Broken Rules., Or where RAW just fails. Options

[James McMurray]

And last but not least, airburst is pretty dang good, but the reduction to 1d6 scatter was an error and has been changed to 2d6.

Where was this?

[longbowrocks]

In the SR4A core book, page 322 for either pre or post errata.

[longbowrocks]

or here in the scatter table.
http://www.shadowrun4.com/wp-content/uploa...R4A_changes.pdf

[Ascalaphus]

I guess Hazing is a NQ of the "rope to hang yourself with" kind.
- You screw over awakened PCs in the group.
- Attract a lot of negative attention from anyone Awakened - and they tend to have friends with guns.
- Sirens go off whenever you get near a Ward.
- NPC mages start giving orders like "Geek the Haze first!"
- Stay anywhere for too long and pro-Awakened people want to form a lynch mob to get rid of you, because you mess up the neighborhood manasphere.

Altogether I think it's one of the more interesting qualities they've come up with.

[longbowrocks]

I guess Hazing is a NQ of the "rope to hang yourself with" kind.
- You screw over awakened PCs in the group.
- Attract a lot of negative attention from anyone Awakened - and they tend to have friends with guns.
- Sirens go off whenever you get near a Ward.
- NPC mages start giving orders like "Geek the Haze first!"
- Stay anywhere for too long and pro-Awakened people want to form a lynch mob to get rid of you, because you mess up the neighborhood manasphere.

Altogether I think it's one of the more interesting qualities they've come up with.

Except for the first one, those all seem to involve me killing mages. Hell yes.
Might not work out too well with my stealth character though.

[Ascalaphus]

Astral hazing basically means you can't sneak around magic - you set off all the alarms. And any powerful mage will have mundane allies/bodyguards/employers to deal with you.

I guess you're spoiling for a fight, but in general it's good for a shadowrunner to be inconspicuous.

[longbowrocks]

I see. I'll keep that in mind.
In terms of purely destroying mages though, it might be a nice thing to take with arcane arrester. That would be amazing.
Now I want to see if I can get our GM to house rule that arcane arrester is applied before BC. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

... yes. I said at the very beginning, it's good for a specialized anti-mage. If you actually want to play that, there you go.

[longbowrocks]

The core book has this to say about the magician quality:

Though this quality is inexpensive, gamemasters should be careful
not to allow it to be abused. It should only be taken for characters that
are intended to be played as magicians.

May I just say that I don't think I would take the magician quality to be a technomancer, or more accurately, someone who isn't a mage?
It is quite literally impossible to abuse this quality if you don't use the magic it grants you (that is to say "play your character as a magician").

"a person who practises magic" <-> mage <-> magician

In other words, was it really necessary to devote an entire paragraph to something that can never happen?

[Sephiroth]

The core book has this to say about the magician quality:

May I just say that I don't think I would take the magician quality to be a technomancer, or more accurately, someone who isn't a mage?
It is quite literally impossible to abuse this quality if you don't use the magic it grants you (that is to say "play your character as a magician").

"a person who practises magic" <-> mage <-> magician

In other words, was it really necessary to devote an entire paragraph to something that can never happen?

Yes. I think you're missing the point. The paragraph is not talking about semantics and definitions of a "magician." It is advising that one should only take the magician quality if the player is serious about a magician-based character concept - NOT if they only want to take the quality to powergame.

[longbowrocks]

So, they're basically saying that if a powergamer took the magician quality, he'd be able to do way too much with it, and end up making the mundane characters feel worthless?

[James McMurray]

So, they're basically saying that if a powergamer took the magician quality, he'd be able to do way too much with it, and end up making the mundane characters feel worthless?

Not in anywhere near as hyperbolic a sense as that, but kinda. They're saying that the quality might be abusable and that it's intended only for people who want to play an actual magician. There doesn't have to be a risk of emasculating the other players for something to be too powerful in certain circumstances.

[Yerameyahu]

It's a roleplaying issue, which means you should probably just ignore it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Seriously though, it only means 'don't let everyone grab it just in case, or for one spell, or just for Astral Sight'. I mean, wouldn't you pay 15 BP just for Astral Sight? (Maybe, it's kinda expensive.)

[longbowrocks]

It's a roleplaying issue, which means you should probably just ignore it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Seriously though, it only means 'don't let everyone grab it just in case, or for one spell, or just for Astral Sight'. I mean, wouldn't you pay 15 BP just for Astral Sight? (Maybe, it's kinda expensive.)

I wouldn't even pay 5 BP for Astral Sight (Street Magic, page 24). I would have to nurture my magic to even be able to use any 'ware. Not worth it IMO.

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah, but that version doesn't let you cast spells, or Project. Hehe.

[KarmaInferno]

Not in anywhere near as hyperbolic a sense as that, but kinda. They're saying that the quality might be abusable and that it's intended only for people who want to play an actual magician. There doesn't have to be a risk of emasculating the other players for something to be too powerful in certain circumstances.

As opposed to, say, someone who wants to play an "actual magician" that is also abusive and emasculates other characters?

Cos that's possible too.

Really, ANY game option might be abusable. The default rule before you even pick up a rulebook ought to be "don't be a dick". If you start with that attitude you shouldn't have that many problems with abuse of rules.

I've generally found an admonition to not abuse a particular rule to be kinda pointless anyhow. Those who wouldn't abuse it don't need the warning, and those who would abuse it won't pay attention to the warning.



-k

[James McMurray]

As opposed to, say, someone who wants to play an "actual magician" that is also abusive and emasculates other characters?

Cos that's possible too.

Really, ANY game option might be abusable. The default rule before you even pick up a rulebook ought to be "don't be a dick". If you start with that attitude you shouldn't have that many problems with abuse of rules.

I've generally found an admonition to not abuse a particular rule to be kinda pointless anyhow. Those who wouldn't abuse it don't need the warning, and those who would abuse it won't pay attention to the warning.

I don't disagree. I was just correcting a poorly worded attempt to explain what the admonishment meant that made it sound much more dire than it was.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't dispute that a mage can be good at certain party roles, and perhaps more so than a mundane person can. But I think it's unlikely he'll be good at all of them, so he won't be outshining the other characters in general.

[Yerameyahu]

I don't think anyone's arguing that. I specifically said that the mage can outshine at *any* role, not *all* (at once).

[KarmaInferno]

Nah, to outshine all of the other roles at once you need a SURGEd metavariant mystic adept.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)




-k

[Ascalaphus]

Yeah, so that's why I think it's not such a big problem that a mage can outshine *one* party role - that just means that the guy with that role in the party happens to be a mage.

So your Big Boom Guy is a mage instead of a Sam. That's okay for the Face, Hacker, Stealth Dude and so on - they still get to shine when it's their turn.

It's a problem when you have a big party and there's no unique niche for everyone, but you'd have that problem with or without magic anyway; the "we have five Fighters and they're all a lot alike, except Joe is cooler cuz he's got the highest Strength and a Sword Of Asskicking +5."

Good CharGen involves the players divvying up who'll be doing what in the team.

It can also get wonky if the mage-player uses more rule-savvy to make his mage than the other players use to make non-mages, which isn't unthinkable.

[Xahn Borealis]

One hopes the mage-player will use his rule-savvy to help the other players, then.

[Yerameyahu]

Ascalaphus, I got the threads mixed up. The other thread was specifically asking 'do awakened characters beat mundanes (with enough karma)?', so it *does* matter if they can do it at one role.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I wouldn't even pay 5 BP for Astral Sight (Street Magic, page 24). I would have to nurture my magic to even be able to use any 'ware. Not worth it IMO.

Astral Sight is worthless, you only have Magic 1 that can NEVER be raised. It means that as soon as you implant 0.01 of augmentation, you lose the Astral Sight.
Now, paying 15 points for using Astral Sight and the possibility of using counterspell is well worth it.

[longbowrocks]

I think I'd prefer to simulate astral sight with bone black makeup or FAB.
(cheap, and no essence cost)