 Shadowrun 4: Magic |
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 Dec 23 2005, 08:51 PM
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#426
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 31-October 03 Member No.: 5,780  |
Don't wards take several hours to set up, depending on its strength?
If a ward can stand alone after the spirit left, I suppose it's useful as long as you have the time, otherwise they might vanish upon the spirits leaving - be it at sundown/sunup or otherwise. interesting question though, kinda goes with my whole 'babysit this person, and don't let them get into trouble please' consideration. If trouble starts going astral solely on the intended target to babysit, would the spirit sit there and do nothing? Maybe it'd apply as a remote action or whatever. |
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Dec 24 2005, 01:19 AM
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#427
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 297 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 248 |
Actually they already could in SR3.
There was no restriction given that adepts or spirits couldn't do it. |
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Dec 24 2005, 09:45 AM
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#428
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
so back to something brought up on the last page, can a spirit being summoned use it's edge to get more successes against the summons? Example: mage summons force 6 fire elemental to bind it. Elemental rolls 12 dice (6*2) + 6 more dice (edge=force=6) and there fore a force 6 spirit/elemental rolls 18 dice to resist the binding. Is that right?
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Dec 24 2005, 04:19 PM
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#429
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
if it wants to, yes.
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Dec 24 2005, 04:57 PM
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#430
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 31-October 03 Member No.: 5,780 |
I thought a spirit/elemental/whatever rolled its force, then edge if it used it, not forcex2 and/or edge?
granted, each hit counts as 2 boxes, so in truth that's 24+ boxes of potenial mayhem a spirit gives.. summoning just isn't as healthy as it use to be, lol. |
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Dec 24 2005, 06:02 PM
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#431
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I am still completely unsold on the idea that a spirit that does not yet exist can declare the use of its Edge before rolling the dice. Or even after rolling the dice, since the spirit does not appear until after the results of the roll are calculated.
If no hits are made by the magician, there's no spirit, and thus nothing to spend edge. If magician makes net hits, the spirit appears and can jolly well spend Edge, but then it's too late to spend Edge on the summoning test at that time. Spirits can spend Edge on resisting the control check after they have been banished into uncontrolled status, which is one more way in which Banishing isn't good. -Frank |
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Dec 24 2005, 07:52 PM
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#432
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
That is a question of perspective. Spirits may very well exist before they are called (maybe not in the form or force they take but as full entities on their native metaplanes). The fact that Summoning and Binding are Opposed rolls at all suggests this. Then there's the argument that if they're capable of making Opposed rolls at all then they're capable of spending Edge.
Actually even if it were contigent on the magician making net hits, the spirit could theoretically spend Edge (with the after the roll Edge option). |
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Dec 25 2005, 05:37 PM
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#433
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 31-October 03 Member No.: 5,780 |
Does this constitute a meat puppet?
Decrease willpower and hope to knock willpower to 0 control body/actions/whatever spell on the noew will-less target? |
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Dec 31 2005, 05:48 AM
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#434
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 31-October 03 Member No.: 5,780 |
well, the one question remains unanswered, but maybe these ones will get more fire, heheh.
these are more about spell definitions and actual uses. 1)Turn to Goo and Petrify: when you use these, is the use alone pretty much lethal to the perso if they ever had any cyberware or otherwise? Would a petrified person's arm still work fine once the spell was released/dispelled, or is it forever out of sync until someone does some cyber-tweaking? Does one turned to goo find their arms not re-attaching when that spell goes just becaues they were flat as a pancake on the floor? Or does everything 'fit back into place' unless you do something like separate some goop or break the statue's nose? 2)shapechange: Potentially, a good roll and/or edge could turn you into a super-critter with obscene stats. aret here actual limits beyond the force of the spell, or is there no racial limit for critters you also have to obey? 3)analyze device: Just how literal is this spell? does this mean guns and computers and technology are potentially all pseudo-mastering, or could you pick up a battle axe or monowhip and get similar results? Could you pick up a book on kung fu and learn it all with a flip of the pages and a little magic? |
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Dec 31 2005, 02:47 PM
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#435
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 297 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 248 |
On 1) I personally go with your last option. Everything comes back into place. On 2) Rulewise there is no other limit than the force of the Spell and your Edge of course. On 3) AFAIK you can pick up axes and knives, and would know how to use them. As for the book, you would know how to use this book. That means, how to flip pages, how to read, maybe you could understand the meaning behind the words (GM call i'd say) but not the actual words themselves. So you could learn Kung-Fu from it normally (while sustaining the spell somehow), but you would not instantly know the style of Kung-Fu presented in the book. |
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Dec 31 2005, 03:36 PM
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#436
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
i would say someone who's willpower is decreased to 0 cannot function (as per the spell description) and therefore, while you would control them, their actions would be limited to standing there and drooling. what you want to do requires three (but sometimes two) spells, IMO. 1) reduce willpower to 1. if they already have willpower 1, then this would be the spell you don't need. you want to take them to 1, not 0, so be careful... 2) cast chaos on them. you only want to give them a -1 penalty, so plan accordingly. as spell resistance is an opposed test, they will have a -1 to resist... meaning they have 0 dice to resist with. naturally, this means they can only succeed if they have dice from elsewhere (magic resistance, counterspelling, and edge being the three i can think of offhand). 3) now cast your controlling spell. make it as high force as you like. they get a resistance test every (force) turns. as the test in question has 0 dice backing it up, i expect it will be a little difficult for them to make it. now, even this is not permanent (someone can give them counterspelling assistance, for example, and they can spend edge) so they will eventually break free (unless you make them totally suck by having a massively high chaos effect on them). alternatively, if you can figure out some spell design rules, you could just make a spell to reduce spell resistance on the target. naturally, if you do that, you can just use 2 spells, and if you have the spell resistance one powerful enough, it may make it next to impossible for them to break free (but still possible). |
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Jan 5 2006, 07:45 PM
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#437
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
Are magesight goggles just goggles with huge cables of fiberoptics running out of them? If so, they don't seem very useful. And can contacts be wired for optics? Also, can you cast physical spells while in astral, or can you just cast manabolts?
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Jan 5 2006, 10:49 PM
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#438
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 129 Joined: 3-November 05 Member No.: 7,923 |
yes. they let you cast spells (or just look) around corners, etc. Heck, our samouri has a pair for peeking around things.
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Jan 5 2006, 11:29 PM
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#439
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 203 Joined: 18-November 05 Member No.: 7,978 |
You can cast all the manabolts you want, just not at physical targets. When you are in the physical plane, you can cast mana and physical spells at physical targets. When you are astrally perceiving or dual natured, you can cast mana spells at astral targets as well as the normal physical ones. However, you can be attacked from the astral. When you are on the astral plane you can cast mana spells at astral targets, including astrally perceiving or other dual natured beings. No other targets or spells are viable. |
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Jan 6 2006, 07:43 AM
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#440
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
in other words, only mana based spells while projecting.
As far as the mage sight goggles go, you can cast spells through fiber optics because it is light based, hence optics. IIRC the max length they can go w/o boosting is 2 meters, but if you check out SOTA 63, in the security system , there's an entire system for fiber optics security that ranges a lot farther than that , jsut with modifiers. I believe it was called Prometheus. My players hate it when they start getting hit with spells from no where that they can't shoot back at. They started carrying laser pointers just for this. :D |
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Jan 6 2006, 07:55 AM
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#441
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,086 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 364 |
They allow a mage to extend their Line Of Sight to places that it normally couldn't go. As an added bonus, if a mage uses magesight goggles to obtain LOS past an obstacle such as a corner or a wall, any magical support the opposition finds their own LOS still blocked by the obstacle. At best, the opposition would have LOS to the end of the fiber optic cable, but fiber optic cables are typically harder to hit with a spell, and besides, zapping a fiberoptic cable with a spell isn't nearly as effective as zapping the opposing mage with a spell.
I suggest re-reading the second paragraph under the sub-heading "Step. 3: Chose the Target(s)" on p.173. You can find the answers to your question there.
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Jan 6 2006, 03:59 PM
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#442
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,222 Joined: 11-October 02 From: Netherlands and Belgium Member No.: 3,437 |
I've been doing alot of reading, and came up with interesting facts....
Chance of encountering a Ward greater than 5 were rare in SR3, what with the TN being Force, and the 'man hours' of failure being doubled to re-try. So on average, as a GM, I'd Force 5 all but the most important areas, which I'd do at Force 9 by default. Chances of seeing a Ward greater than Force 11 were near miniscule to impossible, no matter your grade. Grade 6 Initiate could, in the new edition, summon a Force 24 Ward rather easily, with the physical drain being his only (heh) concern. With a much cheaper, medical team on alert, and a spare mage with stabilize, and heal, and an edge spent to re-roll failures (averaging 6 successes on the drain). Of course, you don't 'need' a Force 24, 18 is more than enough to out-roll most attacks against a ward. Makes for a much more magically defensive world. Quickening now, 24 karma for a Grade 6 Initiate to quicken a Force 12 spell (stun drain only....), that's impressive.... Those -2 Drain Improved Attribute spells look really nice to a high-grade initiate, no? If I were going to be working for a Corp, I'd have a 12+ Willpower, 12+ Logic (Charisma), and summon Force 24 Wards every week if they wanted.... Averaging 13 successes on Drain. Bit of pain for wowza nuyen. I know the mega-corp I previously worked for paid a programmer a mil a year to keep their database up 24/7. Good mage would be worth 10 times that. Of course, with so many Mega-Corps having Dragons around, I can't imagine there's any MegaCorp primary HQ with a Ward less than 24. Places that'd have had only Force 11 in my 3rd Ed games... Damn. Sphynx |
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Jan 6 2006, 11:13 PM
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#443
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
or you could just pay 500 :nuyen: per force rating and have as high a force as you can afford, and it can be made by an almost fully burned-out magician with a magic rating of 1.
in SR3, it had to be a shaman, but it can now be either. if the corp really wanted, they could have a pretty dang hefty ward over something for a rather cheap price. |
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Jan 6 2006, 11:57 PM
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#444
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
The magical lodge trick has a number of disadvantages:
1. Takes a day per force point in addition to 500 :nuyen: per force for the materials. 2. Lodges aren't of specific size, but they don't appear to be 50 cubic meters times your magic attribute. 3. Lodges are astrally limked to the creator. -Frank |
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Jan 7 2006, 12:41 AM
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#445
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
the lodge also stays there indefinitely, costs less, has no drain, and can be boosted to infinity.
and i think in SR3 at least, the lodge's size was indicated (i believe it was a maximum of the lodge's force in meters for either radius or diameter, iirc). of course, i could be just totally off my rocker on that, you never know :P at any rate, i believe you are correct that there doesn't seem to be any information on lodge size in SR4. |
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Jan 12 2006, 06:18 AM
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#446
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
looking over the metamagics, does masking no longer cover any in effect spells or foci on your person? I didn't see anything to that effect.
Also, is the ability to spoof a ward gone now? I do see that you can force through a ward, but there's nothing about tricking a ward through masking to make it think that you're 'allowed'. Hopefully there;s something more to this answer than "I think it wil be covered in Street Magic." |
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Jan 12 2006, 05:00 PM
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#447
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Dashing hopes is like my seventh favorite thing to do!
Yes. Though the Flexible Signature metamagic can make a spell's signature last for zero hours if Force is equal or less than your initiate grade. You can make a pretty solid case that a spell whose signature isn't visible for any amount of time isn't visible at all, which is even better than the old Masking trick of making people make arcane checks to see if they can see your spells. That being said, there isn't currently any way to hide an active focus or spirit power, which makes Master Shedim and Alchemists the world over cry real tears. Either they will introduce an expanded masking variant that covers externalities, or masking is just going to be a much more tactical decision than it used to be. Right now, you really have to limit your use of magic if you want to make your Masking convincing, which you certainly didn't used to have to do. -Frank |
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Jan 13 2006, 05:40 AM
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#448
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
so what are the other six?
The other thing that I've noticed is the lack of two of my other favorite rules : focus addiction and magic loss due to deadly wounds (which has come up in my games amazingly). I know that the number of foci you can use at any one time is limited b your logic, but I like the addiction angle. But so much of the rules is based offo f the idea that many invasive medicienes can effect magical ability, but there is no surgery that takes away essence except for augmentation. Just missing some of the good ol' burn outs I guess. But hey, at least good ol' Johhny Practically-a-cyber-zombie Spinrad would still have no magic! |
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Jan 27 2006, 10:41 PM
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#449
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 31-October 03 Member No.: 5,780 |
I suspect this has been asked, but hey...repetition leads to memorization!
what damage value does the Heal spell use to determine drain: the total of the person being healed, or the amount you heal with the spell? |
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Jan 27 2006, 10:52 PM
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#450
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 31-October 03 Member No.: 5,780 |
and this time a question of amusement:
if the spell is yours, can you automatically see the results, or 'resist' your own spells in action? case in point, improved invisibility on a wall. Will you always see through it no matter what, or will be bit a ghostly thing, or nothing period? |
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