Our household has decided that we're going to play a Pathfinder campaign consisting of Kyle running the campaign with myself, Jessie, and Noah as players. This will be Noah's and Jessie's first real introduction into the world of Role Playing Games and I'm pretty excited to see them designing their first characters. We decided to use Pathfinder since Kyle already had most of a 3.5 campaign setup and just had to change a few things to get us up and running.
Kyle gave us free reign to create characters in the high fantasy setting he's designed and let me loose with the whole of Pathfinder available to me. In his setting Monstrous Races are more common with less racism so I could have worked out to be a half-gnoll/minotaur bard-monk who uses oversized nunchuku guns he might have allowed it. It really made me think hard about what I wanted to play.
I haven't had a fresh character concept in quite a while and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I started off thinking about character classes I enjoy playing a lot and almost ended up going with a gunslinger. A dodgy and swashbuckling gunslinger. I almost kicked myself for going right back to playing Karrak again.
Every single character concept I came up with was something I played before. Echoes of Karrak, Erik, Ramses, Talos, Nolan, and a host of others came up and I couldn't shake the idea that I was just out of creative juices and was completely out of practice with character design. It was pretty disheartening. I used to be able to pump out a new character and a basic background or concept in a matter of hours. Nothing was inspiring me this time around.
Eventually I was just going through the Pathfinder SRD while ranting to Clint about my lack of ideas and I came across the Summoner class. I've looked at them before but never really gave them much thought. It felt like a class a much younger and less experienced me would have wanted to play and maybe I unconsciously avoided it because I still feel like I'm sometimes still trying to play the same stereotypes I used to back in my high school days.
I decided to read through it and really liked the idea. It's a pretty cool class, creating your own special summoned monster, supporting combat through a combat class that you can change the strategy of on the fly based on the critters you bring to the table. My inner collectible card gamer nerd may have squeed a little bit thinking about the possibilities.
So I tried to think about what would cause someone to become a summoner and I had a hilarious idea pop into my head. What if a summoner came into his power because he really didn't want to touch things himself? Like he was a little germaphobic, didn't like to get dirty, and wasn't always "there" with everyone else unless his Eidolon (his special critter) was there with him in the material plane. He'd be a guy who could end up being stuck in an unlocked room because he couldn't touch the latch on the door. I immediately laughed out loud and decided that this guy could only be a Gnome.
The concept started to come together after that. Clearly this guy doesn't have all his faculties there, he'd need some type of people there that he trusts that will open doors, carry things, and handle everyday tasks while his mind is lost in the ether. I figured he'd need a bodyguard and a manservant. I also thought about making his eidolon a butler, but I couldn't entirely justify the meta loss of combat capabilities that would result from taking a bipedal form over a quadruped.
The character was pretty well set at that point. Now all I had to do was plot out the per level character progression and to fully design the eidolon. The eidolon proved to be a bit of a challenge for me. Again it was because there are so many options. I didn't have any idea what I wanted to accomplish with it. Looking through the options and a couple of guides gave me an idea of what directions I could take it.
Meta-wise a quadruped base form gives the best options for a "Striker" style summon. Biped seemed thematically appropriate, and Avian seemed kind of cool. I ended up selecting the quadruped base because I felt it would end up giving the play experience I'd enjoy the most. I just had to figure out what it looked like now. So... off to Wikipedia!
After about 2 hours of falling down that rabbit hole I finally started narrowing down the choices. I felt like basing the look off a real animal. I didn't want to use a wolf or a big cat. Too obvious, too easy. I didn't want a fantastic reptilian beast. It also felt too typical. I started to look at other apex predators. Atypical canids and felines. I ended spotting the Maned Wolf of South America and looked into that a bit more. Digging deeper they turn out to be related to African Wild Dogs, which then made me look into other African predators. It became pretty obvious to me what fit what was becoming my vision. The Hyena.
So the germaphobe Gnome summoner and his extraplanar Hyena monster have the framework I needed to throw a few finishing touches together and he'd be ready to play. I was pretty happy with how the character has turned out. I'm looking forward to playing him more and developing his personality. He'll be an interesting challenge to play. I haven't played a Gnome, I rarely play magic users, and his personality is so very different from one I've played before.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Friday, January 27, 2017
Approaching Writing Again
Hey all, I'm back for the time being. It's been a long time since I've been on here.
Guess what? I'm going to try this again. The past few years have been pretty difficult for me personally and I've gone through a lot of growth and change in my life. It's been tough to find time for just sitting down and relaxing, let alone putting my mind to writing. Just haven't felt very motivated.
I feel though that this funk needs to change. It's been too long since I've been creative and I need to start exercising that aspect of my mind again. I have opinions about fiction I need to share. Hell, there have been two whole new Star Wars movies since the last time I wrote and I haven't been able to truly rant about them.
I've been thinking about it for the past few years and have been wondering if I could have what it takes to write professionally. Right now I know I don't have all the skills or the discipline. I can't even keep my own blog up to date, let alone sit down and write out a coherent multi-part epic story.
One of my favorite things in the world is world building. How a world forms from a small idea and through thinking of the logical interactions of people and their circumstances turns into a fleshed out setting is one of the most satisfying things to me.
I need to practice more. I need to write more. If I want to make this a thing I get paid for I need to treat this like it's a career. Paraphrasing the words of one of my favorite authors goal number one of professional writers should be to get paid.
So, how do I get paid? I need to get good. How do I get good? Practice. How do I practice? Just write stupid shit and maybe try some writing prompts. I don't know. I just have to start somewhere. This seems like a good start. Wish me luck!
Guess what? I'm going to try this again. The past few years have been pretty difficult for me personally and I've gone through a lot of growth and change in my life. It's been tough to find time for just sitting down and relaxing, let alone putting my mind to writing. Just haven't felt very motivated.
I feel though that this funk needs to change. It's been too long since I've been creative and I need to start exercising that aspect of my mind again. I have opinions about fiction I need to share. Hell, there have been two whole new Star Wars movies since the last time I wrote and I haven't been able to truly rant about them.
I've been thinking about it for the past few years and have been wondering if I could have what it takes to write professionally. Right now I know I don't have all the skills or the discipline. I can't even keep my own blog up to date, let alone sit down and write out a coherent multi-part epic story.
One of my favorite things in the world is world building. How a world forms from a small idea and through thinking of the logical interactions of people and their circumstances turns into a fleshed out setting is one of the most satisfying things to me.
I need to practice more. I need to write more. If I want to make this a thing I get paid for I need to treat this like it's a career. Paraphrasing the words of one of my favorite authors goal number one of professional writers should be to get paid.
So, how do I get paid? I need to get good. How do I get good? Practice. How do I practice? Just write stupid shit and maybe try some writing prompts. I don't know. I just have to start somewhere. This seems like a good start. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Warmachine Musings
Recently I've begun getting back into a game that was one of my passions. Back when I was in the navy I used to play a decent amount of Warmachine. For those who don't know Warmachine is a miniatures based wargame that takes place in a type of steampunk world. (Although they don't like the label steampunk, they prefer Full Metal Fantasy.) I enjoyed the game and was pretty okay at it. I could even hold my own in most competitive circuits.
So like I said I'm getting back into the game again, with some gusto. I'm finishing up painting all of the things I've had sitting around for the last 5 years and I'm relearning the game so I can start picking up the competitive game again. The last time I played they had just introduced the official second edition of the game which brought about huge changes and add in my six year hiatus from the game you can see a need to find a way to catch up fast. So I've started listening to some podcasts about it.
Today I listened to an episode of the Chain-Attack podcast. Specifically Episode 215 where the last half of the episode was dedicated to the opinion of one of the competitive players of the four man group they normally have on the show. He's a very skilled player with a firm grasp on the meta-game and theory behind it, definitely someone who's opinion is worth a listen. I disagree with the somewhat elitist attitude taken by this particular group of players, but that's always a complaint of mine with the way certain circles of competitive players talk about their chosen game.
Anyways, the last half of the podcast was about a valid complaint about the competitive circuit of Warmachine. The tournaments can have a rather random feel to them because of the haphazard way tournament brackets are created by Press Gangers essentially by pulling names out of a hat. This can lead to the final pairings in a tournament to be lopsided depending upon how the first brackets lined up. If the two most competitive players in an 8 man tourney face off first round you essentially know who is going to win the overall.
The player wanted a different way to approach competitive play. His primary suggestion was creating an Elo style ranking system to determine matchups better. Elo is a system that essentially ranks a player based upon their skill levels and attempts to take that into account when determining matchups and how valuable a certain win is vs an opponent. Your number of games played and your win-loss ratio is what helps determine this ranking.
Which in theory sounds great from a competitive standpoint. He gave some wonderful examples of other games that use these types of systems. Magic, Chess (where it originated), Poker, and League of Legends were mentioned specifically. All of which have very strong competitive structures. There are a few problems with translating this to a wargame though.
In Chess every single move in competition is written down to make sure theres no cheating, League is a PC game hosted on servers controlled by the company and monitored for fairness, Poker and Magic have some very strict conduct rules and similar measures in place to ensure that no one is cheating. Every single one has very strict judging criteria, professional, or semi-professional judges, and a code of conduct as well as ways to ensure fairness.
In order to ensure fairness in a wargame you'd have to have every single move able to be measured and recorded and have official ways of measuring outcomes like officially built, weighted, and measured dice. There'd also have to be a professional judging staff rather than the amateur volunteers that make up the entirety of Privateer Press' tournament staff.
Another major difference between those other games and Warmachine (and really wargaming in general) is the size of the player base, especially in competition levels. Warmachine probably has less players in total than what Magic alone has that play in competition. It doesn't have the literal centuries of time that Chess has had to build up a player base, or the ease of access and large financial backing that any of these games have.
To be completely honest there's not enough money in the entire game to really make implementing that type of system worthwhile even if it weren't for the fact that it would change the way people play the game.
And oh boy would that change the way people play the game.
I don't play MOBAs like League or competitive Magic specifically because of the player communities. Magic was no longer fun to play one I got into the competitive play (my attitude towards it got even worse when I had to judge Friday Night Magic as a DCI *shudder*). It draws a different crowd to the game and really affects the way the meta is presented and the attitudes of the players at the tournaments.
All in all I feel that a change like that will make it an even higher entry barrier as the elitists in a game that's already tough to get into even harder for new players to get interested in.
So like I said I'm getting back into the game again, with some gusto. I'm finishing up painting all of the things I've had sitting around for the last 5 years and I'm relearning the game so I can start picking up the competitive game again. The last time I played they had just introduced the official second edition of the game which brought about huge changes and add in my six year hiatus from the game you can see a need to find a way to catch up fast. So I've started listening to some podcasts about it.
Today I listened to an episode of the Chain-Attack podcast. Specifically Episode 215 where the last half of the episode was dedicated to the opinion of one of the competitive players of the four man group they normally have on the show. He's a very skilled player with a firm grasp on the meta-game and theory behind it, definitely someone who's opinion is worth a listen. I disagree with the somewhat elitist attitude taken by this particular group of players, but that's always a complaint of mine with the way certain circles of competitive players talk about their chosen game.
Anyways, the last half of the podcast was about a valid complaint about the competitive circuit of Warmachine. The tournaments can have a rather random feel to them because of the haphazard way tournament brackets are created by Press Gangers essentially by pulling names out of a hat. This can lead to the final pairings in a tournament to be lopsided depending upon how the first brackets lined up. If the two most competitive players in an 8 man tourney face off first round you essentially know who is going to win the overall.
The player wanted a different way to approach competitive play. His primary suggestion was creating an Elo style ranking system to determine matchups better. Elo is a system that essentially ranks a player based upon their skill levels and attempts to take that into account when determining matchups and how valuable a certain win is vs an opponent. Your number of games played and your win-loss ratio is what helps determine this ranking.
Which in theory sounds great from a competitive standpoint. He gave some wonderful examples of other games that use these types of systems. Magic, Chess (where it originated), Poker, and League of Legends were mentioned specifically. All of which have very strong competitive structures. There are a few problems with translating this to a wargame though.
In Chess every single move in competition is written down to make sure theres no cheating, League is a PC game hosted on servers controlled by the company and monitored for fairness, Poker and Magic have some very strict conduct rules and similar measures in place to ensure that no one is cheating. Every single one has very strict judging criteria, professional, or semi-professional judges, and a code of conduct as well as ways to ensure fairness.
In order to ensure fairness in a wargame you'd have to have every single move able to be measured and recorded and have official ways of measuring outcomes like officially built, weighted, and measured dice. There'd also have to be a professional judging staff rather than the amateur volunteers that make up the entirety of Privateer Press' tournament staff.
Another major difference between those other games and Warmachine (and really wargaming in general) is the size of the player base, especially in competition levels. Warmachine probably has less players in total than what Magic alone has that play in competition. It doesn't have the literal centuries of time that Chess has had to build up a player base, or the ease of access and large financial backing that any of these games have.
To be completely honest there's not enough money in the entire game to really make implementing that type of system worthwhile even if it weren't for the fact that it would change the way people play the game.
And oh boy would that change the way people play the game.
I don't play MOBAs like League or competitive Magic specifically because of the player communities. Magic was no longer fun to play one I got into the competitive play (my attitude towards it got even worse when I had to judge Friday Night Magic as a DCI *shudder*). It draws a different crowd to the game and really affects the way the meta is presented and the attitudes of the players at the tournaments.
All in all I feel that a change like that will make it an even higher entry barrier as the elitists in a game that's already tough to get into even harder for new players to get interested in.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Avengers Age of Ultron Thoughts
For the first time in I can't remember how long I went out and saw a movie in theaters more than once. Avengers Age of Ultron is something that will become a classic. I loved pretty much every second of this movie. The acting, action, effects, and pretty much everything else were spot on.
As always Joss and crew pay attention to the minor details that make each of the characters human and full of life. Everyone has believable motivations and killer one liners. It is pure bliss as a fan of the comics who is willing to accept the translation required to move these stories with literal decades of history into the very different medium of film.
I will likely talk freely here and not be worried about spoilers so if you don't want spoilers don't read further... jerk.
One of my favorite parts of the movie is when the Hulkbuster armor comes out. It's dropped from orbit and is named Veronica (because this is the Hulk's girlfriend, since Bruce's is named Betty. Yes, they put an Archie joke in a Marvel movie). The Hulkbuster armor was everything we needed it to be, and it was such a wonderful action scene that kept the intensity up while developing the conflicts even more.
Spader was awesome as Ultron. He is the perfect Anti-Stark. His delivery of each and every line in the movie was perfect. I have zero complaints. Seriously. Perfect portrayal for this setting.
The tidbits setting up the upcoming storylines were wonderful. Each step towards the Infinity War and the Civil War made me a bit giddier with anticipation. Marvel has a good thing here and I don't think I ever expected to be excited by random characters I never cared about before having their own movies (my god, I am actually looking forward to an Ant-man movie. What. The. Hell?)
My only gripes with Age of Ultron are relatively minor, but they are things that bothered me. (Major spoilers coming, seriously.)
First off, the appearance of the Vision I wasn't really expecting. I guess I missed the trailers that had him added in and the appearance of the toys. That isn't the disappointing part. I was excited to see him show up. It was awesome. My only issue is that his appearance and existence just felt a little tacked on and flat. Paul Bettany did a great job and I am extremely happy with the portrayal in the setting, but he didn't feel well developed or explained. There was just something lacking from his appearance in the movie. It could be because of how crowded the movie had become at that point though.
I really like the portrayal of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. I love that they have been added to the series and were being done by two excellent actors who clearly had a ton of respect for the characters. I just found the death of Quicksilver at the end to be cheapened by him only having 7 lines in the movie. I wanted to be saddened by him getting Jossed, but I couldn't. There just wasn't enough time to get invested in his chracter. Someone needed to die in the movie, I get it. It totally needed to happen, but I just wasn't moved by it the way I probably should have been.
Captain America and Iron Man start arguing about their opposing views for the Civil War build-up in this. It's wonderful to see. I love it. I know that the Civil War movie is going to be great and I will be seeing that movie as soon as I can while being a mega fanboy during the build-up (I've already chosen a side, everyone who knows me should know that already). My only problem with this though comes from my personal politics starting to bleed into the entertainment I'm watching.
I really felt like the lines, acting, and directing going into the lines that Cap was supposed to be saying were a little too idealistic without much belief/oomph behind them. Captain America over and over again shows himself to be heavily libertarian leaning with his beliefs (we can argue about this later, just go with it). He is a believer in the founding principles of America and he believes in them wholeheartedly and without hesitation. In this movie though, the lines being written and read sound like what a politically Left-leaning Hollywood Progressive would think a libertarian or believer in the founding principles would say rather than what someone who truly believes in those principles would say and how they would say it.
I'm not saying it's awful drivel, it just feels off from what I would personally expect from those lines and characters.
My last gripe though is the big one. I'm pretty sure that in the last battle scene I saw Hawkeye smacking Ultron Sentries with his bow Legolas style. Who thought that was a good idea!?!
Other than those few things, it was seriously an awesome movie. I loved it and I can't wait to own it on every special edition blue-ray/dvd combo pack that they put out for it.
As always Joss and crew pay attention to the minor details that make each of the characters human and full of life. Everyone has believable motivations and killer one liners. It is pure bliss as a fan of the comics who is willing to accept the translation required to move these stories with literal decades of history into the very different medium of film.
I will likely talk freely here and not be worried about spoilers so if you don't want spoilers don't read further... jerk.
One of my favorite parts of the movie is when the Hulkbuster armor comes out. It's dropped from orbit and is named Veronica (because this is the Hulk's girlfriend, since Bruce's is named Betty. Yes, they put an Archie joke in a Marvel movie). The Hulkbuster armor was everything we needed it to be, and it was such a wonderful action scene that kept the intensity up while developing the conflicts even more.
Spader was awesome as Ultron. He is the perfect Anti-Stark. His delivery of each and every line in the movie was perfect. I have zero complaints. Seriously. Perfect portrayal for this setting.
The tidbits setting up the upcoming storylines were wonderful. Each step towards the Infinity War and the Civil War made me a bit giddier with anticipation. Marvel has a good thing here and I don't think I ever expected to be excited by random characters I never cared about before having their own movies (my god, I am actually looking forward to an Ant-man movie. What. The. Hell?)
My only gripes with Age of Ultron are relatively minor, but they are things that bothered me. (Major spoilers coming, seriously.)
First off, the appearance of the Vision I wasn't really expecting. I guess I missed the trailers that had him added in and the appearance of the toys. That isn't the disappointing part. I was excited to see him show up. It was awesome. My only issue is that his appearance and existence just felt a little tacked on and flat. Paul Bettany did a great job and I am extremely happy with the portrayal in the setting, but he didn't feel well developed or explained. There was just something lacking from his appearance in the movie. It could be because of how crowded the movie had become at that point though.
I really like the portrayal of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. I love that they have been added to the series and were being done by two excellent actors who clearly had a ton of respect for the characters. I just found the death of Quicksilver at the end to be cheapened by him only having 7 lines in the movie. I wanted to be saddened by him getting Jossed, but I couldn't. There just wasn't enough time to get invested in his chracter. Someone needed to die in the movie, I get it. It totally needed to happen, but I just wasn't moved by it the way I probably should have been.
Captain America and Iron Man start arguing about their opposing views for the Civil War build-up in this. It's wonderful to see. I love it. I know that the Civil War movie is going to be great and I will be seeing that movie as soon as I can while being a mega fanboy during the build-up (I've already chosen a side, everyone who knows me should know that already). My only problem with this though comes from my personal politics starting to bleed into the entertainment I'm watching.
I really felt like the lines, acting, and directing going into the lines that Cap was supposed to be saying were a little too idealistic without much belief/oomph behind them. Captain America over and over again shows himself to be heavily libertarian leaning with his beliefs (we can argue about this later, just go with it). He is a believer in the founding principles of America and he believes in them wholeheartedly and without hesitation. In this movie though, the lines being written and read sound like what a politically Left-leaning Hollywood Progressive would think a libertarian or believer in the founding principles would say rather than what someone who truly believes in those principles would say and how they would say it.
I'm not saying it's awful drivel, it just feels off from what I would personally expect from those lines and characters.
My last gripe though is the big one. I'm pretty sure that in the last battle scene I saw Hawkeye smacking Ultron Sentries with his bow Legolas style. Who thought that was a good idea!?!
Other than those few things, it was seriously an awesome movie. I loved it and I can't wait to own it on every special edition blue-ray/dvd combo pack that they put out for it.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Back into the swing of things
So it has been quite a while since I've updated this blog on the regular. Real life seemed to take over everything for the past year or so making it very difficult to even play games, let alone find time to write on this random little exercise that I had started.
In the past year my life has changed significantly. I am now divorced and dating very seriously a wonderful woman who has integrated her life with my own following the split my ex-wife and I had. She's and her son have joined with myself and my two kiddos. It has been a grand adventure for us all.
My children are either uninterested or too young at the moment to enjoy gaming, but her son is very interested. So whenever my two kids are off at their mother's the remaining three of us sit around and do some geeky activities. Mostly it has been enjoying video games or a geeky movie, but last week I introduced her and her son to Dungeons and Dragons.
This has helped to make me feel inspired as life begins to settle back into place after a year of hell. I have things to write about again, some things to finish, and some things to start). It's time to continue back on the path I set upon when I started this blog. Soon this blog will again be filled with my insane rantings and ravings and minor gripes about systems and such while also relaying the stories and adventures of my family and friends as we go into this rabbit hole.
In the past year my life has changed significantly. I am now divorced and dating very seriously a wonderful woman who has integrated her life with my own following the split my ex-wife and I had. She's and her son have joined with myself and my two kiddos. It has been a grand adventure for us all.
My children are either uninterested or too young at the moment to enjoy gaming, but her son is very interested. So whenever my two kids are off at their mother's the remaining three of us sit around and do some geeky activities. Mostly it has been enjoying video games or a geeky movie, but last week I introduced her and her son to Dungeons and Dragons.
This has helped to make me feel inspired as life begins to settle back into place after a year of hell. I have things to write about again, some things to finish, and some things to start). It's time to continue back on the path I set upon when I started this blog. Soon this blog will again be filled with my insane rantings and ravings and minor gripes about systems and such while also relaying the stories and adventures of my family and friends as we go into this rabbit hole.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Wow... it's been a while...
I can't remember the last time I actually made an attempt to write on this blog. (Shut up, I know I can see when my last blog post was...). 2014 was not a kind year to me and it made it very difficult for me to keep an interest in my favorite hobbies. I think I'm going to change that though. Last year was rough but there were some very good things mixed in with the awful.
I want to get back into writing (again) and doing things with my favorite past-times. I miss these things and will have to come up with a plan on how I'm going to keep up with it again. I have ideas and things to talk about and world's to expand upon and novels I should write.
I just don't know how to motivate myself to keep up with it just yet. Anyone got some ideas?
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Crafting Karrak in Fate: Magic Systems
As part of an exercise in boredom I’m converting Karrak Seaborne, my character from the Orcanraytrel campaign, into a Fate PC. This requires me to know some things about the setting in the context of how they affect game mechanics and character creation before I attempt this. Part of this is knowing how Nel Gifts work in a narrative sense so that a system can be built around them that will represent them for what they truly are rather than the bastardization that a D20 system forces them into. Along the way to developing the Gifts I realized that it makes sense to also just go ahead and do Sorcery and Psionics as well since they share some major similarities from a mechanical standpoint. So here’s my collection of thoughts on the subject.
Psionics:
Psionics are a more measured and practiced form of magic in Hekinoe. The power of psionics comes from within the body of the manifester and is built up through training and discipline. It is also an extremely stable and reliable form of magic. Psionics is a skill that people train themselves in, it takes effort, but is really in the end and exercise of the will. The stronger the will, the stronger the effect.
I’ve already come up with a system for dealing with psionics before on my blog so I’ll basically just transcribe that and give it a bit of Hekinoe flavor.
So first off, Psionics in Hekinoe are currently based off of Pathfinder’s rules. So you have a ton of things that are very codified and laid out into classes and spell lists and all that. I hate that crap. It’s too rigid and it doesn’t feel right for Clint’s setting. I can break the basics of Psionics down into two effects.
One type of effect is the physical manifestations of psionics. Physical effects are things like throwing bolts of energy, telekinesis, creating force shields, creating giant crystal swords, teleportation, and so on and so forth. This is kept general to allow the player to have complete creative control over his character’s manifestations. It allows him to get creative with what he needs and not just rely on a spell list. This will be governed by a skill I’ll call Psionics: Physical for now.
The other type of psionics that you’ll see in Pathfinder are the mental based effects. These are your mind reading, mind control, telepathy, future reading, scrying, and such. Again, I’m just going to keep it general and lump them all together just for simplicity’s sake. The skill governing it will be called Psionics: Mental.
Both of these are based off their governing skills. These skills and powers can be enhanced with the use of stunts and possibly the Dresden Files RPG style “spells” where you basically just have a numbered amount of pre-written effects ready to go that gain a free boost. (I think it is governed by your skill rating in Dresden and I’d probably do the same here.
So mechanically speaking here’s how all of this works. You can use one of the Psionic skills to perform one of the four actions that you can use a skill for in Fate; Attack, Defend, Overcome, and Create an Advantage. Psionics is a tool like any other skill, and being magic it is a tool with a lot more uses. Basically you can use it in place of another skill by describing what you’re doing with it. Need to move a boulder but your Athletics skill sucks? Use Psionics: Physical instead with an Overcome action to telekinetically move the boulder out of the way. Fighting enemies at range and you don’t have a crossbow? Use it as an Attack to fling objects at people, or slam them into objects, or just hit them directly with something Pathfinder would describe as a Force Effect. Need to get past a guard? Psionics: Mental can allow you to have a bonus to convince them you’re not a bad dude, or you could just overpower their brain and take control of them for a bit. Fighting a big group of enemies? Why not force them to feel fear and panic at the sight of you? Or you could totally make them think you’re a dragon in disguise! The possibilities are endless.
I’m also a big fan of casters having the inherent ability to supercharge their spell casting by sacrificing something. Typically this is done via exertion or sacrifice of some type. For Hekinoe Psionics in Fate; what makes sense for me is inflicting Mental Stress in order to gain a boosted number of shifts. So similar to what I designed for Makass, a Psionic Manifester can take 1-shift of Mental Stress to gain a number of Shifts to their next spell up to their casting skill score. So say the character has a Psionics: Mental skill of 6; if the character takes 1 shift of Mental Stress he gains up to +6 Shifts to his next Psionics roll, which would really be a 12-shift baseline for the roll. (That sounds impressive, but we don’t know what the spell specifically is or what his opponent may have to counter such an action so it isn’t as broken as you might think initially)
Psionics is meant to be stable so there isn’t really a failure associated with it and I’m going to keep it that way as best as possible. It will also be limited to those races that have some type of psionic affinity… however I figure the races out…
Sorcery:
Oh Sorcery, you are a harsh mistress. I’m a fan of there being consequences for magic being used. It’s one of the best aspects of Hekinoe. I love reading about the spell backfires from some of the other campaigns that changed the course of the campaign world. Unfortunately D20 systems don’t like unreliable magic, it makes it necessary to have tables and a bunch of extra dice get rolled as you’re trying to cast and it has the potential to slow down gameplay along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the extra tables and dice. I’ve got an addiction like that. But it can appear intimidating to people unfamiliar with that type of thing.
Fortunately Fate is far more forgiving to an unreliable system.
So my vision for Hekinoe’s unreliable Sorcery starts off simply enough. Sorcery is more of an instinctual and “natural” form of magic. It can be used instinctively by certain races because it flows in their blood. In Pathfinder you have Spontaneous Spellcasters like Sorcerers and Bards who can cast their spells without any real training. Therefore there isn’t really a need for a split casting stat. So a single Skill of Sorcery to control the power and scope of spells seems appropriate to me.
Sorcery is a physically corrupting and unstable source of power. It is available to those who wish to learn about it and those whom are born with it. Being from a more instinctual and natural source and being physically corrupting tells me that in order to enhance the spells a person wielding sorcery would take Physical Stress in the same way a Psionic Character would take Mental Stress. These physical issues would manifest themselves in the typical ways, usually bodily corruption of some type.
“But what about the failure system?” you ask. Well, in order to cast a spell without some type of backlash affecting your character you probably need to roll some type of skill check to prevent the magic from getting out of control. A Control Skill would be the most obvious route to start with. This Skill would be useless for everything but allowing you to cast spells without destroying all of the oxygen in the room. The way I envision it working is that whenever you use the Sorcery Skill to cast a spell you have to roll a second time using your Control Skill. You need to get an equal number of Shifts with your Control Skill as you did on your Sorcery Skill otherwise “something bad” happens depending upon how badly you failed.
Basically you think of it as something like a reverse of the way that Fate’s successes work. If you get a higher Control roll than your Sorcery roll, nothing bad happens. If you Tie the roll I’m going to go with nothing bad happens but the spell may be lessened in effectiveness (for now). If you miss by only one or two shifts something bad happens, but it isn’t big, maybe the spell goes off but fails in a spectacular, but undamaging way. If you miss it by 3 or more shifts, then your spell fails and/or backfires in some way that’s nasty to everyone around you and is a perversion of what you were trying to accomplish.
How would these backlashes be determined? I don’t know, I’m going with GM caveat and whim right now. Maybe the tables could still be used, but that seems like a cop-out to me. My White Wolf background says that each backlash should be unique and cater to the nature of the spell and the person casting it similar to the way that Mage the Ascension dealt with Paradox.
I think I’d allow for Control Skill Checks to be enhanced in the same way that Sorcery Skill Checks are with similar effects.
I may want to enhance the core of Sorcery more using the Dresden Files RPG as a baseline to give it an advantage over the other two forms of magic to make up for it having a failure rate. Maybe I can add focus items and magic item slots to it. I’m also thinking of giving some type of extra boost, maybe when you boost it by sacrificing a stress level you gain an automatic +2 shifts and then add in your score, so that it is always just a little bit overpowered, but is also always a bit unstable as you pump more power into it.
Gifts:
Gifts are the ones I’m most concerned about since Karrak is kind of infused with these now. From the descriptions I’ve received about them, Gifts are essentially potential. They are will and desire given form and pour directly from the life energies of the Nel. The form they take is directly related to the Nel that is using the Gifts. Each has its own flavor and it will always take shape in a way that the Nel is connected to. (E.G. Andorian is all about Cold and Lightning and Storms and such therefore his Gifts manifest like that because it satisfies him at a level we can’t fathom.) There’s a lot more to it than that but I’m not comfortable going into the details without permission.
Gifts are a part of the being of those with them. They are truly instinctual and don’t fail the way Sorcery does. Gifts will have to use a single Skill in order to represent their use and there is no counter stat because they don’t fail like the other types of magic. There are catches though.
Gifts are tied directly to the Nel, first you must have sponsorship of one or be one yourself. It must be an essential part of your nature, so it seems like your High Concept would have to reflect this. Secondly, they are tied to the very essence of the one using the Gifts. They must take the form of things directly related to who the caster is. For example, Andorian is an Utenel Lastborn. His mind, according to descriptions his mind is a storm. It is a wild, swirling vortex of lightning, cold, wind, and such. Therefore his Gifts take the forms of lightning, cold, wind, and other such things. Potentially he has the ability to use any elements or styles of magic that he wishes, but that takes real effort and goes against his nature (which would probably be represented by forcing the use of a Fate Point to even make the attempt).
Gifts manifest themselves to those that can sense them as a general “feeling” of some type. Whenever they are used near another Nel, or those infused with the Gifts of one and they can sense each other. Each one has a unique description that shows the true essence of whom they are. The gifts within Karrak began themed around Andorian’s flavor of gifts. The cold and windy mountain peaks of Andorian were there, but something different was brought by Karrak. The mountains turned to gold and there were hints of other things coming as Karrak gained more power. Keroen remade his Gifts with a blank set that changed the flavor of his Gifts to Karrak’s own nature.
(This is just the description of what his Gifts currently feel like. They evolve as he gains more strength and absorbs more power:
There is a ship upon the sea. The smell of the open ocean, a hint of powder recently spent, and a light, brine filled mist. The ship is filled with life. A crew of indeterminate races, all of them looking brutal, animalistic, and savage; drunkenly sing and sway as they cheer their recent victory. Monkeys chatter and screech from the rigging, providing much entertainment to the crew. The ship plows through detritus floating on the surface. The remains of the enemies the ship has crushed, all the valuables stripped from them and now filling the hold. A lone figure wearing a Captain’s tricorn hat stands at the bow staring ahead, determined. Before the ship lay the Waterfall at the Edge of the World. There is no fear, only passion and determination as the winds suddenly pick up and carry the ship forward to its destiny.)
Looking at Karrak’s nature determines that his Gifts will be Pirate-like and based around what would be a sailor’s desires or essential being would be. Each of those lines in the description is based off of an essential piece of who he is. Each piece can be tapped to give him something to use against his foes.
Anyways, back to the mechanics. Gifts will end up working exactly like the other two categories. They just have more restrictions on how the effects take place. They must follow your character’s themes. If the GM determines that the effect you desire isn’t consistent with your character’s nature it will require a Fate point to attempt it. The caster can shape any thematically appropriate effect though by using said gifts. Stunts may enhance the specifics of the casting as well.
Because of the nature of Nel and their ties to their Gifts I think allowing them to use both Physical and Mental Stress tracks for boosting their casting ability seems appropriate to me.
Casting Restrictions and Stunts:
Now this could just be the game balance guy in me talking, but each of these sets of rules really seems to be very open to interpretation and potential abuse, especially Sorcery and Gifts. Maybe they need some type of restriction built into them, or maybe they don’t. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. For the time being I think I’m just going to keep it simple and freeform. Restrictions of some type could come later as required.
As for ways to enhance the casting of each of these types of magic I look towards Stunts to be the best way to do it. Generally speaking, a Stunt is used to enhance something that already exists, let you use a skill in a different way, or a whole variety of crazy things. I’m thinking we start with simple things, like Fire Magic Specialty: +2 to Sorcery Checks when casting fire based magic. Stabilized Sorcery: +2 to Control checks. Mind Control Expert: +2 to Psionic: Mental checks. Simple things like that are easy as hell. It’s when these turn into Stunt Trees that we’re going to have to put in the effort.
Maybe a character like Karl, the gunslinging mage who can cast spells through his gun, could have something like “Spellslinger: May use Sorcery instead of shoot skill for an Attack action when using his specially crafted revolvers. Normal Control rolls still apply, but with a +2 bonus.” Maybe one called “The guns give me a focus: +2 to control checks for spells/attacks cast through his gun”. A good one to start with as the basis for the Stunt tree might be “Gunslinginging Sorcerer: Karl may spend a Fate point once per scene to allow him to cast spells through a gun, giving him +2 to all sorcery checks with spells cast through said weapon for the remainder of the scene.”
So Karl’s Stunt tree would look like this: 1. Gunslinging Sorcerer => 2. Spellslinger => 3. The guns give me focus.
The first one on the tree, Gunslinging Sorcerer, basically an invoking of his High Concept combined with his magic and weapon. Mechanically it’s just a scene length bonus to his spellcasting abilities, but flavored to be through any gun. In my mind I am picturing that he’s investing whatever gun he has with some Sorcery, granting him temporary extra power due to the gun becoming an easier channel for him. Plus this can only work if he’s got a gun of some type in his hand.
The second one, Spellslinger, acknowledges that Karl is a craftsman and likes to cast spells through his gun. This lets him use any gun that he or someone like him has crafted specifically for casting spells through as a spell focus. This gives him the ability to work his attack magic through his gun, making it more stable in the process. Mechanically this is just giving him a specific item that boost his control skill for Attack actions using Sorcery, but thematically it adds flavor.
The third one is a thematically appropriate stacking effect on top of the previous two abilities. It implies that he is able to focus and maintain his magic because of the guns though.
Let’s say that he goes into combat and does what he’s supposed to do, which is shoot things with magic pistols. He spends a Fate point on his first turn to charge his father’s revolver with Sorcery and then shoots someone with it. He gets to take the shot using his Sorcery skill (let’s just call it a baseline of +5 for now, as opposed to his Shoot skill which is only a +2 or a +3), which is boosted by +2 now because of the first Stunt. He rolls his Fudge Dice and gets a +1, for a total of an 8 shift attack. Because he used his Sorcery skill he has to roll a Control check (we’ll say his control is a +4 baseline), so he starts off with his +4, adds in +2 for Spellslinger, and then an additional +2 for The guns give me focus for a baseline total of +8 prior to rolling the dice for the Control check. He has to not roll a -1 or below which gives him a 62% probability of success. Not bad at all.
And this isn’t even scratching the surface of the possibilities.
Psionics:
Psionics are a more measured and practiced form of magic in Hekinoe. The power of psionics comes from within the body of the manifester and is built up through training and discipline. It is also an extremely stable and reliable form of magic. Psionics is a skill that people train themselves in, it takes effort, but is really in the end and exercise of the will. The stronger the will, the stronger the effect.
I’ve already come up with a system for dealing with psionics before on my blog so I’ll basically just transcribe that and give it a bit of Hekinoe flavor.
So first off, Psionics in Hekinoe are currently based off of Pathfinder’s rules. So you have a ton of things that are very codified and laid out into classes and spell lists and all that. I hate that crap. It’s too rigid and it doesn’t feel right for Clint’s setting. I can break the basics of Psionics down into two effects.
One type of effect is the physical manifestations of psionics. Physical effects are things like throwing bolts of energy, telekinesis, creating force shields, creating giant crystal swords, teleportation, and so on and so forth. This is kept general to allow the player to have complete creative control over his character’s manifestations. It allows him to get creative with what he needs and not just rely on a spell list. This will be governed by a skill I’ll call Psionics: Physical for now.
The other type of psionics that you’ll see in Pathfinder are the mental based effects. These are your mind reading, mind control, telepathy, future reading, scrying, and such. Again, I’m just going to keep it general and lump them all together just for simplicity’s sake. The skill governing it will be called Psionics: Mental.
Both of these are based off their governing skills. These skills and powers can be enhanced with the use of stunts and possibly the Dresden Files RPG style “spells” where you basically just have a numbered amount of pre-written effects ready to go that gain a free boost. (I think it is governed by your skill rating in Dresden and I’d probably do the same here.
So mechanically speaking here’s how all of this works. You can use one of the Psionic skills to perform one of the four actions that you can use a skill for in Fate; Attack, Defend, Overcome, and Create an Advantage. Psionics is a tool like any other skill, and being magic it is a tool with a lot more uses. Basically you can use it in place of another skill by describing what you’re doing with it. Need to move a boulder but your Athletics skill sucks? Use Psionics: Physical instead with an Overcome action to telekinetically move the boulder out of the way. Fighting enemies at range and you don’t have a crossbow? Use it as an Attack to fling objects at people, or slam them into objects, or just hit them directly with something Pathfinder would describe as a Force Effect. Need to get past a guard? Psionics: Mental can allow you to have a bonus to convince them you’re not a bad dude, or you could just overpower their brain and take control of them for a bit. Fighting a big group of enemies? Why not force them to feel fear and panic at the sight of you? Or you could totally make them think you’re a dragon in disguise! The possibilities are endless.
I’m also a big fan of casters having the inherent ability to supercharge their spell casting by sacrificing something. Typically this is done via exertion or sacrifice of some type. For Hekinoe Psionics in Fate; what makes sense for me is inflicting Mental Stress in order to gain a boosted number of shifts. So similar to what I designed for Makass, a Psionic Manifester can take 1-shift of Mental Stress to gain a number of Shifts to their next spell up to their casting skill score. So say the character has a Psionics: Mental skill of 6; if the character takes 1 shift of Mental Stress he gains up to +6 Shifts to his next Psionics roll, which would really be a 12-shift baseline for the roll. (That sounds impressive, but we don’t know what the spell specifically is or what his opponent may have to counter such an action so it isn’t as broken as you might think initially)
Psionics is meant to be stable so there isn’t really a failure associated with it and I’m going to keep it that way as best as possible. It will also be limited to those races that have some type of psionic affinity… however I figure the races out…
Sorcery:
Oh Sorcery, you are a harsh mistress. I’m a fan of there being consequences for magic being used. It’s one of the best aspects of Hekinoe. I love reading about the spell backfires from some of the other campaigns that changed the course of the campaign world. Unfortunately D20 systems don’t like unreliable magic, it makes it necessary to have tables and a bunch of extra dice get rolled as you’re trying to cast and it has the potential to slow down gameplay along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the extra tables and dice. I’ve got an addiction like that. But it can appear intimidating to people unfamiliar with that type of thing.
Fortunately Fate is far more forgiving to an unreliable system.
So my vision for Hekinoe’s unreliable Sorcery starts off simply enough. Sorcery is more of an instinctual and “natural” form of magic. It can be used instinctively by certain races because it flows in their blood. In Pathfinder you have Spontaneous Spellcasters like Sorcerers and Bards who can cast their spells without any real training. Therefore there isn’t really a need for a split casting stat. So a single Skill of Sorcery to control the power and scope of spells seems appropriate to me.
Sorcery is a physically corrupting and unstable source of power. It is available to those who wish to learn about it and those whom are born with it. Being from a more instinctual and natural source and being physically corrupting tells me that in order to enhance the spells a person wielding sorcery would take Physical Stress in the same way a Psionic Character would take Mental Stress. These physical issues would manifest themselves in the typical ways, usually bodily corruption of some type.
“But what about the failure system?” you ask. Well, in order to cast a spell without some type of backlash affecting your character you probably need to roll some type of skill check to prevent the magic from getting out of control. A Control Skill would be the most obvious route to start with. This Skill would be useless for everything but allowing you to cast spells without destroying all of the oxygen in the room. The way I envision it working is that whenever you use the Sorcery Skill to cast a spell you have to roll a second time using your Control Skill. You need to get an equal number of Shifts with your Control Skill as you did on your Sorcery Skill otherwise “something bad” happens depending upon how badly you failed.
Basically you think of it as something like a reverse of the way that Fate’s successes work. If you get a higher Control roll than your Sorcery roll, nothing bad happens. If you Tie the roll I’m going to go with nothing bad happens but the spell may be lessened in effectiveness (for now). If you miss by only one or two shifts something bad happens, but it isn’t big, maybe the spell goes off but fails in a spectacular, but undamaging way. If you miss it by 3 or more shifts, then your spell fails and/or backfires in some way that’s nasty to everyone around you and is a perversion of what you were trying to accomplish.
How would these backlashes be determined? I don’t know, I’m going with GM caveat and whim right now. Maybe the tables could still be used, but that seems like a cop-out to me. My White Wolf background says that each backlash should be unique and cater to the nature of the spell and the person casting it similar to the way that Mage the Ascension dealt with Paradox.
I think I’d allow for Control Skill Checks to be enhanced in the same way that Sorcery Skill Checks are with similar effects.
I may want to enhance the core of Sorcery more using the Dresden Files RPG as a baseline to give it an advantage over the other two forms of magic to make up for it having a failure rate. Maybe I can add focus items and magic item slots to it. I’m also thinking of giving some type of extra boost, maybe when you boost it by sacrificing a stress level you gain an automatic +2 shifts and then add in your score, so that it is always just a little bit overpowered, but is also always a bit unstable as you pump more power into it.
Gifts:
Gifts are the ones I’m most concerned about since Karrak is kind of infused with these now. From the descriptions I’ve received about them, Gifts are essentially potential. They are will and desire given form and pour directly from the life energies of the Nel. The form they take is directly related to the Nel that is using the Gifts. Each has its own flavor and it will always take shape in a way that the Nel is connected to. (E.G. Andorian is all about Cold and Lightning and Storms and such therefore his Gifts manifest like that because it satisfies him at a level we can’t fathom.) There’s a lot more to it than that but I’m not comfortable going into the details without permission.
Gifts are a part of the being of those with them. They are truly instinctual and don’t fail the way Sorcery does. Gifts will have to use a single Skill in order to represent their use and there is no counter stat because they don’t fail like the other types of magic. There are catches though.
Gifts are tied directly to the Nel, first you must have sponsorship of one or be one yourself. It must be an essential part of your nature, so it seems like your High Concept would have to reflect this. Secondly, they are tied to the very essence of the one using the Gifts. They must take the form of things directly related to who the caster is. For example, Andorian is an Utenel Lastborn. His mind, according to descriptions his mind is a storm. It is a wild, swirling vortex of lightning, cold, wind, and such. Therefore his Gifts take the forms of lightning, cold, wind, and other such things. Potentially he has the ability to use any elements or styles of magic that he wishes, but that takes real effort and goes against his nature (which would probably be represented by forcing the use of a Fate Point to even make the attempt).
Gifts manifest themselves to those that can sense them as a general “feeling” of some type. Whenever they are used near another Nel, or those infused with the Gifts of one and they can sense each other. Each one has a unique description that shows the true essence of whom they are. The gifts within Karrak began themed around Andorian’s flavor of gifts. The cold and windy mountain peaks of Andorian were there, but something different was brought by Karrak. The mountains turned to gold and there were hints of other things coming as Karrak gained more power. Keroen remade his Gifts with a blank set that changed the flavor of his Gifts to Karrak’s own nature.
(This is just the description of what his Gifts currently feel like. They evolve as he gains more strength and absorbs more power:
There is a ship upon the sea. The smell of the open ocean, a hint of powder recently spent, and a light, brine filled mist. The ship is filled with life. A crew of indeterminate races, all of them looking brutal, animalistic, and savage; drunkenly sing and sway as they cheer their recent victory. Monkeys chatter and screech from the rigging, providing much entertainment to the crew. The ship plows through detritus floating on the surface. The remains of the enemies the ship has crushed, all the valuables stripped from them and now filling the hold. A lone figure wearing a Captain’s tricorn hat stands at the bow staring ahead, determined. Before the ship lay the Waterfall at the Edge of the World. There is no fear, only passion and determination as the winds suddenly pick up and carry the ship forward to its destiny.)
Looking at Karrak’s nature determines that his Gifts will be Pirate-like and based around what would be a sailor’s desires or essential being would be. Each of those lines in the description is based off of an essential piece of who he is. Each piece can be tapped to give him something to use against his foes.
Anyways, back to the mechanics. Gifts will end up working exactly like the other two categories. They just have more restrictions on how the effects take place. They must follow your character’s themes. If the GM determines that the effect you desire isn’t consistent with your character’s nature it will require a Fate point to attempt it. The caster can shape any thematically appropriate effect though by using said gifts. Stunts may enhance the specifics of the casting as well.
Because of the nature of Nel and their ties to their Gifts I think allowing them to use both Physical and Mental Stress tracks for boosting their casting ability seems appropriate to me.
Casting Restrictions and Stunts:
Now this could just be the game balance guy in me talking, but each of these sets of rules really seems to be very open to interpretation and potential abuse, especially Sorcery and Gifts. Maybe they need some type of restriction built into them, or maybe they don’t. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. For the time being I think I’m just going to keep it simple and freeform. Restrictions of some type could come later as required.
As for ways to enhance the casting of each of these types of magic I look towards Stunts to be the best way to do it. Generally speaking, a Stunt is used to enhance something that already exists, let you use a skill in a different way, or a whole variety of crazy things. I’m thinking we start with simple things, like Fire Magic Specialty: +2 to Sorcery Checks when casting fire based magic. Stabilized Sorcery: +2 to Control checks. Mind Control Expert: +2 to Psionic: Mental checks. Simple things like that are easy as hell. It’s when these turn into Stunt Trees that we’re going to have to put in the effort.
Maybe a character like Karl, the gunslinging mage who can cast spells through his gun, could have something like “Spellslinger: May use Sorcery instead of shoot skill for an Attack action when using his specially crafted revolvers. Normal Control rolls still apply, but with a +2 bonus.” Maybe one called “The guns give me a focus: +2 to control checks for spells/attacks cast through his gun”. A good one to start with as the basis for the Stunt tree might be “Gunslinginging Sorcerer: Karl may spend a Fate point once per scene to allow him to cast spells through a gun, giving him +2 to all sorcery checks with spells cast through said weapon for the remainder of the scene.”
So Karl’s Stunt tree would look like this: 1. Gunslinging Sorcerer => 2. Spellslinger => 3. The guns give me focus.
The first one on the tree, Gunslinging Sorcerer, basically an invoking of his High Concept combined with his magic and weapon. Mechanically it’s just a scene length bonus to his spellcasting abilities, but flavored to be through any gun. In my mind I am picturing that he’s investing whatever gun he has with some Sorcery, granting him temporary extra power due to the gun becoming an easier channel for him. Plus this can only work if he’s got a gun of some type in his hand.
The second one, Spellslinger, acknowledges that Karl is a craftsman and likes to cast spells through his gun. This lets him use any gun that he or someone like him has crafted specifically for casting spells through as a spell focus. This gives him the ability to work his attack magic through his gun, making it more stable in the process. Mechanically this is just giving him a specific item that boost his control skill for Attack actions using Sorcery, but thematically it adds flavor.
The third one is a thematically appropriate stacking effect on top of the previous two abilities. It implies that he is able to focus and maintain his magic because of the guns though.
Let’s say that he goes into combat and does what he’s supposed to do, which is shoot things with magic pistols. He spends a Fate point on his first turn to charge his father’s revolver with Sorcery and then shoots someone with it. He gets to take the shot using his Sorcery skill (let’s just call it a baseline of +5 for now, as opposed to his Shoot skill which is only a +2 or a +3), which is boosted by +2 now because of the first Stunt. He rolls his Fudge Dice and gets a +1, for a total of an 8 shift attack. Because he used his Sorcery skill he has to roll a Control check (we’ll say his control is a +4 baseline), so he starts off with his +4, adds in +2 for Spellslinger, and then an additional +2 for The guns give me focus for a baseline total of +8 prior to rolling the dice for the Control check. He has to not roll a -1 or below which gives him a 62% probability of success. Not bad at all.
And this isn’t even scratching the surface of the possibilities.
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