Two questions about spellcasters: were-wizards and alchemists

[Ancalagon]

Hello

I have two questions.

1:  Can a supernatural being also be a spellcaster?  For example, could a were-fox be a sorcerer as well?  Can a white court vampire be a focused practitioner on top of being a vampire?  Could a rabbi (true believer) also be a kabala master?  Or do the mystical powers "muddle" one another?

2:  This is a comment/question about the focused practitioner.  I once played an alchemist a long time ago in a Gurps game with a home brewed magical system, that was pretty open ended.  Although being an alchemist was supposed to limit me, by being fairly creative, my character ended up being able do do almost anything he wanted.  I want to heal?  Healing potion.  I want to attack someone?  Greek fire.  I want to snoop around?  Invisibility potion.  Etc etc.  Anyway, all this to say that a focus on a *method* of magic (as opposed a type of magic) isn't always such a limit.  Mind you, if you don't have the proper potion handy, you're kinda screwed... So anyway, would this be "OK" in the system, or would this be abusive? 

cheers,

Ancalagon

[TheMouse]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm just a dude on the internet, not one of the writers of this game. I am a big fan of FATE and the Dresden Files and have been reading a lot of stuff about the DFRPG.

The answer to your first questions seems to be: It depends.

Supernatural powers cost you Refresh. If your Refresh drops below 1, that character doesn't get to be a PC. So if you combine two templates with low Refresh costs, you should be fine.

Wizards, White Court vampires, and other supernatural heavy hitters cost lots of Refresh. The write up for Harry has him sitting at 1 Refresh, for example. So unless your game's starting Refresh is really high, you can't play someone who takes a heavy hitter template and something else on top of it.

This is what seems to be the case, anyhow.

[Bosh]

I think an alchemist would work fine for Dresden since while you could make a potion that would do just about anything, brewing up powerful ones wouldn't be easy and you'd need time and couldn't do it on the fly (or away from your lab). Seems like that would work well.