There were a few mentions in the books regarding needing to speak clearly and make apropriate gestures in order to properly cast a magic spell. Despite this making an attack's source pretty obvious, I can see where certain "stealth players" would loathe to use those things when they're trying to have their character take out a barrier before sneaking into an installation or whatever.

My question is, how heavily do you GM's hand out those (+1/+2 to difficulty) modifiers to Magic users trying to cast without those obvious trappings?

PS: I know that an incantation need not be audible to the target, and gestures need not be obvious, but if every magic using player is sneak-casting all their magic, there's a subtle "Non-Dresden-y-ness" to the scenes.

PPS: Also, I'm not talking about using Enchanted Items, or about Mundane Effects, just to exclude 2 more points of contention.

I notice there's not a specific thread (that Search could find for me) for creatures that don't exist in any Mythology, ie. that people made up on their own. If there is, Sorry. But if not, Here's one for people to show off their homemade critters. I'll start it off next post.

Yes, I’m doing it again, asking things that make you shake your heads in pity.
Things Like:
Does a Focused Practitioner make Focus Items that enhance their Thematic Niche, broadly? (Example, +2 Complexity Diabolism, which would cover his Diabolic Divination, Conjuration, Summoning, etc?)

Does a resisted Magic Maneuver have to succeed by +3 or +1 (After defense) to be sticky? And what about one that is not resisted (as in a scene aspect, not on a character)?

And finally, How legal is the following:

A Player has an Air-based Magical block that thickens the air around him. Several men open fire on him, none succeed past the block. Next turn, the Wizard makes an Alertness Declaration of “Bullets hanging in the air” And makes a Spirit Force spell to “fire” the bullets back at the shooters, either as an attack, or a “keep their heads down” type of block against attacking.

I think it’s pretty legit, just getting more opinions on that.

So the idea came up in another thread that with a magical maneuver you can place an aspect like "I'm a Bear" on yourself, as a sort of transformative effect.

I, of course, took it to a whole different place. If you use Mental magics to place an aspect like "I'm a Bear" on someone, does it count as Lawbreaking?

You won't be causing mental stress or consequences, yes, you would be tampering with someone's self-image, but it's in the most fragile (A character has 7 other aspects including High Concept to bring to bear against it) and transitory way (It probably won't last very long).

Then comes the question, "Why do it if it's so weak?"
Well, take the concept of "Magical Hypnotist." He should be able to induce mental illusions, Identity confusion, and even programmed responses to stimuli, through Mortal means. I can see these as different sorts of Maneuvers, temporarily combatting with the target's other Aspects with varying degrees of success (Which would explain why you cannot make someone do something through Hypnosis that they would never do normally).

With the power of Magic, doing such things should count as  the magical equivalent of a simple action, but at what point does it move into Lawbreaking? These Aspects don't violate free will; although you think you're someone/something else, you can still make choices. That's what I thought was the corrupting factor of the 4th Law. No mind reading is done, so the 3rd Law is out, too.

Any opinions?

Hey, let's share those little things that we've found to help run games.

example: I constantly forget to mention weather when my campaign isn't focused on some sort of weather spell. I just found this site, which is a Random Weather Generator (other Random Generators are on this page, but the Weather one is very cool), and it includes supernatural weather elements if you want it to.

http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/weather/

So,what little thing have you found that might help others improve their games?

(Note the lack of "The" in the item name)

Item of Power
Axe of Slayer[-3]
Description:  Every generation there is a girl… That rocks like no other.  For her awaits the Axe of Slayer. This 2-handed Battle-axe is emblazoned with arcane symbols and demonic imagery (Although the demonic images are only painted on, you know, for show) and will assist this special girl in battling evil across the land. Forged in the confluence of awesomeness created in 1981 when a new band, Slayer, played as an opening act for Bitch, covering the Iron Maiden song “Phantom of the Opera” in the Woodstock Club of Los Angeles. A forward-seeing wizard sensed the opportunity to funnel this potential violence and talent into the creation of a Weapon the likes of which have never been seen.
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your possession of this item.
Skills Affected: Weapons
Effects:
[-0] Purpose. Forged from Detroit Rock City iron, for maximum aggression and attitude, this axe was made to kill monsters. A Slayer, so to speak.
[-0] It Is What It Is. A Weapon: 3, 2-handed Battle-axe.
[-0] Unbreakable. As an Item of Power, this item cannot be broken except with a magical ritual predicated upon perverting its purpose.
[+2] One-Time Discount. It's a 2-handed Battle-axe; Try to hide this under a coat. I dare you.
[-1] Marked by Power: Everyone in the know recognizes the wielder of this axe as a A-#1 Badass.
[-1] Wall of Awesome: With the energy output from this baby singing through your veins, you can use the Axe of Slayer to make spray attacks, as if possessing the Wall of Death stunt.
[-1] Let it fly: The Axe of Slayer imparts the Breath Weapon power, represented by the wielder throwing the axe at an enemy up to two zones away (A Weapon: 2 ranged attack). The Axe of Slayer will unerringly return to its owner’s hand.
[-1] Reign in Blood: Once per scene, Upon entering combat, The wielder of the Axe of Slayer may hold her mighty weapon above her head as if in triumph, Allowing a Zone-wide Intimidation Maneuver to attempt to place the “Awe-Stricken” Aspect on all in attendance.
[-2] Inhuman Recovery:  Catch (+1)-Unholy artifacts or desecrated holy ground




(So, Whaddaya think? Oh, for historical Accuracy, Check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slayer#Early_days_.281981.29)

Or.. Noob Questions revisited!

I recently read the following exchanges in another thread:

Targeting question: I cast an 8-shift push, but I only roll 5 to control. I take 3 backlash to get the spell off. My opponent rolls an Athletics defence of 6. What happens?

He defends. Any time the defense is higher than your targeting roll the effect is avoided.

Hmm, you're right. I think I like the idea of a targeting roll for this one. Though I guess there's some advantage to doing it the other way.

I like the idea of a targeting roll for this too, actually. These evocation pushes are very attack-like.

I like the idea of a targeting roll as well. Think of it as an invisible hand pushing in a straight line - if the target moved away, it will miss.

OK, the way things sound, I may be doing something Way wrong. The way it seems here, targeting is totally separate from control on spells, instead of partially separate, in a way that only becomes obvious when splitting an attack. If taking backlash stress to meet the spell's control requirement doesn't also increase the targeting to that same level, there would be less of an incentive to take backlash, because you're going to have more of a chance of missing, anyway.  Now I only did a small amount of digging, but I found the following passage:

Example:  Harry  Dresden  is  beset  by  a charging Red Court vampire  intent on taking his  fool head of. He’s not  really happy about that, so he chooses to blast it of the planet with a fire evocation.
Harry  has  a Conviction  of Superb  (+5) and a Discipline of Good (+3). His player—Jim—decides he doesn’t want  to mess around with  this  thing  too  much,  so  he  chooses  to summon  up  8  shifts  of  power  for  the  spell. Harry has a power specialization in fire magic, so his Conviction is treated as Fantastic (+6) for  the purposes of  the spell. That means  that casting this spell will give him a 3-stress mental hit—one stress for everything up to 6, and then two more to get to 8.
The  difficulty  to  cast  the  spell  is Legendary  (+8).  That’s  high,  but  fortunately Harry’s blasting rod gives him a +1 to control,  so Jim  starts by rolling his Discipline at Great  (+4). He  gets  a +2,  for  a  total  of Fantastic (+6), and invokes Harry’s Wizard Private  Eye  aspect  to  give  him +2 more. This  controls  all  the  power  necessary  for  the spell, and aims the spell at his target at +8.
Harry  yells  “Fuego!”  as  he  points  his blasting  rod,  sending  a  column  of  fame  at the  vampire,  an  attack  at  Legendary  rated at Weapon:8.  The  vampire  rolls  to  defend against Harry’s  roll  of Legendary and  gets a Great (+4), which means the blast strikes home and  inflicts a 12-stress hit  on him  (4  for  the attack, 8 for the weapon value). The vampire’s Inhuman Toughness reduces  this  to 11 stress, and the vampire takes a severe consequence of Extra Crispy and a 5-stress physical hit.

Wouldn't the stress output be 10 not 12 if Harry's targeting roll was only counted as 6, not 8? And had the vampire rolled +7, would it have still been a hit?

One more passage:

The Discipline roll also controls spell targeting and sets the difficulty for defending against it.

For the life of me I can't find anything in the rules of backlash that says that covering a failed roll with backlash doesn't also cover targeting, since it's intended to cover the Discipline Roll Deficit, it sounds like it covers the targeting roll, as well.

Can anyone find anything in the RAW that supports the Targeting Roll separation?