That would be the easiest, of course - a great suggestion - but I should have mentioned early on why I didn't opt for that at the time: it is a Fate Point sink for most involved, and all the players in this game are Wizard Apprentices with 1 Refresh. Plus a failed Athletics check, even with that Aspect to tag, would still have been bad. The Evoker was willing to take on whatever Stress and Consequences were needed to get folks out of there.

Devon, you misunderstand ... I literally meant Invoking For Effect (YS99). You hand a Fate point to the GM and say "Oh look, a convenient Stone Bridge. I simply cross it". That's it.

A wall of fire is essentially an Aspect on the scene that a GM might compel on you ("here, have a fate point. you're not crossing this raging inferno." "Nah, I'll give you one instead to do this: .... "

Turn around and cast an zone-wide attack on the zone behind you. Invoke the Raging Inferno aspect (and spend another Fate point, unless your GM likes your idea and is simply okay with you just having spent one to counter the compel) and claim the flavor text that you blew the wall of fire behind you.

Obviously, a lot of this is up to GM and player negotiation, but a good GM would reward a player for being so creative.

Hell, the GM could have just handled that fire as a zone barrier to roll against, and not actually named any Aspects, hoping that you'd Declare it and hence get a free Tag

Actually, this is something I've always wondered myself ... if it's possible to create a *Block* zone barrier that could *Attack* anyone crossing it, i.e Wall of Fire.

As for ability to throw the wall of fire at the mobs, that's actually covered under "Redirecting Spell Energy" (YS260). Assuming the Wall of Fire is still up (maintained) that round, you could take the shifts covered by it's main effect (not the duration if I read it right) and turn it into shifts of an *Attack* without having to burn another point of mental stress or rolling for control of the spell (although you still need to roll Discipline for targeting).

So, say, a 6 shift zone barrier could be converted into a Weapon 4 attack that covers an entire zone (since that's what you're describing - a wall of fire blowing forward and cooking everything in it's path).

That being said, that wall would be immediately dissipated after the attack, so you can't just push it from one zone border to the next in one exchange. That would indeed be a tad overpowered. But you could throw up a new wall in the next exchange and just claim, for flavor, that it's the same wall.

As above.

Oh once my characters willingly decide to turn into lawbreakers, I'd be more than happy as a GM to let them abuse it. It's awful fun watching a character spiral into darkness

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that the lawbreaker system in this game is a better way of handling a fall to the dark side than the ones used in the Star Wars RPG?

Becq, take into consideration that the game itself is set just after the events from Small Favor, so the war is still in full swing.

Characters such as this one are indeed up to GM discretion. Personally, I'd only allow players to build characters using the available templates. Take into consideration that those templates do offer customization options, but I like them simply because I find them moderately balanced against each other.

That being said, I'd totally use this character as an antagonist

Yeah, I'd definitely say ultra-permissive GM. This is some pretty impressive twinkage. A pure glass cannon. I'll have to get home to check the math as I am curious. That being said, this is obviously a very high powered campaign, quite a good deal beyond Submerged.

That being said, a few things:

- The Wardens, the Gatekeeper, plus anyone else they can find, will definitely be hunting this character down with an obsessive passion. An Outsider mage would be chipping away at reality every time she uses her magic. This character is clearly a bridge between our reality and 'things man was not meant to know'. They would interrogate, and likely even torture, everyone this character knows, even on the offchance that they *might* know someone who knows someone who knows where she is and what her defenses are. Outsider magic is far more feared and reviled than even Necromancy, and look at the kind of resources the White Council brought to bear to take Kemmler down. Seriously, if the GM isn't setting up a chunk of each scenario throwing a half dozen wardens and a member or two of the Senior Council at you, he's doing something wrong.

- As others have mentioned, banishing people into very hostile realms where they are much more likely than not to be killed does count as a First Law violation simply due to intent.

I got clarification from Fred that Aspects generated from Evocation maneuvers work the same as non-magical maneuvers. That is, if you get at least one shift of effort, it is sticky and will last the scene or until it is removed.

Uhm ... then why this line from that section on page 253?:

"As with other effects, you can pay an additional shift to make the effect persistent at the cost of 1 shift per additional *exchange*"

Me thinks a new sticky thread with Errata and an FAQ should rear it's head soon

A straight block is best when your defensive skill (Athletics normally) is quite low. The idea behind a block is that it *completely* negates damage if the attack roll cannot surpass the block. So some clumsy super strong monster with a Weapons skill of +2 and a weapons rating+strength of 6 would be completely useless against a block of +5 most of the time. No damage is inflicted since you simply cannot be hit.

Whereas if you're pretty damned agile with a high Athletics rating, there's no sense in creating a block who's skill is only slightly higher than your Athletics when you could create an armor and just try to soak the blow. Armor is also much more useful when dealing with someone trying to stab you with a pocket knife or shoot you with a low caliber pistol since you'll probably just end up soaking up the damage anyways. The other (significant) advantage of armor is that it won't collapse if you get hit, unlike a straight block. So it would kinda really suck to spend a ton of shifts on a block that last 4 rounds if someone clears it on the 1st.