Characters: Wizard
Our series on character types concludes with the one you’ve been waiting for — the wizard. Read on!
Wizard
The full wizard in action is a terror to behold. His is an ancient bloodline, heir to the magics of old and able to command their full array; given enough time and preparation, there is very little to limit what a wizard can accomplish beyond the fetters of his own belief in what he can do.
In short, a Wizard of the White Council is a lean, mean, arcane ass-kicking machine.
HARRY: Boo yah!
The power comes at a price. Wizards are practically walking contraband, the way their own White Council watches over them. The Council’s policemen, the Wardens, are particularly vigilant (or at least were until things got… interesting) about making sure that all known wizards walk the straight and narrow. The Laws of Magic were laid down for a reason, and it’s the capabilities of the mortal wizard that made them necessary.
Plus there’s that little problem of a raging, ongoing war between the vampires and the wizards, brought on by one of the White Council’s own members. Players of wizard characters who are not active in their support of the White Council’s war efforts will need a damn fine reason for why they aren’t off fighting the good fight. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of such reasons — but the war is so big, so far-reaching, it simply can’t be ignored.
Every wizard is different, with his or her own special aptitudes and approach to magic, but they are all potentially powerful individuals with a common core set of abilities. They stand with a foot in each world — the mundane and the magical — and are the object of deep interest by a variety of organizations, from the White Council of Wizards, to the Courts of the Faerie and Vampires, to the mortal police and the mafia, and more.
Musts: A wizard must have a high concept aspect that declares his or her nature as a wizard (e.g., WIZARD FOR HIRE or FAVORITE SON OF THE WHITE COUNCIL). In addition, the character must take the following supernatural abilities:
- Evocation
- Thaumaturgy
- The Sight
- Soulgaze
- Wizard’s Constitution
See the power descriptions for more details. Players of spellcasting characters should take some time to work out their most often used, practiced spells before play.
Options: Wizards may (and in fact, should at least once) take the Refinement ability as many times as they can afford, even multiple times for one particular mode of spellcasting (Thaumaturgy or Evocation).
That is some _sweet_ art you have got there.
Since the character type previews are done, the characters must be typeset already, too, eh? So it’s coming out next week, right? You heard it here first, folks!
But seriously: wow. I salivate.
Seriously though, what’s the ETA on the ETA?
That is a cool writeup. I love the “Lean, mean, arcane ass-kicking machine.” line. The art(Which is from Welcome to The Jungle) is a great choice.
Wizard 413 words
Sorcerer 473 words
Focused practitioners 517 words
I hope this trend is due to increased focus on the product and not a general loss of quality and enthusiasm.
@riotopsys, if you’re focusing on wordcount as an indicator of quality, you need to get your head examined. I say this with love.
@Samantha Stanley, you should read the “Schedule” link you’ll find at the top of the page.
In previous games, you’ve done the “order the LE Hardback, get the PDF now” (which is pretty much laser aimed at my weaknesses).
Any thoughts to taking a page from Baen’s higher priced sales of ARCs, and putting up a “order the LE hardback, get the PDF when it is done, and get access to a playtest PDF now” higher priced order form? Because I suspect I’m not alone in being willing to pony up some extra cash in order to get my hands on a playtest copy before the final version.
@riotopsys
In my opinion – there’s not a lot that needs to be said about a Wizard beyond “OMG-Badass!”
Focused Practitioners and Sorcerers each have sharp limits to their power that need to be explained. A wizard is just “Hi, I’m a Wizard.” Given time, they can be anything they want really. As well, while I know reading the books shouldn’t be a requirement for the game; Harry Dresden is our perspective in the Dresden-verse, so we have a lot of experience with Wizards
Excellent! I’ll be GMing mostly, but when I finally get to play I’ll be a wizard (unless I’m a Knight of the Cross
)
What exactly is the refinement ability and how does it work?
Nice, The Wizard is finally shown. I’m looking forward to playing as one, although alas, I will be GM’ing… However, I could make one as the Players Guide to the Dresden Universe, as none of my friends I RP with have read the books, or seen the movies.
@Jaden
Tv-show… Arghh. I really should double check my posts..
refinement ability looks to me like a stat booster for instance if you use fire balls alot then refinement would make each cost less magic while still producing the same, greater, or near same punch.
got to agree thats an awsum pic… and i really hope that we see some possible online play *thinks of possible massive battles that could happen*
@fred
What are you doing replying here? Aren’t you a (aheh) ‘little’ busy?
Congrats on that too, btw.
Would this fit apprentices in the later stages of their education, those who were only a few steps away from being full wizard rather than people like early Molly (I might be wrong, but my first reaction would be to put Molly, when Harry first starts teaching her, down as a sorcerer). I’m thinking someone along the lines of say Harry and Elaine only a few months before the former “self-defenced” their guardian to death.
i thinking Refinement is going to be a way to indicate experience, finesse, or knowledge in a given magic type.
to use a novel example, in “Dead Beat” it narrates the difference between Harry’s brutally effective ‘telephone pole’ of fire magic, and Warden Captain Luccio’s pencil thin but laser hot finger of flame she shears the heads off a swarm of zombies with.
it’s interesting that the wizard’s problems with technology are not even mentioned. or is that – in terms of the game – tied to the use of magic itself and tied to all magic users as they are?
That model has attracted our attention in the past, but with this project at least it would be a lot of extra work just to get the playtest access file-set assembled — we need to be as efficient as possible about the work we already have on deck!
In a nutshell, it’s a specialization ability that is used to improve your wizard’s focus in one or more areas of spellcraft. It could be used to make you a more precise or more powerful evocator, boost your divination spells, or increase the number of magic items you can craft and maintain at any one time.
@Ria, yes, this template can be used for novice wizards on up.
@Wyrdrune, all that sort of thing gets covered in the big, hefty Magic chapter.
Is there a price point at which the extra work would be justified?
Say an extra $20 or $30?
Is there an ETA to completion or is it still done when its done?
we really haven’t heard alot about the fallen coins… will those be accessible in the game or is it marked off at this point?
Grog want book now!
Grog want book now!
Grog want book now!
In a word… awesome.
So will there be any words on the Soulgaze in the book?
i think so, as one of the “musts” of the wizard is the soulgaze. perhaps it’s in the mighty magic chapter.
As Ryan noted in one of the more recent status update posts, right now we aren’t looking at doing another round of playtesting and are instead focusing on getting to text completion.
Don’t think of this as an extra monetary cost. Think of it as an extra time cost. How many more months of delay on the actual book would you be willing to pay in order for us to take time away from the other stuff we’re doing in order to get this sort of thing available?
@WillS, Still done when it’s done, like we explain over on the Schedule page on this site.
@Anthony, the coins are a rough business, best handled individually each time they come into play. Usually it won’t result in a Lasciel like situation (where the coin wasn’t really in play so much as peripheral).
@Daniel, yep — again, magic chapter.
Three questions, one mechanics related, the other related to the site, one related to content.
1: Out of curiosity, what element will you be/are you planning to preview next?
2: We’ve seen the stat block for He Who Walks Behind. Will the book include the stat blocks for other major characters, and if so up to what date (i.e. which book’s version of the characters)?
3: the big question: I’ve noticed that in the books, Harry has a habit of picking up more powerful tricks as time goes by, sometimes through investments of a sort (the Coin, for example), and some by his own practice (his improved bracelet in White Night). Will there be a way to increase the available points of Refresh to allow for progressively more powerful characters while still keeping a sense of who the characters are (aka without going to zero refresh while they become more powerful naturally)? Or is someone as old as, say, Ebenezer, eventually going to succumb to refresh loss, just by getting older (which seems to empower at least half of the supernatural creatures)?
k cool cool… just wondered ^_^
@JohnD,
Haven’t decided what we’re previewing next. Might be some of the introductory text that gives the world overview for the players, might be something else.
The book will include stat blocks for LOTS of major characters. We’re going up through Small Favor at least.
Yes, there will be a way to increase refresh over time.
Hey Fred?
I think we got a crowd-pleaser here
Dude that is amazingly awesome. I am always some type of Spellcaster when we play DnD so I am looking forward to this.
Well I think I have to express my gratitude that your all still working hard on this game, I am still drooling a bit and know nothing about the system.
Two more questions on gameplay/character creation:
In a few of the templates (the Summer/Winter Knight specifically), it implied that characters can cross templates (I think it mentioned that the Knight could have “elements” of the Focused Practitioner et al, and thus get a discount of Seelie/Unseelie Magic). Does this mean that each template has some rules about refresh/XP discounts on powers?
Also, can you actually have multiple templates (i.e. if Harry actually accepted Mab’s offer and became the Winter Knight), or purchase powers outside of their template, or are they “stuck” at whatever is listed explicitly?
Thanks, and keep up the hard work! This stuff looks great!
Templates are guidelines, not hard-line “containers”. It’s more this: when you break a template by going outside of its “recipe”, you’re potentially explicitly diverging from the established canon of the books. Which is totally fine! But examples are powerful things, and the examples that templates are, are there to guide folks to create characters that “feel right”.
There’s no special discounting on a template-by-template basis.
I think people would be happy with just the existing playtest files. Lord knows I would. I don’t see how that would take any substantial time.
Not that there aren’t other valid reasons for not doing it; I think one of the big reasons game companies NDA their playtests is to keep the uninvolved from looking at it and saying “This sucks!”, not realizing that the point of playtesting is find what sucks and fix it.
@Dave Weinstein, it’s just not likely right now. Like I said: we’ve thought about it, but I can’t say if we’ll actually be able to act on it.
Sorry if this has been answered before, but will the book contain rules for the corrupting influence of using “black” magic (such as the Warlock in the beginning Proven Guilty who’s mind was….twisted). Or will that be strictly a roleplaying thing? And if that’s the case, will there be a bit of info and tips on how a player could go about it?
Well, I’m happy to see that there’s work being done on this project. Even though my group hasn’t been chosen for Alpha/Beta testing, I’m still awaiting the final release to play this with my mates.
The introductory chapter is a good thing, as it’s something I could show my friends, sicne they haven’t read the books.
Keep up the good work.
@EricP, yep! We may have even talked about it before, at least a bit, with the Laws of Magic post series: http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/setting/the-laws-of-magic/
Okay, this works very well for White Council members, but what about wizards not trained under the WC? The heirs of Kemmler, for example can’t really be told off as mere sorcerers. Could one create a wizard not of the Council, dangerous to the player as that may be?
@JohnS, many the Heirs of Kemmler are well beyond starting-PC power levels, even in a high power game.
That said, yeah, you can create a wizard not-of-the-council. Look at Elaine.
They were just the first example that came to mind, but thanks.
Okay, so couple more dumb magic-related questions:
First, just as a reminder, which type of magic is evocation and which is thaumaturgy? I THOUGHT that the first is the type that Harry usually uses – spells on the fly, spontaneous type stuff, and the second was more ritual based, but can you possibly make sure that I have that right???
Second, when compared to the focused practitioner, what is the difference between the two wizard types of magic and the FP’s “channeling” and “ritual” types?
Thanks!
Harry is a piss poor evocator. In his own words, “I just shove a lot of power around. In magical circles I’m basically a brawny thug, not a surgeon.” Something like that. Evocation is spells on the fly whilst Thaumaturgy is ritual magic, which is where Dresden really excels. Butcher’s descriptions of ritual magic are really well written.
Elane is really good at evocation. She doesn’t really need the foci that Harry does, or at least she didn’t rely on it so much. From the way its written, it seems like Harry’s foci – blasting rod, force rings, et all- are forms of thaumaturgy that allow him to Evocate more efficiently and safely.
Hope that helps.
@JohnD, Harry uses both, but you’ve got the idea of which is which.
Focused practitioners practice a “reduced” version of each of those. Evocation is to Channeling as Thaumaturgy is to Ritual.
At the end of the day, it’s more that Harry is crap at discipline, and Thaumaturgy goes slow enough that he can make up for that with preparation. But he’s a *powerful* Evocator — he can blow a lot of stuff up. He’s just not good at making sure that doesn’t mean he blows things up he doesn’t *mean* to.
Is there going to be some sort of “power” vs “finesse” differentiation for spellcasters within the game system?
um this is just a guess but i think that the answer is yes but with power equaling bigger powerful spells but with a more limited number of times you can preform them were finesse would last longer but not as flashy… more streamline if you will. very much like considering a sledge hammer of magic or a sculpting knife.
after re-reading some of the books i get the impression, that harry becomes easier and easier to enrage. as in ‘wizards are quick to anger’. will there be a hint of that in the rpg?
@Wyrdrune, a touch, at least; one possible aspect for Harry is “Not So Subtle, Still Quick To Anger”.