Heightened Concentration, How SHOULD it work? Options

[Karoline]

I'm not sure I follow. If each sustaining penalty is separate, that means HC negates one -2, right? It's true that the worst imbalance of a 'long term' HC reading is that you can ignore -6 of 'bundled' sustaining penalties by calling them a single penalty. Is that what you're addressing?

If not, then the balance (with Adept Centering) is still the problem.

Yep, that's what he is saying, which is what I suggested so that a mystic adept doesn't become their own three free sustaining foci of unlimited force. Basically for one power point you get a free sustaining foci of unlimited force, and can occasionally use it to knock out big penalties like firing blind.

I also agree with some of the other suggestions, such as you must be suffering the penalty in order to HC it. So if you are fighting, and suddenly drop into total darkness, you'll need to spend a complex action to negate the total darkness, and then when the total darkness goes away (For more than a turn or so) HC drops.

Besides, is this really that much more powerful than "Spirit of man, cast and sustain this spell on me for all eternity for one service."?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Besides, is this really that much more powerful than "Spirit of man, cast and sustain this spell on me for all eternity for one service."?

Whole Different Conversation there... and one that continuously crops up... I don't think that it has ever been resolved to anyone's satisfaction... I know where I fall on this one (If you want long term service such as that, bind the spirit to a long term service (1 Year and a Day), pay the karma, and there you go, otherwise, not going to happen in my games.)... Those who want eternal protection from a spirit would be generally unhappy with the Spirit's interpretation of that service at any table that I run...

Keep the Faith

[Nifft]

Alright, it seems like we've got a good grasp on what the power's intent was, and on its intended limitation. Let's move on to perceived abuses.

What are the abuses that people can see for it? It looks like it's easy enough to get a -6 situational dice penalty on purpose -- darkness w/o thermographic vision, long range w/o image magnification & no imaging scope -- but both of those are easily solved with some cheap cyber, or with some cheap gear + a Simple action.

The worst one I can think of is Psyche + Living Focus, but even that is only subject to abuse if your GM interprets the sustaining penalties of multiple spells to actually be a single modifier rather than a bunch of modifiers which stack.

What else is there that makes people perceive the power as strong, or even "broken"?

Thanks, -- N

[Yerameyahu]

… I think it's just that. Kind of a big deal.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

… I think it's just that. Kind of a big deal.

Not really... at least not in my book...

As for the Individual Penalty vs Independant Penalties for Sustaining... You take a -2 Penalty per Spell Sustained (so 3 spells is -6, not -2 + -2 + -2)... May be an interpretation, but really, not all that powerful in my mind... you cannot sustain while sleeping unless the spell is sustained by a focus, sustained by a spirit, bound by a spirit, or Quickened... so at best, that spell sustainment lasts for the time that you are awake... big deal... you can shove them off to a spirit just as easily... and there are other things that I would rather eliminate, like visibility mods... sure you can do so with tech, but the only tech that matters for a mage is cybernetic (you cannot cast through technologicall sensors that do not cost essence), and if you are implanting cybernetics, your magic suffers, so eliminating visibility mods is usually higher on my list than eliminating the sustaining penalties...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

I dunno about your book, but the fundamental point is that if 1pp HC lets you sustain 3 spells for free, it's unbalanced against Adept Centering, right?

[Ol' Scratch]

If the purpose was to allow an adept with Living Focus to sustain the spell without penalty, it should have been a power that did precisely that.

Concentrated Focus
Cost: .25 points per level (max 2 levels)

Each rank of this power lowers the -2 dice pool modifier for all actions by one point while sustaining a spell through the Living Focus power.

That would allow the adept to duplicate the effects of a universal (in that it's not limited to one category of spells) sustaining focus with a force equal to their Magic rating for only 1.5 power points. It only steps on the toes of Adept Centering slightly, making it a perfectly reasonable and balanced adept power. The interpretation of Heightened Concentration is neither reasonable nor balanced; it's grossly overpowered compared to its equivalent options.

[Ancient History]

I was just giving that out there as an example. As I said, I didn't write this particular power.

[Ol' Scratch]

I was just giving that out there as an example. As I said, I didn't write this particular power.

Well if the goal was to simply allow adepts to lower negative dice pool modifiers, no power at all was needed. Adept Centering already existed for that very purpose, and was already limited to adepts. Such a power would either need to be specifically targeted (as above) or greatly restricted (which it isn't, especially with the given interpretation).

[Nifft]

… I think it's just that. Kind of a big deal.

If that's the only situation in which the power is broken, then it's trivial to fix only that situation and leave the power alone.

Karoline's solution of tracking each sustained spell as a separate penalty fixes this situation just fine.

[Yerameyahu]

Right, that's what I said. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The result is a kind of redundant power, but oh well.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Right, that's what I said. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The result is a kind of redundant power, but oh well.

Not really, because it is still oh so useful for countering that -6 Blind Fire penalty that is out there... and various other penalties that can climb that high... can't break them all down into neat -2 bite size penalties...

I do not see it as a problem myself, but others think that it is a very big deal... your mileage will obviously vary...

Keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

*Kind of* redundant, not 'nearly worthless'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

*Kind of* redundant, not 'nearly worthless'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Sure... Gotcha... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
But if it is okay for the other penalties, why the beef with the sustaining Penalty?

Keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

Because who cares about visibility, or even VR penalties? The abuse potential isn't there, while a bunch of spells are a big deal.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Because who cares about visibility, or even VR penalties? The abuse potential isn't there, while a bunch of spells are a big deal.

See, I disagree here... if it is abusive for a -6 penalty to be ignored for Spell Sustaining, then it should be just as abusive as ignoring total blindness (-6) or Extreme Range Rifle Shots (-6), or Acting with full capacity while still in VR (-6)... it is a penalty that is reduced, and a fairly large penalty at that...

If the vast majority of penalties are no big deal, then the Sustaining Penalty shoud be so insignificant, that it is irrelevant... Already, you can pass off all sustained spells to spirits and suffer absolutely no penalties what so ever... because of this, I see no difference in ignoring the spell sustaining penalties en masse...

And really, since a full mage does not have this option, it is fairly isolated anyways... The Mystic Adept would get a minor benefit, but this adept ability is for the Physad primarily, who does not sustain spells unless he has the Living Focus Power, and then only for spells cast upon him... it does not work for any other spells...

So... it really is NOT as big of a deal as people are making it out to be... For the ability to sustain spells with Heightened Concentration, the Adept spends 2 points of magic, and the Mystic Adept spends 1 point of magic... this truly seems like an edge concern at best... and like I said, there are other penalties that are a hell of a lot more important to a Physical Adept than Spell Sustaining Penalties...

Anyways...

keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

I guess, but you should have SuperGoggles™, or Visual Magnification 3, and hell, you're *busy* when you're in VR. *shrug*

Besides, my position is that you're spend a Complex Action for a very temporary benefit (*one* of those rifle shots per Complex Action), so I really don't feel too strongly about it anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I guess, but you should have SuperGoggles™, or Visual Magnification 3, and hell, you're *busy* when you're in VR. *shrug*

Besides, my position is that you're spend a Complex Action for a very temporary benefit (*one* of those rifle shots per Complex Action), so I really don't feel too strongly about it anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sure, you can compensate for penalties in a large number of ways... and that is exactly my point, it is just ANOTHER way to compensate for more penalties... big deal...

Sure it could be very temporary, after all, some penalties are very short lived... but then again, maybe it won't be temporary... maybe you will be ignoring the Multiple Attackers penalty in a large combat (-4), or maybe you are going to ignore the penalties for climbing the Sears Tower (-4) which will take a while, or maybe you will be ignoring the extremem weather conditions that are imposed upon a survival test (-4) over the next week while you try to survive... Maybe you have lost your eyes, and you need to compensate for the loss until you can have a set regrown (-6)... the list can go on and on...

There are a large number of very high penalty modifiers that can often come into play... some of them will be very situational with a very short duration, while others may well last weeks... The investment in something Like Heightened Concentration amy well be the difference between having a penalty and not...especially for the more difficult ones to counter with technology...

Anyways...

Keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

But I'm still saying that you can't use it for half of your examples. An Extended Test is one thing, but 'until your eyes are regrown' is absurd.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

But I'm still saying that you can't use it for half of your examples. An Extended Test is one thing, but 'until your eyes are regrown' is absurd.

No it is just an extreme edge case... every morning, you activate the Ability, and would probably continue to do so through out the day (It does not work when you are asleep obviously, as you cannot perform tasks in your sleep), and even if you are in the Hospital, and do absolutely nothing else, you will not suffer the targeting penalty to not having eyes, though you may need to make a perception roll (I would at least force a perception roll (A relevant Task) in this case anyways, unless the character had the ability to perform Astral Perception, which would make that edge case moot anyways)... I know it is an edge example, but the point is that if you contend that the only reason you think it is broken is because of the ability to sustain multiple spells, well, nothing else should matter per your own admission earlier...

And you CAN use it for ALL of my examples (even if they are a bit ludicrous)... they are all examples of situational modifiers of one sort or another, and they are all MODIFIERS, which can be negated by the use of the ability... some are obviously more edge cases than others (The Eyes example being what I am refering to)... but since the ability can be applied to ANY MODIFIERS, for ANY TASK at hand, you must accept the ramifications of such an ability, if you accept the premise of the power... which you said you do with the exception of Sustaining penalties...

You cannot have it both ways, either the ability is extremely broken (all the way across the board, which I do not believe), or it isn't... it can't be broken for just a few penalties and not others... "It is okay to offset the -2's and -3's, but once you get to -6's then that becomes absurd."
That is absurd in and of itself in my opinion...

And like I said, you can have technological reduction of most, if not all, of the above mentioned penalties, though some are in the form of bonuses, which are an indirect reduction rather than a direct one...

Keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

No, the brokenness comes from saying it works all the time. If you're spending Complex Actions very often for the Blindness, that's totally *fine*. Some people are talking about it simply working… and working, and working. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You're right, the opinion you call absurd is; it's just not the one I'm expressing.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

No, the brokenness comes from saying it works all the time. If you're spending Complex Actions very often for the Blindness, that's totally *fine*. Some people are talking about it simply working… and working, and working. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You're right, the opinion you call absurd is; it's just not the one I'm expressing.

Gotcha...

My contention is that a Task can be very short lived (The Sniper removing the Range Penalties, or Armor Penalties), moderate duration (Climbing the Sears Tower), or very long (Trying to survive in the harsh arctic environment until help arrives; Just surviving, not doing anything else)... these are all examples of a Single "Task" that have variable durations...

Because a Task is not a defined interval of time, it causes people to look at it as a broken power, because you COULD conceivably have a Task that is never ending, but since you would, at a minimum, need to select the penalties to reduce each and every morning, I do not see it as all that big of a deal...

Everyone is different though...

Keep the Faith

[Falconer]

I strongly disagree with you Tymeaus. The ONLY thing which keeps mages from turning into absolute monsters is the inability to sustain large numbers of spells at once.

What are the options...
sustaining foci. Nice, but limit on force, and also focus addiction.

Spirit of Man. Great, you just summoned your one unbound spirit of man, who as his service has cast and sustained his innate spell power on you. You now lose that spell if you order that spirit to do anything else. (a service ends when a new one is ordered). You want more than one spell... I hope you have a lot of spirits bound ($$$)... in which case, that's the only service they're going to be providing, robbing the mage of one of his most potent assets (squad of spirits on demand).

Quickening: Yeah, yet another karma expenditure.. AND lots of drawbacks when it comes to simple stuff like passing through wards.

That drug which reduces the penalty from -2 to -1... not so much eliminating as reducing the penalty. Again addiction risk.

Mystic Adepts added bene's:
Adept centering... one requires a lot of initiate grades and the metamagic *AND* the use of your free action every round in combat. What does this mean... Running is a free action, he better like his walk speed! COMMUNICATING WITH TEAMMATES IS A FREE ACTION. Is the mage talking with the other players during a combat? There's a lot of things which are free actions. How... Are you giving the mage too many actions!!! Using the free action for adept centering... means you can't use the free action for other things like mage centering to reduce drain.

Concentration: Uh, just a mere 1PP adept power... then a complex action after which it lasts all day...


You don't see the complete and utter lack of drawbacks in there. If your mages are regularly casting and maintaining 3+ spells on them w/o penalty... then you're grossly overpowering them. This is also the reason I have issues w/ Muspellsheimr's special 'weaving' metamagic he's posted.

Have I as a player mage been known to rack up -10 sustaining penalties... yeah... but I'm not sustaining those spells on myself but on other players or spirits while I hide!

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I strongly disagree with you Tymeaus. The ONLY thing which keeps mages from turning into absolute monsters is the inability to sustain large numbers of spells at once.

What are the options...
sustaining foci. Nice, but limit on force, and also focus addiction.

Spirit of Man. Great, you just summoned your one unbound spirit of man, who as his service has cast and sustained his innate spell power on you. You now lose that spell if you order that spirit to do anything else. (a service ends when a new one is ordered). You want more than one spell... I hope you have a lot of spirits bound ($$$)... in which case, that's the only service they're going to be providing, robbing the mage of one of his most potent assets (squad of spirits on demand).

Quickening: Yeah, yet another karma expenditure.. AND lots of drawbacks when it comes to simple stuff like passing through wards.

That drug which reduces the penalty from -2 to -1... not so much eliminating as reducing the penalty. Again addiction risk.

Mystic Adepts added bene's:
Adept centering... one requires a lot of initiate grades and the metamagic *AND* the use of your free action every round in combat. What does this mean... Running is a free action, he better like his walk speed! COMMUNICATING WITH TEAMMATES IS A FREE ACTION. Is the mage talking with the other players during a combat? There's a lot of things which are free actions. How... Are you giving the mage too many actions!!! Using the free action for adept centering... means you can't use the free action for other things like mage centering to reduce drain.

Concentration: Uh, just a mere 1PP adept power... then a complex action after which it lasts all day...


You don't see the complete and utter lack of drawbacks in there. If your mages are regularly casting and maintaining 3+ spells on them w/o penalty... then you're grossly overpowering them. This is also the reason I have issues w/ Muspellsheimr's special 'weaving' metamagic he's posted.

Have I as a player mage been known to rack up -10 sustaining penalties... yeah... but I'm not sustaining those spells on myself but on other players or spirits while I hide!

I understand your concerns here Falconer, I really do, but We are not talking about large numbers of spells here... at max attribute (6) for a starting character, that is 3 spells, which he can do with spirits all day long if he likes, and even for days if he is particularly vicious about it... Also, there are long-Term Bound Spirits, which, if I remember correctly, do not count towards your number of bound spirits, as they have been paid for in karma for a Year and a Day... and Foci are readily available (though you do have to watch out for Focus addiction), but honestly, the average Shadowrunner spellcaster can have 3-4 sustaining foci and never have issues... And with Spellcasting dice pools able to reach the high teens pretty easily, the sustaining penalty for 3 spells is almost trivial to well constructed mages in the first place... so no, I do not see this significantly empowering Mystic Adepts in the end...

Summonned and bound spirits will BIND a spell until they no longer exist and all it costs is Money (and a fair contempt for spirits in general)...
AS said previously... Mages do not gain any nbenefit from the Adept Power, and Mystic Adepts gain some benefit, but at the cost of their spellcasting power... so again, not a big deal...

The Biggest benefit to this adept power is that it can apply to ANY negative modifiers... ANY AT ALL, and that is its true strength... like I said earlier, there are often penalties that a spellcaster needs to worry about more than his sustaining penalties, which will tend to take precedence over the penalties for spell sustainment. Almost every Mage I have seen played handles their spell sustaining already, and most do not tend to suffer much in the process, so I do not see this as that big of a deal... Mages ARE powerful, but not overly so, and they are pretty easy to keep in their place...

Anyways... an example of play... Our Mage has a Magic Rating of 6 and a Charisma of 5 (has been in play 2 years or so, and has 250 or so Karma; he is a Grade 5 initiate)... he regularly summons his allotment of spirits and binds them, including Great Form Spirits... he splits between Spirits of Man and spirits that will benefit him in his Spellcasting Catpgories... when he enters a fight, any sustained spells immediately end up on a spirtit for 4 or 5 TURNS per service... when, and if, he actually loses a spirit, he just replaces it later... he rarely is ever caught with his pants down, and is rarely ever hampered by Spell Sustaining Penalties (he is a Mage so he could not benefit from Heightened Concentration anyways)... but notice... he does not suffer penalties for spell sustainment, his spirits do it for him, and they are still useful in other roles as well... this is no different than Heightened Concentration in effect...

Heightened Concetration is just another way (in a plethora of ways) to manage Modifiers... nothing more... it is infinitely more useful than just as a Spell Sustaining Focus...

Anyways...

Keep the Faith

[Falconer]

Like visibility... well blind fire doesn't apply to spells.

My dwarf has no trouble w/ visibility... (he took the night vision quality in RC, so he has both darkvision and low-light naturally). No cyber involved. Even without that, if using astral perception... most common visibility penalties disappear.

I have no idea how you come up with 3-4 sustaining foci... magic 6 means max of 12 force in active foci unless you're bringing focus addiction into play. Lets be generous 1 power focus, and 2 force 4 sustaining foci (of individual schools). The spells cast into those foci are of very limited force... the foci themselves cost both money & karma. So it's nothing like the adept power (which offers effectively unlimited force, no money/karma cost... just a -1 dice magic... which is quickly offset by ignoring many other bigger penalties).

Another thing you don't stop and consider are those means are not mutually exclusive. You could use a sustaining focus, spirits, AND centering and have an absolute monstrous amount of buffing on you.



Also, something you just said doesn't compute... your mage shoves all his sustained spells off on *A* spirit... A spirit will sustain *1* spell (of the appropriate school) for Force combat turns for a single service. Just how many spells is he sustaining?! As per the FAQ clarification (which I really like)... a spirit will only provide 1 service at a time. He also must be really rolling in the dough to have a full stable of high force spirits bound.
(each spirit at say force 6 is $3000 in ritual materials, if he's edging services and gets 10 services per binding (this is actually a high estimate as it's effecitvely 24 vs 18 dice net hits), each bound service is 300+). Not only this.. if he has substantial sustaining penalty it applies to everything from perception and so on... ordering a spirit to do this for a service is a simple action for each spirit.

It sounds to me as if said mage is not having the rules enforced properly against him.


Also, abuse of spirits is something for the GM to monitor... if he's actually regularly getting his spirits killed (or draining them to power spells)... his spirits will start spending edge to resist him, or will start using 'wish wording' where the GM asks what he orders the spirit to do, because the spirit will do it in it's own way which he may not like.