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

[Kagetenshi]

[nezumi]

A herpes spirit would be the toxic version.

[Eyeless Blond]

[nezumi]

(I'm glad you're documenting astral stuff, since I've really fallen behind. If you want my old notes up until early March, I can post them.)

1) None of the above. Watchers should be temporary. I suppose b would be acceptable though, but it would have to be carefully worded.

2) All of the above except the last. I prefer fewer special cases if possible. The summoner's intelligence determines if the watcher understands the instructions, the spirit's intelligence determines if it successfully finds what it's looking for.

3) All of the above

4) 4b sounds awesome. It may also explain why powerful sorcerers, dragons and IEs all seem a little off their rocker.

5) I agree with all of the above, but I think the talisman geas needs to be dropped, or needs to be modified to require a substantial karma deposit.

6) All of the above. Low essence characters should be difficult for spirits to attack, at least in anything less than physical combat (if we bring in #3 at least). I still think that a troll with a huge axe should be able to take a chunk out of an earth elemental though.

7) Yes to all except focus combat, which I don't understand or care about.

[Herald of Verjig...]

I) actually opposed to both, I just suggested option a to see if it would fit better with some people's optinions.

II) a) Aren't there already penalties for the size of an are being searched? I do remember seeing that on the chart, maybe it was just the optional search definition in MitS.
b) Would net nothing. Watchers are trivial to conjure for simple searches, so it would just be a matter of conjuring and dismissing until you have a swarm that knows what you want.
c) I could see an argument for only being able to find targets that the conjurer has assensed, but that immediately leads to aspected conjurers being helpless and full mages assensing everything they see (even the ones that don't already). Not worth the trouble.
d) Same rules, just that materializing spirits can actually do something more than talk when they find the target.

III) disagree

IV) Have yet to have such an abundance of karma that I can initiate easily. Maybe I need new GMs.

V) No trivially available talisman definitions, no inanely stupid condition choices, and most of the geas muinchkinnery is countered.
a) Since all characters get a free action every time it's anyone's turn for initiative, this is a useless and annoying suggestion.

VII) a) no b) no c) what do you mean? d) why?

[Kagetenshi]

My suggestion for geasa was to scrap geasa to counteract magic loss entirely and rework the idea to operate like the Exclusive and Fetish-limited spell limitations.

~J

[Herald of Verjig...]

Would you be able to apply it to spells after learning them to offset the penalties of magic loss, or would they all need to be included when learning? I do like the idea of a gesture-linked spell, but not all spells being gesture linked.

[Kagetenshi]

I'm figuring that the magic loss would just be cut out of the idea entirely, and you'd apply it to the spell when learning it. It'd be by-spell, too, not "now every spell you cast needs a gesture".

~J

[Herald of Verjig...]

On furthur thought, having to cast a spell you already know at lower force until you learn one with chanting that you can cast as well as you used to be able isn't a problem. I agree with the idea.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Eyeless Blond]

Well, my responses:

I) I vote no on A, yes on B. While separate spirit types would be a bit overkill, allowing Watchers to be bonded as guards for long periods on the cheap--as elementals are, by the way, but these would be even cheaper as they are worth even less--would solve a big problem elegantly and simply. Namely, the whole "Astral spying > you" problem. If it becomes economically feasible for all middle-class and higher neighborhoods to have a small team of bound Watchers around to check for snoopers, it cuts down on the mages' easy-snooping privileges, all without having to give mundanes cheesy weird Ghostbuster-like equipment options.

II) As nezumi, I like A, B and C. For D I think that searching should be essentially the same for all spirits, including watchers, but that watchers should face special modifiers for finding Astally-inactive targets, and near completely inept at totally mundane objects like computers. Maybe something like adding OR to Search tests for watcher spirits?

III) As before, I like A and B here. I like Essence to have as much to do with Magic as possible, and these would help with that.

IV) For A, I just don't like that there is a 100% difference between the fully-discounted Initiation and the undiscounted Initiation. Something like base cost*2.5 for self-initiation, and base cost*2.0 for group/ordeal initiation, with the base cost at desired grade+4?
For B, it's a wonderful flavor idea, but how would it work? For the first few grades I'd imagine some small, purely flavor neuroses would be fine, but at the grades begin to rack up I want actual game mechanics to make those mental issues real impacts. Any suggestions?

V) I like Kagetenshi's idea of geased spells more than either of the two ideas above. Though, how would that work with Conjuring? Can it?

VI) Immunity definately need work. Where are the rules for how it currently works? I don't even remember.

VII) I don't personally like any of these except rewriting Focus Addiction and *maybe* adding Grounding back in. For Focus Addiction, if we can fix regular Addiction rules to actually work, rather than being silly and stupid, we can then make Foci into addictive substances, just like any other psychologically addicting thing. This would make it less of a silly special case, while actually accomplishing what it's supposed to accomplish (making mages be careful about too many foci).

[Kagetenshi]

I) My problem with that is that it still takes a mage to fight a mage—someone needs to summon the Watchers. Really, my preferred solution is to make the astral a lot more disconnected from the physical world and to also make it a lot more dangerous, but there's been resistance to that idea.

IV) Brainstorming underway for ways to make magic eat puppies.

V) As for geasa+conjuring, I have absolutely no idea how that would work. Brainstorming time.

VI) Spirit Powers section. I'm not so sure it really needs work, though if we weaken Contest of Wills it certainly will. As it stands, it's 2x Force in hardened armor, 1x against elemental attacks, unarmored vs. contest of wills, combat spells, and weapon foci.

VII) I would totally love to add Grounding back in, except someone pointed out to me the old "whip up a Force 1 nature spirit or elemental, guide to a place on the astral, order it to Materalize, then hit with Force 10 Somethingball grounded through it" trick. As far as I'm concerned, that pretty much kills grounding dead, which saddens me greatly. If someone has an amazing idea bring it up, by all means.

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

[Kagetenshi]

[Eyeless Blond]

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of getting rid of the astral plane altogether, at least the way it's presented now. Now that grounding is out of the picture, astral perception/projection lets you do basically three things:

1) Spy on people essentially with impunity. (Projection)
2) Instantly identify anyone, without regard for disguise, cover, concealment, camouflage, lighting, or even magical attempts to hide oneself (both projection and perception and the number of mods that don't apply to Assensing tests.)
3) Call down the thunder of your spirit brigade on enemies while remaining invincible yourself. (Projection w/ elementals or Great Form nature spirits.)

...that's about it really, and frankly I don't really like any of those options in SR3. Those together are a big part of why nezumi and others bring up the very valid points of magic only being able to be countered by more magic.

If I had my way I'd excise the Astral world as we know it entirely. It would become entirely the world of the spirits, a place where man cannot tread. I'd even change the name: hermetics would call it the Aether, or the Ethreal Plane, and shamans the Spirit World. The only way to view it would be that one Astral Window spell, whatever it's called, or wandering into one of those weird rifts or shallows or such. No perception, no projection; only spirits exist on that plane, essentially.

Metaplanar projection would still work for initiates though. I'm unsure if it shouldn't require a little... more than it does now. More preparations, more vulnerability of your meatbod while you're away, more potential complications arising during the quest, etc. I'd also like to see initiates have the ability to allow willing people to come with them on astral quests.

[nezumi]

The Astral plane is a HUGE part of Shadowrun. While it might make mages less munchy, even I, who as a rule dislike mages, would have to say taking projection away altogether would seem to be a bit much.

Kage is right on. Make it more dangerous. What I think we need to emphasize is the astral is a completely separate ecosystem, and not only that, it's one that has been around for thousands of years, even though humans were unable to jump over. Realistically speaking, the astral should be an undocumented jungle of weird things, predator and prey, and ultimately a place where humans simply do not belong. Visiting the astral isn't just a philosophical test of what makes us human, but a quickness test to avoid the huge crocodile thing that just jumped out of that high-rise to nab you! If we basically made the mage into a little tuna in a big ocean, fully of sharks, jellyfish and sea-birds, the astral really would be its own adventure, one he's unlikely to want to take on himself. That said, it would also reinforce the 'Shadowrun is really 4 games in 1' 'dichotomy'. The mage goes off to do his scouting and the rest of the group orders beer and pizza.

[Herald of Verjig...]

There are a nice list of astral nasties (but always room for more). GMs don't often use them. If you add more harmless astral entities, and then just indicate that astral life is common, this will increase all the search TNs (needs to be sterile or in the presence of an astral predator to get below the population density penalty), make general astral scouting harder, except when it's actually life threatening, and help make the astral seem more alien.

[Eyeless Blond]

Hm. Okay, I can respect that astral projection/perception may be a little too much to wholesale remove like that. But...

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Eyeless Blond]

[Kagetenshi]

I personally believe that, in addition to it being too bothersome to use them, part of the problem is that the astral isn't really presented as a dangerous place to go a-wandering—there are astral nasties, but nothing, IIRC, that suggests that you should be meeting them if you take a jaunt around Seattle on ye olde Astral Plane.

~J

[tisoz]

About 2 decades ago, a guy was telling me about really astrally projecting. I don't think I really believed him. Something that came out of the discussion was him saying there were astral demons that once you showed you were aware of them became quite aware of you, even so far as being told of their existence. Remember, I didn't really believe him, but I started looking for those demons and they scared the hell out of me.

Now take this idea and apply it to Shadowrun. When the character astrally projects, it is like they have astral goo clinging to their boots that the astral entities can easily track. Even perceiving marks the magician with the scent of the astral and leaves his scent upon the astral. Then I realized the game has something similar already in place, Astral Signature and astral trail. Use these tools more. Have the astral entities interested in them, too, not just law enforcement or the guys you just riled up. A free spirit shadow or trickster should be quite interested in astrally active targets.

Background count doesn't get used as much as it probably should.

Or create a few astral only beings that are just terribly frightening. The oceans conceal things like megalodons, kraken, and sea serpents. I honestly think the future seas would be a scary place to cross. Make astral space scary with the threat of a few virtually unkillable entities.

There is also the use of wards. These seem to get used quite often. I think they should be used often. Imagine todays world where the government could astrally spy on you, or the deviant across the street could visit your bedroom/bathroom. Wards would be about everywhere. Not just in the most secure locations.

In summation:
1) Astral Signature
2) Astral Trail
3) Background Count
4) Existing Astral Threats
5) Potential Astral Threats
6) Wards

[Herald of Verjig...]

[nezumi]

I'm not actually aware of a lot of astral nasties. You have:

-Assorted 'good' spirits; elementals, nature spirits, which, AFAIK, don't bother people unless it's requested by their master
-Assorted free spirits which do whatever they please, but are tremendously rare
-Bug spirits and toxic spirits, which are tremendously rare
-Shedim (which is actually reasonably common, but only introduced in the '64 timeframe, so many of us can't use them yet)
-Assorted dual-natured creatures, which really couldn't reasonably catch someone who is astrally projecting

Am I missing something? If so, what book is it in? And which of these serve to make up an 'ecosystem'? Spirits aren't eaten, they disappear back to their metaplane when caught, and dual-natured creatures, with very, very few exceptions, can't get sustenance from an astral being. That's not an ecosystem, it's a handful of non-native, non-predatory creatures introduced from a foreign source. It's like a fish bowl.

Like Kage said, not only aren't there a lot of these creatures, there's no reason to believe they survive well in Seattle. Reading on astral travel, we're given the impression that flying from Philly to Beijing is safe and easy. That isn't a good thing! The only time astral travel becomes truly dangerous is in toxic/background count/magically natural areas like Amazonia, in places with intentionally constructed astral security, or in the metaplanes.

Like tisoz said, astral travel is based on real world ideas. However, no religion I know of that believes in astral travel believes it is so easy and convenient as what we see here. Kabbalah indicates that, while it is a tool to find enlightenment, it takes significant preparation, and the traveler is easily mislead, lost or harmed. They say time and again how dangerous it is. The native American shamanistic traditions, by and large, while including astral travel, almost require that it be highly symbolic and incredibly dangerous. People get eaten on dream quests!!! People die doing this stuff, and only under take the journey after significant preparation.

Shadowrun astral projection is the thirty second burrito of astral journeying. Quick, convenient, homogeneous and thoroughly unsatisfying.

[Herald of Verjig...]