Shadowrun 4: Magic Options

[hyzmarca]

The real problem with quickened spells isn't wards or beings who might try to dispell it. No, the real problem can be summed up in three little words. Routine traffic stop.

"Please present your license and registration.... *Hand goes to gun* " and your spell permits."

All it takes is one astrally active beatmage you, depending on your response you may be in prision, you may be dead, or you have John Walsh's chained ghost narrating a dramatization of your escapades on international trideo that Saturday after Cops Aztlan.

[Fortune]

Rating 4 Fake Magic License - 400 :nuyen:

Don't leave home without it. ;)

[FrankTrollman]

[hyzmarca]

Absolutly brilliant.

[Azralon]

Regarding the Heal spell: It confounded me, too, until I stopped trying to treat it as a normal spell.

Normal spells get their drain code calculated off of Force, divided by 2, then a positive or negative modifier is added. Minimum 1.

Heal doesn't do that. Heal's drain code is radically different. You take the total (previously untreated, but that's a different thread) DV of the current set of injuries you're trying to heal, subtract 2 from that, and that's your drain code.

So if my buddy Meatshield has 6P damage in the particular set of wounds I'm trying to heal, then my drain code is 4S. Here's the trick: It doesn't matter at what Force I'm casting the Heal. Surprisingly, the drain code doesn't care.

So, that's right... if Meatshield is a troll who's racked up 16P damage and is looking at me to heal him, then I can theoretically cast a Force 1 Heal and be looking at a 14S drain code coming at me. Or if he's got just 3P damage and I have a 6 Magic then I could overcast the thing at 12, taking only a 1P drain code.

Now, that begs the question of "What the hell does the Force do for me, then?" Well, remember that the Force of the spell caps the number of possible hits you can achieve with it. If you cast a Heal at Force 1, then the highest number of boxes you'll be healing is exactly 1. If you're a level 4 initiate who can cast it at 20, then you can toss out up to 20 boxes of healing in one go. Or, of course, you can spend some of those hits on decreasing the sustain time.

Basically what this means is that you should look at your Magic + Spellcasting pool, divide it by 3, and realize that's about how many boxes of damage you'll be healing on average. Then cast all of your Heals at that level.... or maybe a little higher, if you're feeling lucky (or Edgy).

For instance, if you have Magic 5 and Spellcasting 4, then odds are you'll be making about 3 hits per roll. Ergo, you're pretty safe to cast all of your Heals at Force 3 from a statistical average point of view.

This also means that whenever you throw a Heal, you need to consider the efficiency of what you're doing. If healing your buddy about 3 boxes is going to probably cost you a dozen boxes of physical yourself... it might be better just to use First Aid on the poor bastard.

[blakkie]

[Azralon]

I agree, Blakkie, and in fact I touched upon the points you mention. I might have been unclear in my wording.

For instance, when I said it didn't matter at what Force you cast the Heal I meant that only in regards to the numeric part of the drain code. I went on to offer examples as to how the Force does in fact affect possible outcomes.

[Azralon]

[RunnerPaul]

[PlatonicPimp]

All right, Frank. I'd like to see A: a tradition in which the practicioner is convinced they are a comic book superhero. Both generic would be good, as well as specifically those who beleive they are X-men Style Mutants. Create Mentor spirits as required.

Also, B: I'd like to see traditions that use Will + a physical stat to reduce drain, if that's not disallowed by the rules. (If it is, I missed it.)

I have my own ideas, but I like seeing you at work.

[Azralon]

A: Perhaps a dedicated "Alternate Traditions" thread would be in order?

B: It is expressly disallowed in the RAW, yup.

[Shemhazai]

It seems the optimal force levels for Heal are either your Magic attribute or Magic x 2, if you have many dice and you need to risk physical drain. Another consideration might be if you for some reason needed people not to notice you were casting.

Here is the latest issue of the newsletter:

Exploit 5: The Heal Train

This requires two spellcasters. The first one should have the larger dice pool to cast Heal, the second should have the larger dice pool to resist drain.

Sammie got shot up badly on the way into a building. Your group is pretty confident that reinforcements will have arrived when it's time to leave, so will need him on the way out. He has, say, 10 boxes of damage.

Caster #1 casts the spell at twice his Magic. He has a very big dice pool, maybe a specialization, maybe a mentor bonus, maybe a health spell focus, maybe a bound spirit-- and he definitely rolls Edge on this one. He has, say 20 dice after all is said and done, rerolling sixes. With a little luck he gets 7 hits and Sammie feels way better in no time. On the drain roll, the base drain is 10 - 2 = 8. He only manages to get 2 hits, which reduces that to 6 boxes of physical damage. Ouch!

Caster #2 casts the spell on Caster #1 at her Magic, which is 5. Her dice pool isn't that great-- 9 dice. She gets only 3 successes. Her Willpower and Logic are pretty good, however, and she totally eliminates the 4 boxes of base drain.

So now Sammie only has 3 boxes of Physical, Caster #1 now has 3 Physical, and Caster #2 is unscathed. Caster #1 needs a little more Willpower and Logic. Caster #2 needs to study Sorcery some more. In time they will be able to pull this stunt with no damage to either of them.

[Shemhazai]

Exploit #6: The Largest Army Ever Assembled

Jessica Alba is an Elven Conjurer with Exceptional Charisma 9(13). She has vowed to take down a crime family that routinely does things that should not be mentioned in this forum. She does her due dilligence and learns of a mandatory meeting of the family leadership. There will obviously be massive security precautions.

She goes to work conjuring and binding 13 of the strongest spirits she can muster. This costs a fortune, of course, which is a major downside to this plan.

On the day of reckoning she casts one more unbound spirit and as many watcher spirits as her Logic allows. The bound spirits go to smash, burn, engulf, bind and drown everyone they see while the some of the watchers heckle and distract the opponents. The spirits would team up to defeat any wards or mana barriers. Some of the watchers are instructed to inform her (telepathically) if anything astral starts coming her way. The unbound spirit stays behind to aid in Jessica's defense. At the end of it all, Jessica instructs her lone guardian air elemental to manifest and fly to the meeting carrying a massive bomb. With whirlwind speed the explosive is dropped and whatever is left blows sky-high. She needs to get on her Dark Angel motorcycle and hightail it to the meeting herself so that the spirit can make the bomb drop. Maybe she can start launching all kinds of spells at this point, too. Almost all of those spirits would be gone by that time, either defeated in combat or successful and free of any more services owed. She won't have those insufferable -2 dice pool modifiers when the battle is almost over. If the criminals send a bunch of spirits after her she might be toast, so maybe she will keep a couple more by her side for good measure. She could cast an astral Mana Barrier around herself before she calls upon the bound spirits.

The moral of the story is that one single magician can pull off more than some people think.

[Fortune]

[FrankTrollman]

[Shemhazai]

Fortune,

Thanks for that. I had it backwards. I thought the magic had to come before the first aid.

In reading more about it, I am amazed that First Aid can remove blocks of stun damage as well as physical. I wonder if that needs to be declared before the the test is made or if you can decide to spend net successes as you choose.

[Azralon]

It'd be simplest to say that you're either healing Stun or you're healing Physical with any given First Aid test.

I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be or if that's even a good idea, but it'd definitely be simpler.

[Dancer]

[Jaid]

you can reroll sixes from non-edge dice provided you declared you were spending edge before you made the test, iirc.

[Dancer]

[fistandantilus4....]

I was actually just looking that up the other day, and was happy to see that rule tossed in. I like it , since, to my knowledge, there is no such limit on firearms.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with a powerfoci, it can go higher, because power foci also boost your effective magic attribute still, so you can cast a higher force spell, correct? But that is NOT possible with a spellcasting foci since it only gives you more spell casting dice, not magic.

[FrankTrollman]

[fistandantilus4....]

thanks, that's what I was looking for. I didn't recall it actually saying that it adds to the magic attribute, so those two just blurred together. Thanks for the clarification. So nice to be a human spellcaster now, with that +1 edge.

[Shemhazai]

[Demon_Bob]