Street Magic, So much for one book's enough :( Options

[Critias]

[fistandantilus4....]

[mintcar]

I agree that magic should be bought by the point. But I think that some abilities should come automaticly to anyone with astral senses (eccept in special cases). Only if your a weak magican, you´ll not be able to use those abilities very well. For example all magicans would be able to astraly project (again, if your tradition allows it), but if you have only 1 magic point it will be lethal to stay projected more than an hour. When you get magic 2 you´ll automaticly be able to conjur force one watchers. All magicans should be able to use spell defence, warding, despelling, banishing and so forth, even though they are limited by your magic rating either directly or through a skill that is connected to magic rating. It makes more sense that some things are more or less instinctive when you gain magical senses, and you can get better at using them with the help of a handfull of skills or simply by improving your magic rating. I would hate to see a system were all powers are essentially spells you have to choose.

[Jrayjoker]

[Jrayjoker]

[Critias]

[Wireknight]

One thing that never sat well with me, and that I have never personally used, was the ability to pre-decide that some of your Sorcery skill is being used for purposes of boosting your spell defense. I think that one's Spell Pool ought to be calculated similarly to Combat Pool (i.e. a (1+2+3)/2 instead of a (1+2+3)/3) and that only spell pool, not spell pool plus an arbitrary number of Sorcery dice, ought to be the sole determination for spell defense and shielding.

I've managed to get along well enough avoiding the complexity of having to keep track of what my actual effective Sorcery is, by having my characters rely on spell pool for defense (much like in physical combat, I rarely use available dicepools to augment attacks, keeping conservative so that I'm prepared in case someone steps out of left field with a tremendously hard to dodge/resist spell or attack). I hope part of the streamlining process addresses this. It seems to unnecessarily complicate spellcasting, as well as making it work less like shooting or punching.

I like it when things work pretty similarly on the base level, as it makes learning new-but-similarly-rooted situational rules that much less painful. It's the fact that decking and rigging are so totally divorced from any other rules subset in Shadowrun that has made me hesitant to really crack open the books and spend what would be an inordinately large amount of time learning the intricacies of the systems.

[Fortune]

I have no problems with the idea of 'purchasing' Magic at chargen on a point-by-point basis. I just don't want to see 'in-game purchasing' of Magic by previously non-Awakened characters. In my opinion, if you want to play someone that Awakened later on in life, just play an older character. Magic should be solely a choice made at chargen. I have never seen any PCs, Awakened or not, that have absolutely nothing on which to spend their Karma.

[mfb]

i don't think it's fair to take away a player's chance to play through the drama of Awakening. that can be some really, really good roleplaying--why relegate it to a one-page history that nobody every reads?

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[Kanada Ten]

I think they should be able to buy magic post chargen (now), but the price should be very heavy and might even require bonding with a spirit or similar. Maybe for them it costs karma each time they cast a spell, or makes their Essence unstable.

[mfb]

which punishes the player for good role-playing; 30 build points is a lot to be spending on something that isn't of immediate use to your character. it also locks the player into playing a certain type of character--a restriction which doesn't exist for any other character type. a character that starts out as a decker can easily build himself into a street sam, or a rigger, or a face--and vice-versa. with the Awakened, you're locked into or out of it from the get-go, which makes for static characters with less opportunity for development.

[Fortune]

And the ability to purchase Magic ability later in the game punishes the player that wants to start as a Mage, because Build Points do not equate in any logical way to Karma Points. I think you should have to pay the cost for the ability to use Magic, whether or not you actually start out as a Mage or not.

Hopefully this is something that will be addressed in the new (and improved?) rules. I do think it would make more sense to have Magic be purchaseable incrementally in SR4 though.

[mfb]

build points don't currently equate in any logical way to karma.

[Fortune]

Hence my statement ...

[Cynic project]

Who can say that you can't run shadowrun out the main book? Yes, you can use otehr books,and they do add a lot of detail to the world, but you do not need them. You just would like them.

[mintcar]

Jrayjoker: ...if he has the conjuring skill, the conjurer would have the ability to conjure a force 1 watcher when reaching 2 points of Magic attribute. It would still require a roll.

[sapphire_wyvern]

[sapphire_wyvern]

[Club]

I've always felt that you can run anything in shadowrun (With the possible exception of a rigger) without the expansion books. You might not have as many options, and might have to impovise a fair amount, but you don't need them.

[Taki]

[Patrick Goodman]

And I still maintain that min/maxing isn't a problem with the game, it's a problem with the player.

[audun]

[Moonstone Spider]

Min-Maxing might be a player-related problem but it's still much worse for some systems than others.

Shadowrun is one of the worst as it massively encourages min-maxing, as opposed to games like Nobilis where munchkining is pretty much impossible, with the proviso that a player who is smarter and more imaginative than the GM is going to be a problem.