high level games

his story is that he was a wizard with a wife and daughter one day some ramps came and killed them he tried to save them but was unable so he went balistic and killed the vampires and their human servants he then turned to necromancy to try and bring his family back from the dead regular necromancy wasnt strong enough so he turned to the teachings of Kemmler after bringing them back he saw they were imperfect abominations a mockery of their former selves so he was forced to banish the souls of his wife and daughter back to The Beyond eventually the council got ward of his doings and he fled to winter seeking assylum long story short Mab made him her Knight thus making him immune from the council since Winter is their ally and they need what help they can get for the war

Maybe people against that are just hung up on "Powers" being supernatural.Since the books specifically say that, then perhaps you could state chapter and verse.

YS82 it says that were-forms must take atleast one of the inhuman skills

How would you invoke/compel aspects that are items

Pardon me, but aren't the fairy tale references to cold iron intended to be cold-forged-iron?  That is, iron that has been beaten into shape with pure strength using a hammer, and without the use of fire at all.  This would be a thing more rare than a common tire iron. 

i doubt that's it at all because its not just iron that can be used in GP (if my memory serves me) Harry used depleted uranium against Lea