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

[Nyxll]

[Eyeless Blond]

Oh, hey

5) SPELL RANGES!

Can't believe I forgot about that one.

[Kagetenshi]

Elaborate?

I don't like the idea of giving spellcasting an innate range, but we do need to clarify certain issues. For instance, if you're standing on the earth (Background Count 0) casting a spell at the Moon (BC 8) through space (BC 10), what penalties do you take?

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

Well there's a few issues here:

A) casting at things too far away to see. Since things like fog, soft cover and darkness and other visual modifiers apply when casting a spell, I think that distance should also have a factor, for the same reason. Unfortunately "vision" doesn't have a range increment yet, does it?
B) casting through background counts. I have no idea how to deal with this. Maybe treat them like casting through astral barriers?

[Nyxll]

[Kagetenshi]

So your opinion is to use the higher of the two endpoints?

This seems workable, and doesn't have the problem of using one endpoint (resulting in being able to cast either to the moon from Earth or to Earth from the moon without penalty), and the places where it potentially breaks down aren't present in Shadowrun canon, but let's address them anyway in case someone uses the ruleset for a futuristic game.

What if someone surrounds the moon in a clear bubble and fills it with an atmosphere and biosphere sufficient to produce a Background Count of 0? With a sufficiently powerful telescope can you Stunbolt someone walking around up there without penalty?

~J

[Nyxll]

[Kagetenshi]

Here's a question for you, then… what about elemental manipulations? They travel through space. Likewise, what happens if you cast Levitate and then start levitating straight up out of the manasphere? Do you keep track of your die rolls and drop successes as each TN is exceeded?

That method works, but is heavy on bookkeeping.

~J

[Sharaloth]

Elemental manipulations and the Levitate spell do not work the same way (levitate specifically in your example). Elemental Manipulations do not 'originate within their target', they originate from the magician and travel the intervening distance to the target where they take effect. Hence casting a stunbolt at a guy you can see in a mirror will knock the guy out, but casting a lightning bolt will break the mirror. If you cast levitate on yourself and leave the manasphere, you suffer all the effects of moving into BGC10 (as well as the entire 'no atmosphere' respiration and pressure problems), which will likely kill the spell anyways. You CAN, however, use the telescope to cast levitate on the guy on the moon, and then move him around in the area you can see via this telescope.

[Deamon_Knight]

Two thoughts:

IIRC, magic doesn't travel through the metaplanes, its the manipulation of mana (a medium permeating both both astral and physical planes, as well as the metas), so the interveneing Manawarp should effect it, like a phone call routed across a bad circuit. No conductive medium, no effect.

As for Open Tests, I'll repost this idea in the main thread, but I was thinking it depends on what you decide you want to model with these test. I can't post a probability list like some, but open tests do seem to run the gamut of probable results. To produce more normalized results, consider making this change to open tests.

A: Eliminate the Rule of 6 for open tests.
B: Roll a number of dice equal to your skill rating and take the highest result. (as normal)
C: Add the highest die result to your skill rating for the result.

Example: Sly Cat has Stealth 5, and wants to hide in a dark ally from the gangers chasing him. He rolls an open test for stealth, rolling 5 dice he gets a 01, 01, 03, 04, and a 05. The 5 is the highest die result, so he adds that 5 to his skill rating in Stealth (also a 5) for a result of 10. the TN then for the gangers to spot him is 10.

If your problem with Open Tests is the many rules in one book problem, this really doesn't help though.

[Kyoto Kid]

Eliminate Magic Loss from Deadly wounds. This never really made sense. The only time the Magic Attribute should be reduced is if Essence itself is permanently affected through such things as cyber implantation, dismemberment, etc.

[Catsnightmare]

I agree with this a little. No magic loss from Deadly wounds themselves, but I think you should still have make a save for improper medical treatment of said wounds.
Even though in SR4 magic loss from stim patches has been removed, I don't completely agree with that, but think you should still be wary of over using stims to counter drain/stun damage. Keep the threat of magic loss, but lower the chances a little.

[Kyoto Kid]

To elaborate on this, it would be a huge benefit to Adepts since they are more likely to physically go toe to toe in combat (and more prone to taking that deadly wound). I always believed that losing actual abilities is a lot harsher than not being able to toss that force 6 spell.

I can see a botched surgery (which does cause a reduction in Essence) as another way magic attribute can be adversely affected.

[Chance359]

5) Spell ranges: Spell ranges should be subject to certain visual modifiers, also spells should not be able to be cast out of the manasphere.

6) Magic loss from deadly wounds: drop the rule, it has the potential to be used against physads more than other types (IMHO)

Alright now for my contributions,

7) Drop Sustaining Focuses, and bring back spell locks and ground.

8 ) New Metamagic technique that allows a spell caster to give up sorcery pool dice to sustain a spell.

[Kagetenshi]

[Chance359]

5) On page 86 of MitS, it gives a brief description of spell casting in a mana warp. If a caster is trying to send a spell from point a to point c through a manawarp, that spell should have to overcome the effects of the warp.

Imagine throwing a baseball through a fine screen net. You can see the person you're playing catch with, but you'd have to over come the strength of the net to get the ball there.

6) I was mostly agreeing with Kyoto Kid and Catsnightmare on this one. Just seems like physads risk more using their abilities the other magical active characters. Other magically actives (generally) get to stay back and try and use range and circumstance to avoid taking deadly damage. Physads on the other hand (generally) are a part of the fighting.

7) Probably because I simply liked the way grounding worked from an IC point of view. Spelllocks could give you a huge edge, but you never knew if there was a mage lurking in the astral, ready to send a hellblast through your 'lock. Perhaps keeps Sustaining focuses and bring back just grounding?

8 ) After reading through the Idiots guide to the matrix thread, I liked how Deckers were about to use hacking pool dice to suppress IC. I've never really cared for how a sorcerer has to either have a foci or take penalty to all other castings while sustaining a spell.

New metamagic (need better name)

A magician is able to give up dice from his sorcery pool to sustain a spell. The conversion rate is one die of sorcery pool for every 3 force points the caster wants to sustain. However, this creates a link from the sustained spell to the caster that astral ententies would be able to follow. (Like a string from the ball of yarn to the the knitters rod)

[Bodak]

I missed this thread during my sojourn. Yay for necroforia.

[Kagetenshi]

[Bodak]

When I first joined DS back on the old site I put forward the same idea, that I thought there was only a single damage track for an astrally projecting mage, but I was told that was not the case by several people.

For example, if a projecting mage casts Stunball at another projecting mage, sure the caster might get (physical) drain but the target (if it doesn't resist) will take stun damage. No?

[Kagetenshi]

@#$%#$@$ing hell…

Maybe it was SR2 where there wasn't Stun? Anyway, as it turns out there's no astral attack that does Stun damage, but astral damage may be Physical or Stun at the option of the dealer.

So in the situation above, if the separate-entities model is being used, I'd say the mage hangs there helpless until he or she dies or regains consciousness.

~J

[Bodak]

My interpretation when I'd read the books before asking questions on DS was that the mental attributes and the stun track were part of (what this thread is calling) the essence. And the physical attributes and the physical damage track were part of the body. Hence the augmented attributes resulting from possession, for example, and the "physical" attributes of a projecting mage. And hence the reason physical damage such as bullet wounds, vehicle collisions and elemental spells are resisted with the body, whereas essential effects such as manabolt and invisibility and mind probe are resisted with the essence (will or int). If you take full boxes damage of physical, your physical component gets switched off (dead body) and if you take full boxes damage of stun, your mental component gets switched off (unconscious essence).

So for most creatures which have their essence bound to their bodies, they have two damage tracks permanently. Even DN critters or perceiving adepts. But when a mage projects, the body lying on the couch only has a physical damage track and the essence takes the stun track off into the astral plane somewhere. I would think therefore that if you cast stunbolt or mindprobe on the inert body it would simply fail (in the same way casting those spells on a living potplant would) because there is no essence present to be the target of such spells. Similarly, casting usually causes drain on the stun track (because that's the essential track while you're on the physical plane and have both) but when you're projecting you only have one damage track (since you've left behind your body, and therefore the choice of which track to resist using) so if you get drain, it only has one track to be applied to. If you fill up your whole damage track and you've only got one, then you get switched off. So for all intents and purposes, it's equivalent of physical drain on the physical plane.

This made sense to me when I read the books, and before I asked that question on DS. Since then I've been a bit addled as to how the different tracks work or what they represent and kind of assume everything has two tracks and not really know what the rationale is behind it (although I do say Watchers have only one track with a number of boxes available on it equal to their Force, to limit the use of Watcher Pack Attack). So your Revised model makes a lot of sense to me.

[Sphynx]

My apologies for the late reply, I'm still playing 'catchup' from years of inactivity (quite surprised to see I still hold the 32nd place on 'mostest postests' :P

First a question. Since you seperate Astral and Physical, would that affect casting spells while Astrally Projecting? I think it should, the idea of Physical damage for casting a spell from spirit form always rubbed me wrong. In our game, Psionicists always take Stun Damage from spell casting while Astral, but I think it should be all magic.

Next, I would really like to see caps on Initiation. Our own House Rule is that you can not initiate to a grade higher than your uninitiated Magic rating. So, if you take 2 essence of cyberware without a Geasa, you will never get past Initiate grade 4 for a Magic total cap of 8. 5 and 10 if you take a Geasa to offset magic loss at some point.

We also have a magic house rule that you can only ever geasa 1 point of Magic Loss at a time. (Too much abuse in our group with alot of geasa and bioware in our mages/adepts :P), but not sure that should be a Global house rule.

Also, for the record, I think maintaining only 1 type of astral damage makes the mostest sense. ;)

[nezumi]

[nezumi]

To again respond to my own comment...

I feel like there are two overarching problems.

Firstly, as I've said elsewhere, magic and cyber is an uneven dichotomy. While cyber is generally seen as a trade-off and ultimately bad for you, eating away your human soul and resulting in your not getting invited to parties, magic is (as far as PC options are concerned) always good, environmentally friendly, powerful, limitless, and usually invisible to most people. I don't feel like Shadowrun magic jives well with the cyberpunk setting. Magic should not be benefits with no drawbacks, it needs to be a trade like cyberware is. Mages should become more ungrounded, bring the horrors closer or something. This may be out of the scope of SR3R, but I hope it isn't. It's so fundamental to the system that I don't feel that it could be addressed in any other forum. If I'm the only person who feels this way, I'll drop it though.

Secondly, essence has come up twice as being a major point of contention. It will continue to be a problem as we move into the gear section and turn to focus more on spells. We need to decide what essence is first, then fit the rules to fit it after. I propose that all rules pertaining to the character's essence are temporarily left out until this issue is settled.



Having said that...
Astral & Essence
A) Overpowered scouting
1 More dual-natured plants: yes
2 Mundanes creating wards: yes
3 No hearing on astral: undecided, leaning towards yes
4 Astral bodies cannot overlap: yes
5 Reduce spirit searching: yes
6 Um... This isn't a rule, sorry. But yes, we need more concise language.
7 Range modifiers: yes

B) Essence penalties don't hurt
This relates back to the essence question, so I don't feel ready to answer any yet.

C) Connection between astral form & body
Again, this relates back to essence, and so should be tabled for now.

D) Astral combat is a melee skill: yes
E) Astral perception defined: yes


Spells
A) Break up detection: sure. Night vision shouldn't be resisted and this seems an easy way to fix it
B) Fix invisibility: definitely. Invisibility leads to too many fights. We need to figure out a more logical spell.
C) Spell defense: I don't use it enough to have an opinion
D) Casting through BG count
1 Use highest endpoint: no
2 Elemental manips use caster's BG: yes
3 Use highest count in path: yes

E) Spell ranges
1 apply range modifiers: yes
2 limited to manasphere: yes
F) Manipulation as a category is too broad
1 elemental manips go to Combat: yes
2 Break manipulation into two groups: yes
G) Remove 'create' spells: yes


Other magic:
A) Elementalists cast related elemental manip: yes
B) Ritual tracking & 1: yes
1 follow your own spell: sounds canon, let's make sure we mention it
C) Initiation should cost more: yes
1 Complex initiation rolls: this gives me a headache and doesn't solve my personal complaint, so no opinion
2 Initiation cap: yes (caps apply to every other attribute!)
D) Sustain w/ spell pool metamagic: no (or put it in SOTA65), out of scope
E) Return spell lock, grounding: yes

[Herald of Verjig...]

Spells:
a: yes
c: what's the issue?
e: Grimoire had penalties for extreme ranges due to visibility.
150 m or less: no penalty
151-300m: +2
301-600m: +4
601-1250m: +6
1251-2500m: +8
2501-5000m: +10
5001m: no valid target

While it is based on near-ground viewing, at least everything under 5km is a reasonable penalty for even just identifying a metahuman sized targetin optimal weather conditions.

f: only if you add more elements to cover the new divisions
g: no

other:
a: sure
b: isn't that what a watcher spirit is good at?
c: no
d: yes
e: no, maybe make it an option for use of the metamagic in d, but do not make grounding and spell locks the standard

-make psionics and voodoo useful:
not sure about the voodoo, but there are only two limits on psionics:
1) players who do not know enough to justify any spell as an effect of the mind (or just scratch that rule)
2) limited conjuration

To enhance the conjuration, I would suggest some way to enable a psion to exchange standard thought form powers with other spirit powers. Maybe also start with another base attribute variety so they can conjure one utility form and one combat form before any power switching. The current thought forms would be the "cunning" and the others will be "rage."

"Rage" thought form:
B: F + 3
Q: F x2
S: F + 1
Init: F + 10 + 1D6 (+10 more astral)
Powers: Materialization, Guard, Confusion

For the power shuffling, my current thought is a magical theory test vs. the force of the spirit + the number of power changes desired. Each success is one power that can be changed to one of the ones the psion wants instead. No drain for this part, but it can only be attempted once each conjuring.