[X] My Assistant

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Well, point taken, but if your reason to change the fluff is just because the latest edition turned the mages extremely superior mechanically when the older editions did not, it's just better to fix it than change the entire timeline.

Well, my reason isn't just limited to that: I believe that in fact most systems can't balance magic with not-magic, because once one group of people can change reality to their liking, then the other part will undoubtedly be disadvantaged.

Now SR would be particularly easy to balance in that respect. Of course it could also be balanced differently: By simply going the D&D 4E route, namely using the same mechanic for everything, and not giving a bonus to some. But that still doesn't change the obvious advantage of someone using, say, invisibility, over someone not using it. The trouble is with spells that so many have a binary result mechanic, and remove the opposed roll (or at least the meaningful opposed roll) that balances the game for all the other areas.

Hence, if everyone awakens, I have a perfectly good reason to have arbitrary Joe Average security guards switch to astral perception and blast the sneaking mage. OR the Mage should simply use Infiltration while Invisible, as the rest of the world. Now, actually that is a bad example, because until they get high initiate degrees, mages are actually the worst group of characters at infiltrating, unless they get inventive, but...

Anyway, actually I would LIKE a world like that. It could quite possibly be more interesting and fun than a world where mages get to bitch once the GM counters them with other mages, because magic is supposed to be so RARE. In our last game session I finally managed to give our mage a taste of his own medicine, and stun-bolted him after he noticed that all his P buff spells didn't work while astrally projecting. He wasn't too happy about that, even though the opposing mage probably had half his DPs in all areas... he just managed to win initiative using good old GM-dice ™ (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . (No, not cheating, it's just that probability works differently once you are the GM.)

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Again, if everyone is Awakened, than no one is "special" and being Awakened is one of the many "us vs them" xenophobic philosophy native to Shadowrun.
The older editions didn't have that much of a problem, so I would say that the problem occured just now, because while the caster throws Magic + spellcasting + miscellaneous boni to hit someone with a direct spell, the target just throws willpower OR body plus bonus from magic resistance. It could be easier just say that counterspelling can be learned by anyone but if you are not Awaken, you can just use to counter spells targeted directly against you. And indirect spells, like fireball, are resistest by the old dodge + reaction without counterspell because the mage is inflaming the air around you and not you.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Again, if everyone is Awakened, than no one is "special" and being Awakened is one of the many "us vs them" xenophobic philosophy native to Shadowrun.

None of which are essential to the game, or at least in my opinion. Why should anyone be special, other than by raw ability? Or rather, why would anyone need to be special in a potential revised 5th edition of SR, when you've already HAD all that in previous games? What you haven't had is a world where everyone is magical, hence, something actually NEW to a game. A new aspect GMs can worry about and work into their game worlds.

The older editions didn't have that much of a problem, so I would say that the problem occured just now, because while the caster throws Magic + spellcasting + miscellaneous boni to hit someone with a direct spell, the target just throws willpower OR body plus bonus from magic resistance.

Ummm... in SR3, it was actually every bit as bad, if not worse, because you had Gaesa to actually reduce or negate magic loss. SR3 also didn't have manatech to randomly screw with a mage. Also, in order to counter-spell you had to reserve dice off your spellcasting roll, and you couldn't do it for everyone. Of course, the DP difference wasn't always that bad: a mage threw sorcery + pool dice, and the target resisted with WP or Int (for illusions).

It could be easier just say that counterspelling can be learned by anyone but if you are not Awaken, you can just use to counter spells targeted directly against you. And indirect spells, like fireball, are resistest by the old dodge + reaction without counterspell because the mage is inflaming the air around you and not you.

That's one way of solving the problem. The other way would be to unify the mechanic. (Give people magical full defense, make cyber or bioware to increase willpower, etc.)

[Ascalaphus]

I was also thinking that making magic resistance more available to mundanes would do a lot to reduce the MagicRun problem/complaint.

Making the default resistance roll a Body+Willpower roll for example, in which mages are allowed to substitute Counterspelling for Body or Willpower if it's higher than one of those.

Or, introduce anti-magic implants/drugs. For example, implants which introduce a Mana Ebb of rating 1-4 or so purely on/inside their wearer. This means that mages won't want to use them, but for a Sam they're pretty effective, at the price of not receiving magical healing.

[Traul]

Or make spell resitance a proper 2 stat dice pool like every other roll in the game. WIL+LOG against mana combat spells, WIL+CHA against mental manipulations, WIL+BOD against physical combat and health spells, LOG+INT against illusions, WIL+INT against detection,...

[Ascalaphus]

Or make spell resitance a proper 2 stat dice pool like every other roll in the game. WIL+LOG against mana combat spells, WIL+CHA against mental manipulations, WIL+BOD against physical combat and health spells, LOG+INT against illusions,...

That's an interesting idea. If different stats protect against different styles of magic, that's good for diverse mages*, rather than the current bias in favor of mages who put all specializations, mentors, foci etc. in one category.

* Because they can try to hit a weaker defense.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

None of which are essential to the game, or at least in my opinion. Why should anyone be special, other than by raw ability? Or rather, why would anyone need to be special in a potential revised 5th edition of SR, when you've already HAD all that in previous games? What you haven't had is a world where everyone is magical, hence, something actually NEW to a game. A new aspect GMs can worry about and work into their game worlds.

Humanis, Night of Fury, SURGE, UGE, Goblinization, the Tirs, Aden razing Tehran because the Ayatollah decreed a Jihad against the Awakened? All these things make it quite clear that xenophoby is essential to the game.
And now you are talking about a new edition of the game, not a reboot. If I recall correctly, every PLAYER CHARACTER of Earthdawn was Awaken (being a Magician, Adept or Mystical Adept) because you needed that edge to survive the game, but most people were still mundane. In Shadowrun, wares, theoretically leveled the game.

Ummm... in SR3, it was actually every bit as bad, if not worse, because you had Gaesa to actually reduce or negate magic loss. SR3 also didn't have manatech to randomly screw with a mage. Also, in order to counter-spell you had to reserve dice off your spellcasting roll, and you couldn't do it for everyone. Of course, the DP difference wasn't always that bad: a mage threw sorcery + pool dice, and the target resisted with WP or Int (for illusions).

To be honest, I didn't play 3rd edition, just the 1st and 2nd edition, and I vaguely recall that the TN for the dice was the target's willpower. I don't remember if Essence did anything else for direct spells or if it was just healing, but now that we are talkiing, we use the same rules for healing when using any direct spells against cybered people.

[Draco18s]

I'm a little surprised, nobody posted this link yet...
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52446

Two things:
1) your actual link hasn't been changed here yet. so I still had to fix it manually
2) the reason no one has posted it before is because it's FrankTrollman. If anyone on Dumpshock can be accused of being a troll, it was Frank. Occasionally he has good ideas, but frequently he overdoes them. In this case, he's talking about writing new IP, while we are not. New IP is all well and good, but some of us like the existing IP.

That's an interesting idea. If different stats protect against different styles of magic, that's good for diverse mages*, rather than the current bias in favor of mages who put all specializations, mentors, foci etc. in one category.

* Because they can try to hit a weaker defense.

This is good. A specialized mage is really really good at what he does, but on occasion finds Hard Targets, whereas the diverse mage isn't so highly specialized, but never runs into a target he can't hurt one way or another.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I was also thinking that making magic resistance more available to mundanes would do a lot to reduce the MagicRun problem/complaint.

Making the default resistance roll a Body+Willpower roll for example, in which mages are allowed to substitute Counterspelling for Body or Willpower if it's higher than one of those.

Or, introduce anti-magic implants/drugs. For example, implants which introduce a Mana Ebb of rating 1-4 or so purely on/inside their wearer. This means that mages won't want to use them, but for a Sam they're pretty effective, at the price of not receiving magical healing.

That's an interesting idea. If different stats protect against different styles of magic, that's good for diverse mages*, rather than the current bias in favor of mages who put all specializations, mentors, foci etc. in one category.

* Because they can try to hit a weaker defense.

These are all good ideas. I believe what Magic is missing most, though, is a damage resistance roll for direct spells.

Humanis, Night of Fury, SURGE, UGE, Goblinization, the Tirs, Aden razing Tehran because the Ayatollah decreed a Jihad against the Awakened? All these things make it quite clear that xenophoby is essential to the game.

We can simply put in new xenophobia. Why does magic still have to be special?

And now you are talking about a new edition of the game, not a reboot. If I recall correctly, every PLAYER CHARACTER of Earthdawn was Awaken (being a Magician, Adept or Mystical Adept) because you needed that edge to survive the game, but most people were still mundane. In Shadowrun, wares, theoretically leveled the game.

A reboot will hardly work without a new edition, right?

I've only played Eathdrawn for the briefest time. It did seem like the way the abilities were organised seemed sort of like magic and adepts in SR. So, yeah, everyone relevant was "awakened", even though it wasn't called that.

To be honest, I didn't play 3rd edition, just the 1st and 2nd edition, and I vaguely recall that the TN for the dice was the target's willpower. I don't remember if Essence did anything else for direct spells or if it was just healing, but now that we are talkiing, we use the same rules for healing when using any direct spells against cybered people.

The TN was often the target's willpower, so... yes, sometimes magic wasn't the answer. The problems don't translate 1:1, but it was definitely a fact that magic had an edge that could hardly be overcome by mundanes.

Anyway, just for kicks and giggles, I could present some insta-fluff why everyone in the world ends up as awakened:

In 2085, the dragon court decided to take definite steps against an imminent horror invasion. A united force of dragons began something akin to the GGD - minus the self-sacrifice, or so they thought. However, what the Horror's had really been after was the Dragon's fate-changing powers, and where the Dragons had thought they were safe, guess what, they weren't. The entire dragon court exploded in one big ball of mana, taking every GD in the world with them. The mana flooded both the physical and the metaplanes, wiping out a lot of meta-planar existance, AND the horrors, in one fell swoop.
However, on the physical plane, things ended up differently. Instead of affecting the world adversely, the mana was focused through each living aura, transforming the entirety of the world's population into magical beings.

Obviously this didn't go without side-effects: Previously harmless animals suddenly became capable of ridiculous things. The seas - already infested with strange monstrosities - became a very unsafe place to be. Global trade diminished as shipping routes became unsafe. The wilderness became an even wilder place. (meta)Humanity huddled up in even more condensed cities to avoid the influx of unleashed paracritters - all the while finding new ways to use their newfound abilities, usually for destructive purposes.

Game effects: Removes GDs, horrors and the like. We don't need over-evils, there are enough normal evils around.
Give everyone a magic stat equal to their body, or 6, if their body is larger, for free (yes, even technos), and either the adept, mystic adept or mage qualities. Define a few magical effects that can be instinctively utilised, and give them to non-intelligent beings. Life's a whole lot more fun if that rat could mana-bolt you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) .
Etc. and season to taste.

[CanRay]

*Double-taps the icon on my chest* Reboot!

...

...

...

What???

[Stahlseele]

Ye gods but that series was awfull . .

[Korwin]

Two things:
1) your actual link hasn't been changed here yet. so I still had to fix it manually

four posts under the post you quoted is the correct link.

2) the reason no one has posted it before is because it's FrankTrollman. If anyone on Dumpshock can be accused of being a troll, it was Frank. Occasionally he has good ideas, but frequently he overdoes them.

Let's disagree on how often he has good ideas.

In this case, he's talking about writing new IP, while we are not. New IP is all well and good, but some of us like the existing IP.

Well I have hopes of his work getting to print, because of the stripped IP.
But thats beside the point. IMHO you could still port some of his ideas back to your Rebooted Shadowrun. (If you stripped his IP out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

[suoq]

One thing I haven't figured out is why there aren't any Void cities, or if there are, I missed them. I really wish 6th world almanac or something had a map of the earth with a guide to background count.

[CanRay]

Ye gods but that series was awfull . .

You can blame BS&P for that one. The rules and regs that had to be followed changes so many of the shows from awesome to, "Oh dear god!"...

[KCKitsune]

The one thing that should be done in any reboot is to cap a mage's progress. I mean a Mage can endlessly advance. That should be curb stomped brutally. I always thought that a mage should not be able to Initiate more times that the integer of their Essence. And if you lose more than 5 points of Essence... congrats you're a Burnout.

To balance that though, I would not have the Essence drain of Vampires or Ghouls being permanent. It is something that can be healed with that VERY expensive treatment. 'Ware on the other hand... that Essence drain is permanent because of game balance.

[Jazz]

There's something, I think, that could revamp the adepts.

The ability to redistribute their powers, with something like for 1 pts of power redistribution, 1 hour of meditation.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

We can simply put in new xenophobia. Why does magic still have to be special?

I'm just saying that when 1% of the population is Awakened, you can have xenophoby because they are special. The same way you can do this to Technomancers, Elves, Orks, Trolls, Ghouls, etc.

A reboot will hardly work without a new edition, right?

Touché!

Anyway, just for kicks and giggles, I could present some insta-fluff why everyone in the world ends up as awakened:

In 2085, the dragon court decided to take definite steps against an imminent horror invasion. A united force of dragons began something akin to the GGD - minus the self-sacrifice, or so they thought. However, what the Horror's had really been after was the Dragon's fate-changing powers, and where the Dragons had thought they were safe, guess what, they weren't. The entire dragon court exploded in one big ball of mana, taking every GD in the world with them. The mana flooded both the physical and the metaplanes, wiping out a lot of meta-planar existance, AND the horrors, in one fell swoop.
However, on the physical plane, things ended up differently. Instead of affecting the world adversely, the mana was focused through each living aura, transforming the entirety of the world's population into magical beings.

Obviously this didn't go without side-effects: Previously harmless animals suddenly became capable of ridiculous things. The seas - already infested with strange monstrosities - became a very unsafe place to be. Global trade diminished as shipping routes became unsafe. The wilderness became an even wilder place. (meta)Humanity huddled up in even more condensed cities to avoid the influx of unleashed paracritters - all the while finding new ways to use their newfound abilities, usually for destructive purposes.

Game effects: Removes GDs, horrors and the like. We don't need over-evils, there are enough normal evils around.
Give everyone a magic stat equal to their body, or 6, if their body is larger, for free (yes, even technos), and either the adept, mystic adept or mage qualities. Define a few magical effects that can be instinctively utilised, and give them to non-intelligent beings. Life's a whole lot more fun if that rat could mana-bolt you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) .
Etc. and season to taste.

It doesn't seem like Shadowrun to me anymore and more like Aeon Flux (or that awful movie Priest).
Anyway, we both have made our points and won't budge, all I know is that I wouldn't play the setting you presented.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

There's something, I think, that could revamp the adepts.

The ability to redistribute their powers, with something like for 1 pts of power redistribution, 1 hour of meditation.

It would make them extremely overpowered swiss-knives.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't think adepts need to be overhauled completely. Some powers need to be adjusted a bit for cost/power ratio, and some awkward mechanics straightened out. But the basic premise of adepts is simple and sound.

[Jazz]

It would make them extremely overpowered swiss-knives.

- Why "extremly powerfull" ? Can't augs change their implants beside being more effective than adepts at creation ? I didn't gave the exact power I was thinking of.
- "Swiss-knives" : that's the idea.

I was thinking of something among that :

ADEPT MEDITATION
Cost : 0

All the adept powers' costs are doubled.

The adept can remove some of his powers and get back the power points from them, by meditating at least 1/4 hour per 1/4 power point cost. Then he can give him a new power by sleeping at least half a hour per half used power point.
If the meditation is disturbed, the adept have to restart the meditation from the begining, still having his original powers.
If the sleep is disturbed, the adept have to restart the sleeping from the begining, and having no powers.

The adept can't remove "Adept meditation" with that power and can afford to use that power [Body] times per week.

I don't think adepts need to be overhauled completely. Some powers need to be adjusted a bit for cost/power ratio, and some awkward mechanics straightened out. But the basic premise of adepts is simple and sound.

Me too, not that much in term of pure power. Some have to be merged and they just need (a lot) more flexibility. The idea is if they are to be less powerfull than augs, they should have a great flexibility.

And proper mentor spirits.

[Draco18s]

ADEPT MEDITATION
Cost : 0

All the adept powers' costs are doubled.

Wait, what is this supposed to be good for?

[KCKitsune]

Wait, what is this supposed to be good for?

I think it is suppose to be that the Adept could use different powers based on the situation he finds himself in. I know that I would not use it because an Adept should have a theme for his abilities.

[Draco18s]

I think it is suppose to be that the Adept could use different powers based on the situation he finds himself in. I know that I would not use it because an Adept should have a theme for his abilities.

The reason I don't see it as actually being "useful" is that the adept powers cost increases by double. You get half as many powers but can swap out each morning? So useless.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

- Why "extremly powerfull" ? Can't augs change their implants beside being more effective than adepts at creation ? I didn't gave the exact power I was thinking of.
- "Swiss-knives" : that's the idea.

Simple.
Runner A: "Hey guys, we need to meet the Johnson for the job this afternoon."
Adept: "Ok, I'll meditate a little bit to become extremely convincing."

After meditating the Magic 6 Adept gets Cool Resolve 6 (1.5); Kinesics 3 (1.5); Astral Perception, just in case (1), Improved Ability: Negotiation 3 (0.75); Improved Ability: Con 3 (0.75) and 0.5 points with whatever.

Later, after the meeting where the Adept convinced the Johnson to give all his money and bearer bonds, they decide to take a look at the place they are going to break in.

The adept meditates again and chooses the following powers:
Enhanced Perception 4 (1), Great Leap 6 (1.5), Cloak 6 (1.5), Traceless Walk (1) and Wall Running (1).

Even later on, after investigating the place and getting ready for the fight, the adept meditates and get the following powers:

Critical Strike 6 (1.5), Atribute Boost: Agility 1 (0.25), Atribute Boost: Body 1 (0.25), Atribute Boost: Strength 1 (0.25), Improved Reflexes 2 (2.5), Penetrating Strike 3 (0.75) and Killing Hands (0.5).

Now, tell me where any cybered character could do the same thing?

I was thinking of something among that :

ADEPT MEDITATION
Cost : 0

All the adept powers' costs are doubled.

The adept can remove some of his powers and get back the power points from them, by meditating at least 1/4 hour per 1/4 power point cost. Then he can give him a new power by sleeping at least half a hour per half used power point.
If the meditation is disturbed, the adept have to restart the meditation from the begining, still having his original powers.
If the sleep is disturbed, the adept have to restart the sleeping from the begining, and having no powers.

The adept can't remove "Adept meditation" with that power and can afford to use that power [Body] times per week.

This makes the adept from extremely powerful swiss-knives to extremely terribly unpowerful swiss-knives.

[Critias]

Note that, for an adept wishing to be useful at multiple things (at different times), look into the Infusion metamagic. It's a pretty handy way to alter your powers for a scene at a time, a combat at a time, etc.