[X] My Assistant

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Cain]

Soulkage: I did a bit of number-crunching, and it'd take 16 spell points for your mage to purchase each of those spells at effective levels. That means he needs to spend 32 spell points to have them all bonded into foci at chargen. Considering that he only starts with 25, he'd need to buy 7 spell points, at a cost of 175,000 :nuyen: .

Now, for the foci, he'd need to spend 240,000 :nuyen: to have enough to carry them all. That gives him a grand total of 425,000 :nuyen: , too much for a starting full mage using the priority system. He wouldn't be able to start with all that.

Now, if a player manages to earn all that in game, that's another matter. However, there's no way he can start with all that. I don't think you need to worry too much about focus abuse right off the bat.

[John Campbell]

[Eyeless Blond]

[Joker9125]

Post his Character sheet. The Rule Lawyer in me so wants to rip this guys character apart while the metagamer in me wants to give him pointers. ;)

[Eyeless Blond]

I'm not sure there *is* a character sheet. From SoulKage's post I gathered that they were merely discussing theory, and a friend of his noticed that in theory, particularly with just the BBB and no other sourcebooks, mages and magic users are in general are more powerful than non magic-users.

[Cain]

[SoulKage]

Notes: I did not bother with the other parts of character creating since the focus here is magic. This is basically what my friend did on that dreaded day. He stated he will re-roll his stat foci until he gets the amount of successes he desires during his “downtime.” not to mention he’s improved invis and stealthed.. Even with only one spell, he has a large spell pool and willpower pool to pull from. His armor is way too high and thus even if I were to hit him with a full auto rifle, he could easily stage the damage down with his insane body and combat pool. And speaking of combat pool, he can pwn with that assault rifle, hell even his pistol! he’s got super fast initiative and all this just seems to powerful.. Granted some of your ideas are good and I’ll be buying MitS soon so I can be better equipped to deal with this situation. Thanks for all your input guys!

Using the BBB only:

A 1,000,000 Nuyen
B Aspected Magician (sorcerer)
C Attributes 24
D Dwarf
E Skill points 27

Combat Pool = 14
Spell Pool = 8
Reaction = 9
Initiative = 9+4d6

Armor Rating 13/10

Body 3 (2+1) (11) Boosted from foci
Quick 2 (9) “”
Str 4 (2+2) (12) “”
Cha 6 (9) “”
Int 6 (9) “”
Wil 7 (6+1) (11) “”
Essence 6
Magic 6

Knowledge skill points 30
Language 9

Active skills:
Sorcery (6)
Aura Reading (1)
Assault Rifles (6)
Pistols (5)
Launch Weapons (4)
Etiquette (5)

Magic Spells:
Increase Body (1)
Increase Quick (1)
Increase Str (1)
Increase Cha (1)
Increase int (1)
Increase wil (1)
Increase Reflexes +3 (1)
Improved Invis (5)
Stealth (4)
Armor (6)
Powerbolt (6)

Sustaining Foci:
Increase Body (1)
Increase Quick (1)
Increase Str (1)
Increase Cha (1)
Increase int (1)
Increase wil (1)
Increase Reflexes +3 (1)
Improved Invis (5)
Stealth (4)
Armor (6)


Total Spell points between Spells and Foci, 50


Armor:
Secure Jacket 5/3
Secure Vest 2/1

Weapons:
Soviet AK-98:
Tactical sling
EX Explosive Ammo
Smartlink
Shock Pad
Gas-Vent III
5 Extra Mags
3 Offensive mini Grenades
5 Defensive mini Grenades
Ares Viper Silvergun:
EX Explosive Ammo
Smartlink
Gas-Vent III
2 Extra Mags
Gear:
Smart goggles
Concealable holster for AVS
Clothing

[tjn]

As everyone surmised, there's a slight flaw in his plan: specifically the force of the Increase Attribute spells.

[RedmondLarry]

He also risks loss of Magic (Focus Addiction Rules) every Combat Turn where he uses more force points in Foci than twice his rating in Magic.

The limit to attribute rating and the problem of using too many foci were brought up as the first two issues in the first response to your post (5 minutes after your original post). This was 9 days before you posted his character. Perhaps our responses are confusing or unclear? How can we better help you?

[toturi]

He could fetish limit those Imp Attribute spells, which should give him 1 Force more. But that is it. His Attributes can all be only boosted by 2 maximum. Unless you have a house rule you haven't told us.

[SoulKage]

Thanks everyone, I think I see now.. the atribute thing was a bit messed up, I didn't see the atribute part in the BBB. And even though he can ligitly have 13/10 armor, he would be quite obvious that hes a mage and could be targeted from both the physical and astral plains. I guess as GM I have to find a way to balance their uber powers with the settings without making it look like I'm being a jerk. thanks so much for your posts!

[Eyeless Blond]

[tjn]

One can have all the armor in the world, but if they don't have the body to help stage down the damage, they're in for a world of hurt in any event.

Plus he gets Combat Pool penalties and Quickness +TNs due to the mundane armor being over his Quickness. And the protection of the second piece of armor is halved, round down. He in fact has a 12/9 while wearing his "Hi, I'm a Mage. Geek me first." sign.

See pg 285 for the specific rules on layering armor and the physical penalties of wearing too much armor.

With his Quick spell up, he looses 2 CP, 3 if he doesn't have it up.

With his Quick spell up, he has a +4 to all quickness and quickness related tests. Without it, it jumps to 5.

And either way, the dude can't walk under his own power due to the movement penalty. {Best scenario is (Q:3 - 4) x3 = he ain't movin'}

EDIT: Just noticed a lack of Levitate. He ain't moving at all. And if he's claiming to be able to fly forever, he's smoking something serious.

Even if he dropped the second piece of armor and always kept the Improved Quick up, he'd be just barely able to waddle around {(3-2)*3}.

The character is an invisable lamp.

[GrinderTheTroll]

So does anyone apply the "layering armor" rules when using the armor spell? I can see where that would help this situation, or does that just apply to physical armor worn?

[Fortune]

No. The Armor spell doesn't figure in the calculation of either worn armor vs. Quickness, or for the purposes of layering armor.

[Cain]

Don't forget the activation limit. He can only have a number of foci active equal to his Intelligence. It's on p 190, BBB, under "Activation"; there's no way he can be walking around with 10 active foci on at once.

[Glyph]

I think clearing up the issue about the Increase Attribute spell takes care of the major issues - no insanely high Body and Combat Pool to stage everything down, so his armor (which is not hardened, remember) dropping a lot (but not all) TN's to 2 won't be enough, by itself, to make him invincible. His initiative drops, too, down to where he is behind the sammies again (or he should be).


I won't give him flak over it, though, since he's learning the rules, just like you. It could have been an honest mistake. I will give him kudos for finding one of the most optimal combinations in the priority system on his first try.

[Eyeless Blond]

Although, anything with the million nuyen is pretty high up there in power by the end. It's one of the reasons sammies start out so powerful, 'cause they have exponentially more resources to start with than others. Of course without it the adept would beat any mundane sammie without even trying, so I suppose it balances.

[tisoz]

Also, skills are linked to attributes to determine their costs. You use natural attributes for this, not cybered (bio is considered natural) or magically boosted. So He didn't allot enough skill points for his Assault Rifles or Pistols skills.

[Kyuhan]

The only problem I can see with all this (as was kinda stated above) is springing "new" rules on the guy (i.e. rules you didn't know about before). This leads to bouts of "but we did it this way before, and now you're just changing things to suit you". Some people can get really persnickity when they feel they've done something awesome and someone else comes along and totally deflates it. Personally, I'd just be cautious (and maybe a little slow) on broaching these changes, it can save lots of hurt feelings, bickering, etc.

[tjn]

I have no sympathy for their feelings if they have no consideration for others.

Demanding that the rules allow them to become so overpowered as to impinge upon their friends' enjoyment of the game usually denotes a fairly selfish attitude.

Respect is a two way street.

[Eyeless Blond]

In this case it doesn't really matter anyway. This isn't a matter of the rules being arbitrarily changed by the GM to the player's detriment, but rather the group not understanding the rules in the first place and making mistakes based on those misinterpretations. Now that most of 'em have been cleared up the game is more balanced and fair to all involved. I really don't see the player complainning when it's explainned that his broken combos are in fact not legal. I rather think he'd be relieved to know that the system isn't *that* easily broken by a newbie. :)

[Apathy]

Somebody else probably also mentioned this, but your focus has to be as high as the spell you're trying to fit into it. So to get +2 to your body, you'd have to get the spell at force 2, and get the focus at force 2, and spend the karma bond the focus (2 spell points each), and roll 4 successes with your sorcery+magic pool dice.

Then, as soon as you hit a decent force ward (force6+), the ward will likely destroy the focus, wasting all the karma you spent bonding it in the first place. If the ward doesn't destroy the focus, it'll still probably deactivate the focus (and you're unlikely to be able to re-cast the spell while you're on the run without taking drain). And you've now notified the security mage that you're in the building.

Because your TN for attribute increasing spells is the base attribute, you'll likely get a higher final value if your natural attribute is lower (3), and then get the spell at force 6. If you throw your whole spell pool into the cast, you have a slight chance of getting 12 successes against a TN 3 (raising your body to 9). And since you can't have more points of active foci than twice your Magic, it leaves you stuck with just two of those at most.

If you wanted to pick a couple spells that are actually useful at low force, I'd suggest the following:

• levitate (1) [low force means you'll be slow, but can be a huge help getting over fences and stuff],
• invisibility (1) [it is a resisted spell, but you can throw so many dice at the spell that your successes will usually outnumber the opposition's],
• increase reflexes (1) [IMO a broken spell, gives mostly the same results regardless of force it's cast at],
• and increase will (1) [if, like most mages, you max your natural willpower, then your TN's 6 or 7, and you're unlikely to get more than 2 successes anyway].

None of these would survive walking through a ward, or a simple attack from a spirit or watcher pack, but they could be valuable is certain situations.

[DrJest]

I've been meaning to ask - a number of times I've seen people mention getting a spell "for free". What does that refer to?