Well, I was the GM, so that's not a problem. And while I have not closely examined the DF RPG, your impression mirrors mine.
The wizard and I came up with a number of spells, clearly all based from the books. Following the rules for force powers, he had a good spell selection. He was also THOROUGHLY afraid of the White Council, and of breaking any of the rules of magic. We came up with a version of a slow spell (I know, not strictly DF canon), and that's what he used about half the time, since it couldn't kill anyone.
If was the vamp and the werewolf that really kicked butt. Following the talent trees and the feats - the werewolf started with a mere 2d4 bite (ala the old wolf from D&D 1st ED). Add a few feats, a couple of talents, and by 9th level she was doing 4d10 damage with a bite. I also ruled that since she did indeed use magic (only 1 spell, but she was using it), she could take the 'force/magic' talents, so she grabbed DR10.
The vamp - we went with two 'vampire powers'. He could charm - obviously - and he could 'vamp out'. Using the Saga rules, that meant he got double attack for free - when he was using his 'vampire stamina'. Later on, he bumped it to triple attack, and even bumped up the time for his 'vamping out'. He also took a feat for doubling that. Thus, if he wanted it was possible for him to do up to 6 attacks in a round, with increased str(+8). Of course after about five rounds, he was in BIG trouble, he never ever took it that far. (Will saves to keep from feeding on the nearest person - HIGH will saves).
The merc and the cop were variations on the soldier, obviously, with extra skills for the cop, and extra resources for both (roleplaying mostly, but some material as well).
The crook - one of Marcone's, basically a scout, with good monetary resources, and a boss who had a very strict, if warped, code of honor. The hook was that he had to keep an eye on the wizard and report back, in case the wizard became as big a pain as HD.
I even included destiny points. But since I didn't want to ever have to actually deal with them, they had really far ranging destinies.
The cops - take down Marcone
The crook - take over Marcone's spot.
The wizard - replace ancient Mai on the council
The merc - kill ancient Mai (they had a history, brave fearless merc would run like a whipped puppy if he even heard the name).
I didn't want to use Eb, so I made the Gatekeeper the wizard's original mentor. I had a great deal of fun with that, his basic training method was to show up if the wizard screwed up, hit him with a stick, bawl him out, and leave.
The one rough spot, and it was important, is exactly how to restrict the magic. In SW, you get to use each force power you know once per day, unless you spend 'dresden points', to recover it. But clearly, Harry used the same spell over and over. We tried just putting a number on it, if he knew ten spells, that meant he could cast ten spells in a day. But that doesn't take into account difficulty. Clearly a tracking spell, or a force shield, take less effort than one of the earth magic spells Harry knew. That was something we are/were still working on (we're doing Gamma world right now, and just finished nine months doing Kingmaker, so it's been a while since we played DF)
Oh, I also included element preferences - Harry clearly fire, Ramirez water, Elaine probably air (because of the lightning) - not a big deal, it just added +2 to the use magic roll to cast the spell, and an extra dice of damage to the effect.
