Like DFJunkie said, it also depends on what the runner is trying to accomplish. The above option assuems they're trying to get away. If they're jsut runnign around in circles trying not to die for a couple turns until their allies show up, then that isn't a sprint roll, it's a full defense. They're just dodging, so they get a +2 to their defense roll (which would be Athletics if they are trying to run around in circles so the ghoul can't get close enough to gut them).

But I wouldn't let them use the Sprinting rules as an automatically successful defense roll (they sprint, therefore forcing the enemy to spend their action sprinting as long as they get over one success, therefore taking up the enemy's action, therefore guaranteeing that the enemy can never attack even if they roll better on the sprinting roll) which is how I interpreted the example in the original post.


But if they were trying to run away and I didn't want to handle it as a chase conflict for whatever reasons, I think I'd give the chaser a free action against the query on any turn that they catch up (i.e. end the turn in the same zone as the query). I'd allow for pretty much any action that can be justified (an attack, a maneuver such as placing a "tackled!" aspect on them that can be tagged to start wrestling the next turn, a block against running the next turn, etc.). And of course the query would get a defense roll if it would normalyl be applicable (like vs. an attack).

But if the chaser doesn't catch up (i.e. make it all the way to the zone where the query ends up), then they don't get a free action (basically they spent their action sprinting).

Regardless of the results, at the end of the turn you'd know where each party was (they've each moved a certain number of zones on the map so you'd know how far apart they are). If the query ends any exchange at three or more zones away, then they've escaped (you can modify the number of zones they have to get ahead depending on the cirumstances).

-John B.

Regarding mental stress: how my group does it is if you want to pump up your spell with stress its a stress box for each point. For example, if you wanted to increase your spell's power by two you would have to fill in your one, two, and three mental stress boxes instead of just box number three. In my opinion this is more effective than limiting how much power someone can throw into a spell. If they want to throw down a legendary attack (assuming they have Superb Conviction with no focus items) than they can just tick off all of their mental stress boxes, but they won't be able to cast anything else without harming themselves in some way.

Huh. I like that. So if they want to throw out one massive spell that does like 22 damage, then they can, but they're totally tapped out. I'm going to think about that some more.

-John B.

I've been messing with this a bit, based on some of the comments in this thread. I was thinking about an idea and was wondering what people thought (basically I'm trying to keep the power of evocation more in line with other powers and with my own expectations based on the novels and setting, while also trying to keep or make Discipline and Conviction roughly equally useful).

Evocation House Rule Idea: You cannot increase Power above your Conviction (plus any specializations, focus items, etc.) with stress.

You may choose any power up to or equal to your modified Conviction and you suffer a single Mental stress, whatever the Power is. The only way to cast a spell with Power higher than your modified Conviction is with Mental consequences or Sponsored Magic debt. Consequences increase the Power up to their rating (e.g. a Minor consequence gives +2 Power while an Extreme mental consequences gives +8 Power). I haven't really thought through how Sponsored magic would work exactly, but it makes sense to me that it should thematically and mechanically.


There are a couple repercussions of this that I can think of that I'll discuss below. Please point out anything that I'm missing or overlooking or miscalculating.

Mental Stress: Since every spell causes a single stress no matter what its Power, Mental stress is simply a counter ("pouring extra power in" is represented by consequences, not stress). So at Conviction 1-2 you can cast three evocation spells without consequences, while with 3+ Conviction you can cast four evocation spells without consequences. Really, this isn't all that different and actually lessens some of the calculations ("well, I've already filled stress boxes 1 & 3 so I might as well go for a stress 2 or 4 Power, since a 1 or 3 are going to roll up anyway..."). It's a pretty minor thing either way, but unless I'm overlooking something I think that 1 stress per spell will work fine in practice without substantially how Mental stress limits evocation.

Evocation Attacks: Discipline is still slightly better than Conviction for attacks, which I'm okay with. An extra point in Conviction or an extra point in Discipline both give +1 damage, while Discipline has an edge because it's more likely to hit targets with good defense skills and/or armor and because you're less likely to suffer Backlash or Fallout. Conviction isn't completely irrelevant: Attacking multiple opponents or hitting a whole zone both require a minimum Power and can't be done unless your modified Conviction is high enough, whatever you Discipline is. Plus, there are other benefits to Conviction (see below). But all in all, a balance is ideal, but higher Discipline is better than higher Conviction for evocation attacks. And I'm okay with that.

But apart from the balance or Discipline and Conviction, how does it affect damage and the power of evocation? In practice, it's costly to get a Weapon rating higher than your modified Conviction. But for most wizards, that still means Weapon ratings of 3 or more (7 or higher isn't that hard to get at character creation). When you add in that they can get significantly more powerful attacks with consequences or sponsored magic, I don't feel like they're too weak.

On a personal note, it also resolves something that's always bothered me, which is that the difference between a wizard with Conviction 3 and Conviction 5 isn't all that big in practice in the RAW. In the books Dresden is described as being very innately powerful, but I don't think the RAW captures that well compared to other wizard builds.

Other uses of Evocation: Modified Conviction is more important than Discipline in every other use of evocation except attacks.

• Most effects have a minimum Power (e.g., Maneuvers are 3 or the target's affected skill)
• The strength of blocks and armor is based on Power, not the control roll
• All modifiers (duration, area of effect, etc.) increase the required Power
• More powerful spells are harder to counterspell (a masterful but weak warden with Conviction 1 and Discipline 7 would be a lot easier to counterspell than they would be to dodge)
• The more Power you have, the easier it is to counterspell other people's spells
• Conviction also determines how many spells you can cast

So overall I'm pretty happy with the balance of Discipline and Conviction with this house rule. I also think it stacks better in comparison to other "combat" powers of similar cost (e.g. Supernatural Strength if you consider the drawbacks of Evocation to effectively be a "price discount")

Thaumaturgy: As far as I can see, Thaumaturgy isn't much changed. It will never cause mental stress unless I tweaked the house rule (like saying that you can do up to 2 below your Conviction for no stress, while 1 below or equal to your Conviction causes 1 stress). Also, since the only way to get more Power is consequences (Thaumaturgy doesn't allow Conviction to be modified by specializations or focus items), Conviction becomes a pretty hard cap on the fastest you can possibly cast a spell. Control (Discipline) is still more important because you don't want to have the spell blow up.

It seems to me like the balance of stats is similar to RAW thaumaturgy, with Conviction getting a small boost in that it's a more fixed cap on casting speed than it used to be.

Again, I might be missing something.


Anyway, I'm not set on the above house rule by any means. But I was thinking about ways to prevent the insanely powerful attacks that I talked about in the original post (where each fate point effectively gives +4 damage) that are easier than my original house rule yet don't make Discipline significantly better than Conviction, like the second idea above of saying that only successes above the higher of Power or attack roll add to damage.

So, thoughts? Comments? (Note: Pointing out any big flaws and ripping it apart won't hurt my feelings--I'd be grateful.)

-John B.

The way that I read the intent of Catches is that every creature with toughness/recovery powers has to have a weakness or a way to get around that toughness/recovery power.

This isn't RAW, but something I've done on occasion is that if the creature (and I wouldn't allow this for PCs) has some other weakness (like zombies falling inert if the drumming stops or even having Human Form where the toughness/recovery don't apply until they change), I'll sometimes let that effectively count as their Catch and I'll give them a +0 Catch so they aren't getting any further discount (e.g. a zombie could have the Weakness of "Only while they can hear the drum (+0)").

Also, I've only ever done this with the "Inhuman" levels of Toughness and Recovery (where the toughness/recovery is a nice boost but doesn't make them invulnerable or nearly imposible to kill without either doing massive damage or finding their Catch). For the more powerful versions, like Mythic or Physical Immunity, I'd make sure there's a more standard Catch for the players to find out and exploit.

And finally, I've really only done that when I can't think of a good Catch and the creature isn't really important enough to get hung up worrying about it. I think that having a good Catch is almost always more interesting.

-John B.

Note: I know that zenten said that he/she knows that player knowledge and character knowledge are separate but that he/she thinks it will be more fun if the players never know. I wasn't ignoring that when I wrote my reply above. I was suggesting a different way of approaching the issue. It may or may not work for your group, but it's worked really well for mine and I recommend trying it.

-John B.

They are a single roll. However, that single roll serves two purposes, which is why they said it felt like the fate point was counting 'twice' - because it improves both your control and your aim.

Which means you can get +4 extra damage per fate point with Evocation atacks, instead of the +2 extra damage per fate point that you can get with any other type of attack, magical or mundane.

For example, if you decide that you're planning on spending 2 FP on an attack, then you can up your Power by 4 (which increases the damage by 4) because the 2 FP you spend on casting will offset the additional difficulty of controlling that increased Power. Then the 2 FP you're spending will also improve your to-hit roll by +4, which also increases the damage by 4. Thus for 2 FP, you got +8 damage instead of the usual +4 damage you'd get if you spent a FP while shooting a gun or swinging your fists or any other type of attack, mundane or magical.

I don't mind wizards doing obscene amounts of damage, per se, but I don't like them getting double the bonus from FP that everyone else does. However, there are other consequences of either of the two house rules that have been suggested (mainly that Discipline becomes more important than Conviction), so I'm undecided what I want to do about it in future campaigns.

This has been a very helpful discussion...

-John B.

Thanks for all the comments, everyone. Some very good points. They'll be very helpful next time I run a Dresden campaign with evocation or channeling.

Link is broken. You have http:// twice and unnecessary quotation marks.

Thanks. It should be fixed now.

Also, some of them are Submerged and others are Feet In The Water. What's up with that?

Well, it's not directly related to the post's question, but there were two separate sets of characters who did not directly interact (until the very end, and even then it was limited). So the Submerged characters were all together in one party and the Feet in the Water characters were all together in a separate party. It was basically two interwoven campaigns around the same central themes and threats. I think that the main Wiki page explains more what we did.

PPS: I have to wonder why the guy without Speed was going first. Did you never fight anything supernaturally fast?
PPPS: I question the balance of that initiative-boosting enchanted item more than I do those evocations.

Well, that's embarrassing--I think I'm going senile at an early age. I looked at Alois'character sheet and he doesn't have any Initiative boost... the enchanted item I was thinking of is actually for physical defense. So he wasn't going first. It's weird what memory does sometimes... Still, his evocation uber-blasts dominated every fight he was in, except for the Outsider fight.

There is one thing I'd like to point out. Just in case it's not simply a typo. Base Power of 7, increased to 14 means 8 Stress from casting. One Mild consequence would not be enough to manage that.

Yeah, it was a typo -- he actually had a base Power of 8, and a base Control of 7, so I mixed those two up. Thanks.

Or you could follow the 'mantra' of the novels, as was also suggested, throw out a big fight early on, or several smaller ones. Stretch the players a bit and have them face the big bad in a worse-for-wear state, as Harry often does. You don't have to do this all the time, but just often enough to remind them to use their minds creatively.

That's a good idea and I didn't use it as much as I wanted to. Because we weren't doing a combat focused campaign, one fight per session was usually all I threw in. And I didn't push them as hard as I should have (or the novels would have) so they got recovery time between pretty much every conflict until the climax.

In the two-session climax (which I haven't written up on the campaign wiki yet), there was a series of back-to-back fights, chases, and other conflicts--basically Alois snuck and ran through a full-blown Wild Hunt in progress to get to a Red Court stronghold, which he proceeded to wipe out (though not without getting hurt and tired). He knew it was coming and he played more conservatively with an eye towards stretching out his resources (fate points and Mental stress/consequences).

I used mortals in the climx, too (the Red Court stronghold was a night club full of people).

(I'd also instituted the hosue rule above before the climax sessions, so I can't say for sure if it would have been any different if we were using RAW...).

-John B.

I've been giving my wizard extra shifts of damage based on how well their control roll does against the higher of Spell DC and Target DC...

IE, if they barely manage to control a high-power spell, they haven't been getting any bonus damage. Even if the target had low defenses and they hit very well.

Huh. I think that's a lot more elegant than my house rule (which involves keeping track of which part of the roll you apply invokes/tags to) and it addresses the "double-dipping" issue so each fate point only adds +2 shifts of damage instead of +4.

I'm going to think about that a bit more...

-John B.