Sacrifice + Regeneration, Vampire Bloodmage Options

[Achsin]

Rules question on the interaction between the Sacrifice Metamagic and the Regeneration power.

From Street magic we have:

...An initiate using Sacrifice can reduce the Drain of any magical skill test by drawing on the life energies of a “donor.” To do so, the initiate must inflict a physical wound on the willing or unwilling donor; for symbolic purposes, the damage must be inflicted with a melee weapon and must draw blood...

...The initiate first performs a normal melee attack using the appropriate melee weapon skill...

...For each box of Physical Damage inflicted on a sapient donor, the Drain in the subsequent action is reduced by 1...

...An initiate may use himself as a donor, drawing on his own life force to reduce the Drain of his spells. A blood magician can inflict any desired level of Physical damage on himself...

And from SR4 we have:

A critter with Regeneration rapidly heals any damage. At the end of a Combat Turn, make a Magic + Body Test. Each hit regenerates 1 point of Physical or Stun damage...

...Certain types of damage cannot be regenerated from this power. Damage to the brain or spinal cord (for example, from a called shot to the head) cannot be healed this way. Likewise, magical damage from weapon foci, combat spells, critter/adept powers, or other magic may not be healed through Regeneration...

By my reading of the metamagic, when using Sacrifice, the Bloodmage chooses a target and attacks with a melee weapon that is treated as a normal melee attack and must deal Physical Damage (draw blood).

So if I have the Regeneration power and choose to use myself as a donor (allows me to inflict any amount of damage I choose), since the damage is from a normal melee attack am I allowed to regenerate it using the regeneration power?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The damage taken from application of the Sacrifice Metamagic may he regenerated, but not the damage from the Drain itself, assuming you take any drain after the Sacrifice Metamagic.

[Umidori]

Only slightly related, but I've been taking a closer look into Infected lately (I'd previously written them off as more trouble than they're worth) and I had a thought.

For those infected with Essense Loss and Essence Drain, is there any sort of limitation as to what they can successfully drain essence from? Could they just buy a mouse from a pet store (the kind you feed to snakes) and drain essence from that the same way they would from a metahuman?

~Umi

[Yerameyahu]

Yes. Has to be sapient, I feel like? Can't recall if it has to be meta. Running Wild's powers section is useless, only noting that various things with Energy Drain have totally different constraints and requirements.

Hmm. SR4A says 'sentient', possibly on purpose. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) "Essence Drain can only target physical sentient beings (characters and non-astral critters with the Sentience power)." … Does anything have the 'Sentience' power, because I can only find Sapience (which is the correct choice).

--
Sacrifice+Regen seems incredibly lame, but you'd have to *add* a rule to stop or limit it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Udoshi]

By my reading of the metamagic, when using Sacrifice, the Bloodmage chooses a target and attacks with a melee weapon that is treated as a normal melee attack and must deal Physical Damage (draw blood).

No, I think you have the right of this. A player in a game I was in was playing a Reformed Blood Mage Epic-Doctor-Surgeon. Finding a Mentor Spirit kicked him back on the path of good, and it was represented by taking the Life Magic metamagic from AH's Unfinished High Magic Book, instead of the more broken Blood Magic. (our gm is awesome).

He was planning to do the same thing, except with Invoked Possession Plant Spirits. The theme of the character was basically being able to do any and every sort of healing, ever.

[toturi]

Sacrifice+Regen seems incredibly lame, but you'd have to *add* a rule to stop or limit it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

It is incredibly potent. As a GM, I have an NPC with precisely this character concept.

[Yerameyahu]

That's what I said.

[toturi]

That's what I said.

No. You don't have to add a rule to stop it or limit it. You should encourage it.

[Yerameyahu]

Um? I said, if you were going to stop or limit it, you'd have to *add* a rule. As in, it works otherwise. Any stopping or limiting rule would be an addition.

And it's incredibly lame. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Aerospider]

Um? I said, if you were going to stop or limit it, you'd have to *add* a rule. As in, it works otherwise. Any stopping or limiting rule would be an addition.

And it's incredibly lame. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I agree it's RAW and highly powerful, but it's not lame for an NPC as the GM is positively encouraged to produce weird and wonderful threats. And since blood magic is ruled as forbidden to PCs I'd say there's no problem with this. If you allow PC blood magic you're into 'lame' territory anyway.

[Yerameyahu]

You're right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I *was* assuming OP was talking about a PC (with Blood Magic crazily allowed), from the way he phrased it. He may not have been. Because toturi said 'encourage', I assumed he was, too.

[All4BigGuns]

No, I think you have the right of this. A player in a game I was in was playing a Reformed Blood Mage Epic-Doctor-Surgeon. Finding a Mentor Spirit kicked him back on the path of good, and it was represented by taking the Life Magic metamagic from AH's Unfinished High Magic Book, instead of the more broken Blood Magic. (our gm is awesome).

He was planning to do the same thing, except with Invoked Possession Plant Spirits. The theme of the character was basically being able to do any and every sort of healing, ever.

What is this 'High Magic' book you speak of? I wants it.

[Starmage21]

Sacrificing + Regeneration is hardly broken. Trying to use sacrificing at all by itself just destroys your own action economy, making it hardly worth it even when you do have someone else to cut. Then you start talking about cutting yourself to reduce drain, and now youre inflicting wound penalties on yourself to cast a "drainless" spell when it is fairly easy to avoid drain via high drain stats as-is, not to mention there is no garauntee that you will regenerate all the damage in a single round, inflicting yet more penalties on yourself.

[Halinn]

Generally, you only care about action economy in combat. This can mitigate the drain from summoning, binding or non-combat spells, which can be particularly relevant when you're overcasting.

[Yerameyahu]

Yes, I'd be surprised if someone was doing this in combat.

[Udoshi]

What is this 'High Magic' book you speak of? I wants it.

It was a collection of notes that a shadowrun author released; it was GOING to be a book at one point before people quit over the coleman scandal.

This thread, specifically this link in it.

its semi-official, and full of tons of good ideas to steal, so enjoy.

[Umidori]

Hmm. SR4A says 'sentient', possibly on purpose. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) "Essence Drain can only target physical sentient beings (characters and non-astral critters with the Sentience power)." … Does anything have the 'Sentience' power, because I can only find Sapience (which is the correct choice).

I find the two terms are very commonly confused by the average person, seems reasonable that they were confused by the authors as well. See similar goofs with them mixing up Smartgun and Smartlink in various books.

If all it took was Sentience, a mouse or rat should be more than sufficient, and arguably even things like slugs would qualify. Sapience, on the other hand, ostensibly limits targets to near-human intelligence, although arguably most apex predators may be said to possess some degree of sapience.

It's kind of crap that Dietary Requirements can be met with vat grown flesh, but then an Essence Loss Infected can't survive without directly killing not just animals, but human-level sapient beings.

~Umi

[Yerameyahu]

Well, again, I can't find *any* critters with the 'Sentience power'. So… Essence Drain works on nothing. Or, the rules meant 'Sapience Power', which is very clearly limited to specific critters (not mice).

[Umidori]

Eyup.

The reason I ask is that I've been kicking around a concept for a goblin face who used to be a dwarven businessman, got infected, and now works as a sort of Infected Rights campaigner out to prove that not all infected are savage monsters - some of them are just people trying to live with a terrible disease. Easier said than done, of course, but that's half the fun of the character: balancing his own moral compunctions and forward-thinking ideals with the fact that society at large would rather see him dead than listen to him, and that his cause is so desperate and unpopular that he has to fund his efforts by working the shadows.

Wanted to have him be creepy and easily prejudged, but actually be a kind of standup guy. He'd be somewhat pacifistic, eat vat flesh, and (if I can figure out a workaround) maintain his essence by draining nuisance paracritters or something. Was hoping he could suck rat souls the way some people eat hamburgers, but no dice it seems.

I suppose one possible alternative is to have him feed on "feral" infected? Adds another layer of difficulty to his lifestyle and another layer of moral dillema to his concept. Kind of a weird duality to be championing Infected Rights one day, then going ghoul hunting the next. But at least he's already been infected, so that gives him a leg up in the business with one less thing to worry about.

I've honestly never heard of anyone actually playing a goblin, so I kinda wanna do it just to say I have. Someone else must have, I'm sure, but it's something different and challenging, I guess.

~Umi

[Yerameyahu]

Is there vat flesh? I was under the impression that one still hadn't been solved. Isn't that in the Will?

[Umidori]

Well I suppose if he's already sucking the souls of dangerous ghouls, as long as he isn't too picky about flavor he could get his meat there as well...

*blanches*

~Umi

[Starmage21]

Eyup.

The reason I ask is that I've been kicking around a concept for a goblin face who used to be a dwarven businessman, got infected, and now works as a sort of Infected Rights campaigner out to prove that not all infected are savage monsters - some of them are just people trying to live with a terrible disease. Easier said than done, of course, but that's half the fun of the character: balancing his own moral compunctions and forward-thinking ideals with the fact that society at large would rather see him dead than listen to him, and that his cause is so desperate and unpopular that he has to fund his efforts by working the shadows.

Wanted to have him be creepy and easily prejudged, but actually be a kind of standup guy. He'd be somewhat pacifistic, eat vat flesh, and (if I can figure out a workaround) maintain his essence by draining nuisance paracritters or something. Was hoping he could suck rat souls the way some people eat hamburgers, but no dice it seems.

I suppose one possible alternative is to have him feed on "feral" infected? Adds another layer of difficulty to his lifestyle and another layer of moral dillema to his concept. Kind of a weird duality to be championing Infected Rights one day, then going ghoul hunting the next. But at least he's already been infected, so that gives him a leg up in the business with one less thing to worry about.

I've honestly never heard of anyone actually playing a goblin, so I kinda wanna do it just to say I have. Someone else must have, I'm sure, but it's something different and challenging, I guess.

~Umi

Any of the infected friendly corps and/or nations I think still make it illegal for essence draining to take place. That said, you gotta eat somehow, and ghouls seem like a prime target. They can't infect you, and if your magic is high enough, you cant even become a carrier for Krieger strain.

[Falconer]

The damage taken from application of the Sacrifice Metamagic may he regenerated, but not the damage from the Drain itself, assuming you take any drain after the Sacrifice Metamagic.

I'm going to point this out... you can't heal 'drain'. But you can 'heal' other magical damage. You cannot regenerate magical damage. So yes I see a huge benefit in here... but not this OP silliness.

I strongly disagree. The attack is not a normal mundane attack. The attack is part of a clearly magical action. As such Regeneration's limit kicks in. No you can't sacrifice yourself and regenerate the damage as the attack is magical in nature. That's like saying a weapon focus isn't magical... it's just a basic weapon attack which involves a magical power to make it more accurate, the magic itself doesn't do any extra damage. The metamagic makes it clear the attack is part of a magical activity, it makes no sense that it can draw strength. Even if the first attack is not considered magical... the metamagic must use magic to drain strength out of the wound making it magical in the second step. (and if somehow you regenerate that damage before the second step I'd say there's no wound to draw strength from).

So no to the OP. You can't regenerate your own blood magic. However you can use the 'heal' spell to recover the physical boxes because heal has no limitation on magical damage. Which is still extremely powerful. Lets say you're in chase combat... IP1, you inflict wound on yourself... this more or less covers the drain. IP2, you cast some high force spell like an elemental effect to blast some other drones/vehicles, IP3, you cast heal. Next combat turn... rinse repeat. So this is still extremely powerful.


Whether you take the damage from the actual drain itself, or from 'draining' yourself. You still take MAGICAL damage. This instantly stops regeneration from working. I'm sorry any other reading of this is badly OP and silly. Especially as regards say ritual magic... or even drawn out sequences such as chase scenes where you have combat turns to wound and cast.

Quite frankly.. I can see the greyness in here. But embracing that greyness means embracing a broken mechanic.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It is functionally irrelevant, in any case. a PC will never get the opporttunity to try this out. As an NPC, it works how you see fit to tell the story. *Shrug*

[Yerameyahu]

But embracing that greyness means embracing a broken mechanic.

As always. You *choose* abuse and imbalance. If this tactic (like any tactic) is fine for someone's specific table, then no worries.