Random DU aside: It's also been used to make doors to large bank vaults.  And I mean, LARGE (not your typical stand-alone bank, but the "downtown vault").   Which is a weird, semi-magical thing in itself... who the crap needs that?

Back to the discussion:

Players should get a Fate Point when they avoid something or just say something broke because of Hexing (self-Compel on their Spellcaster High Concept).
You should offer a Fate Point when you want to Complicate something because of Hexing (GM-Compel on their Spellcaster High Concept).
They can Hex things for no Mental Stress, at range, almost like an Evocation, using the Hexing rules (which I won't repeat here).

I charge stress like a proper evocation if they are trying to force a larger hex.  Taking out someone's cell phone, or even a single car, seems to be just the result of being a wizard.  But I've thrown 14 shift spells out (8 in hex, 6 for 3 zones) to hex the entire playing field before.  Pretty much shuts down everything. 

Have any of you fine fellows considered adding these ideas to the Custom Spell Compilation?

Once I actually stat some of them up as spells, yes

1. What is a non-combat interesting way to use earth magic?

2. What is a single target interesting way to use earth magic?

3. What is an area of effect interesting way to use earth magic?

4. What is an interesting way to block using earth magic?

5. What would be an interesting way to impede someones movement with earth magic?

6.Can you think of anything else that would fit the Dresdenverse and be really neat in a game for earth magic?

By any means if you come up with a field I missed or you just have a great idea on some way to improve the game please post it. I'll respond to this so you guys see what I mean.

Non-Combat Earth Magic
 a) Use as a maneuver to accomplish any terrain shifting.  Earth magic can get you out of a mudslide just as quick as it can put you in one.  Ride a pile of dirt and stone up to the 10th floor of a building. Create a fault line for later use. Remove your neighbor's annoying satellite dish that blocks the sun to your rose bushes. Seal over the entrance to a ghoul cave.
 b) B&E - use earth magic to walk through a cement wall. Cover your tracks (physically) by having the dirt in an area not carry your prints. Excavate a grave for connections to dead people. Burrow into/under something.
 c) Launch a full-on campaign to drive someone crazy.  Use earth magic to roll their car into a different parking spot. make the ground under their feet move ever so slightly so that they always experience a sensation of falling, or an earthquake.  Spell out words on their bathroom floor using the available dirt; time the spell to scatter in a few hours. Pants them publicly using gravity spells. Reverse gravity on all the water in their bathtub, but not them. Then drop the water on them, splashing everywhere.
d) Find and collect rare earth metals, for improvements to your golems or wards.  Plus, rare earth metals are hard to extract and expensive, so there's your resource justification.

single target attacks
a) Magnetism: throw signs, cars, steel girders, or "all available metals" at someone (create an impossibly strong magnetic field near them; targeting roll indicates how closely you were able to place the field to the target). Think magneto.
b) gravity:
c) Grate someone by having the earth become like sandpaper and then shake it back and forth.


aoe attacks as above, with 2 shifts put into area?

blocks
a) Vs alertness: dustcloud, pile dirt onto windows, loud rumbling sounds, remove scents, make everything smell and taste like dirt
b) impede movement this is same as block vs athletics, driving, or other movement: pretty much anything ppl have listed: turning the road into sludge, increasing gravity, ect. I like the idea of increasing the weight of the items on them.  You could use a spell that lasts for a few rounds and get a result of ppl taking off armor, weapons, clothes, backpacks, to move forwards,  but not knowing the duration ends soon they leave their stuff there to get away.
c) vs magic: disturb or tie up ley-lines as a form of magic block (you've tied up the available magic)
d) vs a physical attack: gravity, magnetism, block with  rock, cover your flesh in rock for a second
e) vs a mental attack: assume the mentality of stone.
f) vs a social attack: embody the poker face, emotionally become stone and unavailable for influence.
g) vs a maneuver to, well, out-maneuver you (flank, surround, ect): alter the ground to make surrounding you harder
h) vs a contacts check (you're trying to keep someone from getting info): take out the 4g network, man.
i) vs a stealth check: make the ground ring like a gong when someone steps.

Actually it might not be unopposed. If someone wants to prevent them from getting up, they're free to do so (as long as they logically can) and then removing the aspect becomes a contest rather then a simple action with a good (+3) difficulty.

True.  If you just jump kicked the guy and applied "knocked down", then he tries to get up, nothing really keeps you from opposing it.  And as a GM, I don't really care if you invoke that tag to say that he slips and can't get up, or that you sweep his legs and he can't get up. However, this is where the initiative part of dresden gets tricky... because you'll have characters that try to oppose every action someone does to act more in one turn... so you really do need logical consistency here.

A simple action with a good difficulty?  Honestly, it's unopposed, and he's just standing up.  This is where the rules don't meet logic sometimes.  Depending on how you applied the aspect, I could see a roll to negate it.  On the other hand, a 400 lb person with no athletic training can successfully manage to stand up.

There's pretty much no clear cut rule, as far as I can tell, and you tagging it for effect when appropriate seems logically fine.

For instance, you shoot someone in the arm.  They get the aspect "shot in the arm" as a consequence.  They go to shoot you (same exchange, you've already gone).  Nothing keeps you from tagging the consequence right then to have them automatically miss (unless they spend a fate point).

I used a different example because, in yours, the guy with the "knocked down" tag on him shouldn't, system-wise, be able to just run off without removing the tag.  I mean, it's kind of an unopposed action to stand back up (athletics), so removing the tag is quite easy. 

So in game terms, he's removing the tag with an uncontested athletics roll (no real need to roll), and he's taking a move action as well (which would give him a -1 to the athletics roll, if it was really needed).  There's absolutely nothing that I can find preventing you from tagging that for an effect like him tripping as he tries to get up (unless he spends a fate point).

Actually, from most of the examples it seems you pretty well are fine to do this. I mean, any time you invoke your own aspect reflexively in defense, it's not your turn.

Honestly, our consideration had very little to do with mechanics, balance, what the person gained or lost by taking the stunt, ect.  It was based entirely on the concept that your soul is tainted and drawn towards further use of magic for killing.  It becomes the proverbial hammer.

Our group discussed this and decided that it should apply to anything.  While the stunt is about humans, the mentality of someone focused on using magic for death is to kill anything with magic, and to solve any problem by killing with magic.  So, not only do let them use the bonus on vampires, but I compel them to do so. And, once, on a puppy.

I agree with the ideas of modeling the system through bad guys.  What did it for my players was simply me telling them rules-wise what the bad-guys were doing. 

Concessions especially.  Set it up so that the bad guys have multiple objectives, and then have them concede out to only accomplish some of the objectives.

"It sounds like you all really want to save the princess, but Bowser is also concerned about the hammer. He's gonna concede and just take the hammer, leaving you the girl"

So the players learn that conceding isn't just failing.