Magic and Manifesting, What can you do while manifesting? Options

[Dikotana]

Depends on how you rule on Cram. It's possible to get hooked quite fast, and what are the odds of more than one combat in two months? More importantly, wired reflexes are internal. Cram isn't. So either you're getting crammed up before every run or you're doing drugs in the middle of a firefight, and neither one sounds like a good option. And coming off of cram is a really bad idea if the run takes longer than expected.

Then there's the side effects. Yes, by the rules Cram is pretty nice stuff. But with the flavor? You'll be jittery, jumpy, and twitchy--not good news for a runner. Especially if you need to be stealthy... or not shoot the wrong person in q split-second reaction.

And, frankly, Cram just won't take you that far. Why stop at one IP when you can get wired up for more? As you say, 2 IP is a bare minimum for most successful runners. 3 IP will take you much farther, and you can't get that with chemical boosts.

[Summerstorm]

Sure you can... K-10 will bring you up to 4IP's... well after that you get 16 stun (unresistable) so if you were wounded in the fight you will pretty much be dead... but hey, look on the bright side: it only costs 900 Nuyen is insanely illigal and lets you berserk (and if you miss an edge-roll berserk you FOREVER).

Thing is: i think i stay with Move-By-Wire I for non-combat characters. Just so many advantages over Reflex Booster. Mages however: Just a sustaining focus and the spell. Not so expensive.

[Nows7]

(snip)
And, frankly, Cram just won't take you that far. Why stop at one IP when you can get wired up for more? As you say, 2 IP is a bare minimum for most successful runners. 3 IP will take you much farther, and you can't get that with chemical boosts.

Just finished up my last campaign, in the beginning, we one person playing a mage with increase reflexes, but who refused to use a sustaining foci because "he would never rely on something external like that". So as a result, that mage NEVER had more than one IP, and spent alot of time bored in combat.

When we started up our new game, all the players made a gentleman's agreement to start play with no more than 2 IP. The GM supported this and he agreed that he won't be throwing gangers with 4IP at us, until we all work our way up.

Perhaps you can talk to your group and see if they like that idea?

[EuroShadow]

Spirits manifesting can act on the physical world. Use powers, shake hands, bash heads.

Magicians "manifesting" can be seen and heard by living beings, but not by cameras. They cannot act on the pysical world. They can only cast mana spells, and only at ASTRAL targets. They CANNOT manifest, then manabolt your face off.

They cannot cast spells at non-astral targets? Is Mystic Adept astral target?

So is mundane character completely safe from manifesting magician?

[Summerstorm]

They cannot cast spells at non-astral targets? Is Mystic Adept astral target?

So is mundane character completely safe from manifesting magician?

Mystic Adept is not a astral target. (Unless he has astral perception on.)

An Astral target is: any dual critters/npc's, spirits and watchers, astral projecting magicians, astral perceiving magicians and adepts, wards and (people will still argue that and yes in 4th edition it doesn't seem to be the case anymore) spells and active foci.

So as long as you don't say: "Hey let me just do a quick lookie into the astral" you are safe. But if you say: let me use my astral sight, there might be something hovering above you, just waiting for you to become active so he can powerbolt you into a coma.

[Ascalaphus]

When we started up our new game, all the players made a gentleman's agreement to start play with no more than 2 IP. The GM supported this and he agreed that he won't be throwing gangers with 4IP at us, until we all work our way up.

This of course is the sensible, communicating adult way of doing things (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


As for Cram vs. Wired:

Cram +
* No 2 Essence cost to start with
* Doesn't show up on cyberware scanners and such
* You can leave it at home if the run calls for a completely innocent-looking body
* 10 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and 2R means you don't run out, and if you do, you can get more in in an hour or so.

Cram -
* Not everyone likes using drugs
* Can be taken away
* Supply might run out
* Duration might run out on very long runs
* Max +1 IP

Wired +
* Always there for you
* Goes up to +3IPs

Wired -
* More expensive
* Essence expensive
* More illegal
* Easily detected


All in all, I'd want to save up for synaptic boosters every time. The much-harder-to-detect bioware and only 0.5 Essence per rating makes it a much better choice in the long term. Even mages should seriously consider it. Doubling/tripling your actions at the cost of a point of magic can be worth it.

[Rystefn]

I tend to go for the bioware as well, myself, but drugs are a viable option if it fits the character concept.

[tagz]

Ok, so I have a question about auras and the astral.

Can a mage on the astral see the aura of people who are invisible? Would they also be able to see the auras of the invisibility spell itself to counterspell it?

[Rystefn]

Yes, and yes. Read the spell description, and it explicitly tells you it does not prevent astral perception.

[Summerstorm]

Oh perfectly. That is the thing with invisibility: Anyone with astral sight just sees you perfectly clear (except you can hide your aura with metamagic or in dense life, astral stealth is possible).

For the dispelling: WELL... i would allow it. But i have played 2nd and 3rd edition where that was perfectly ok and a standard procedure, since a spell was a astral presence. In the 4th Edition it never gets mentioned, so it maybe not allowed since the spell is somehow physical and as such not on the astral. That would be (in my opinion) totally retarded.

[Karoline]

Just finished up my last campaign, in the beginning, we one person playing a mage with increase reflexes, but who refused to use a sustaining foci because "he would never rely on something external like that". So as a result, that mage NEVER had more than one IP, and spent alot of time bored in combat.

I don't see the cause/effect here. Why does using a focus have anything to do with how many IPs he gets? The focus doesn't affect the number of IPs you get, having more IPs doesn't increase the concentration penalty. Not using a focus is no direct reason for the increase reflexes spell to only give you 1 bonus IP as opposed to 2 or 3 since a sustaining focus doesn't affect the number of IPs you can get in any form what-so-ever.

[Summerstorm]

I think he meant: The dude will NEVER use a focus, no matter what kind. And he is too lazy to sustain the spell himself, so he is always at 1 IP. It is just the difference between 1 IP/ no spell, or sustained X IP's. He chose the former.

[Rystefn]

I think he meant: The dude will NEVER use a focus, no matter what kind. And he is too lazy to sustain the spell himself, so he is always at 1 IP. It is just the difference between 1 IP/ no spell, or sustained X IP's. He chose the former.

...and, as such, it's his own fault he's bored.

[Karoline]

I think he meant: The dude will NEVER use a focus, no matter what kind. And he is too lazy to sustain the spell himself, so he is always at 1 IP. It is just the difference between 1 IP/ no spell, or sustained X IP's. He chose the former.

Oh, well if he has the spell but is too lazy to use it then that is an entirely different problem and really doesn't have much to do with the question of improving IP. Like Rystefn said, mostly his own fault he was bored if he had the means to gain IPs and was just too lazy to use it.

Kind of like playing a sammy with a gun and then complaining you never get to do anything in fights because you refuse to use your gun.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The GM can do that, sure. The GM can also make rocks fall out of the sky and kill the whole party. Of course GM fiat overrides, but if the GM tends to use fiat, then player choices are mostly meaningless anyway. Or, if you prefer.. is the GM likely to fiat an addiction on a person who uses Cram once every 6-8 weeks? If you're using it 2-3 times a week, that would make sense, perhaps, but ruling addiction for occasional to rare usage and never taking more than one dose is a dick move, isn't it?

You only get into fights every 6-8 weeks in your game... wow... We sometimes have multiple fights in a session (and sometimes no fights in a session)... but statistically, we would probably be in that 2-3 fights/week or so If I took the time to lok at it... at which point, even I would take voluntary penalties to the roll for addiction, as I am obviously using the drug as a crutch... which was my point... the more you ise it, the worse it is going to be and YOU WILL become addicted eventually...

Hell, I have even just taken the Addictions from time to time (after play starts) because of this very thing...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

They cannot cast spells at non-astral targets? Is Mystic Adept astral target?

So is mundane character completely safe from manifesting magician?

See Medicineman's reply to the post you quoted... Spirits do not manifest on the physical to cause havok, they Materialize... this is a very big difference...

Assuming that a mage found some way to actually Materialize from the Astral (Endowment?) then they would be just as deadly as a normal mage on the Physical Plane...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I don't see the cause/effect here. Why does using a focus have anything to do with how many IPs he gets? The focus doesn't affect the number of IPs you get, having more IPs doesn't increase the concentration penalty. Not using a focus is no direct reason for the increase reflexes spell to only give you 1 bonus IP as opposed to 2 or 3 since a sustaining focus doesn't affect the number of IPs you can get in any form what-so-ever.

Well the Force of the Focus actually DOES come into Play... You can have no more applied hits than the Spells FOrce and the Focus must be equal (or more powerful) to the Force of teh Cast spell to sustain... No Sustaining a Force 4 Spell on a Focus of Force 3... barring using edge to bypass the cap of the Force Limits...

Keep the Faith

[Rystefn]

You only get into fights every 6-8 weeks in your game... wow... We sometimes have multiple fights in a session (and sometimes no fights in a session)... but statistically, we would probably be in that 2-3 fights/week or so If I took the time to lok at it... at which point, even I would take voluntary penalties to the roll for addiction, as I am obviously using the drug as a crutch... which was my point... the more you ise it, the worse it is going to be and YOU WILL become addicted eventually...

Hell, I have even just taken the Addictions from time to time (after play starts) because of this very thing...

Keep the Faith

Yeah, about every 6-8 weeks. See, I run with a team of pros, and being pros, we like to avoid being shot at, so we try to engineer runs to make this as unlikely as possible. It fails about as often as it succeeds (the game would be boring if things always went according to plan, right?), and sometimes there's just not a viable no-shooting plan we can come up with. More to the point, though... we don't mug little old ladies for a living. That's not a long-term business model that works. So we aren't exactly running out every couple of days for a couple hundred nuyen. Even when we first started, we wouldn't get out of bed for less than a few grand each. Not worth it. Better off spending your bp buying a permanent lifestyle and retiring out of the box before shot #1 is fired. Of course, if you're playing a poverty-stricken, street-level game, that would make more sense... but then it wouldn't make sense to be able to afford expensive mil-spec cyberware. Getting hooked on drugs is much more fitting to that brand of game, I think.

[Karoline]

Well the Force of the Focus actually DOES come into Play... You can have no more applied hits than the Spells FOrce and the Focus must be equal (or more powerful) to the Force of teh Cast spell to sustain... No Sustaining a Force 4 Spell on a Focus of Force 3... barring using edge to bypass the cap of the Force Limits...

Keep the Faith

Right, true, but this was a question of using a sustaining focus at all. If you aren't using a sustaining focus at all, it really doesn't matter, as not having a sustaining focus doesn't prevent you from personally sustaining high force spells or anything.

He said that the character didn't have a sustaining focus and thus didn't use his increased reflexes spell. I did misread the post a bit though and thought he meant that the character was going through with only 1 extra IP, instead of not using the spell at all so as to only have 1 total IP. Basically the character had the means to trade a -2 penalty in exchange for +3 IP and decided not to do it for unknown reasons, and then complained that he didn't have any fun in combat because he didn't have enough IPs.

As I said before, this is basically like giving your character a gun, then complaining that you don't get to do anything in combat because you refuse to use your gun (And don't, you know, have the pacifism trait).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, about every 6-8 weeks. See, I run with a team of pros, and being pros, we like to avoid being shot at, so we try to engineer runs to make this as unlikely as possible. It fails about as often as it succeeds (the game would be boring if things always went according to plan, right?), and sometimes there's just not a viable no-shooting plan we can come up with. More to the point, though... we don't mug little old ladies for a living. That's not a long-term business model that works. So we aren't exactly running out every couple of days for a couple hundred nuyen. Even when we first started, we wouldn't get out of bed for less than a few grand each. Not worth it. Better off spending your bp buying a permanent lifestyle and retiring out of the box before shot #1 is fired. Of course, if you're playing a poverty-stricken, street-level game, that would make more sense... but then it wouldn't make sense to be able to afford expensive mil-spec cyberware. Getting hooked on drugs is much more fitting to that brand of game, I think.

We too play a Ice Cold Professional Style game... we to try to minimize the fallout of a run, and your right, it fails about half the time (maybe a little more)... but we also tend to have environmental situations that have to be ocassionally dealt with... We do not "get out of bed" for less than several thousands each either (generally around the 5,000 Nuyen/Operative Minimum)... we do not "Mug Old Ladies" or Knock over Stuffer Shacks or any of that silly nonsense... Even when we first started... we are highly trained and highly professional shadow assets, with half of the characters well over 200 points (The Mage is at about 250, I, The Hacker, am at 250, and the Jack of all trades is close to 300 or so), and the other half approaching 200 points (2 Street Sams and a Technomancer)... unfortunately, we have been pursuing the elusive "Big Score" for over a year in game and we have made a LOT of enemies... and they do tend to show up at the most inconvenient of times, let me tell you...

Yes, in a street level game (played one in 3rd for a while) no-one had the expensive mil-spec anything, and the character I played was a druggie ganger, took a while to kick the habit, but I finally did, and my awakening (Physad) compensated for the drugs, once I was clean... becasue as you say, in that style of game it made a lot of sense

Anyways... Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Right, true, but this was a question of using a sustaining focus at all. If you aren't using a sustaining focus at all, it really doesn't matter, as not having a sustaining focus doesn't prevent you from personally sustaining high force spells or anything.

He said that the character didn't have a sustaining focus and thus didn't use his increased reflexes spell. I did misread the post a bit though and thought he meant that the character was going through with only 1 extra IP, instead of not using the spell at all so as to only have 1 total IP. Basically the character had the means to trade a -2 penalty in exchange for +3 IP and decided not to do it for unknown reasons, and then complained that he didn't have any fun in combat because he didn't have enough IPs.

As I said before, this is basically like giving your character a gun, then complaining that you don't get to do anything in combat because you refuse to use your gun (And don't, you know, have the pacifism trait).

Good Point...

Keep the Faith

[Rystefn]

but we also tend to have environmental situations that have to be ocassionally dealt with...

So... you send a lot of time shooting at the environment? Although I must say, I find a lot of humor in the idea of a drugged-out runner freaking out and taking shots at the world around him every couple of days, that character shouldn't expect a long and glorious career in shadowrunning. He should expect a sudden and early demise.

Seriously, though... Your GM has people show up and try to kill you every couple of days? That's pretty extreme. Have you tried... you know, laying low?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So... you send a lot of time shooting at the environment? Although I must say, I find a lot of humor in the idea of a drugged-out runner freaking out and taking shots at the world around him every couple of days, that character shouldn't expect a long and glorious career in shadowrunning. He should expect a sudden and early demise.

Seriously, though... Your GM has people show up and try to kill you every couple of days? That's pretty extreme. Have you tried... you know, laying low?

By environmental, I refer to such things as gang/yakuza/vory/triad interaction that is required whether you are hiding out or researching information/following leads to track down people/places/things/etc....

We continuously pursue the "Big Score" that we are working on, sometimes we can actually go a week or two without shots being fired, and then sometimes we have to deal with a running fight that takes us through some facility and through major parts of a section of a town... we do indeed lay low, and we even frequently pursue leads outside of our base of operations (Hong Kong)... we have had an assassination team from Mitsuhama show up once, we have had a street gang attempt to take out a character because he was "on the wrong side of town", reputation notwithstanding (it was a face thing don't you know) and there are times we do not fire a shot and still have combat (unarmed subduals, etc)... point being, the action happens when the action happens... if you are popping that drug whenever it happens, you are eventually going to acquire that addiction... and then you will start that spiral, unless you can get out from under it...

So, in answer to your question... no they do not try to kill us every couple of days... but we are active enough that, well, action happens... whether it is a chase scene, a shootout, silently taking a few guards, avoiding the Corporate hit team sent after you, avoiding the HRT teams, whatever... we use runs (we can essentially set up our own, as we have the reputation to do so) to finance the pursuit of the "Big Score"... and when you need access to a lot highly secured areas/sensitive information, and have opposing teams going after the same information (putting us on a form of time constraint; though when raiding an Ultra-high Security Zero Zone, where one little misstep can get you very, very dead, you really want to make sure that you have all that you really need to complete the actual mission, so time constraints are a little more flexible), you tend to have a lot of action... it has been an exciting 14 months (or so)...

And hell, some of our sessions cover only a single night or two... while others span 3-4 weeks...

Keep the Faith

[Dikotana]

The street scum, startup desperate runners, and other shadow misfits might turn to drugs. They also have a bad habit of ending up dead quickly.

The professionals are very much into minimizing their chances of dying and maximizing their profits, probably in that order. Drugs are cheap. Developing a habit is no longer cheap, and while addiction is bad news, screwing up your drugs for a run is worse news. When you come off a Cram high mid-run, or end up in a surprise firefight without your chemical crutches handy, you're likely to end up dead. The savvy runner expects that a run will run hours over schedule at least once, and someone with a grudge and a gun will pop up sometime.

Wiring yourself up is expensive, but dying because you're a cheap bastard means you can't enjoy the nuyen you saved. Good runners get the wires. They're a better long-term investment. Desperate gangers? They do whatever they can not to die today. Tomorrow can be dealt with if they're not dead tonight.

[EuroShadow]

Mystic Adept is not a astral target. (Unless he has astral perception on.)

An Astral target is: any dual critters/npc's, spirits and watchers, astral projecting magicians, astral perceiving magicians and adepts, wards and (people will still argue that and yes in 4th edition it doesn't seem to be the case anymore) spells and active foci.

So as long as you don't say: "Hey let me just do a quick lookie into the astral" you are safe. But if you say: let me use my astral sight, there might be something hovering above you, just waiting for you to become active so he can powerbolt you into a coma.

Doublethanks for the explanation!

I had missed this info and it seemed to me that mage can attack creatures through direct spells while manifesting. I created a bit of terror (because they couldn't do anything about it) in my group (who has no magic) when manifesting security mage came and gave a bit of pain to them.

So is there anything that security mage can do (while manifesting) if facility is being attacked? Besides scouting and informing.