Problem with the Magic Attribute Options

[Faelan]

I have been considering running a SR4A game for a while now, but I have concerns over the Magic system as the game progresses. The reason this is the case is because while Magic can increase without limit, every other attribute is restricted. Since you resist spells with a fixed attribute it strikes me that no matter what happens eventually the Magic characters are going to have a completely different level of ability when compared with unawakened characters. In some respects I don't have a huge problem with this since they do appear to be karma sinks, but at the same time I think it could get out of hand to the point where running the game would be a pain since some of the players could essentially become henchman due to completely differing levels of power. So I was wondering if anyone had tweaked the magic system to avoid this. I have been considering linking casting to one of the mental attributes based on the tradition of the caster, and using centering as a casting pool (sort of) allowing it to enhance the spell or resist drain, so while some powerful effects would be possible you would be paying with pain. Also Magic as an attribute would still be necessary since force would still be governed by it. Anyway I am looking for ideas, I want something that works, because as it stands I don't see how a long running game can survive, and since most of my games last a while, I don't want to get into something that will give me headaches down the road.

[Bigity]

You mean without a hard limit imposed by the rules? The natural limit is 6, and you as the GM control initiation, and can modify that as you see it's necessary.

I've had some issues with climbing Magic ratings in previous editions though, and there doesn't seem to be much you could do about it. You could hurt the mage, but then they'd just take a Geas, and if they didn't, they'd no longer be able to raise Magic again, ever. Since I'm just getting back into 4th edition and the last time I looked at Street Magic was when it first came out, I'm not current on ways to handle it now. Maybe just as the player to go easy on the cheese?

[Critias]

Remember that in order to improve the Magic attribute, Awakened characters have to Initiate to improve their maximum (which costs karma), then pay to actually increase their Magic (which costs karma). Also remember that improving their spellcasting, increasing their pertinent attributes, bonding with foci, and learning new spells -- to say nothing of improving at anything else at all, ever, this is only mentioning their directly "magical" stuff -- also all costs karma. While a mage is earning all that karma, teammates are also earning karma, and everyone involved is likely rolling in nuyen, to boot, so everyone else is getting better, also. I think you are worrying over something that's not terribly worth worrying over.

It takes a very long-running, karma heavy, campaign before this issue should genuinely matter. I think your best bet is to run a game and see if it becomes an issue, and if so look into tweaking/changing/otherwise controlling the magical players' ability to initiate (which is something a GM should do, anyways) if things get out of hand.

I'm personally of the opinion that a power differential between mages and everyone else does exist to some extent, and I'm not a fan of the skill/attribute cap in general...but this, the "hypothetical unlimited power" issue, is not why I have those opinions.

[fazzamar]

Remember that in order to improve the Magic attribute, Awakened characters have to Initiate to improve their maximum (which costs karma), then pay to actually increase their Magic (which costs karma).

To take his statement a step further, lets say you have a character with 6 magic at chargen. How many karma will he have to burn each magic increase? Lets see... (these all assume initiation w/ group AND ordeal every time)
6->7: 43 (Initiation: 8, Stat Increase:35)
7->8: 50 (Init: 10, Stat: 40)
8->9: 57 (Init: 12, Stat: 45)

So to get to Magic 9 that takes 150 karma, and if we set the, what I consider to be, average amount of karma earned per session to 4 and playing once a week we're talking 38 weeks to get to that IF the mage put every single point into getting their magic up, which would be surprising.

[Glyph]

The potentially unlimited potential of Magic is generally not going to affect the average game - it will only come up in high-powered games (where characters start out with more points), extremely long-running games, or for NPCs.

That said, I really dislike Magic being uncapped when everything else has caps. It breaks the overall feel and underlying mechanics of the game world for me. But it's easy enough to fix - give Magic a cap. Not necessarily a low one, but if a master marksman can only get so good after a lifetime of practice, why should a mage be any different?

I would suggest capping Magic at 9, with a similar cap to initiation, with Essence loss lowering both caps (so that getting a point of 'ware means you can get Magic of 8 and initiate grade of 8 ). To counterbalance this, use the optional rule that adepts can get power points in lieu of a metamagic with initiation, and allow awakened characters to ignore one point of background count per two levels of initiation, rounded up (so a 9th level initiate could ignore 5 points of background count). This should keep awakened characters from being game-breaking at the upper end, while still leaving them plenty of room to grow.

IEs and dragons would cap out higher, at 12, with great dragons able to reach 15, but even they should have some limits. They should be more powerful than a PC could ever hope to reach, but they should be survivors because they are cunning, work from behind the scenes, take precautions, and have a lot of resources to draw upon. NOT because they are ludicrous DBZ-level monstrosities that no-sell Thor shots. *Ahem* Just my humble opinion...

[Fringe]

I would suggest capping Magic at 9, with a similar cap to initiation, with Essence loss lowering both caps (so that getting a point of 'ware means you can get Magic of 8 and initiate grade of 8 ). To counterbalance this, use the optional rule that adepts can get power points in lieu of a metamagic with initiation, and allow awakened characters to ignore one point of background count per two levels of initiation, rounded up (so a 9th level initiate could ignore 5 points of background count). This should keep awakened characters from being game-breaking at the upper end, while still leaving them plenty of room to grow.

This might make sense. If you consider initiation to be a sort of magical "augmentation", then the augmented maximum would be 1.5 x the natural maximum.

I also like the idea of ignoring background count with enough initiation (as you say, 1 point per 2 grades seems okay, maybe even 1 for 1; adjust for taste).

[Tanegar]

What will you do about metamagics that interact with background count (Cleansing, Filtering, and Geomancy are the ones I can think of)? Why take Cleansing or Filtering (which let you ignore background count) if you can ignore background count by default? I think Critias has it: it's just not a problem unless you start with high-powered characters and/or your campaign runs into the multiple hundreds of karma. It ain't broke, so quit trying to fix it.

[Glyph]

If I adopted those house rules, I would get rid of the Filtering metamagic (the other two - cleaning up a background count, or aspecting it towards yourself - are still useful). As I said, for most games, it doesn't matter, but some people do run high-powered games, one-shots or otherwise. Plus, a reasonable cap on it gets rid of the overpowered Canon Sue crap with immortal elves and great dragons.

[James McMurray]

To take his statement a step further, lets say you have a character with 6 magic at chargen. How many karma will he have to burn each magic increase? Lets see... (these all assume initiation w/ group AND ordeal every time)
6->7: 43 (Initiation: 8, Stat Increase:35)
7->8: 50 (Init: 10, Stat: 40)
8->9: 57 (Init: 12, Stat: 45)

So to get to Magic 9 that takes 150 karma, and if we set the, what I consider to be, average amount of karma earned per session to 4 and playing once a week we're talking 38 weeks to get to that IF the mage put every single point into getting their magic up, which would be surprising.

You forgot the 5 karma you have to spend to join a group. There's also a Logic + Arcana check you'll need to make to join, which isn't necessarily a karma cost but is at least an opportunity cost unless you've got a lot of uses for the skill and stat.

However, with the new SR4A karma awards you should be getting more than 4 per week. 4 is closer to the minimum unless every run is low danger and has a single objective. But yeah, even if you're getting 10 a week that's still a of of play time before there's anything to worry about. And in the meantime the street samurai has been tossing 18+ dice to hit for 9P/-2 twice per pass.

Magic is powerful, but it's not like prior editions. It's beefy, but not overly so.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

This might make sense. If you consider initiation to be a sort of magical "augmentation", then the augmented maximum would be 1.5 x the natural maximum.

I also like the idea of ignoring background count with enough initiation (as you say, 1 point per 2 grades seems okay, maybe even 1 for 1; adjust for taste).

Except that the Natural Maximum will increase with Initiation Grades. Starts at 6, Each Initiation raises that Maximum by a Point. And nothing raises Magic through augmentation (Like Power Foci used to do in previous editions). Honestly, I have never seen Magic get so high it becomes an issue. I have seen a Grade 8 Initiate Adept with a Magic Rating of 11 once. He was not really over the top in any regard. Dice Pools in SR4A for that character were still below 20 for all of his actions.

Ignoring Background count with Initiation is counter to everything Shadowrun. That is why there are Metamagics to help compensate for it, but not just ignore it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Scyldemort]

I really do not see a problem with magic as written in S4. Sure, there's no theoretical upper limit, but as the DM, you control not just Initiation but also the rate of karma gain, period. A mage will advance exactly as quickly as you allow - no more, no less. It's Summoning that's the busted mechanic.

Related: don't allow a player to create a vampiric summoner of any kind. The ability to dump stolen Essence into Magic is stupidly broken. Much moreso if the PC in question is a summoner. A situation that gets even worse when they take Invoking as their first Metamagic and then pile on, say, two more initiation grades, taking Centering as one of the two others. "So I spend 6 stolen Essence to give myself +3 Magic for the next 12 hours... Then I summon a Force 16 Great Form Air Spirit. kthnx. Yay for Hurricane plus an effective Hardened Armor of 32." Even more lulzworthy when they heavily min/max their drain attributes. If they survive the casting, basically, they win, and will continue to win till they run out of services.

[kzt]

Overcasting is a much bigger problem. I don't see many magic 9 PCs, but I see a lot of PCs firing off F9 stunballs.

[Scyldemort]

Overcasting is a much bigger problem. I don't see many magic 9 PCs, but I see a lot of PCs firing off F9 stunballs.

I've been seriously considering the following house rule: if you overcast, you take drain BEFORE you roll the spellcasting test.

[Faelan]

Thanks for all the replies, they are proving helpful. The thing is I really do run long games, and well the examples of "that will never happen" always seems to happen in every game system I have run. Some are better designed and better able to handle the high end of the power scale. I have serious reservations about SR4A because a lot of the controls built into previous editions of SR have been removed by going to a static target number. A system with a static target number generally requires a higher degree of consistency to remain at least vaguely balanced. I worry because spells offer very powerful stackable defensive options which cyberware and bioware do not. Likewise all three lack in the offensive options. In previous editions this was ameliorated by the fact that any target number over 6 reduced the number of successes and well when you got to 12 it kept things in check, and well it did not matter how many dice you were going to be rolling. SR4A is definitely set up for a more dice = more successes, and when one characteristic in the game which can influence things as much as magic is given a completely free reign (yes I know GM control, well if it requires it, it is just not designed that well) it is a recipe for issues. I am just looking for options within the framework of the mechanics which would provide the kind of play I want to see supported at my table from the beginning to the very highest strata of the game.

[Scyldemort]

Every one of those stackable defensive options requires one of two things: that the mage take a cumulatuve -2 penalty to life per spell sustained, or that the mage spend karma - either quickening a spell, or bonding a focus (you can bond foci with BP as well, but eh). Note that quickened spells may be dispelled (the invested karma is outright LOST) and foci deactivated.

As far as things that require GM control - do you suppose that your cybernetic characters won't go nuts with more and more and better ware if you give them too much nuyen too quickly? Yes, there's still a hard cap on it even with optimal ware, but even so, things can get pretty silly if characters get too rich. Effectively, karma is to awakened characters as nuyen is to everyone else. ... And then, to add to all that, Mundane characters get karma, too.

Not to mention, awakened characters aren't the only ones with no upper limit on a relevant attribute: technomancers do the same thing with Resonance. And you can do stupid things with submersion grades. My personal favorite: skin link + living trodes plus extra init pass hand to hand expert with an essence point or two of cyber/bioware to enhance hand to hand combat. If he successfully touches his opponent, said opponent is in VR and hot-simming, where the technomancer's sprites are waiting. Even if the sprites (and possibly Black IC programs) don't kill said enemy, the moment the technomancer lets go, his enemy suffers dump shock.

Naturally, this guy knows krav maga. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

Don't forget that the crazy magic character can get augmentations, too. Probably more, because he has extra nuyen (if it's not all spent on foci).

I dunno if 'Technomancers are nearly as bad!' is a good argument that neither is imbalanced. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I dunno how he got within melee range, though.

[Critias]

SR4A is definitely set up for a more dice = more successes, and when one characteristic in the game which can influence things as much as magic is given a completely free reign (yes I know GM control, well if it requires it, it is just not designed that well) it is a recipe for issues.

I have to disagree with this sentiment. For edition after edition now, Shadowrun has been clearly stating that Initiation isn't supposed to just be a way to casually spend karma like someone else spends nuyen, and nonchalantly pick up overwhelming magical power. It's always supposed-to-have-been a GM approval thing, a major step in a character's advancement, and a big ol' hurdle to leap. It's not supposed to be something that's neatly all done between adventures and behind the scenes, as the player character swings by a McMage's and picks up an Initiate Grade Value Meal. They suggest whole adventures based around a mage trying to get himself up the next rung on the ladder, with major RP going on with magical groups, physical or astral ordeals and quests, and all sorts of stuff that the GM absolutely has control over.

That's all the "GM control" clause that you seem so disdainful of, and it's always been there.

[Scyldemort]

I have to disagree with this sentiment. For edition after edition now, Shadowrun has been clearly stating that Initiation isn't supposed to just be a way to casually spend karma like someone else spends nuyen, and nonchalantly pick up overwhelming magical power. It's always supposed-to-have-been a GM approval thing, a major step in a character's advancement, and a big ol' hurdle to leap. It's not supposed to be something that's neatly all done between adventures and behind the scenes, as the player character swings by a McMage's and picks up an Initiate Grade Value Meal. They suggest whole adventures based around a mage trying to get himself up the next rung on the ladder, with major RP going on with magical groups, physical or astral ordeals and quests, and all sorts of stuff that the GM absolutely has control over.

That's all the "GM control" clause that you seem so disdainful of, and it's always been there.

I agree 100%.

Don't forget that the crazy magic character can get augmentations, too. Probably more, because he has extra nuyen (if it's not all spent on foci).

True. This particular aspect annoys me a bit, actually. More for mages than for adepts or technomancers. I tend to want ware to negatively impact casting more than just the Essence loss, which is admittedly harsh in and of itself.

I dunno if 'Technomancers are nearly as bad!' is a good argument that neither is imbalanced. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I dunno how he got within melee range, though.

In this guy's case? He prefers to do it with a handshake, actually. "Pleased to meet you, sir, my name is... Sir? Are you all right? Sir?"

[Faelan]

Look, I am not a newb so please save the patronizing tone when it comes to GMing, I've been doing it for thirty years now, I asked for system advice, not how I should look at it, or how I should count entirely on my GMing ability to keep things going. I am fully aware of the limitations of magic, and the use of cyber and bioware, and yes I know Resonance could have the same issue, and I know that the game is perfectly playable as is. Yes I understand Initiation is a RP based control, but after the player jumps through the hoops you as the GM set up for him what then. Sorry no disdain here, but seriously when the GM is the only thing keeping a rule from breaking a game it deserves to be looked at. In previous editions controlling initiations was no where near as important due to the way the target numbers were set up. You hit a point of seriously diminishing returns, in SR4 that point never really occurs.

[Yerameyahu]

Psh, don't drag me into this. I was talking to Scyldemort. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Critias]

Look, I am not a newb so please save the patronizing tone when it comes to GMing, I've been doing it for thirty years now, I asked for system advice, not how I should look at it, or how I should count entirely on my GMing ability to keep things going.

Not for nothing, but does it feel silly to in one breath insist you've been GMing for so long you know all about how to do it, and in the next breath to remind people you're asking for system help? Honestly, it's a little grating for someone to have a thread with a question, and then snap at people when they try to help out. I genuinely wasn't out to be patronizing before, but the chip on my shoulder kind of comes back into play when someone starts a post to me with "look" like that.

As far as system help goes, what exactly are you worried is the problem? That Magic has no cap? That other attributes and skills do have caps? That the karma cost of raising attributes is too low? That the cost of initiating is too low? That karma rewards are too high? That spellcasting is innately more powerful/efficient than mundane activities? That the lack of a variable target number changes how power/efficiency can be measured?

These are all different issues, and each of them would require a different house rule suggestion. Take your pick, really, because in different ways each of them are valid complaints, issues, or concerns that I can totally understand a GM having. There are probably a dozen house rules for each one that have been suggested at various times, so in an effort to keep you from having to wade through all of those, I thought I'd remind you that the problem could potentially be nipped in the bud by (a) not worrying about it until/unless it becomes an issue, a couple hundred karma down the line, and (b) delaying the point at which it might become an issue even further, through further controlling the rate at which Initiation occurs.

Sorry if those suggestions were taken as snubs or slights, it wasn't my intent. It's just that, of the problems I'll readily admit that I feel SR4 has, this isn't one of them, because there are ways for a GM to mitigate and control it. I try to, personally, save my house rules for times I feel the house rule is absolutely necessary, and I also try not to suggest house rules to other people until I feel the same way.

[longbowrocks]

Why take Cleansing or Filtering (which let you ignore background count) if you can ignore background count by default?

Why have stick n' shock bullets when mages can do the same for free?
Why have skimmers when you can be a centaur?
Why have the spell "stoneskin" when a monk or fighter or dwarven defender or barbarian can get DR by default? (DnD, for anyone who hasn't done that one)

The answer is the same for all these questions: simpler and more accessible. initiating at all takes a while. Initiating to the degree these guys are talking about takes forever and then some.

[longbowrocks]

so that getting a point of 'ware means you can get Magic of 8 and initiate grade of 8

I keep telling myself I need to make a mage character in order to force myself to read the magic rules in depth, but I feel I've read enough to question this.
Wouldn't an initiation grade of 8 allow you to raise your magic up to 9 again? Then again, capping magic would necessitate some re-wording of the rules. Maybe this is one of those things.

[Epicedion]

You get diminishing returns on Magic pretty quickly, since it's very difficult to make a guy more dead. Once you get to the point where you can regularly manabolt someone for over 10P after resistance and can regularly get 6+ hits on every non-combat spell, what exactly are you spending karma on magic for?

[kzt]

Being able to do it in orbit? That's what the Ares bughunters do.