Magical Augmentations, Purchasing Quickened Spells to Enhance Your Runner Options

[HappyDaze]

I like to increase the frequency of magic in my games, especially how it impacts the lives of the non-Awakened. One of the most obvious ways is with Quickened spells. These cost the caster Karma, but since the introduction of the Karma Creation system, we have a cash value on Karma points. So now the corp exec can opt for Increase Charisma instead of Tailored Pheromones, and even cybered-up street sams can get a Combat Sense spell placed on them.

Cost would be based on the Karma spent and avaialbility based upon the desired number of hits (not to exceed the spell's Force). Quickening Materials would cost extra too in addition to the added Karma, and in my games we've ruled that a magician can no longer voluntarily drop a spell quickened with Quickening Materials - it's too tightly woven into being.

So let's play with an Increase Reflexes spell at Force 4 with 4 hits. Force 4 with Quickening Materials can be bound with 12 Karma. Getting 4 hits reliably would take a dice pool of 16 (that'll become the availability). 12 Karma = 30,000 nuyen plus another 4,000 nuyen for the Quickening Materials. A bit cheap for what you get, but if we assume that the caster charges double for the Karma, we have a cost of 64,000 nuyen. Still cheaper than cyber, but also more prone to background count and other assorted problems.

World/setting changes that would have to take place would be a dramatic reduction on standard wards in public places. Since these wards can potentially damage the 'property' of someone passing through, they would be frowned on just as a device that shorted out all electronics passing by would be. Instead, alarm wards would be far more common in public areas - just as cyberware and weapon detectors are.

[Ol' Scratch]

Quickened spells come with their own monstrous problems, particularly for a shadowrunner. The big one being astral wards. Which, for players at least, is why it's not something even worth cooking house rules up for. Especially since a mundane character has no way of controlling, protecting, or disabling such spells.

[HappyDaze]

Note my last paragraph on why wards would need to be reigned in.

Besides, the Force 4 spell I mentioned goes-even in dice up against a Force 10 Ward, and those are going to be pretty uncommon in my world.

[Ol' Scratch]

It has nothing to do with public places, though. It would only be a real obstacle on an actual run, where wards are a basic part of magical security. And note that battling a ward alerts the magician who created. Which, you know, would be the main reason why it's a BadThing™.

A better solution is to redo Anchoring Foci to make them more feasible.