more magic discussions, spcifically: house rules Options

[Ravor]

Ghost in the Shell is tamer then the rest of my list sure, but it is still over-the-top for the Sixth World. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[Fuchs]

I consider GitS as not over the top in SR - it's what I imagine the very best, governement/copr sponsored black ops teams would be like.

Most of the really "over the top" stunts I could see as the results of heavy use of edge anyway.

[Malicant]

Ghost in the Shell is tamer then the rest of my list sure, but it is still over-the-top for the Sixth World. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

No kidding. It is not the sixth world. Inside of it, it works good, because the over-the-top stuff is big, expensive guns and really heavy cybermods. Not 15yr old kids discovering some heritage and running into stronger and stronger opponents. It's even less over the top then SR.

The comparison lags (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)

[Hank]

djinni, I think re-jiggering the drain is a great idea. Drain based on Force rather than Force by 2 seems like a good fix...I have other house-rules that I've considered which get the same effect.

-Overcasting causes unresistable drain equal to (Force - Magic).
-Overcasting causes physical AND stun damage.
-Pay drain before casting your spell. (Makes sense...if you can't pay the piper, why would you get the spell?)
-Remove one spell--Increase Reflexes.

I don't think that last house rule is very effective with extra IP's from edge and drugs, nevermind the fact that many mages would choose a bit of bioware anyway. Or you could throw in a damage resistance test for direct spells.

Your player is definately a powerful mage, but, come on. He's got a Magic of 6...he's not a 6th grade initiate or anything. He should have to take at least some drain to rip off a force 10 spell; I don't care if he's casting fireball or makeover, force 10 should be painful. Even with edge.

[Slymoon]

djinni, I think re-jiggering the drain is a great idea. Drain based on Force rather than Force by 2 seems like a good fix...I have other house-rules that I've considered which get the same effect.

-Overcasting causes unresistable drain equal to (Force - Magic).
-Overcasting causes physical AND stun damage.
-Pay drain before casting your spell. (Makes sense...if you can't pay the piper, why would you get the spell?)
-Remove one spell--Increase Reflexes.

I don't think that last house rule is very effective with extra IP's from edge and drugs, nevermind the fact that many mages would choose a bit of bioware anyway. Or you could throw in a damage resistance test for direct spells.

Your player is definately a powerful mage, but, come on. He's got a Magic of 6...he's not a 6th grade initiate or anything. He should have to take at least some drain to rip off a force 10 spell; I don't care if he's casting fireball or makeover, force 10 should be painful. Even with edge.

wow. got the hate on for casters don'tcha.

as far as drain before casting. I dont know about SR4 (yet) but in SR3 if you went unconcious because of drain, the spell didnt happen.

[Ravor]

No kidding. It is not the sixth world. Inside of it, it works good, because the over-the-top stuff is big, expensive guns and really heavy cybermods. Not 15yr old kids discovering some heritage and running into stronger and stronger opponents. It's even less over the top then SR.

The comparison lags (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)

Ok, the Bleach reference I got, but if you are going to claim that Ghost in the Shell is less over-the-top then Shadowrun then kindly explain your reasoning. I'm not quite sure where the entire "Ghost in the Shell works within it's universe because it's not set in the Sixth World" came from though.

[Whipstitch]

djinni, I think re-jiggering the drain is a great idea. Drain based on Force rather than Force by 2 seems like a good fix...I have other house-rules that I've considered which get the same effect.

-Overcasting causes unresistable drain equal to (Force - Magic).
-Overcasting causes physical AND stun damage.
-Pay drain before casting your spell. (Makes sense...if you can't pay the piper, why would you get the spell?)
-Remove one spell--Increase Reflexes.
-Make Mystic Adepts splitting between Powers and Magecraft almost completely unplayable. Oh, wait, the last 4 ideas already did that.
-Encourage min-maxing by making dwarves with cerebral boosters, focused concentration and trauma dampers the only viable chargen mages.
-Fail to recognize that combat spells are about the only magical spells that consistently benefit from being cast at over Force 4 to begin with.

I don't think that last house rule is very effective with extra IP's from edge and drugs, nevermind the fact that many mages would choose a bit of bioware anyway. Or you could throw in a damage resistance test for direct spells.

Your player is definately a powerful mage, but, come on. He's got a Magic of 6...he's not a 6th grade initiate or anything. He should have to take at least some drain to rip off a force 10 spell; I don't care if he's casting fireball or makeover, force 10 should be painful. Even with edge.

Fixed.

[nathanross]

wow. got the hate on for casters don'tcha.

as far as drain before casting. I dont know about SR4 (yet) but in SR3 if you went unconcious because of drain, the spell didnt happen.

Yeah, Hank, Im not sure if youve played an SR3 mage or whatnot, but drain seriously sucked balls. If you make it to the end of the run consciously, youre a total pimp. Of course, by SR3 rules, all spells are force 5 no matter what (since in SR3 you had to get successes based on a TN equal to force).

I think casting is SOOOOO much more enjoyable right now, and instead of just arbitrarily pumping ALL drain, you should look at either specific spells that are too cheap, or specific players who are just plain shaking the boat. You should not penalize out of game a character that used his Karma within the rules in the way he wanted to, that is not fair. Like I said before, you have to find acceptable in game ways to balance him.

[Ravor]

I don't know, the idea of paying for Drain before the spell goes off isn't really game-breaking, but I don't like it from a thematic point because I like the idea that a Mage is able to kill herself to go out with a really big bang.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, that's about the only idea I'm cool with, but I don't necessarily like it; the potential interactions with the Dead Man's Trigger are quite messy.

[djinni]

the minimum drain of force-magic seems to be something to try...might curb the overcasting issue however. mystic adepts are unaffected. or minimally affected.

aside from that if the problem is not magic in general, (which is what I think anyway) what is to be done to correct the blastification being done? I'm thinking of altering the drain level for the stun spells to be in line with the powerbolt spells, or increase combat spells in general? leaving it alone is not going to curb the issue and what toes would he be stepping on? even if they find an astral signature how are they going to find him? as soon as he initiates masking is going to make it next to impossible anyway.
even if he doesn't over cast he could have a couple spirits of man cast a few spells instead (when mentioned as a "no drain because they are spirits" before I meant no drain for him, because the spirits are casting it not him)

[Ravor]

How much are you paying per run? Remember that burning through bound Spirits is really expensive and if he starts abusing spirits by throwing them into the meatgrinder like that then it's perfectly reasonable for them to start burning Edge on the summoning/binding tests.

Also the masking Metamagic wouldn't actually help him as it only affects his aura, not his Signature, Flexible Signature only makes it harder to see the real thing, so if he is setting off magical tac-nukes right and left sooner or later someone is going to ritually track him either to put him down or more likely to leash him.

[djinni]

so if he is setting off magical tac-nukes right and left sooner or later someone is going to ritually track him either to put him down or more likely to leash him.

its stunball no one gets hurt, no property gets damaged, the only thing you see is the astral signature(3 hits), most of the time they are not going to know what it was that created it (5 hits).
okay so a spell was cast, nothing is damage and they didn't kill anyone, this drops to low priority we have murderers to find...
but yeah agreed if the team cuts a bloody swath someone is gonna find them and soon.

[Malicant]

If he's a runner and has stolen stuff on a run, while tac-nuking the guards, that might warrant a higher priority than "we have murders to find". Especially since corp sec gives a rat's ass about murderers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I wonder why are you defending him? Did this thread not start to cripple him in the first place? Or don't you want to punish his character in-game?

[djinni]

If he's a runner and has stolen stuff on a run, while tac-nuking the guards, that might warrant a higher priority than "we have murders to find". Especially since corp sec gives a rat's ass about murderers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I wonder why are you defending him? Did this thread not start to cripple him in the first place? Or don't you want to punish his character in-game?

I don't want to punish the character, I want to reign in the "geek the mage" mentality of the game.
as it stands the only way I see to challenge teh characters in combat is to provide magical support for the opposition. once that is gone, poof game over...
the team is challenged in other ways, but as long as they protect the mage they win, and if they don't well...its game over.
yeah they've stolen stuff but from competing companies and when does the "manhunt" become too costly? if they steal a multi million dollar prototype heck yeah! but if the company doesn't even know what was stolen...they might think the run went bad. they also aren't going to vehemently pursue anyone who doesn't kill their slav- er I mean employees.
any action they take outside their territory is illegal and could garner them much more lost revenue than one runner.

right now Ravor they are pulling in enough to maintain medium lifestyle and still save up for cyber.
they don't loot the corpses, they don't mistreat anyone who surrenders, and try to use non lethal force when possible (well...this group does there's a different group that I'm gonna post a new thread about later)
monetary value I think I pull in 5-10k extra including pay data.

[Malicant]

but if the company doesn't even know what was stolen...

What kind of StufferShack does not know what has been stolen? And why would anyone send tac nuking mage into such a low-sec company in the first place?

I know that's not going to help, but I had to ask (IMG:style_emoticons/default/twirl.gif)

[djinni]

What kind of StufferShack does not know what has been stolen?

editing the security logs to delete any trace of the information in question.
hitting a transporation detail (other runner team) before they got to drop off their package and or analyze whatever it was they were hired to extract (cyberzombie).
stealing doesn't have to be a physical item.

[Malicant]

wowowowowow... They steal a cyberzombie and no heats comes down on them? No body notices? A guy drops magical tac-nukes without much effect on him, the logs claim nothing is missing and the people just shrug and go on with their lifes? I don't think so.

The only time in SR I know of the logs were so clean no one discovered tempering was when the logs themself were the ones doing the tempering (that was Emergence btw). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But whatever, not my game and all. You want them stealing Cyberzombies out of low-sec-no-one-cares facilities, go ahead. You don't seem to be big on in-game consequences. Some games just are like that. But kicking the overcasting-uber-mage in the groin with more drain is not going to solve the problem in the long run.

[hyzmarca]

One of my favorites is restorin gthe old flavor of armored vehicles being impossible to kill with magic by having half their armor apply against the mage as dice pool modifiers.

[djinni]

wowowowowow... They steal a cyberzombie and no heats comes down on them? No body notices? A guy drops magical tac-nukes without much effect on him, the logs claim nothing is missing and the people just shrug and go on with their lifes? I don't think so.

The only time in SR I know of the logs were so clean no one discovered tempering was when the logs themself were the ones doing the tempering (that was Emergence btw). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But whatever, not my game and all. You want them stealing Cyberzombies out of low-sec-no-one-cares facilities, go ahead. You don't seem to be big on in-game consequences. Some games just are like that. But kicking the overcasting-uber-mage in the groin with more drain is not going to solve the problem in the long run.

you missed the "transporation detail" and the "other runner team" did ya? no worries here I'll specify. all the heat came down on the original team, not them. they were hired by the guys who owned him, to get him back. it was a do it fast do it now. cyber zombie is 0.1 essence away from a street sam, I don't know why everyone is so impressed with them.
unless you pull a GM fiat, if they perform the appropriate command, and maybe even have a sprite to help, the logs are clean. especially if they steal an authenticated user, and hack it with his access.

[jago668]

I think what they are refering to is that you generally have to not just edit out what you did, but put back in some fabricated stuff so there are no gaps. That is moderately difficult to get right.

[Ravor]

It doesn't matter if they get enough hits to tell what spell was cast, all they have to do in order to tell if a uber Mage worthy of tracking down was there is determine what Force was being used, which is realitively easy, all you have to do is keep checking on the sig and note when it disappears and then compare that to when your guard's biomontors recorded all of them getting their asses handed to them.

*Edit*

Also note that if you are playing Fourth Edition at anime levels of power, then you are naturally going to get anime style headaches to go with it.

[djinni]

I think what they are refering to is that you generally have to not just edit out what you did, but put back in some fabricated stuff so there are no gaps. That is moderately difficult to get right.

is a hacking+edit test, one test for both actions right?

[DTFarstar]

See since I think probably 30% of the mages in the world would work in security, and of those 1 man can ward a LOT of buildings, and keep spirits leashed to go and magically support an area when an alarm goes off, 1 mage can "protect" 3-5 low to middle security areas. With those percentages, you are going to see a ward on every important building and vehicle, most transports that have anything worth a damn protecting them are going to have a spirit running protection and interference and all HTR teams and high sec facilities actually have at least one mage on site. If you want to quote the population statistics, well, try and apply them to runners and see what you get. Same thing applies to security and I would assume R&D. Keep in mind, a lot of the sec mages will be CHA and INT mages and a lot of the R&D mages are going to be LOG based mages just because aptitudes go that way. So they will be more able for combat(more spirits for more protection or higher initiative and perception).

Anyway, my 2 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

Chris

[DTFarstar]

you missed the "transporation detail" and the "other runner team" did ya? no worries here I'll specify. all the heat came down on the original team, not them. they were hired by the guys who owned him, to get him back. it was a do it fast do it now. cyber zombie is 0.1 essence away from a street sam, I don't know why everyone is so impressed with them.
unless you pull a GM fiat, if they perform the appropriate command, and maybe even have a sprite to help, the logs are clean. especially if they steal an authenticated user, and hack it with his access.

You do know that because of the cybermantic procedures involved in keeping the CZ alive that he can basically have unlimited cyber/bio in him while also generating his own personal background count and if they managed to get a mage to do it then he can keep his counterspelling skill. So... uhhh... a LOT more than just a sammie with .1 less essence. If the corp builds one right with all delta they still typically hit -4 or so essence.

Chris