SR3: Atack of Will, Where'd it go?! Options

[Cochise]

Yeah, one of those cases, such as the BBB or MitS, where in most instances, adept powers are referred to as uncapitalized "power" or "powers" without anyone ever questioning the troll's reach. The capital is essentially used for powers when quoting individual powers such as attribute boost Power.

No, the capitalization is normally still used whenever it refers to mechanically relevant aspects of the game. And subsequently those instances where this is not the case, you'll ultimately face situations where people will start arguing over "nothing". Just like you friggin' decided to do here. Remember? I was the one who had no general objection against the idea of transforming someone into an elephant or allowing the usage of a whip to gain another point of "Reach" - despite the somewhat arbitrary additional rule decision making a GM would facing there - but you were the one who tried to turn it into some form of ego competition nonetheless. You were the one who tried turning it into a matter of "rules lawyering" and regardless of what you might personally think, you certainly didn't come out as a "winner" (nor did I, but I never had such an intention in the first place).

Asking to shape change in a smaller individual with same reach would be playing by the rules.

You weren't actually "asking" that. You outright suggested that the player would be able to determine all stats (including downgrading Bod for easier spell casting while upping the rest) "at will".

Ruling that reach diminishes in small individuals wouldn't.

I'd say that I have provided reasonable evidence to the contrary. You don't need to like the fact that "RAW" can be "twisted" in such a manner but all I did was showing you that once you start going beyond the basic premises of the rules you're bound to face a situation where a GM will rightfully counter your attempts with the same tools that you are trying to beat him with. And I guess that we'd also see a fundamental disagreement on whether or not such a player behavior is the general gaming concept of an RPG or not.

The only thing that could prevent it would be a literal reading of the sentence "Use the critter statistics given on p. 19 of Critters", which is superseded by this one "Shapechange changes a voluntary target into a normal critter, chosen by the caster", and is probably just here to point out where to find typical critters stats in a different book.

Unfortunately for you it's the "caster" and not the "player". So tell me, how exactly is the caster aware of the difference between a Bod 7 and a Bod 15 Elephant? How does this meta information of game stats translate into his game world perception? Does he actually have the necessary biological training (aka. at least knowledge skills) to understand and discern the differences? See, one can build a myriad of things around this due to the lack of precision on rule level... heck, a GM would even be - your words there - "playing by those rules" if he let the player of said caster chose the animal (because that's actually all that the spell description allows him to do) and then randomly deciding to deviate from table stats by turning it into a +50% specimen and thus making the threshold next to impossible to beat. Different approach same result.

No lack of capitalization will ever be a valid argument to say that reach could be considered a critter power.

Unfortunately your sentence still doesn't use "critter power" as terminology in the respective part of the sentence either. So on semantics level: No amount of you claiming otherwise will turn the second part of your quoted sentence precise enough to completely remove possibility of a GM deciding to reduce Reach based on that very sentence. Would it be a questionable call? In terms of "strict rule adherence" he'd be in very grey areas and would additionally have to invoke the "GM decision trumps everything" agenda but ultimately he'd be fine. And guess what, I wouldn't blame such a GM for doing something like that in a situation where a player tries to be a prick for the sake of being a prick ... particularly considering the facts that

• the involved mage would still have fried the spirit with a single spell in the vast majority of cases.
• in "elephant" shape the transformed human would already have had more than enough "power" to simply squash the vast majority of spirits with Forces that can be reasonably sent against a group without the clear goal of wiping the group out
• the Willpower attack still has more of a fringe application

Oh and as far as lack of capitalization in general as form of a valid argument is concerned: Just inspect that Critter booklet a bit further and maybe you'll find some interesting aspects concerning the ("RAW"-based) ability of dual-natured entities for performing acts of astral projection. Lack of capitalization and improper use of terminology will be key elements there.

Now, I don't care about what you think about metagaming,

I nowhere demanded that you should care ...

how you'd care about boring players, just in case.

... nor did I suggest that you should care about me being bored by players that engage in such petty attempts of stroking their own egos. But thanks anyways.

Thanks for the corrections on reach and immunity power, though. I'll leave you to your scanning of logical fallacies and stuff. Cheers.

And no try to be honest with yourself: Was this little "exercise" really worth it? Particularly with regards to trying to get to me on a personal level?
If so, I'll happily add you to the list of persons that I see no sense having conversations with in the future.

[sk8bcn]

Unfortunately for you it's the "caster" and not the "player". So tell me, how exactly is the caster aware of the difference between a Bod 7 and a Bod 15 Elephant? How does this meta information of game stats translate into his game world perception? Does he actually have the necessary biological training (aka. at least knowledge skills) to understand and discern the differences? See, one can build a myriad of things around this due to the lack of precision on rule level... heck, a GM would even be - your words there - "playing by those rules" if he let the player of said caster chose the animal (because that's actually all that the spell description allows him to do) and then randomly deciding to deviate from table stats by turning it into a +50% specimen and thus making the threshold next to impossible to beat. Different approach same result.

I certainly would know that beeing bigger with more muscles makes me stronger as a member of the specie. As I don't have to know how the anatomie of an elephant works to cast the spell, I'd say that this simple knowledge would allow me to be in the upper range of stats. Not chose them, though.

[sk8bcn]

By the way, is there any explanation why vehicules get an immunity based on base damages and spirit on final power.

Rule inconsistency or some logic behind (I'd vote option A).

[Sendaz]

It's sort of a mix.

If you hit a spook, your skill kind of comes into play which is reflected in the increased damage which is applied toward the spirit and its defences.

Vehicles on the other hand are pretty static and if the armor on it can bounce a 9mm round, it's going to bounce that round whether fired by a novice or a sniper.
So the world's greatest marksman can not shoot through the armor of a tank using a .22 long rifle round, no matter his skill he can not make that bullet penetrate the armor.
(Unless he cheats and uses some kind of acid round or something to modify his effect)
Yes, we can then argue skill lets you shoot through the windows/slots/gaps and such, but then that is more in the realm of called shots to negate the effect of said armor than actually penetrating said armor.

[freudqo]

I certainly would know that beeing bigger with more muscles makes me stronger as a member of the specie. As I don't have to know how the anatomie of an elephant works to cast the spell, I'd say that this simple knowledge would allow me to be in the upper range of stats. Not chose them, though.

You'd be right of course. You can shape change in a strong skinny quick elephant if you want. Shapechange allows you to change in any normal critters you'd like, nowhere does it say that you get a random member of the specie, or that you get a typical one. The same way you can play a body 1 strength 6 quickness 8 dark elve if you like to. Honestly, it makes very little sense that you could shape change into anything from a newt to a sea crocodile without having controls of individual beasts attribute.

About the choice, as there are no guidelines, you should get it. Additionally, it will never give you crazy bonus anyway. Honestly, having a strong animal has very limited use: the damage are the same. The worst case from the normal critters table is the tiger, where you could get a 9 QUI tiger. That might be up two 2 more CP and 2 more reaction dice. And that's the most efficient case. Lowering the body attribute to get it easier to cast the spell (and to adapt it to a low force spell) is already pretty much paid by having a low body. The damage is nice, though.

[freudqo]

By the way, is there any explanation why vehicules get an immunity based on base damages and spirit on final power.

Rule inconsistency or some logic behind (I'd vote option A).

Hard to settle. My first thought is B, since there's a definite intent that anti-vehicular weapon don't work against spirit, but do against vehicles. But then, though, some elemental weapon do get quite similar effect on the spirit's armor. Honestly, I'd still go for B. I don't think they would have missed it twice and not errata'd it consider what they errata'd sometimes.

The logic behind hardened is that there are some bullets that simply can't do anything to bypass it. If you consider the spirit's immunity to be a kind of armor, some shell, the same logic should apply. Or, it could be that the spirit's material can "endure" some kind of abuse and reshape immediately. In that case, one bullet going through would not damage it, but 3 in less than 0.3 s might not let it reshape or reconstruct freely. Or to say it in another way, as a power, it can use mana to immediately assess the damages to reshape the damage material, bring it back into the spirit, but only to a point. That's how I'd see it. YMMV.

Cheers

[sk8bcn]

ok. Let's go a step further for Real Gun-lovers out there (I don't know much about the subject).

Is there any real-life exlenation that could justify that a heavy pistol shot could get through an Vehicule-Armor 4 but not one of a SMG or Assault riffle?

[Cochise]

I certainly would know that beeing bigger with more muscles makes me stronger as a member of the specie.

Unfortunately that not how it works "in reality". A "bigger" person isn't automatically "stonger" than a "smaller" one, although certainly more likely to be. Nor will "more muscles" automatically translate into "more strength". The real problem however is: Body and muscle mass and resulting physical strength as such aren't going to tell you how "tough" the respective animal is in terms of what the Body attribute is trying to simulate in SR ... but unfortunately it's the Body attribute that (heavily) determines whether or not you succeed at shapechanging someone with the associated spells

As I don't have to know how the anatomie of an elephant works to cast the spell, I'd say that this simple knowledge would allow me to be in the upper range of stats.

Key interest here was not ending up in that range but in the lower instead.

Not chose them, though.

Yet it's the meta-information on the exact value of BOD for the target animal that will decide how much of a chance you have to cause the successful transformation. So who will ultimately decide on that "by the rules"? The player? The GM? Arbitrarily, with the fixed values from p. 19 Critters or with some form of random function? Must the decision try to adhere to the wishes of the caster's goal?

You just said that that the player doesn't get to chose the stats, so we'd be left with the GM ...

By the way, is there any explanation why vehicules get an immunity based on base damages and spirit on final power.

Generally your speculation would be as good as anyone else's there but it's most definitely not a "simple rule inconsistency" or "simple accident" because SR3 also has the "Hardened Armor" power where base damage is the reference point just as with worn hardened or vehicular armor. So there was some form of intent involved. Later rule editions IIRC have done away with the difference between "Hardened Armor" and "Immunity to normal Weapons" and made them work the same which kinda makes having both of them "obsolete".

My best guess would be that a spirit's Immunity is not supposed to represent a form of structural integrity of a strictly physical object that you simply cannot "harm" with certain physical attacks in a reasonable time frame. Think of someone using a small caliber pistol who fires at the front armor of a tank. With "unlimited armor" and "unlimited time" for repeated shots this person would ultimately cause enough structural harm to the metal to get through that armor but for practical purposes you can consider that armor to be impenetrable by that pistol ... hence the "hardened" armor types.

A spirit's materialized body on the other hand does not represent such a structurally dense object and has no literal "tank armor" surrounding it. It's rather that magical energies are channeled into creating a physical body of unspecified composition and his Immunity represents the magical resistance of said body taking damage by mundane weaponry. I could certainly come up with a fancy metaphysical explanation where even standard attacks that are subjected to the Immunity always represent some level of "Willpower" based attack where the attacked magical entity is subjected not only to the actual physical impact of a ranged or melee attack and the weapon utilized therein but also by the attacker's desire (or desperation) to "kill" / "survive" and that this causes the difference. Subsequently the spirit being hit with more bullets in a single attack would become a situation where more of that underlying "Willpower" is directed into the magical structure at the same time and thus can be harmed in such a manner. But none of that would have significant backing by known rules and fluff on the interaction between mundane persons, their tools and magical entities in terms of "RAW" and "FAW". So I suggest that you try to come up with a metaphysical explanation of your own.

Is there any real-life exlenation that could justify that a heavy pistol shot could get through an Vehicule-Armor 4 but not one of a SMG or Assault riffle?

In short: No ...
A bit longer: The Damage Codes on firearms in SR1 to 3 (and 4th and 5th are only slightly better) simply do not correctly simulate real ballistics but that's not actually where the problem starts: Generally speaking the whole Damage system isn't designed to be realistic in the first place. It's more of a "Hollywood" approach to combat where protagonist can suffer "serious" wounds but keep going to some degree. The system works reasonably well for "soft" targets like metahumans and the majority of critters but it fails against "hard" targets like barriers or vehicles which require separate rules to a certain extend but reuse those unrealistic Damage Codes. And if that weren't bad enough then they simply screwed up on the vehicular armor effects ... which added insult to the injury.

[sk8bcn]

Unfortunately that not how it works "in reality". A "bigger" person isn't automatically "stonger" than a "smaller" one, although certainly more likely to be. Nor will "more muscles" automatically translate into "more strength". The real problem however is: Body and muscle mass and resulting physical strength as such aren't going to tell you how "tough" the respective animal is in terms of what the Body attribute is trying to simulate in SR ... but unfortunately it's the Body attribute that (heavily) determines whether or not you succeed at shapechanging someone with the associated spells

I don't know if I really wanna argue about this (since I would anyway give only base stats to the mage who's shapeshifting) but in average, more strength and size implies more strength. Maybe you'll find some exceptionnal situations, but those factors strongly influence strength. Sport highlight this (boxe-rugby...).

[Sendaz]

The main problem I see is the spell just uses Body for calculating effect (ie the final size of the critter) to keep it simple.

If you start tweaking it by saying, I make a more muscular/agile/coordinated version of the animal, this is branching into other stats and you are really not reflecting this in the casting rolls and drain, and if you we do start figuring in other stats /effects you are basically going to end up with a mini-chargen session each time you go casting this.

I suppose you could integrate a 'pool' based on the force from the casting that lets you shuffle those few points into the other stats to represent some customizing, but then you have to figure limits of course, or you could get a devil rat bench pressing an orc. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[freudqo]

I don't know if I really wanna argue about this (since I would anyway give only base stats to the mage who's shapeshifting) but in average, more strength and size implies more strength. Maybe you'll find some exceptionnal situations, but those factors strongly influence strength. Sport highlight this (boxe-rugby...).

Actually, there's no point in arguing it. The critter's statistics entry of Critters tells you exactly what you can expect from a bigger or smaller or thinner or larger animal. Saying the caster can't know how to strengthen an elephant is assuming too much about the spell inner functioning that what is described. A priori, if you can change in an asian or african elephant, you can choose a strong one.

The main problem I see is the spell just uses Body for calculating effect (ie the final size of the critter) to keep it simple.

If you start tweaking it by saying, I make a more muscular/agile/coordinated version of the animal, this is branching into other stats and you are really not reflecting this in the casting rolls and drain, and if you we do start figuring in other stats /effects you are basically going to end up with a mini-chargen session each time you go casting this.

I suppose you could integrate a 'pool' based on the force from the casting that lets you shuffle those few points into the other stats to represent some customizing, but then you have to figure limits of course, or you could get a devil rat bench pressing an orc. wink.gif

By the rules, a lot of animals have the same bodies but different stats (see for example wolf and leopard, one is clearly optimize for shape changing).

If you look at the 3 stats used here, body, force and quickness, there's nothing that uber you get in tweaking out your animal. Adjusting body is reflected by the spell force, so raising it is hard, while diminishing it makes you vulnerable. Strength has always been worthless for a lot of stuff in shadowrun, and here even more since you get no bonus on your damage power or level. Quickness is the only really valuable one, since it can increase you combat pool and reaction. As I pointed out, the only case where it's sensible is for the tiger, where you can get a +2 reaction compared to the normal critter, and +2 CP.

The mini-chargen session is particularly boring, but how many times do people shape change to engage in combat (and can be settled OoC asking the PC to prepare his stats in advance if he wants to)? You'd need not to wear armor, not to care about getting you clothes back on, have a dedicated focus, etc. etc. and be sure that everything will be settled hand to hand, particularly if you go for the low body option.

It's not really that big a problem.

[sk8bcn]

In short: No ...
A bit longer: The Damage Codes on firearms in SR1 to 3 (and 4th and 5th are only slightly better) simply do not correctly simulate real ballistics but that's not actually where the problem starts: Generally speaking the whole Damage system isn't designed to be realistic in the first place. It's more of a "Hollywood" approach to combat where protagonist can suffer "serious" wounds but keep going to some degree. The system works reasonably well for "soft" targets like metahumans and the majority of critters but it fails against "hard" targets like barriers or vehicles which require separate rules to a certain extend but reuse those unrealistic Damage Codes. And if that weren't bad enough then they simply screwed up on the vehicular armor effects ... which added insult to the injury.

I forgot to post about this one, cause technically, it puzzles me a lot.

Do somebody have a nice house rule about vehicles hardened armor?