Yes I tend to overcomplicate things.Having just play tested my rules, the players seemed overly keen to lay waste to their environment for a precious power bonus. So I am going to use your simple approach, and try something similar for thaumaturgy. Since its mentioned in the book, and I kind of like it, I am going to add that casting a non-rote spell costs you a point of stress. I will also allow a character to take a penalty to try to do something trickier. So effecting all targets in a zone is a -2 penalty. Making a veil one sided is a -2 penalty etc

Regarding spells being not as good as skills, with magic you can do things not possible with skills. You may be able to use Physique to create an aspect such as Toppled crates, but with magic you can cover the floor with quicksand or incase someone in ice. Being able to throw fireballs is also handy,especially without a gun (my game is in Britain so my players are not toting guns).

Well this is how I am going to run evocation magic, using Fate Core. Each spellcaster has 3 skills

Lore: supernatural awareness and arcane knowledge
Will: conviction and belief - represents the power of your spells
Focus: mental discipline and ability to control magical energy

Gathering Power
To achieve any effect with magic you need to first gather magical power. Fortunately magical energy is the essence of life and emotions; you need only a moment to focus your will or channel an emotion to power a spell. However if you want to put more effort and power into a spell its possible to take a create an advantage action; use Will when getting emotional, Focus for intense concentration, and Lore to draw magic from your surroundings. The difficulty is equal to the ambient level of magical energy; typically this is Fair (+2), but in the Nevernever this could be Moderate (+0) at worst, while a magical dead zone would likely be at least Superb (+5). In a magically sealed environment, such as within an uninvited threshold or circle of magic, use the thresholds strength or the Will of the Spellcaster. If this action is successful, you may use any free invokes gained to cast your spell.

Casting the Spell
Now the energy is gathered, you need to focus and release it safely in the form of a spell. Choose one of the following actions. Unless you are casting a rote spell, you must also take a point of mental stress.

Overcome: Use Will to deliberately hex a machine or piece of technology, or overcome an obstacle or problem using magic, such as picking a lock or lighting a fuse. Use Will to remove an aspect created with magic (known as a counterspell); the spell’s caster may defend with Will.

Create an Advantage: Use Will to alter the environment with magic, or place a mental or physical aspect on a target. This may be an impediment, such as Trapped in Ice or Dazzled, or defensive in nature, such as Veil of Invisibility or Entropic Shield. Characters can defend against this with Athletics or Will as appropriate.
 
Attack: Use Will to harm someone with magic, whether conjuring fireballs or removing air from their lungs. Targets can defend against this with Athletics or Will depend¬ing on the nature of the attack.

Defend: Use Will to defend against hostile magics or other supernatural effects (known as a counterspell). If you have a defensive aspect on yourself you may use Will to defend against an appropriate action; a force shield against physical attacks or a veil against Notice rolls etc.

Backlash and Fallout
If your skill result is greater than your Focus skill, you have failed to properly harness the magical energies in the spell; your spell may be successful, but you must deal with the chaotic effects of uncontrolled magic. Each shift of uncontrolled power (the difference between you skill result and your Focus) must take the form of either backlash or fallout. Backlash is when your body absorbs this chaotic energy; you must take a point of either mental or physical stress for each shift assigned. Fallout represents uncontrolled magical energies leaking into the environment. In game terms, the Gm gets to place an aspect on the scene using the shifts you assign as a passive opposition to any attempts to overcome it.

Harry Dresden is trying to cast a fireball at a ghoul in his office. He makes a Will roll getting a result of 7; since his Focus is just +4, Harry decides to take all of those shifts as fallout. The Gm places Office on Fire on the scene, whether the spell hits the ghoul or not. Anyone trying to remove or get past the fire requires a Good (+3) result or better.

Rote Spells
You start with a number of rote spells equal to your Lore, plus any gained from the Refinement power. Words insulate a spell caster from harm when casting an evocation spell and each rote spell must be named and spoken when cast; typically this is in another language to prevent you from accidentally casting it. Each rote spell has a defined element and type of action – you cannot modify the basic nature of a rote spell, but you may gather power to increase the power of the final effect.

Specializations: Each specialization provides a +1 bonus to Focus, Lore or Will when using a specific element or type of thaumaturgy.

Crafting Specializations: Each specialization provides a +1 bonus to the Capacity, Frequency or Potency of any items you create. Any Focus items you create have a Capacity equal to your Lore. Any Enchanted items you create have a Frequency of 1, and a Potency equal to your Lore.

Focus items: Each Focus item slot provides a +1 bonus to your Focus, Lore or Will relating to one element or type of thaumaturgy, used either offensively or defensively. A blasting rod could provide a +1 Focus when using fire offensively, or a shield bracelet may add +1 to Will when using defensive spirit magic. If you want to be able to apply an additional element or type to a focus, all elements must share the same bonuses; for a staff that provides a +1 Focus to offensive fire magic, and +1 Will to defensive fire magic, adding the element of water would cost an additional 2 focus item slots. No single item may have a total number of bonuses that exceeds its Capacity.

Enchanted items: Each enchanted item slot represents an item containing a spell, usable a number of times each session equal to the item’s Frequency. Activating the spell is just like casting an evocation spell using the item’s Potency; it is not subject to fallout or backlash but you cannot gather power to increase this value. You may increase an item’s Frequency by reducing its Potency by the same amount. However, you cannot reduce an item’s Potency to less than 1 plus your Potency bonuses. You may also reduce an item’s Potency by 1 so that it can be used by anyone; such as a wand that requires a word to activate or a scroll containing a spell.

Each additional enchantment slot can be used to either increase an item’s Potency by 1, or its Frequency by 2. However, no item can have a Potency rating of more than twice your Lore without a very good rationale and a ton of baggage.

Enchanted items may need a skill to use effectively, such as staff of fireballs that requires a Shoot roll. In this case use the skill or the item’s Potency, whichever is lowest. If an item has been drained of uses, you may still use them but you must take a point of mental stress when doing so.

Armour: Armour is a special type of enchanted item that provides an Armour rating equal to the item’s Potency/2, rounding down. Each time armour is activated it lasts for an entire scene or until it removed by magic; you may defend against such actions with Will.

Potions: Potions are a special type of enchanted item. They can be used by anyone without needing to reduce their Potency, but can only be used once. If you have any enchantment slots free at the start of a session, you may declare any of these as potions. Alternatively, you may create an advantage using lore, to have one on hand (or a second if you succeed with style). Unlike regular enchanted items, you may gather power to bolster the effectiveness of the potion, creating an advantage such as Empowered Potion.

Regarding magic, i am trying to capture the spirit of dresden, but trying to do away with power and roll for magic like skills. In other words, if you roll high to place an aspect or defend, thats equivalent to putting more power into the spell.I am looking at a sort of skill boost you can have by taking mental stress. So if you want to cast regular unboosted magic, thats just a case of rolling Will or Focus and hoping for a high result. If want to say attack somone with a Weapon 6 fireball, thats going to cost 6 mental stress.

A reasonable niggle... but consider: Sprinting everywhere would tend to wear out a runner - but there's nothing in the fate core rules to enforce that.  If you wanted to make it very clear, though, you could add in a sentence like "Extended or continuous use of evocation tends to be exceptionally tiring compared to even strenuous physical activity; if this comes up in play, treat your effective endurance for spellcasting as your Will skill minus two."

Maybe you can cast a number of evocation spells each scene equal to your Physique. Each extra multiple of that subtracts -1 from all spellcasting rolls.

So Harry has Physique +4. He can cast 4 spells per scene with no penalty, 5 to 8 spells per scene at -1, 9-12 spells at -2. A bit of bookkeeping, but could be handled with a simple tally count.

Yes more skills is great. I was going to expand those when I look at what exactly you can do with magic in more detail. Those skills work for me. Some very interesting ideas there. I love spellcaster's using bespoke skills, but i would love to keep your

Rapport for Summoning, Will for Binding, Lore for Divination and Potions, Craft for Conjuring and Crafting Items, Deceit for Veils, Will for Wards, Provoke for Transformation and Disruption, Athletics for Transportation magic, Lore for Worldwalking.

since that makes a lot of sense.

Regarding evocations, mostly yes, especially for damage. Quick counterspells and veils are possible with evocation, but I cant see placing mental aspects in people or inflicting mental stress - thats more thaumaturgy, in my opinion

Hm.  I deliberately designed my version to be a one refresh thing - it only moves one trapping, after all, and for the rest just provides justification for using, say, Shoot skill without a gun.  (This is also why I removed mental stress as a cost - if any random mook can pick up a gun and shoot at weapon: 3 with their Shoot skill... the wizard with a blasting rod ought to be on at least equal footing.  In DFRPG the mental stress cost is a necessary balance for evocation being able to attack with extremely high skill & weapon values - when I scaled that back, I also removed the stress cost.)
Focus & enchanted items are, in my version, treated basically the same as mundane weapons & armor & tools - a viewpoint that I extend to thaumaturgy, too:

From my perspective a fate core version of thaumaturgy is just "Well, you're a wizard, so of course you can use Crafts skill to make a potion of water breathing - same way a gadgeteer could use Crafts to make a scuba tank, or anyone could use resources to just buy such a thing." Of course, a really good crafter-wizard would add stunts, perhaps switching magic item creation from crafts to lore, or maybe a stunt to offset penalties due to inadequate materials for some categories of thaumaturgy - "Yeah, I can make a tracking spell with some hair and a shoe string.  Gimme five minutes."

* * * * *

Backlash and Fallout: I don't see any need to include general rules for these; they'd normally fall into fate core's "succeed at a cost" option.
I'm also a little confused as to why you have create an advantage listed as lore - it doesn't seem to match the rest of the power (or DFRPG evocation, either...)

I do like your approach. Its very clean and simple. My only niggle is that in the books, evocation does tend to wear out spellcasters. Having Harry continuously blast opponents without signs of fatigue doesn't seem quite right to be, although I agree about fallout and backlash. Much easier solution.





 

Very Nice!! There was me trying to fate-corise the dresden magic system, but using the extra rules is very refreshing. Mmmm

Heres my take on Evocation as an extra

Evocation
Permissions: You must have an appropriate aspect related to magic, based on the cost of this extra (at -2 refresh you must be a sorcerer or wizard)
Costs: -1 to -3 Refresh

Choose 1 element, plus 2 elements per additional -1 Refresh. You may produce the following magical effects when using those elements. each use of evocation inflicts 1 mental stress.

Overcome: Use Will to Counterspell an existing magical effect, or remove an aspect created by a wizard.
Create an Advantage: Use Lore to create an aspect appropriate to your elements. If at range, you suffer -1 per zone
Attack: Use Shoot to hit a target, at -1 per zone. Take a -2 to affect all targets in a zone, or divide total roll to choose selective targets.
Defend: Use Will to defend against an attack,but only if you have a suitable aspect in place such as Force shield or Wall of Fire. 

Backlash and Fallout:  If you fail your attempt, you may take backlash or fallout to make up the deficit: For each +1 to your roll, you may either take a point of physical or mental stress (either, not both), or cause fallout to the environment, causing destruction or injury to others.

You also gain 2 enchantment slots per -1 Refresh cost. Enchantment slots provide the following:

+1 per slot to a specific action/element (shield charm adding +1 to spirit defends, a blasting rod adding +1 to Fire attack rolls etc)
+1 per slot for +1 Armour rating (a toughened duster)
Spell usable once per session per slot. The spell has a specific effect chosen from above, but doesnt cost you mental stress. It uses an appropriate roll to determine the effect as above. It may take the form of a potion, in which case the effect is made using Lore, regardless of effect (rolled when drinking the potion)