Astral Space, Essence, and the Awakened, the SR3R way Options

[Platinum]

[Kagetenshi]

Hopefully I'll be able to contribute more to these discussions this evening or tomorrow. While I'm here now, though: fishing poles are always normal weapons (well, ok, weapon focus fishing poles excepted), the only thing that makes them look otherwise is the aforementioned Contest of Wills. That's a different matter from the fishing pole not being a Normal Weapon.

~J

[nezumi]

I have to agree with Eyeless, I don't think the rules intended for fishing poles to be the ultimate anti-spirit weapon, and I would categorize such as an abuse of a loophole, not a genuine spirit fighting strategy. While I would currently accept it in a game because of how stupidly powerful spirits are, just like I allow vehicle armor to be defeated by hold-outs with APDS due to how powerful vehicle armor is.

I would also still argue that fishing poles are not normal weapons, they're improvised weapons, unless you believe fishing is man-on-fish combat :P

I also think that, after forty years of magic defense, corporations will have found a better way than killing people in order to make magic hostile zones.

[Kagetenshi]

INW doesn't actually define itself in terms of normal weapons. It just states that it has no effect against combat spells and weapon foci, and works at half-strength against elemental damage.

~J

[Herald of Verjig...]

[fistandantilus4....]

[Platinum]

What about a whole bunch of weapons that are designed for fighting spirits?

not just completely ghost buster style either, but there should be something. 40 years is a lot of time to work on paranormal research especially when you now have a quantifyable way of measuring results.

There must be some kind of anti-spirit energy gun or lightning weapon, plasma weapon that would have a damaging effect upon spirits. I don't like the idea that spirits when manifested are basically invulnerable to mundanes. but I don't think that it should be any kind of an easy cake walk either. Some highly specialized eq would be cool, highly priced, and not readily available.

first rule is that the spirit would need to have a physical presence. (manifested) (because astrally they cannot affect the mundane and vice versa) I do think that could use the astral as a sanctuary. (some existing strategies would work i.e. the mundane with a fab covered net can affect them.)

What about mundanes bonding foci?? I would not have a problem with it. It is a very calculated risk, especially with grounding. They do not add dice like they do with adepts, they just allow you to attack magical spirits and beings.

[Kagetenshi]

You mean materialized. Manifested is "visible but not physical".

Grounding does not currently exist. Reintroducing it has been proposed, but was controversial—no obvious correct path has emerged.

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

[Link]

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Link]

[Herald of Verjig...]

Your response is beyond absurd. Read the definition of foci and you will see that they are physical objects enchanted to serve as foci. Your quote from the astral combat section is appropriate but incomplete. If I could find any rules on equipment destruction other than the elemental secondary effects in MitS I would point you to that as well.

Unless in your games foci are made suddenly indistructable once enchanted, in which case I want to play and enchant a jumpsuit.

[Kagetenshi]

So I've read this part of the discussion a few times, and I still can't figure it out: what exactly are you disagreeing about?

~J

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Platinum]

Ok to bring things back on track here....

1. how do we want mundanes to interact with spirits?

A: spirits are just unbeatable because they are immune to normal weapons and mundanes cannot use magical weaponry.

B: create some new weapons that are not magic but can affect spirits

C: change immunity to normal weapons

D: allow mundanes to bond foci but don't allow them extra dice

E: propose something new

F: Proposed by HOV (Mundanes can learn banishing)

2. are we even looking at grounding and focus addiction
(personally I think focus addiction is one of the stupidest rules ever written. a limit of 2* current rating isn't much of a limit.)

A: focus addiction is king

B: grounding puts a nice sense of fear into a mage with foci.

C: we need a combination of both

D: both rules should be burned with fire

This post has been edited by Platinum: Mar 26 2007, 02:24 PM

[Herald of Verjig...]

1) I initially favored altering immunity to normal weapons so that it provides (F) impact armor and complete immunity to bombs and bullets. Then I thought of allowing mundanes to learn banishing, and suggest that for consideration. Since mundanes don't have a magic attribute to risk losing, just make the counter in the form of a regular manifested attack of the spirit. This makes earth elementals more dangerous to banish than air elementals, but you need FAB spray or astral perception to spot air elementals clearly and attack them.

2) Haven't yet played a mage with enough spent on foci to hit addiction or the int limit. Grounding was balanced in SR2 because spell locks never cost more than 1 karma and could be easily deactivated for transport through ward and reactivated on the other side with no drain (IIRC), sustaining foci are already more costly and the spell must be recast every time you want to activate it.

2.15) On a slightly unrelated note, I fully support implementing the flowchart anchoring from SR2 as a form of advanced metamagic. I want a mage who can set a stunball to fire if the anchored "Detect Me" spell in his bedroom fails to respond but the anchored "Detect Life" does report finding something.

[Link]

Herald, my almost rhetorical question was, in SR3 astral combat how do you 'fight' a focus. I didn't know it off hand.

[nezumi]

Immunity to normal weapons and the hardened armor rules need to be revamped. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you hit a tank with enough (yes, millions) of .22 bullets, eventually it'll be damaged. Perhaps adding "automatic successes" or somesuch would serve as a reasonable counter. You can hurt it with normal weapons, it just takes a very lucky, very skilled shot or very powerful shot.

I thought grounding was a lot of fun and made being a mage in general a more dangerous proposition. I like the idea of everyone giving the mage lots of space in case he blows up.

[Platinum]

[Herald of Verjig...]

I haven't considered all the possible ramifications of letting mundanes learn banishing, but they can already learn talismongering so there is a precident to letting mundanes learn part of a magical skill. Even if you let them learn the entirity of conjuring theory, it will only apply when they know a true name or hold a ghost anchor.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Eyeless Blond]

Maybe we can expand that rule for detecting spirits (p. 173) to make it easier for mundanes to detect astral beings. Something like:

"The presence of a powerful astral being is something that can be felt by even mundane creatures. Whenever an astral being passes within a radius of the creature's Essence in meters, the creature is entitled to a Perception test, TN of 12 minus the astral being's Force or Magic Attribute, as appropriate. With one success the creature feels a sensation like a chill or tingling from the passage of the astral form. Additional successes give insight into the general location of the presence and its power (Force or Magic attribute), though they have no way of ever positively identifying it. Some creatures are trained to recognize these feelings as the presence of an astral being; others may simple dismiss the feeling as paranoia.

"Astral forms with Masking can attempt to hide their presence..." That's about all I've got. Anyone think this is a good idea and want to help me fill out how Masking helps?

Note no additional help for Awakened. They can swap into Perception anyway; they don't need the help.

Possibly this rule could be extended to detecting active spells? This allows us to also ditch the currently inane rules stating how spellcasting is subtle and difficult to detect, then go on to explain that when they said "subtle", they really meant "very slightly less obvious than full-auto gunfire under your nose." I'm really unsure about this one, however.

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Kagetenshi]

TN 4+Magic-Force to spot spellcasting. Not very difficult, really.

~J