5 way split, Splitting up magic? Options

[Draco18s]

What your saying is like saying that "a Hacker can become more functional by picking up a Weapon skill of some sort." It is True, nothing more. Adding Magic will always result in more functionality. Just like adding Languages will ALWAYS add more functionality. Just becasue you have gained additional functionality, it does not mean that the additional functionality results in the character being overpowered. It just means they have additional functionality they did not have prior to the addition.

"Adding magic" is like "adding a gun, languages, stealth, healing, contacts, grenades, heavy weapons, allies, and a pokerface to beat all pokerfaces."

It's not even on the same playing field.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

"Adding magic" is like "adding a gun, languages, stealth, healing, contacts, grenades, heavy weapons, allies, and a pokerface to beat all pokerfaces."

It's not even on the same playing field.

Options are options... Enhanced Functionality is nothing more than that. Saying that Magic is overpowered becasue it gives you options is so nonsensical that I cannot believe that you are advocting such a definition. OF COURSE adding magic give you added functiuonality. But agian, it is no different than adding other skills. They do the same things. They add functionality. Saying that a Magician is overpowered just because he has access to magic is ludicrous, and I completely reject that notion. *shrug*

Hell, you are not just adding "Magic" to the equation, either. You get the skill and the attribute, and THEN you can get the benevolence of adding additional SPELLS, Preparations, or whatever else is required to get your Gun, Languages, Stealth, healing, etc. ALL of which cost Karma. You do not get Contacts from adding magic, though, nor do you truly get allies; at best you get Pawns, and very, very short term ones at that.

It constatnly amazes me what people say when talking about the power of Magic. Yes, if a Character could spring full formed with every magical spell and doo-dad in existence available and useable to him immediately, then yes, you might have an argument, but since that is not what happens, well, you probably know where I am heading with that statement. *shrug*

[Shemhazai]

Here are some ideas I had during 4e. They won't work in 5e because characters don't get enough skill group points at chargen to avoid having to pay the full price for all of these skills. Getting the skill group discount at least makes specialization viable. Without the discount, this is unplayable.

Sorcery group: Spellcasting, Counterspelling, Dispelling, Ritual Sorcery

Conjuring group: Summoning, Banishing, Binding, Ritual Conjuring (Taking hours to conjure more powerful spirits. I was intending to nerf normal complex action summoning.)

Planar group (This could be called Astral group, but I was thinking about applying this to metaplanes. More recently, I was thinking about adding an ethereal plane on top of the astral plane.): Astral Combat, Assensing, Signature Dispersal (this is erasing signatures), Scrying (Ritual assensing. Think of it as taking hours to be able to remotely assense.)

Enchanting (I'm tweaking this to work with the new 5e rules): Alchemy, Artificing, Disenchanting, Transmutation (Making orichulcum and other reagents)

As an alternative, notice that each group has a ritualized skill: Ritual Sorcery, Ritual Conjuring, Scrying, and Artificing. These could form a fifth group: Rituals.

Something else I'd like to point out, I see people saying to use spirits in combat to somehow make magicians more effective fighters. Page 301 states that doing this routinely is abusive towards spirits and that doing it will cause a +1 negative dice pool modifier to every test you take while controlling a bound spirit in the future. I have never played a magician that would knowingly abuse spirits and they would only resort to using them in combat under these circumstances if a team member's life or the run objective were in real jeopardy.

I don't get why this archetype gets so much hate. Personally, I want my teammates to be good at what they do.

[Draco18s]

You do not get Contacts from adding magic, though, nor do you truly get allies; at best you get Pawns, and very, very short term ones at that.

Obvious hyperbole was obviously not obvious enough.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Obvious hyperbole was obviously not obvious enough.

And that is why your arguments often fail... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)
You act as if the Magician character gets all that stuff for free, when the sad fact is that they do not, and most will NEVER get to the level of power that you constantly claim they have.

[Draco18s]

And that is why your arguments often fail... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)
You act as if the Magician character gets all that stuff for free, when the sad fact is that they do not, and most will NEVER get to the level of power that you constantly claim they have.

The point was:
Would you rather spend 3 Karma to be "the best at Infiltration" or 20?
Would you rather spend 3 Karma to have "the best guns" or 20?
Would you rather spend 3 Karma to have "the best ____ " or 20?
Would you rather spend 9 Karma to be the best at everything, or 60?

[Shinobi Killfist]

if your magician is as bad in a fight as your technomancer, either your magician is doing something very wrong or your technomancer is not spending much on being a technomancer.

with a couple of simple spells, your magician may not be the absolute unstoppable beast that they would have been in SR4, but you should still have a lot of combat effectiveness, plus a ton of utility, just from spellcasting alone. i mean, literally, if all you have is spellcasting, your magician already gets a lot of potential. spirits may no longer be unkillable, but they can still be effective offensively and for utility; concealment, influence, fear, noxious breath; these four abilities alone can let you single out important targets and remove them fairly reliably. heck, even elemental attack can be pretty impressive (12P damage with -6 AP on a force 6 spirit, if you can stand the drain to keep one close) (edit: almost forgot, engulf + energy aura is also a pretty brutal combination, though of course it will be even better once great form spirits make their way back into the game) and if your opponents are dumping gunfire into your spirits, have you considered persuading them to stay down via suppression, by any chance? even one of your less impressive combat characters (ie that technomancer) can have a lot of value if you simply drop some suppressing fire on the enemy to keep them pinned down, since even low offensive dice pools are still likely to score *some* hits.

and with indirect spells, your magician can wreck people very effectively too.

this doesn't even get into stuff like using mind control manipulations, or how much of a difference it can make to be invisible during a fight.

if your magician is so ineffective in combat, it's probably either due to poor choices, or a deliberate decision to focus on other areas.

Actual game play is showing things differently in our games. Drain is brutal in this edition so you are not wrecking anyone with indirect spells, spirits pop quick and you can't suppression fire the world to stop people from making them pop. Any archetype can be too powerful if the GM tilts things to their favor. The rigger right now is looking to be the most effective character in our game so I have to step things up to balance him, does that mean riggers are broken.

The magic skills work entirely differently form the mundane trying to make them mimic the mundane wont work. Maybe if you reduced drain so it hindered you about as much as ammo and removed the karma and time costs for learning spells and just made it a low cost nuyen expenditure it might be similar enough to break down the skills further, but right now with all the things magic deals with that other skills don't it doesn't fit and balance wise it doe snot look to be needed in my expereince in 5e so far.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The point was:
Would you rather spend 3 Karma to be "the best at Infiltration" or 20?
Would you rather spend 3 Karma to have "the best guns" or 20?
Would you rather spend 3 Karma to have "the best ____ " or 20?
Would you rather spend 9 Karma to be the best at everything, or 60?

The problem is that it is a Flawed Point. Just because you have acess to a spell, it does not make you the best. *shrug*

[Draco18s]

The problem is that it is a Flawed Point. Just because you have acess to a spell, it does not make you the best. *shrug*

Sorry, "Better than most people can be for double the cost." Followed by "and if they spend that other 'double' part now they're better than anyone else could be, except another mage."

[FuelDrop]

If I were going with this ruleset I'd fold counterspelling into spellcasting, with separate counter pools for physical and mental counters based on your highest skill in the relevant skillgroup. Likewise, enchanting would expand to include disenchanting and summoning would cover banishing (with a penalty if you don't have the skill for the type of spirit you're fighting).

Neither Disenchanting nor Banishing is going to break the game by folding into other skills, while the 6-way split means that adding counterspelling to the mix would at least help compensate for the sudden increase in requisite skills.

[Jaid]

unfortunately, splitting counterspelling into 3 parts kinda borks things. i mean, it works just fine for dispelling, but how would you determine how many spell defence dice you can offer?

[FuelDrop]

After some consideration, I've amended my proposal to the following:

Physical magic skill group: Combat spells, Health spells, Reality Warping spells (Physical Manipulation)
Mental magic skill group: Divination spells, Illusion spells, Manipulation spells (Mental Manipulation)
Alchemy group: Poultices (Combat, Health and Physical manipulations), Elixirs (Divination, illusion and mental manipulation preparations), Enchanting (includes disenchanting)
Summoning skill group: Power spirits (Spirits linked to physical magic for that tradition), Guile spirits (Spirits linked to mental magic for that tradition), Binding.
Ritual magic skill.

Counterspelling has 2 pools, Physical and mental. Each pool is based on the highest skill in the relevant skill group. Dispelling and any other uses for counterspell are based on either the relevant skill or the highest skill in that skillgroup -1, whichever is higher.

Banishing uses either the relevant spirit's summoning skill or your highest summoning skill -1, whichever is better.

Thoughts on this proposition?