Confused about the Confusion Spirit Power, can any one clear this up Options

[Egon]

p. 263 SR3

1. There is no test it just happens. no opposing stat, skill, or good luck charm. ok that really sucks for the confused person and is a bit out of character for the rules. I mean you can stuff your mouth with c-12 and let it off and still have a chance of just losing your teeth. not a good chance, but you get my point.

2. To just decide any thing at all you must make a will power test = to the force of the spirit. ok well you are confused, but wait isn't intelligence what keeps people from being confused. oh thats right mages put the 6 in willpower to resist drain so it is best to have that be the stat for a lot of test involving magic. sorry micro rant

3. If you decide to do something you are evidently still confused about how to do it so add the force of the spirit to the TN. Well that really really sucks for the confused person.

4. It is sustained so this will keep happing round after round unless some one gets rid of the spirit. That is unless sun rises or sets first.

p. 186 SR3

5. All of this cost one service. Oh and you can do it to groups free of charge. Is that right?



Ether I am missing some things or this is just really messed up. I thought Confusion was suppose to be a common little power to help take out guards and loss people chasing you. Not a way to cripple the most powerful of things, or allow masses of men to be clubbed down like baby seals.

[TinkerGnome]

It looks like #1. However, the power doesn't do anything until the target fails a Willpower vs. Essence roll. Willpower is what keeps you from succumbing to magical influences. Intelligence is generally used to pierce illusions (ie, magic which changes the appearance of the world around you). Yeah, it's powerful, but the having the spirit whack the target is powerful, too.

[Egon]

[TinkerGnome]

Actually, I'm wrong. It works automaticly from the look of it, the willpower vs. essence roll is just for the "forget to do an action" thing.

[Zazen]

[Dakhran the Dark]

[Zazen]

[Egon]

So what I am seeing so far is that what I said in the first post is correct. At least as far as using it on one person.

Am I the only person that thinks these rules were written extremely poorly?

bust a nut call up a force 6 have confuse , insert big bad here ie: dragon, cyberzombie, or 4th grade mage, you and your friend then gather around it to keep it from wandering off while you beat it to death with bats since it has +9 (friends in melee) to its rolls.

[mfb]

a CZ, maybe. but a dragon or powerful mage who can't handle this doesn't deserve to be the big bad guy at the end of any run--and most CZs should probably have magical support, like a passle of spirits assigned to protect it from just such a threat.

[CircuitBoyBlue]

I fully agree with you, that does suck.
As for my games, I use second edition. I still have to patch it up just as much as I would 3rd, if not more so. But I remember one of their big justifications for switching to 3rd was to "streamline" rules, and I don't think that worked well enough to justify getting rid of 2nd edition.

As for countering the stupidity that can ensue from uber-powers like confusion, I just declare certain things (like dragons) to be out of the characters' league. For instance, if the characters get into a fight with a dragon and conjure a spirit, I tell them the power didn't work, and the dragon kills them. I know that seems a little heavy handed, but I never have to do it, because my players know better than to go getting into fights with dragons. I have one player in particular that knows the magic rules inside out, and I'm sure he's noticed a lot of things the books say that are ridiculous. But he almost never tries anything that defies reason, because he knows he'd get slapped down quicker than an ass-grabber at an Indigo Girls concert.

[mfb]

eh... a GD, okay. but a regular dragon is supposed to be something that a well-prepared group of runners should at least have a chance of dealing with.

[Egon]

I admit I was being over simple in my example. But any way you put it still smells like cheese, and makes as much sense as the fact you can combine boosted reflexes and the synaptic accelerator and get a 5d int. In this case it Magik so there really is no real would common sense to fall back on. That why it is so bad when a rule like this gets printed.

[mfb]

i don't see any real problem with it. it's one of the (relatively few) cases where anything the runners can do, someone can do to the runners. it doesn't outright kill anyone, it doesn't screw anybody over completely, and it's possible to negate its effects (by shooting the mage, mainly).

[Egon]

This is really some thing I have seen come up about twice in 5 years of shadowrun. Mostly due to the "fool don't do that or it will happen to us" social contract of gaming. were people don't abuse these kinds of thing for fear of it coming back on them. most GMs and play understand this, but when it dose come up in the case of magic powers it can be a real pain

[RedmondLarry]

We've run Spirit Confusion at a much lower power than what is described in the book, using a very materialized-object way of interpreting it. The book allows LOS range for Confusion, with no impression that the target has any idea what's happening to him, or where it comes from.

For confusion, we allow spirits to materialize in the physical world and do things that greatly distract the targeted character. E.g. materialize as a bus and try to run over his toes, then as a pile of garbage tossed on his head which fades away, then as a coiled snake twisting between his feet etc. etc.. Until the target destroys the spirit, he's at big penalties for things he tries to do (such as destroying the spirit).

This way of interpreting it comes from an early Shadowrun adventure, where a spirit materialized as a bag of dripping garbage on someone's head to confuse them. We know a spirit has to materialize to do this power, and our way seems very practical to us.

[Egon]

Thank you Our Team that is the best idea I have heard. A great way to deal with the power.

[mfb]

*shrug* having experience Confusion on both sides of the equation--being the confuser, and the confusee--i don't see it as all that overbalancing. sure, it offers a big advantage over opponents who can't defend against it, but so do lots of things in SR. the key is being prepared for it; it's a good tactic, which means it should be common, which means runners and sec guards should commonly expect it.

[Lilt]

Confusion really does suck. The best way to defend from it is to strike first.

One of my characters was once confronted by an initiate (I don't know exactly what grade, his magic was 8 tho IIRC) who munched his way through 2-3 force 6 spirits (banishing them before they had a chance to confuse him)... I finally went all-out with a force 9 spirit (which whipped his ass) but you get the idea.

[Dashifen]

I thought that a spirit had to be on the same plane as the target to use a power on them, similar to what OurTeam was saying. Therefore, if you want to Confuse a purely physical target (read: not awakened or dualnatured target) then your spirit has to manifest, doesn't it?

[Mephisto]

[Bearclaw]

A non-materialized spirit is still on the same plane. A physical form is an "addition", not their natural state.

If confusion, or any power, seems unbalancing, make spell defense work against spirit powers. Sure, the border guard still let's you go past because your mom's sick, but you can no longer Jedi Mind Trick the team of Red Samurai who busted through the door looking for you.

[The White Dwarf]

Yes they have to be on the same plane. And yes, this power blows. Its one of a myriad of things that tend to screw up the SR experience over time. As people figure the stuff like this out it either becomes present everytime or the group works out a house rule to keep it from being so overwhelming. Its the kinda thing that should be errata'd to allow a resistance test.

[TinkerGnome]

[Bearclaw]

[Bearclaw]

OK, I double checked. A spirit must manifest to use it's powers against anyone who's neither dual natured or it's conjurer. I call that enough of a limitation. It makes it much more difficult to use powers undetected.

So, a non-manifested creature can still use concealment on it's summoner, but it must manifest to conceal the rest of the party, right? What about the vehicle containing the summoner?
Any ideas?