 Shadowrun 4: Magic |
  |
 Sep 17 2005, 12:31 AM
Post
#258
|
|||
|
Prime Runner  Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665  |
That's not a problem. Mentor Spirits are now available to Hermetics and Shamans. Or any other tradition. As new traditions are expanded upon, more and more Tradition/Mentor Spirit combinations are going to be unusable. A tradition with no Water Spirits, for instance, would gain little benefit from a Shark or Sea Mentor. -Frank |
||
 |
 
|
||
|
Sep 19 2005, 04:26 PM
Post
#259
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 332 Joined: 19-September 05 From: Nashville, Tn Member No.: 7,761 |
Ok, i'm confused on the new Force rules. In the frount of the book it says something to the order of "no longer have to learn spells at a spefic force" and the sapmle Chaircters do not have a force rateing by there spell list. BUT. you have lodges with rateings. you can learn spells above you lodge rateing. As well there are force notations in the spell list. so what's up. i dont get it.
|
|
|
|
|
Sep 19 2005, 04:36 PM
Post
#260
|
|
|
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
You still choose the Force of the spell when you are casting it, up to twice your Magic Attribute (with the Drain being Physical if it is over your Magic Attribute). You just don't have to learn it at a specific Force.
|
|
|
|
|
Sep 19 2005, 10:26 PM
Post
#261
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 332 Joined: 19-September 05 From: Nashville, Tn Member No.: 7,761 |
Spell Category Formulae Cost Personal Instruction Cost
Combat 2,000¥ Instruction skill x 1,500¥ Detection 500¥ Instruction skill x 250¥ Health 500¥ Instruction skill x 250¥ Illusion 1,000¥ Instruction skill x 500¥ Manipulation 1,500¥ Instruction skill x 1,000¥ I'm still confused. what do they mean by instruction lvl? On the sample chaircter's active skill list i see he has "Conjuring Skill Group: 3" as well as just spellcasting. Do i need to have an active skill rateing in all the shcools i wish to cast? on page 173 they show the spellcasting test as "Spellcasting + Magic, modified by foci, totem bonuses, bound spirits, and/or Visibility modifiers." |
|
|
|
|
Sep 20 2005, 07:11 PM
Post
#262
|
|
|
Target Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 15-September 05 From: West Des Moines, IA Member No.: 7,747 |
I have some questions about Mystic Adepts.
Looking close at the description they seem broken. A full Mage is 15bp yet a Mystic Adept is only 10bp. The question I have is do you need to split your magic attribute down the middle between Adept and Mage. Example if you have a magic rating of 5 do you have to invest 2.5 in adept powers and then 2.5 rounded down in Mage or can you just put one point towards adept power and the rest towards Mage. I have a player that was going to make a mage but since the bp was cheaper for mystic adept he choose that. He then only bought 1 point in mystic armor from mystic adept powers and put the rest of his magic towards spell casting. I just seems that you could spend less bp on mystic adept, take some useful adept powers yet still be a really really good spell caster. Does anyone have any comments on this? |
|
|
|
|
Sep 20 2005, 07:26 PM
Post
#263
|
|
|
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Mystic Adepts rock!
Yes, he can do that. The real price that Mystic Adepts pay is their lack of, or at best limited access to the Astral. The can never Project, and have to pay a Power Point to Perceive. The amount of Power Points assigned to Magic Use (Sorcery, Conjuring, etc) is their effective Magic Attribute for spellcasting purposes, but does not limit the Mystic Adept in other ways (the details of which I am too tired to remember, but someone will list, hopefully). |
|
|
|
|
Sep 20 2005, 07:42 PM
Post
#264
|
|||
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
It limits their Magic dice available to the die pools for Sorcery, Summoning, etc. But it does NOT limit, for example, the Force of the spell they cast. So a character with a total Magic (5) and 2 of those dedicated to Adept powers like Mystic Armour, the character can still cast Force 5 spells with only Stun drain and up to Force 10 with Physical Drain. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 20 2005, 07:45 PM
Post
#265
|
|
|
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Thanks. :)
|
|
|
|
|
Sep 20 2005, 08:36 PM
Post
#266
|
|
|
Target Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 15-September 05 From: West Des Moines, IA Member No.: 7,747 |
Doesn't that still seem broken? What does the Mage get for the extra 5bp that the mystic adept doesn't get? besides larger dice pool for sorcery.
|
|
|
|
|
Sep 20 2005, 08:41 PM
Post
#267
|
|||
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Astral Projection/Perception. It costs the Mystical Adept 10BP (or perhaps 25BP if maxing his Magic) just to get Perception. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 10:45 AM
Post
#268
|
|
|
Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
This has probably been answered somewhere, but I can't find it. And as istill don't have acopy of SR4 yet....
How does drain work now? Can someone show me an exmaple of what you would need to resist, say, a force 6 manabolt? You can cst multiple spells, although with difficulty as I understand it. How does the drain change for that? |
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 11:08 AM
Post
#269
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 268 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Brisbane, Australia Member No.: 78 |
Ok, lets say you have a magic 5 hermetic mage that throws a force 6 manabolt. It has a Drain Value (DV) of F/2, or in this case, 3. This value is the number of boxes of damage the spell will do, though you do get the chance to desist drain to reduce it. So lets say our mage has a Willpower of 4 and a Logic of 4. That will give him 8 dice to resist the drain. Each hit on the roll reduces the drain value, and thus the number of boxes of damage. So if he rolls 3 hits, he gets no drain. If he rolls 2 hits, he takes 1 box of damage Because the force of 6 is over his Magic rating of 5, the DV is physical instead of stun. If instead of a force 6 spell he threw a force 5 spell, the DV would have been 2 (you round down for spell drain), and the damage would have been stun instead of physical If he were casting multiple spells, he has to split his dice when making the spellcasting test. He doesn't split his dice for resisting drain though, so the mage in the above example would get to roll 8 dice against both spells. Each spell has it's DV increased by the number of additional spell he cast though, so if he were casting 2 force 6 manabolts, the DV would have been 4 for both of them (and both doing physical damage, as the force is greater than his magic) |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 11:10 AM
Post
#270
|
|
|
Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
And I assume spells like fireball require more successes, like the good ol' F/2 +2 or something to that effect?
Danke |
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 11:14 AM
Post
#271
|
|
|
Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,598 Joined: 15-March 03 From: Hong Kong Member No.: 4,253 |
Depending on your tradition your use will + some other stat to resist drain. For hermetics, it log + will, for shaman, its will + cha.
Then the drain of the spell is either psycial or stun, if the spell is cast at higer force than your magic rating, it's phyisical. The 'drain power' is based on the force of the spell divided by 2, round down, +/- any other modifiers. So, a mage with magic 5, casting a spell at force 7, with a drain code of '+1' would be resiting (7/2)+1 = 4P drain. If we was a hermetic with Log 5 and will 5, he would roll 10 dice to resist the drain. Let's say he gets 3 succeses on the drain resistance test. This means he takes 1P damage. [edit] Sigh, too slow [/edit] |
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 11:16 AM
Post
#272
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 268 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Brisbane, Australia Member No.: 78 |
Exactly. Though Fireball specifically has F/2+5 :) |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 11:27 AM
Post
#273
|
|
|
Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
So a Force 6 Fireball would deal 8 boxes of mental dmg (assuming magic 6) if you don't roll any successes. In the example of a hermetic, they would roll Will + Logic to resist. So they would needs 8 5+'s . Got it. Thanks a bunch guys.
|
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 02:24 PM
Post
#274
|
|||
|
Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
Correct. Now, getting 8 hits (on average) requires 24 dice. Since the most you can ever boost an Attribute or Skill is 50% of your maximum, it's pretty hard to build someone who can casually toss Fireball:6's all day. Let's say the mage is a dwarf, and he's gone and paid for the Quality that ups his Willpower's maximum by 1. Maxing out the stat, that's an 8. Let's say he's also maxed his Logic out (through gameplay, since you can't start with two maxed Attributes) and picked up Cerebral Booster 3 for a total of Logic:9. He's also got Focused Concentration:2, which is an expensive Quality but Willpower boosts are hard to come by so this is the best we've got. I imagine our dwarven mage will have Initiated and/or hooked himself up to some Power Foci in order to bring his Magic Attribute back up to a 6. I'll let someone else run the numbers on how many Build Points and in-game Karma Points we've had to spend so far to make our little ubercaster; suffice to say he's not very well-rounded. In any case, he's rolling 8 (Willpower) + 9 (Logic) + 2 (Concentration) = 19 dice to resist an 8 Drain Value. That's an average of 6.33 hits, which means typically even this tough-brained halfer is going to be taking 2 Stun boxes. He could spend 1 point of Edge to invoke the Rule of Sixes in order to likely negate 100% of the Stun, but Edge supplies aren't infinite. On the upside, if he's somehow got his Spellcasting maxed out to 10 (6 Skill cap + 1 Quality + 3 bonus dice from somewhere) and his Magic at a 6, he's throwing 16 dice on the attack roll. That's likely 5.33 hits, which means the base incoming damage to all of the targets of his Fireball is 11 Physical, and they use only half of their Impact armor when making that Body roll. A security guard with a Body of 6 can take 11 Physical before falling over. Put him in some Impact:6 armor, and he's rolling 6 (Body) + 3 (half Impact) = 9 dice to resist; that's an average of 3 hits. So, on average and without spending Edge, that customized dwarf can nuke an entire room full of tough and very armored guards (and any other flammables), leaving the guards with only 3 boxes left while taking 2 boxes of Stun himself. The guards would be at a -3 penalty due to their injuries; the dwarf would be at -1. Even if the mage's Body Attribute were the dwarven minimum of 2, he'd easily recover from that Stun an hour later. But you've also built an expensive one-trick pony. The BP cost is significant. :) EDIT: "Magician" is a 15 BP Quality. "Exceptional Attribute" is a 20 BP Quality. You can't have more than 35 BPs of Qualities; so no Focused Concentration or Aptitude to increase a Skill cap. So it'd be 17 dice to resist Drain. Ouchie. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 02:46 PM
Post
#275
|
|
|
Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
Hrm, and all Indirect Combat Spells are treated like normal Ranged Attacks, so I wonder if the targets got to roll Reaction before soaking the damage. I'll have to go look.
In either case, Powerball and Manaball are more efficient AoEs than Fireball. Or if you want to go for supercheap Drain Values, throw Stunballs (and hope they don't have active Pain Editors). Those things still floor entire rooms of people with hardly any effort from the caster, and you can easily Overcast them into Physical Drain without much worry. |
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 02:54 PM
Post
#276
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 775 Joined: 31-March 05 From: florida Member No.: 7,273 |
yes they do, because it has a manifestation on the physical plane you get to dodge then soak |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 02:55 PM
Post
#277
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 268 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Brisbane, Australia Member No.: 78 |
Nope. The caster makes a success test (not an opposed test) vs the opponents reaction. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 03:16 PM
Post
#278
|
|||
|
Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
In fact, you are both right, and the rules are wrong:
Ranged Combat is an Opposed test.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
Sep 23 2005, 03:49 PM
Post
#279
|
|||||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
I'm not sure that they're completely wrong per se. Rolling magic +spell casting vs the targets reaction is like a ranged combat test. But anyways powerball, manaball, stunball are not nessicarily better than fireball. Depends on the application. If you just want to kill your target. Yeah the others are probably better. If you want to hurt him and set him on fire along with the surroundings, and or set off other combustable people ect, then fireball is the way to go. matter of preference and tactic. |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
Sep 23 2005, 03:52 PM
Post
#280
|
|
|
Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
Sure, and if your targets aren't alive, then you need to be throwing Indirect Combat spells. This hasn't changed from SR3.
Electricity remains king as far as I can tell. It's considered Stun damage (and yet doesn't have cheaper drain) and metallic armor doesn't protect against it at all. Also, when you hit someone with an electrical Indirect Combat spell, they have to make a Body + Willpower test and get 3 successes or immediately drop prone and be incapacitated (unable to take any actions). They're down for a number of Combat Turns equal to (2 + net hits scored on the attack test). Even if they succeed, they have a -2 penalty for that time period. Electronic devices have to make the same test, using Body + Armor (for drones & vehicles) or Body x 2 (for everything else) or be shut down for Combat Turns, just like a person. Acid spells make smoke, imposing some visibility modifiers. Whee. :| If the acid damage comes from a non-spell source, then it turns into a "damage over time" thing as the acid eats into stuff. That doesn't apply to spells, though. Cold spells have no immediately obvious game effects. They can freeze liquids and make solids brittle, but there are no explicit rules for any of that. Double whee. :| :| Fire damage continually applies the initial damage over and over again until it's put out. Now, that sounds massively damaging until it mentions that the GM arbitrarily decides if the subsequent Damage Values increase or decrease. So you could drop your 13 DV fireball onto a car and the GM could say that the next turn the fire went completely out, or just as easily decide that the car explodes and the flaming shrapnel blankets the area for another 20DV per turn. They really should have put in concrete rules for that. |
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 03:58 PM
Post
#281
|
|
|
Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Ranged Combat is an Opposed test, as the target does not set a Threshold, but generates Hits against you - if Inderect Combat Spells would be a Success Test, then the Reaction of the Target would be the Threshold... but that's not 'like ranged combat'.
|
|
|
|
|
Sep 23 2005, 04:00 PM
Post
#282
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
ah ok I see what you're refering to and how it could be directly translated into a threshold. Bad wording on mine and the books part there :D |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 5th February 2025 - 02:37 AM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.