Questions only gameplay can bring..., 6 rule related questions Options

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

So while planning out character development and troubleshooting some rough spots while gaming, I've compiled this list of questions I need answered.

1. the metamagics of Flexible Signature and Masking... does an adept first have to possess the astral perception adept power to even learn these metamagics? It makes sense to me, but it is not a prerequisite to either
a)learn either of these,
b)use flexible signature to reduce the amount of time of an astral signature lingers or change your astral signature
c) mask to appear mundane, change apparent level of magic

Astral Perception (and in turn Assensing) is only necessary to forge someone else's astral signature. If one was just changing their own into something random to not be identified later, it seems that it's not necessary.

Astral Projection is necessary for using masking to change the appearance of your astral form, but to get the other uses of masking to change the apparent level of your magic or appear mundane, it seems one doesn't need to have the ability to even detect these things. Am I right about these two powers?

2.Power Focus... Since according to the rule book it says a Power Focus feeds a Magician's Magic directly does that mean it significantly alters limits that are related to a magician's magic level? could a magician with magic rating 2 and a power focus of rating 4 effective cast spells at a force 6 without overcasting or is he still limited to a Force 4 spell that's overcast? I always played it as it was just a dice poll modifier and it didn't affect the limits of force levels, but reading it again recently, the wording seemed a bit ambiguous to me. It would make their astronomical price seem a bit more applicable, but might be game breaking...

3.In the Full Defense section of the Combat chapter, Full Parry is listed as reaction + (melee combat skill x 2) does that include all melee combat skills? If someone is defending completely unarmed, they could still full parry? I referenced the initial parry defense (Defending against Melee p.147 SR4) and it says use the appropriate weapon skill. This is misleading as it implies that one can only parry with a melee weapon and only block with unarmed. Can one not also parry with their unarmed skill or block an attack with a melee weapon (exotic melee, club, or blade) skill? In Arsenal, the martial arts style of Aikido and Karate can grant bonuses to full parry which would imply that full parry could and would be used with those weapon-less styles.

4.Attacks of Will...The martial arts of Tai Chi and Kiai can give up to a +3 DV on attacks of the will. Does an astral combat attack count as an attack of the will considering that it uses Willpower, or are attacks of the will strictly just the willpower + banishing roll under the Attacks of the will section (p. 94 SM)? It would be poetic and wonderful if training in a soft, spiritual martial art like Tai Chi Chuan would allow one to add damage to their astral combat attacks, but the wording is pretty specific and I don't think this would work. The maneuver Focus Will helps with a +2 die modifier for its bonus to willpower based tests. It would appear that this bonus could be used for both astral combat and attacks of the will, but the Kiai/Tai Chi possible +3DV for attacks of the will doesn't translate to astral combat. It would make sense considering a majority of astral combat takes place between astral entities and not dual-natured martial arts Tai Chi Adepts (despite how cool this would be).

5.Freeze Foam- With initial results, Gamebreaker, plain and simple. I had a couple of corporate HRT extraction squads frozen in place in their own vans with freeze foam grenades. A few games later I had a bunch of Octagon Triad flunkies freeze foamed into a hallway. I wanted to try to figure out what kind of area or diameter my player's "freeze foam grenades" had, and found that they didn't exist. He was just using the gas/spalsh grenade with chemical template and dumping freeze foam down. I read up on freeze foam and found out that it's pretty much only used by medtechs, and riot cops as per the description. I don't think it can be applied to a splash grenade. If you went by the rules, that grenade explodes and everything in a 10m radius is encased in a 20m diameter ball of (if rating 6) armor/structure 6 material that they can't move from because they are pinned. The pure physics of it didn't make any sense to me, despite the example the player was using to illuminate his idea of it (in the movie Demolition Man there's a scene where the cop car crashes and Sly has to break out of hard encased foam that had filled the cab to prevent damage to the occupants during the collision). Upon closer inspection of the rule however, this wouldn't be the case because freeze foam doesn't expand, just harden. It would be more similar to squirting it from a hose like the riot cops would use (Ares Fogger Glop Cannon p.123 Arsenal), or squirting it from a dispenser over a broken limb and it hardening into a cast like the the description says the medtech professionals do. From here on out if the player chooses to use them his grenades in the more realistic described fashion, the grenade blasts are going to spray a shell of liquid out and things will be covered in a layer of freeze foam that shortly hardens and depending how covered and the rating of the foam, I'll assign an appropriate modifier. Sound Fair?

6.We still haven't developed a full grasp of astral combat (not the actual skill, but otherwise damage). We had a scenario last night where a Wujen was projecting and casting some pretty hefty kill spells on awakened party members who were dual natured (our shaman and his materialized beast spirit). Simultaneously though, our sneaky thief B&E expert had found the cars where the opposing team's magician and rigger were holed up. He dumped a flash bang in through a window he kicked out with his hydraulic jack legs and let it go boom. The magician took enough damage from the concussion of the grenade reverberating back and forth in the car to get knocked out cold, but he was already projecting and engaging our shaman astrally. How does a GM handle the? Technically the already unconscious physical body just took enough damage to knock out the NPC under normal conditions. Does that stun damage knock out and disrupt the astral form into unconsciousness and it returns to the body? Does the projecting astral form continue to wiz around on the astral with a full stun track? Can one even take stun damage on the astral? Is there a separate astral and physical damage track like with hacking and personas? This would make sense considering astral physical attributes rely on mental attributes and therefore could actually increase or decrease an astral condition monitor by referencing astral body (willpower).

Halp PLZ!

[Fix-it]

5; is definitely fair. 10m? that's 33 feet! if a FF grenade lands at someone's feet/lap, it should definitely tangle them up, (and anyone standing more or less next to them) but 20m diameter is almost the length of a tennis court!
2-3 meter radius is fair and realistic. and anyone on the edge would only really get sticky strands of goo trailing them as they run.

[Dakka Dakka]

@1. Yup. You only need astral perception for forging a signature and to apear as a different astral creature (e.g. spirit) you have to be able to astrally project. All other uses are available for all adepts. Flexible Signature however has only limited use for an adept as the target of his powers usuaully is himself. disguising a signature un one's self does not help in many situations. Also mechanically there is no rule how long an adept's signatures last as the powers don't have a force rating.

@2. Nope. The power focus only gives bonus dice to the magic attribute, it does not increase the magic rating. So you use additional dice in every test using the Magic attribute, but your maximum force is still 2*Magic attribute rating.

@3. The wording in the two books is indeed misleading. I assume that in the bbb they simply forgot the blocking in the section about full defense. So you block with your on appendages and parry with a weapon.

As for the Aikido bonus, I guess this is correct. I the same martial arts group there is also JuJutsu which also teaches the use of weapons. So parrying would be in their repertoire. The art of the empty hand however only teaches blocking and no weapon techniques. I find that fitting.

@4. On either plane someone can choose to do an attack of will instead of a normal physical or astral attack. In both cases the bonus form Kiai applies.

@5. Sounds fair to me, if you do not want to a) forbid it outright, or b) let the CorpSec know this trick and use it.

@6. First of all the Initiative Phases take place simultaneously on both planes. If projecting mage's body that is knocked out, he can no longer remain conscious on the atral plane, because both parts are connected and are equally affected by any damage. the mage would do well to regain consciousness and return to his body before MAG hours have passed, because otherwise he would permanently sever the connection to his body.

Yes there is stun damage on the astral plane. Every astral creature can choose which type of damage to inflict, even with weapon foci according to RAW. Astral barriers however are only affected by phyiscal damage.

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

@3. The wording in the two books is indeed misleading. I assume that in the bbb they simply forgot the blocking in the section about full defense. So you block with your on appendages and parry with a weapon.

As for the Aikido bonus, I guess this is correct. I the same martial arts group there is also JuJutsu which also teaches the use of weapons. So parrying would be in their repertoire. The art of the empty hand however only teaches blocking and no weapon techniques. I find that fitting.

What about the Karate bonus (+1 to full parry)? Since technically we aren't supposed to be using any weapons in Karate, then why would we have a full parry bonus? Being that full parry by the rules is reaction + (melee combat skill x 2) and unarmed combat is indeed a melee combat skill, I'd say that one would be able to parry even without a weapon using their unarmed combat skill.

I mean, in a real world scenario one doesn't need a weapon to parry an attack. Most of Aikido's reversals and momentum based throws are based on first parrying and controlling an opponents direction of force.

[kzt]

Karate isn't a weaponless style. There are 5 common and a bunch of less common weapons taught.

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

@6. First of all the Initiative Phases take place simultaneously on both planes. If projecting mage's body that is knocked out, he can no longer remain conscious on the atral plane, because both parts are connected and are equally affected by any damage. the mage would do well to regain consciousness and return to his body before MAG hours have passed, because otherwise he would permanently sever the connection to his body.

Yes there is stun damage on the astral plane. Every astral creature can choose which type of damage to inflict, even with weapon foci according to RAW. Astral barriers however are only affected by phyiscal damage.

So we can have astral forms floating around unconscious until they wake up and return to their body?

[Dakka Dakka]

AFAIK there is no rule saying that something special happens to unconscious astral forms. so yes they float around untill they wake up or untill their body dies.

[Magus]

I don't think that is what happens at all. I do believe if your shell is knocked unconcious it does not affect your Astral Form if you are already projecting. I mean if you are projecting by RAW and your body is killed you have Magic Hours before your Astral Form discorporates. So if you simply unconcious and you return to your body you are still out, and unable to return to the Astral Plane. But if you are still on the Astral then nothing would happen to you.

[darthmord]

If an astral form (in this case, a projecting mage) gets knocked unconscious, they should be auto-shunted back to their bodies to eventually wake up after time has passed.

Incidentally, damage (physical and stun) to a mage's body applies regardless whether the mage is home or out projecting. There is a reason why leaving your body unattended while projecting is a *BAD* idea. You fill up either track on the body and the astral form reciprocates the damage.

You can see this in the BBB in the sidebar on page 184.

Damage to the astral body is felt
by the physical body and vice versa. If the
astral body is injured, the physical body may
twitch or convulse. If the physical body is injured,
the astral body may experience a ghostly
sense of distant pain. Any damage inflicted
to one form immediately affects the other.

While the sidebar doesn't talk to what happens to your astral form when it gets filled with stun damage, the game itself does talk to you waking up after having passed out from having your Stun track filled. So it in a back-handed manner implies / suggests you auto-revert to your body if you fill the Stun track while projecting.

[RedeemerofOgar]

While the sidebar doesn't talk to what happens to your astral form when it gets filled with stun damage, the game itself does talk to you waking up after having passed out from having your Stun track filled. So it in a back-handed manner implies / suggests you auto-revert to your body if you fill the Stun track while projecting.

Too easy. If that were true then a mage with a partner would never have to worry about finding his body. "In 4 hours and 55 minutes, if I have not sat up and said hello, tranq the CRAP outta me and knock me out." No more lost-in-the-astral worries. Heck, you could even set up an auto-injector for it.

[Dakka Dakka]

That's what i was thinking.

[gobogen]

I think this is pretty obvious. If your physical body can DIE and your astral form is still moving about doing its thing, then if your body is only stunned, it should not be different.

Think about what it means to be dead and what it means to be stunned. Both include as effects that the brain stops to actively think and react. Death has additional effects of degradation due to absense of oxygen to muscles, brain included. Still, the consciousness is affected in a similar way. Heck, since your body wasn't even using its brain when you're projecting, there's even less of a reason for being stunned to be noticeable in any way.

I wouldn't even apply the body's stun modifiers to the astral form, though I wonder what RAW would say about that.

[Dakka Dakka]

This may be your opinion but this is not covered by RAW. It has been quoted before, but once more for emphasis: "Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other." (BBB p. 184)
So if the Stun Condition monitor is filled, no matter what the source, both "bodies" fall unconscious. Since no rule says that something special happens to the astral form it stays where it is as with normal unconsciousness. After an hour of rest the mage can make a healing test to reduce the stun damage and wake up, but if the projecting mage does not have an hour before death, he is gone unless someone administers first aid to his meat body which would also help his astral form.

Talking about RL brain function is a tricky thing if you're talking about astral projection. The brain, or any other part of the body should not be able to do this in the first place. You don't know which part of the body is responsible for magic in general or astral projection in particular. It might as well be the brain and while the near comatose state associated with astral projection might be necessary, a real coma or unconsciousness might not.

[gobogen]

Very good point about RL brain functions and comparisons. But I'd like to better explain my argument here and I still think there is some validity to it. I'll put it as a series of claims to make it easier to follow.

1) Death contains all the characteristics of a coma, plus additional effects. When you're dead, you should also suffer at least from all the problems caused by a coma, or more.

2) The effects of being dead while projecting cannot be less than those of being in a coma while projecting. Derived by 1).

3) Let's include a quote, else you'll claim it is only my opinion. So here's a big quote. The underlined text is specifically relevant.

When astrally projecting, a magician's physical body and astral body are both still part of him. Damage to the astral body is felt by the physical body and vice versa. If the astral body is injured, the physical body may twitch or convulse. If the physical body is injured, the astral body may experience a ghostly sense of distant pain. Any damage infl icted to one form immediately affects the other.

While both aspects of the magician are connected, they do exist independently while projecting. If the magician's physical body dies, the astral body continues to project on the astral plane for a number of hours equal to her Magic attribute x 2 before fading into nothingness. Should the astral body die, the physical body falls irretrievably into a deep coma since it has no mind and no spirit. If the body is placed on life support, it can live its full lifespan; if not, it will die of thirst within a week (or sooner if organ harvesters or enemies get hold of it).

4) Since a dead body can have an active astral form (from 3)), a comatose body can have an active astral form (From 2)).

Even though body and astral form are strongly connected, they can continue to exist separately, from that quote. According to you and my quoted text, a body that dies gives more power to the astral form (able to continue to act freely for a number of hours) then the body going into a coma, which would leave the astral form hanging there according to you. The hanging astral form could be killed by an astral being capable of inflicting damage.

Doesn't make much sense in terms of both game balance and setting consistency.

Take this example. Let's say enemies find my body while I'm projecting. They first beat me up until unconscious. My astral form hangs there. Then they kill me. My astral form continues to hang there (or suddenly can act again??). If they only slit my throat but don't beat me up first, then I could roam and manifest and do a few more things for a couple of hours before dying.

Sixth-world-knowledgeable characters would probably always want to beat up the projecting mages instead of killing them outright. Else the ghost will continue to talk to people for the next few hours and that could compromise them.

That makes no sense at all to me.

[InfinityzeN]

Actually, nothing in there says that the Astral form stays active after the body dies. So it my be floating in a coma till it hits that Magic *2 and fades away.

[gobogen]

@InfinityzeN

Consider the sentences preceding and following the underlined text of the quote. Can you really claim they could possibly mean that the astral form would remain inactive? If they meant that, they would have said so.

[Dakka Dakka]

Actually they did. It has been quoted twice before: "Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other." Combine this rule with the normal rules for exceeding a condition monitor, and you got it. The astral form just floats around without ability to do anything.

[gobogen]

You're the one that said "that's your opinion but it's not covered by RAW", so I'll say it back to you.

Let's read the rules again.

First paragraph explains how the body and astral forms are linked. Second paragraph explains that while they are connected, they are never the less independant. What could possibly be the point of saying that, and then adding the underlined sentence, if they just meant that the astral form is floating?

The answer is that if they meant that the astral form would be floating, they would have said so. It seems so obvious to me, I don't understand why you guys are still arguing about it.

And by the way, it says that it affects the other, not that it affects it in the same manner. Actually they say the opposite of that. That when the body suffers, the astral form only feels a distant pain. I'm sure when the body dies, the astral form gets a strong feeling of emptiness and loss.

[Dakka Dakka]

If they were as independent as you say, one could just as well ask why there are no two sets of condition monitors - using the astral attributes for box calculation. That is how it is done in the matrix for hackers.

Independent means that they can be moved independently. What happens concerning to damage is clear, to me at least.

You are right that the text is unclear. However, if there was only a feeling of pain instead of actual hinderance the sentence "Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other." would be totally superfluous. The feeling of pain IMHO is only meant for damage that does not inflict a dicepool penalty.

As RedeemerofOgar already pointed out, the whole thing about looking for one's body is unnecessary, if unconscious astral forms immediately were sent back to their meat bodies. And a drug dispenser with a timer would become a must have for mages.

[gobogen]

Dakkadakka,

So I'm glad we agree that the text isn't clear enough. We also agree that there's no way in hell that the astral form would ever be automatically sent back to the body. I think RAW tells us that much unambiguously.

What we disagree on is whether one retains consciousness in the astral when one's body is dead or unconscious.

After listening to your arguments, I'm still not convinced either way. The text implies that when you die in the astral, your mind is gone forever, but that if your body dies, your mind (at least your "form", which is defined as a construct of the mind) remains for a while more. However, the text also says that the two entities share the damage boxes, yet right after saying that they refer us to the text I quoted above. Which does not help to take away any ambiguity.

I think this should be brought up in an errata. Maybe Aaron can shed some light on this?

[ornot]

perhaps one could apply the wound penalties, but consider that conciousness is not lost. Further stun damage causes physical damage as normal, and potentially further wound penalties.
In Corporate Enclaves a run is outlined where an astrally projecting mage contacts the runners to track down her murderers. It is stated that the johnson can aid the runners but is significantly weakened, which fits my interpretation.

[gobogen]

I don't own that book and didn't know anything about it, but if what you say is true, then it's a strong argument in my favor. Is there any information specific to that astral form contained in the book that could help us bring some light on our current discussion?

And I always thought that, indeed, the penalties would have to apply, since that is stated clearly in the bbb.

[Dakka Dakka]

Of astral forms of dead mages i have only read in novels but those are not rulebooks. If this is in a rulebook the BBB definitely needs a revision.

Hmm, you say that if a projecting mage's body sustains more damage than her stun monitor, his astral form could still act. What happens if on the other hand the astral form sustains the same amount of damage from the astral plane?

What happens if the dicepool penalty reduces the mages pools to 0? Can he still return to his body?

And I always thought that, indeed, the penalties would have to apply, since that is stated clearly in the bbb.

I wonder why you want to apply the dicepool penalties to both sides but not the others (not able to act, dead in BOD² rounds)

If one of the devs reads this I, and possibly other forum members wopuld like an official ruling. Thanks in advance.

[gobogen]

Well, I'm not saying my argument is fool-proof, but in my opinion, neither is yours. Unless we get a ruling, it's more or less a matter of opinion and/or taste. Or how much you want to go with the fluff on this. For all practical purposes, it's really just the game's GM's call in the end.

The stunned body case is a bit weird. But I do feel strongly about the dead mage's astral form being able to roam while his body is dead. My argument about the stun is a matter of consistency with that assumption about a dead body. Since there is (would be) an exception to the damage monitor rule for physical damage incurred by the body, why not a similar rule for the stun bar as well. And I would indeed conclude that all one could do in such a state is move, manifest and anything not requiring any kind of dice roll.

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

You guys have done quite a bit of hypothesizing in my absence.

I dug up that mission that Ornot mentioned. It's the mission "Almost Midnight" chronicled in the Game information (Tokyo) section of Corporate Enclaves (p. 134). I knew there was proof of dead magicians still able to be astrally active and moving around on the astral plane, but I had forgotten in which sourcebook I had read it in. Thanks for the Corporate Enclaves heads up for me to confirm that I wasn't imagining it.

Now, one of the reasons I was suggesting that maybe there was an astral damage track (stun and physical) that was separate from the actual physical body damage tracks was that the number of condition monitor boxes would be different when you try to figure out the number of condition monitor boxes based on one's astral attributes. We know that there are different amounts of matrix condition monitor boxes, and we still aren't given a matrix condition monitor on our character sheet, so is it too much of a jump to assume that there would be one for the astral? Also, I think what the text meant by the wounds of the physical body immediately affecting the astral body meant was the application of negative modifiers to any astral tests due to damage modifiers. We see similar events while rigging and hacking. If a rigger/hacker has damage to their physical body and their persona/matrix monitor, then the damage modifiers stack and his matrix tests are affected.

So, we are still up in the air about my 6th question.

Has there been any other opinions about my 3rd question? Can one use the Unarmed Combat skill to Full Parry? By the RAW, it says Full Parry is reaction + (melee combat skill x 2) and that would imply being able to use it. However, the strict differentiation between parry (reaction + weapon skill) and block (reaction + unarmed skill) might suggest otherwise.

I think my other 4 questions have been sufficiently answered though. Thanks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)