Why does a lower Essence only effect healing spells?, Just a thought... Options

[psychophipps]

It's pretty well known that jamming foreign gizmos and doo-dads into your body lowers your Essence score in SR. It's often described as "breaking" the link of a character's soul from the manasphere or some such. You jam too much goodies into yourself and you die as your soul is severed too far from your body, barring some serious (and expensive) magical intervention by specialists.

If it effects healing spells as a dice pool modifier, why the heck doesn't it effect all non-physical magic cast on that character? If there is less "soul" and manasphere connection in there, there should be less for a mage/spirit/whatever to latch onto and manipulate, right? It might even give you a penalty to assensing-only perception checks as you'll be seeing a chopped up image of someone with heavy enhancements rather than the whole outline of their aura like normal.

I propose that the dice penalties should apply to all non-physical spells. Things like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc are completely unaffected, of course. If you want to run around skullfucking someone with serious headware using Mind Probe and the like, you're in for a bad day at the office with the heavily enhanced.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[CaptRory]

I can't speak for the Shadowrunverse, but in the Dresden Files books healing magic is very very hard because it requires extremely fine control of energy. Changing someone's hair color is orders of magnitude more difficult than chucking a fireball at their face. So I could see something similar here where healing someone is very precise work easily messed with which frying them with lightning is just manipulating electricity.

Now, as for why mental magic isn't affected? No clue. It seems like it should be. Might be something to throw Street Samurai a bone.

[binarywraith]

In-world explanation : Healing magic encourages the body to rebuild itself to its ideal state. Modifications that cost Essence have disturbed what the body recognizes as that ideal state, and therefore the more disruption to Essence, the harder it is to convince the body to heal.

Game balance explanation : SR Mages aren't meant to be D&D clerics or MMO healers, and SR damage isn't meant to be treated as a numerical life bar that needs to be kept above zero and topped off between fights.

I could understand why mental manipulation spells could be affected the way healing is, but I would say that's not the case for game balance reasons. Otherwise, mages would have essentially no toolbox for dealing with heavily cybered opposition, as they are likely to have the physical stats to easily resist damaging spells. Adding what amounts to spell resistance just covers for the stats that are most often dumped when trying to min-max a beatstick.

[Isath]

Mistreating your body, to the point where your very essence is disturbed, is supposed to be a drawback.

[Stahlseele]

Because it'd make magic mostly useless.

[Draco18s]

Because it's easier to destroy than to fix.

[psychophipps]

Mistreating your body, to the point where your very essence is disturbed, is supposed to be a drawback.

Like how players initiate not for the magic point, but to get a meta-magic ability and to jam cyber/bio into themselves without losing any magic ability for doing so?

[Isath]

Like how players initiate not for the magic point, but to get a meta-magic ability and to jam cyber/bio into themselves without losing any magic ability for doing so now?

More like, I am not quite sure, how that is supposed to work. Cyber means lower essence, which in turn means compromised magic abilites, if there were any to start with.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In-world explanation : Healing magic encourages the body to rebuild itself to its ideal state. Modifications that cost Essence have disturbed what the body recognizes as that ideal state, and therefore the more disruption to Essence, the harder it is to convince the body to heal.

Game balance explanation : SR Mages aren't meant to be D&D clerics or MMO healers, and SR damage isn't meant to be treated as a numerical life bar that needs to be kept above zero and topped off between fights.

I could understand why mental manipulation spells could be affected the way healing is, but I would say that's not the case for game balance reasons. Otherwise, mages would have essentially no toolbox for dealing with heavily cybered opposition, as they are likely to have the physical stats to easily resist damaging spells. Adding what amounts to spell resistance just covers for the stats that are most often dumped when trying to min-max a beatstick.

And honestly, if you WANT that magical resistance for your Full Conversion Street Samurai, you just pick up the Quality that provides it. That is what I did. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ShadowDragon8685]

It's basically just another kick in the crotch of augmented characters - their enemies have no trouble fucking them with Essence spells, but their allies need to overcome herculean penalties to aid them.

[hermit]

And what are Essence spells? Is that something new from Street Grimoire?

[ShadowDragon8685]

And what are Essence spells? Is that something new from Street Grimoire?

Gah, it's been awhile, I may have the terminology wrong. Astral? Essence? Bleh.

Either way, it's spells that affect someone by linking through their aura, rather than conjuring a physical effect ex nihilo which is then free to effect the world.

[Sendaz]

Direct Mana spells I think is what you want.

[Moirdryd]

Binarywraith's "In World" explanation is bang on the money for the reason given going back into at least SR2 I believe. What's missing from current editions 4-5 is the problems that mages had with Trauma Patches and other invasive medical procedures (including life saving surgery) that could effect their Magic rating. Of course Drain now ONLY heals naturally.

[psychophipps]

Because it'd make magic mostly useless.

For a game called "Magicrun" on a regular basis, I seriously doubt that such rules would = "all mages fail and die immediately". At Essence .01 there is still only a 5 dice modifier and with the 15+ dice pool characters we see here all the time on the boards, it's not that much of a handicap.

[SpellBinder]

And what are Essence spells? Is that something new from Street Grimoire?

In SR5, Health spells like Decrease [Attribute], Increase [Attribute], & Heal are Essence spells (you'll see it in parentheses just below the spell's name). In SR4 only Heal is really an Essence spell. In SR3, a quick peek has a few spells that are impacted by Essence, but then IIRC there were a lot more things impacted by Essence SR3 than just the spells.

[Stahlseele]

For a game called "Magicrun" on a regular basis, I seriously doubt that such rules would = "all mages fail and die immediately". At Essence .01 there is still only a 5 dice modifier and with the 15+ dice pool characters we see here all the time on the boards, it's not that much of a handicap.

i'm probably the first to admit that magic needs a nerf bat with the foam taken off applied to it . .
but if you turn that around at the accepted 33% success rate, you give a 0,01 essence samurai basically 15 dice of magic resistance . .
and you do remember the wailing and teeth gnashing any time a mundane gets such a huge bonus, do you not?

you'd also have to basically redefine all spells again. if mana does not work as good on less essence beings, then does it work better on higher essence beings?
also, if mana does work less good on lower essence in one form of a spell, then why not in another form of a spell like invisibility and levitation to name the two all time favourites to cast on mundanes for fun and profit . .

[rythymhack]

Not seriously suggesting this, but wouldnt it be easier to count every point of lost essence as +1pt object resistance?

[psychophipps]

i'm probably the first to admit that magic needs a nerf bat with the foam taken off applied to it . .
but if you turn that around at the accepted 33% success rate, you give a 0,01 essence samurai basically 15 dice of magic resistance . .
and you do remember the wailing and teeth gnashing any time a mundane gets such a huge bonus, do you not?

you'd also have to basically redefine all spells again. if mana does not work as good on less essence beings, then does it work better on higher essence beings?
also, if mana does work less good on lower essence in one form of a spell, then why not in another form of a spell like invisibility and levitation to name the two all time favourites to cast on mundanes for fun and profit . .

So adding dice vs removing dice changes things that much? Magic resistance 4 is 1-1/3 added successes on average. 1 Essence or less would be 1-2/3 successes removed on average. Not really seeing the 15 dice thing from my end.

[psychophipps]

Binarywraith's "In World" explanation is bang on the money for the reason given going back into at least SR2 I believe. What's missing from current editions 4-5 is the problems that mages had with Trauma Patches and other invasive medical procedures (including life saving surgery) that could effect their Magic rating. Of course Drain now ONLY heals naturally.

I really miss those rules, actually.

[Temperance]

So adding dice vs removing dice changes things that much? Magic resistance 4 is 1-1/3 added successes on average. 1 Essence or less would be 1-2/3 successes removed on average. Not really seeing the 15 dice thing from my end.

I think it's because he's seeing it like this (Stahlseele, please correct me if I'm wrong):

1. Sorcerer has 15 dice.
2. Then 0.01 Essence removes 5 dice.
3. Sorcerer now has 10 dice.
4. Average success on 10 dice is 3.3 hits on the initial casting roll.
5. Assuming Magic Resistance 4, Sorc is at 2 hits on the ave roll.
6. Sam gets his actual resistance test to lower this further.

So the Sam only needs 6 dice on average, to completely negate anything a mage throws at him. (If my math is right.)

-Ariketh

[binarywraith]

I really miss those rules, actually.

You and me both. There are many reasons that era's fluff set my expectations for how the game should be.

[psychophipps]

I think it's because he's seeing it like this (Stahlseele, please correct me if I'm wrong):

1. Sorcerer has 15 dice.
2. Then 0.01 Essence removes 5 dice.
3. Sorcerer now has 10 dice.
4. Average success on 10 dice is 3.3 hits on the initial casting roll.
5. Assuming Magic Resistance 4, Sorc is at 2 hits on the ave roll.
6. Sam gets his actual resistance test to lower this further.

So the Sam only needs 6 dice on average, to completely negate anything a mage throws at him. (If my math is right.)

-Ariketh

So the issue, in your opinion, is that a purpose-built "fuck mages" character...umm...fucks mages? Isn't that kind of like being angry that your Porsche goes fast?

[Sendaz]

Edit:

The essence issue is an interesting one, for while some systems treat manufactured items as more resilient to magic like SR, other systems like BTRC actually had manufactured items more vulnerable to magic as they lacked that inner essence a 'pure' item had, pretty much making them putty in a mages hands.

In the interest of streamlining the rolls I probably would go more with adding the cybered target's defense dice pool, so an essence 1 Sammie would have +5 dice defending against harmful magics he is resisting.

This especially helps with aoe spells, otherwise it gets a bit messy trying to assign the penalty for a manaball hitting 4 targets with each person with different essence.

For Healing spells and other mana spells that and not resisted the current style of penalty to the initial caster DP could work well for those.

Detection spells are mana based, but some of these are also AOE type from the person it is put onto, so again this will need to be looked at for how the penalty would work.

The main problem I can see is the cybermages who intentionally bump their essence down then initiate magic back up to get the best of both in this, spell casting plus added defence for having low ess.

If you are going to go down this cyber=magic affects you less route, then you need to maybe make sensitive system or something similar mandatory for mages/adepts or simply ban mages from using cyber flatout.

Like Resonance, it's one or the other. So a character chooses, Magic or Resonance or Technology.

You could reintroduce something like the bio index maybe to allow cultured bioware for mages (no direct ess cost, but have a limit on how much bio they can take) and allow TMs access to cyber since it is sort of related to them, but this can open whole cans of arguments just on its own.

If you do go no cyber for mages, then you may also need to monitor foci addiction as mages will be using more foci though they may also go more preparations, quickened/anchored and such.

That said, I am not totally convinced this is the best way to go as you can see how it sort of snowballs from that initial idea, but it is certainly worth looking at to better fit your worldview of how things could be.

[Stahlseele]

@Temperance:
I am not yet fully awake, so i don't really understand that posting . .
I was going with the whole "you need on average 3 dice for soak for every hit on the attacker" and went backwards from that.
So if the attacker loses 5 dice and thus 5 hits, then you have, in effect, just gained around 15 dice in soaking mechanics.