I feel you. It's possible we may have to do that one as a download - I don't think we have room to increase the page count of either book at this point.

Yeah, Permissions were sort of a midway point on the way to our final, blanket ruling on qualifying for powers. Permissions were a fancy way of indicating which character types qualified for which powers, which we then generalized to, "they have to clearly derive from your high concept aspect, whatever it is". And then we solidified the templates and types to provide more guidance.

The idea being, it has to logically track. So, if I'm an Emissary of Loki, the trickster god, probably I could see my way into illusion-based sponsored magic or glamours, any powers that help me with deception, and that kind of stuff. But Mythic Toughness probably isn't going to happen.

My only comment here is that you want to watch and make sure you're not stepping outside of evocation's known limitations, even if your "element" is based on physics. Refined applications wouldn't really be appropriate, nor would anything that can't be defined in terms of attack, block, maneuver, or counterspell.

Unless you were some strange Emissary of Einstein or whatever, and could achieve such things via sponsorship.

Or if you shunted off some of those more complex effects into themes for thaumaturgy. Which would then be fine.

I tend to agree with you about armor not stacking (just doesn't sit right with me), but what are your thoughts on armor and, say, Inhuman Toughness.

If it's me, no stacking, period - highest applicable value is what you use.

But if you're going to go with the idea I posted, I'd say that Toughness powers (in other words, "innate" armor) and another item (in other words, "manufactured" armor) are good candidates for that.

He kinda slumped into his chair with his head down and said, "I'm working on it, I swear!!!" He laughed about it though, he was happy to see the game in the wild.

Poor guy. I can sympathize.

If you have people in your group who are not used to giving their character backgrounds this could well take a lot longer.  We had to pretty much coach everyone through each step.  For instance, coming up with the stories was easy for me, but picking aspects and abilities was not.  However for another guy in the group the technical stuff was easy and stories were really hard.

Keep in mind that via the on-the-fly stuff (YS p. 69, har har), you have the option of entering play without a background and developing your aspects and other abilities as you go. If that's your hurdle, don't sweat it. Leave whatever you need to blank.

Advice-wise, I tend to find (though I'm not assuming this is your group) that people's biggest obstacles to good aspects and background stuff is overthinking it. Simple but evocative works best. There are only so many plots in the world, right? Don't worry too much about cliche. A wise video game once said to me, "Nothing is a cliche when it's happening to you." It's your roleplay that's going to bring the character to life and set them apart anyway.

For aspects, the thing to look for is, "What is the most significant thing the events of this phase tell me about who this character is?" And then, "Is that a double-edged sword? How?"

And if you find out that doesn't work, you get a chance to review and make changes at the end of every session anyway, via minor milestones.

Workable? Did I miss something?

My only problem here is that this seems like rather finicky work for evocation - it feels like it'd need to be a thaumaturgical effect of some kind, and define its effects in a slightly more precise way than "turn off gravity".

Got any thoughts? I might have some tomorrow, after some sleep.

Alright, scenario number 1; I've got a focussed practitioner who specializes in Biomancy or Self-Enhancement Spells. How do most of these work if I want to; temporarily increase her speed/strength or alter her senses? I can see a few ways to handle short term boosts, what if I want it to last longer?

Biomancy is a tough cookie to deal with, mainly due to lack of evidence from the books. We've seen a couple of examples of minor healing stuff, and we know that the specialty exists, but we haven't really seen a powerful practitioner let loose with the specialty.

The best way to deal with any kind of intermediate questions about magic effects is to ask yourself, "How would I mechanically represent this in the game according to the given constraints?" and then talk about how many total shifts you'd need to bring about the effect you wanted. The only other thing it says in the Biomancy entry is that the body might not be designed to handle the kinds of alterations you're doing, so you have to take that into account too.

So, let's look at a Might enhancement. You have no Might, and want to be able to use a Might of Superb for a certain length of time. So that's a 5-shift complexity ritual right off the bat. That's going to tax your body, and system logic suggests you'd express that as a consequence. You want to have this enhancement for a whole session, so we assume the consequence is a self-inflicted moderate one. You have a physical stress track of 3 boxes, and a moderate consequence is worth 4 stress, so inflicting a moderate consequence on you takes 7 shifts. You're looking at a 12-shift ritual. (Maybe, if you're generous, you don't charge for the stress and only ask for the 4 shifts, and it's a 9-shift ritual. It's up to you. I'd charge the 12, but whatevs.)

Now we can tell a story about how you prepare for this and do it. Make sense?

Scenario number 2; A Sorcerer decides that containing a lightning bolt in his hand for awhile might be more useful than tossing it as a single strike. How could this be played out to; add damage to his Fists/Weapon attacks (would it just be a weapon of the power value, aimed with a relevant skill?) or keep it contained for an exchange or two to be released when the timing is right?

Hm. So, again, we're talking about setting constraints - no one's ever done this in the books, and all Jim's prose seems to suggest that when you summon up the power for the evocation, you have to let it out somehow, directed and basically in a straight line toward your target. (I know, there's an edge case in Small Favor. Don't look at me like that.)

Assuming you're fine with it at your table, I'd just pay damage and maintenance and have done - you want a Weapon:3 "electrical aura" or whatever, and you want it for the next 5 exchanges, you're looking at an 8-shift evocation. You wouldn't get the benefit of using your Discipline as an attack roll because of how you're describing the effect, though - in that case, you're just controlling the manifestation of power. In fact, you wouldn't even be able to damage anyone in the same exchange you cast the spell. In subsequent exchanges, you'd have to roll Fists or Weapons to connect, and it'd just work like a normal weapon.

Scenario number 3; Harry gets sick of his poor Latin Skills landing him in awkward situations with the White Council and develops a spell that's literally nothing but a translator. Do I just treat this as a spell that boosts his Scholarship, does it add an Aspect, what?

If it were me, I'd honestly just let you do it, and then I'd have other wizards in the scene make fun of him for having to use a translation spell to communicate with them instead of learning Latin like a real wizard.