Aspected Mana Static, A Question Regarding Street Magic... Options

[Ol' Scratch]

I was browsing the spell list at the back of Street Magic (most notably page 189) when I came across a spell entry for Aspected Mana Static. Curious as to why I had never heard of it, I tried looking it up in both the main sourcebook as well as Street Magic itself, all to no avail. I also checked the official errata only to find nothing.

My question is: Does the spell actually exist somehwere I didn't check, or was it simply something that was removed during a final edit of the sourcebook (with the table not being upgraded)?

[Ancient History]

Whoa, good eye. As I recall, the spell was removed after playtesting found it ungodly overpowering.

[Coldan]

I wish it would have also been removed at the german streetmagic...

Well, only difference to the mana static is, that the backgroundcount is at your tradition... have fun ^^

[Ol' Scratch]

That's what I was assuming on both accounts. Much obliged!

[Shalimar]

So a plus to your magic and a minus to everyone else's in one simple spell? Wow. No wonder it was dropped.

[Muspellsheimr]

This has been known for a while now. It was removed from the book before release, but was missed in the charts.

Why was it removed? It shouldn't even have needed playtesting - it would be obscenely powerful & game breaking. Cast it at Force 5 (or less). It increases both the maximum Force you can throw, & your dice pool for doing so. Cast it again at a higher Force, for even greater boost. Repeat as long as you can handle the Drain (easy with Sacrificing). You can go from Magic 2 to Magic 14 easily, assuming the GM caps it at the Mana Surge levels (if not, go until Magic 100+).

[Ol' Scratch]

Yes, and it would basically become a "must-have" spell for any mage since your opposition could use it as easily as you could... which would be the only way to really nullify it. Must-haves are always a bad thing from a design point of view. At least in my opinion.

The only reason I asked is because I was going through the list while working on my house rules. Was surprised that I had never seen it before and was hoping it wasn't what I was afraid it would be. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Rad]

Our group was looking at that today--specifically me and the GM--we had a good laugh.

Now that I think about it, though, it might be slightly less broken than I originally thought. Imagine two magicians with Aspected Mana Static fighting for control of a specific area. The biggest problem is it would give mages a huge "home court advantage" if they had time to set it up beforehand and it trivializes natural background count.

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

They wouldn't struggle for control of an area...it would simply be whoever goes first, wins...

Since it's a spell, you can overcast it, and the only possible defense is to have more than three times the magic rating of the faster mage.
(magic 4, cast at force 8, reduces enemy magic by 8, so to counter it, requires a spell of force 9 or more, which requires a reduced magic rating of at least 5, so 13+ magic to oppose a magic 4 aspecter.)

Definitely completely broken.

edit: (and you know - I forgot to reduce the spell force by the background count...so add another +8 to the casting force, so you need 4x the first mage's magic.)

[Ancient History]

There were some suggested fixes, but it was just taken out.

[Falconer]

But it's still in the game... sort of...

Just pack your 'astral hazing' buddy and use his aspected background count! *sigh*

[Ol' Scratch]

That's another weird entry. It's apparently aspected to... no tradition at all. But it's still aspected! Somehow. I haven't quite figured it out. I mean, God forbid they just say it's a background count.

[psychophipps]

Must-haves are always a bad thing from a design point of view. At least in my opinion.

You mean like 'Increase Reflexes' and 'Stunbolt' once your players grow a brain? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

And I agree completely. It's a serious design flaw to have a bunch of "go-to" spells that you see rolling around in the grimoire of 90%+ of mage characters run by smart and ruthless players/GMs.

Hell, I wouldn't even think about making a mage without these two spells unless I specifically wanted to nerf them as some sort of experiment like my current "no boost" street merc.

[Fortune]

Funny. I play mages more often than not, and I never take Increase Reflexes (Bioware being so much more effective in pretty much every way), and only take Stun Bolt maybe three-quarters of the time. I don't consider either of those to be 'must-haves'.