Dumpshock Forums > Aspected Magicians

Xenith

Oct 8 2005, 08:41 PM

Well, since there are some people who have asked how to bring back Aspected Magicians (or 'Groggies'), I figured a topic on it might not be uncalled for.

I found as nice way of doing this by taking two incompetence flaws for either Binding and Summoning or Spellcasting and Ritual Spellcasting. So you have a Sorcerer or a Conjurer aspected magician. unfortunately, its rather difficult to do similar things with Elemental Magicians or Totem Casters (or what have you)....

I guess its possible to simply create a Flaw for this... but I want to see if theres a way to simulate it within the current rules if possible.

Any ideas on that?

Jaid

Oct 8 2005, 11:25 PM

you could take spirit bane a few times to help simulate the spirit part. wouldn't work quite the way you want, but it would help. also, you would naturally specialise in the type of spirit and spellcasting you are allowed to use.

hmmm... as far as it goes, the shamanist (based on totem thing) would only work for a very few totems... most of them give only one magic advantage now, if any, it seems. maybe if you houseruled a few totems to be different for adepts and magicians...

TonkaTuff

Oct 9 2005, 04:29 AM

Off-hand, I would think it fairly simple to implement aspected magicians. Just charge them fewer BPs (5-7, depending on how you think they compare to PhysAds) for the privillage and enforce the restrictions as outlined in SR3 (they're either casters or summoners, and they can't project). Same for Elementalists and Shamanists - if they're not supposed to have access to a skill/spell, don't let them get them. Doesn't seem to require a great deal of rules-fu or particular flaws. And, on the general topic, granting them Incompetence for skills they will never be able to use is just free BP unless you just enforce the penalties w/o the benefit.

Gothic Rose

Oct 9 2005, 05:31 AM

Edit: Should have more thoroughly read the OPer. Nevermind

snowRaven

Oct 9 2005, 12:45 PM

QUOTE (TonkaTuff)

And, on the general topic, granting them Incompetence for skills they will never be able to use is just free BP unless you just enforce the penalties w/o the benefit.

Well, the Incompetence is there basically to lower the cost from 15 to 5 to a be an aspected magician - if you would normally allow a mage to take incompetence for a magic skill, there's no problem with this at all. As for free BPs...they got extra BPs for severely limiting their magic ability - permanently. I see no prob with that...

elbows

Oct 9 2005, 01:18 PM

It's easy to house-rule aspect magicians by just charging 5BPs, or taking an incompetence flaw, but they end up not being cost-effective. Full mages only cost 15BP now, which isn't much -- the real cost is in buying up your Magic. Even if aspected magicians only cost 5BP, they get the shaft -- basically they get one extra attribute point in exchange for drastically limiting their magical abilities.

In SR3, aspected magicians were a lot cheaper than full mages, and they got more free spell points, IIRC.

Chandon

Oct 10 2005, 03:19 AM

Mystic Adept with no adept powers. The single most relevent property that an aspected magician has is the lack of astral projection.

NightmareX

Oct 10 2005, 05:40 AM

I've being running them like this:

Aspected Magician (7 bp positive quality)
A character with this quality is an aspected magician and starts with a Magic attribute of 1. This may be increased like any other attribute, up to a maximum of 6 + initiation grade. A character with this quality cannot take the Adept, Mystic Adept, or Technomancer qualities.

When this quality is taken, an aspect must be chosen for the character. An aspected magicians has only limited use of magical skills, depending on their aspect and cannot use magical skills not noted as available to their aspect. Available aspects include:

* Sorcerer: An aspected sorcerer can cast spells and otherwise make use of all skills in the Sorcery skill group.
* Conjurer: An aspected conjurer can conjure spirits and otherwise make use of all skills in the Conjuring skill group.
* Tradionalist: An aspected traditionalist can use all magical skills, but only to in a limited fashion. They can cast spells of one choson category, and conjure (and bind) spirits that their tradition links to their chosen spell category. Aspected traditionalists who follow a mentor spirit must choose a category of spells for which they gain an advantage due to their mentor spirit. (Example - Ryker is a shamanic aspected traditionalist who follows the Wolf totem. Thus, he can cast only Combat spells and conjure only Beast spirits). Aspected traditionalists use the Banishing and Counterspelling skills normally.

Like a full magician, each aspected magician follows a specific magical tradition that defines his worldview and how he perceives and manipulates magic. Aspected magicians may also have a mentor spirit as full magicians can. Aspected magicians can make use of astral perception (and can use the Assensing and Astral Combat skills normally), but they cannot astrally project in the fashion that a full magician can.

Though this quality is inexpensive, gamemasters should be careful not to allow it to be abused. It should only be taken for characters that are intended to be played as magicians.

Gothic Rose

Oct 10 2005, 06:57 AM

Actually, yeah...An aspected could be a Mystic Adept without adept powers. I'd go something like:

Aspected Magician: 10pts

Aspected Magicians who cast spells reduce the spell cost multiplier by 2. They may start with Magic x 3 spells.

Aspected Magicians who summon spirits may start with a number of spirits bound to her equal to her magic attribute (each spirit must be of a power LOWER than her magic attribute) for free.

Something along those lines.

NightmareX

Oct 10 2005, 07:11 AM

QUOTE (Gothic Rose)

Actually, yeah...An aspected could be a Mystic Adept without adept powers. I'd go something like:

Aspected Magician: 10pts

Aspected Magicians who cast spells reduce the spell cost multiplier by 2. They may start with Magic x 3 spells.

Aspected Magicians who summon spirits may start with a number of spirits bound to her equal to her magic attribute (each spirit must be of a power LOWER than her magic attribute) for free.

Something along those lines.

Spell cost multiplier? Wassat?

As for free bound spirits, woof! I hate to say it, but that's way too beefy.

Gothic Rose

Oct 10 2005, 07:14 AM

QUOTE (NightmareX)

QUOTE (Gothic Rose @ Oct 10 2005, 01:57 AM)

Actually, yeah...An aspected could be a Mystic Adept without adept powers. I'd go something like:

Aspected Magician: 10pts

Aspected Magicians who cast spells reduce the spell cost multiplier by 2. They may start with Magic x 3 spells.

Aspected Magicians who summon spirits may start with a number of spirits bound to her equal to her magic attribute (each spirit must be of a power LOWER than her magic attribute) for free.

Something along those lines.

Spell cost multiplier? Wassat?

As for free bound spirits, woof! I hate to say it, but that's way too beefy.

Blah. My bad. I'm tired. I meant that they "reduce the cost of learning spells by 1."

I don't actually know much about summoning/spirits, so free bounds was the only thing I could think of.

NightmareX

Oct 10 2005, 07:32 AM

QUOTE (Gothic Rose)

Blah. My bad. I'm tired. I meant that they "reduce the cost of learning spells by 1."

Oh, OK. A little beefy, but mainly cause I don't like the idea of aspected magicians being better at anything than full magicians.

QUOTE

I don't actually know much about summoning/spirits, so free bounds was the only thing I could think of.

I don't think they really need anything extra. Check out the following character made with my system above. (Note he has Charisma x3 in free bp for contacts. It's a house rule we use).

[ Spoiler ]

FrankTrollman

Oct 10 2005, 05:13 PM

QUOTE (NightmareX)

Oh, OK. A little beefy, but mainly cause I don't like the idea of aspected magicians being better at anything than full magicians.

Then why are you even posting on a thread about bringing aspected magicians back? Aspected Magicians have always been better at their thing than full magicians. In SR2 and SR3 they received a flat bonus to their starting spell points, and even back when they were called "Conjuring Adepts" they spent only a B priority on their magic instead of an A (allowing them access to potentially more Force worth of magical resources than a Full Magician could possibly have).

There has never been a time when an Aspected Sorcerer wasn't supposed to have a little edge in Sorcery over a Full Magician. The difference in cost, after all, isn't that great. There must be an additional incentive somewhere in the mix.

-Frank

NightmareX

Oct 10 2005, 05:39 PM

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)

Then why are you even posting on a thread about bringing aspected magicians back? Aspected Magicians have always been better at their thing than full magicians. In SR2 and SR3 they received a flat bonus to their starting spell points, and even back when they were called "Conjuring Adepts" they spent only a B priority on their magic instead of an A (allowing them access to potentially more Force worth of magical resources than a Full Magician could possibly have).

There has never been a time when an Aspected Sorcerer wasn't supposed to have a little edge in Sorcery over a Full Magician. The difference in cost, after all, isn't that great. There must be an additional incentive somewhere in the mix.

-Frank

We're talking about two different things. Freeing up resources (bp, skill points, nuyen, whatever) that would normally be spent on the other magical skills allows an aspected magician to specialize in their little niche. Giving them more starting spells ala SR2/3 as you mentioned has the same effect.

Giving them a discount on the karma cost of learning new spells like Gothic Rose was suggesting gives an aspected sorcerer an ability no full magician could ever duplicate. That is what I was objecting to.

Azralon

Oct 10 2005, 06:19 PM

The thing is that with SR4's build-point system you can recreate almost every facet of an Aspected Magician simply by not spending points on things they shouldn't be able to do.

If I'm a hermetic "Fire Mage" then I can just choose to forgo all non-Combat spells that don't have fire elemental effects. I can conjure only Fire spirits. This frees up my BPs (and later, my karma) to go into other things because I've self-specialized.

If I want to be a straight conjurer, then I just won't take any sorcery skills. Heck, I could be an "astral adept" by just never taking any sorcery or conjuring skills and instead bumping up my Astral Combat skill.

If you really want tangible game effects, then (as mentioned elsewhere) go nuts with the Incompetent quality. I mean, be Incompetent in the 3 Conjuring skills for your "pure sorcerer" and the net BP cost evens out to zero. Be a full magician who's Incompetent in all Conjuring and Sorcery skills and you have yourself an astral adept who's got 15 "extra" BPs to throw around.

Come up with a 5BP "Fleshbound" negative quality if you want, which denies full magicians (and maybe adepts) the ability to access astral space. Slap that on the pure sorcerer above and you're actually 5 BP in the black. Go spend it on more spell stuff or resources or some such.

NightmareX

Oct 11 2005, 02:34 PM

QUOTE (Azralon)

If you really want tangible game effects, then (as mentioned elsewhere) go nuts with the Incompetent quality. I mean, be Incompetent in the 3 Conjuring skills for your "pure sorcerer" and the net BP cost evens out to zero. Be a full magician who's Incompetent in all Conjuring and Sorcery skills and you have yourself an astral adept who's got 15 "extra" BPs to throw around.

Come up with a 5BP "Fleshbound" negative quality if you want, which denies full magicians (and maybe adepts) the ability to access astral space. Slap that on the pure sorcerer above and you're actually 5 BP in the black. Go spend it on more spell stuff or resources or some such.

Could do things that way, but look at the bp costs (going with a sorcerer example):

Magician quality: 15 bp
Incompetance (Conjuring skills): -15 bp
Fleshbound: -5 bp

Net cost: -5 bp

So being an "aspected" magician this way is actually better than free? Thus my objection.

maa01

Oct 11 2005, 02:44 PM

You still need buy some magic, so its' not totally for free. but you get a nice discount.

Azralon

Oct 11 2005, 02:51 PM

I hear your objection and I don't disagree; I'm just throwing out a solution that satisfied some of the parameters people seemed to want. Also, they'd still need to buy up their Magic rating so it's not like it'd be totally free; they'd get a 5 BP "refund," fill up some valuable Quality point slots, and then have a 1 Magic and very little they could do with it.

I kinda liked the suggestion someone else had to buy Mystic Adept and spend 1 point of Magic on Astral Perception, with the rest going towards the typical sorcery/conjuring combo. I did that myself with a "straight sorcerer" that I'll be playing in a few weeks. I took Incompetent in the 3 conjuring skills, which nets me a 5 BP gain. However, my spellcasting capacity is kinda retarded by a point due to the magician/adept split.

I personally think aspected magicians should have a net cost of 10 BPs, and astral adepts should run at 5. I'd really like it if they were repackaged deals instead of our little "after-market" combos, but then I imagine that's something for Street Magic to address.

BTW, I kinda like "Meatbound" more as a name for that negative quality. Sticks closer to the SR lingo.

Eyeless Blond

Oct 11 2005, 03:11 PM

QUOTE (Gothic Rose @ Oct 9 2005, 10:57 PM)

Actually, yeah...An aspected could be a Mystic Adept without adept powers. I'd go something like:

Aspected Magician: 10pts

Aspected Magicians who cast spells reduce the spell cost multiplier by 2. They may start with Magic x 3 spells.

Aspected Magicians who summon spirits may start with a number of spirits bound to her equal to her magic attribute (each spirit must be of a power LOWER than her magic attribute) for free.

How about instead of giving them more and cheaper spells or spirits, just halve the cost of raising their Magic Attribute (round up when appropriate), as they get half as much as a normal character out of it? After all, as said above: "Full mages only cost 15BP now, which isn't much -- the real cost is in buying up your Magic. Even if aspected magicians only cost 5BP, they get the shaft -- basically they get one extra attribute point in exchange for drastically limiting their magical abilities."

Rotbart van Dainig

Oct 11 2005, 03:13 PM

Concerning streamlining, this is ungood.

NightmareX

Oct 11 2005, 03:32 PM

QUOTE (Azralon)

I hear your objection and I don't disagree; I'm just throwing out a solution that satisfied some of the parameters people seemed to want.

No prob

QUOTE

Also, they'd still need to buy up their Magic rating so it's not like it'd be totally free;

True, but everyone has to buy their Magic attribute. That's why I was saying it was better than free.

QUOTE

I personally think aspected magicians should have a net cost of 10 BPs, and astral adepts should run at 5. I'd really like it if they were repackaged deals instead of our little "after-market" combos, but then I imagine that's something for Street Magic to address.

Not too much difference between 7 bp and 10 bp. I originally had my version of the quality set at 10 bp, but since they actually get less "stuff" than a magician adept, I downed it to 7 bp.

QUOTE

BTW, I kinda like "Meatbound" more as a name for that negative quality. Sticks closer to the SR lingo.

Ditto. Meatbound it is (even though I probably won't use it)

NightmareX

Oct 11 2005, 03:35 PM

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

How about instead of giving them more and cheaper spells or spirits, just halve the cost of raising their Magic Attribute (round up when appropriate), as they get half as much as a normal character out of it? After all, as said above: "Full mages only cost 15BP now, which isn't much -- the real cost is in buying up your Magic. Even if aspected magicians only cost 5BP, they get the shaft -- basically they get one extra attribute point in exchange for drastically limiting their magical abilities."

But then you run into the same problem I was talking about above, aspected magicians would have an ability (admittedly an off-screen ability, but still) that no full magician could ever have. Dat ain't right.

Eyeless Blond

Oct 11 2005, 04:02 PM

Making a choice will always limit you in another way; what's wrong with that? So an aspected mage gets his own small edge over a full mage. So does a (Mystic) Adept. So does a Technomancer. So does a human over the much-more-BP-expensive elf. Big deal.

Full mages get a lot of things that aspected mages cannot touch, and unless aspected mages get some kind of a scaling discount they will only get a trivially small BP difference for their pain. As you said, it's an off-screen ability; the spell and spirit discount was far more overt.

Azralon

Oct 11 2005, 04:41 PM

I think I'm with NightmareX. The advantage to being Aspected over Full should be cheaper BP cost of your magician-type Quality, under the premise that you can do fewer things than a Full. The saved points should let you afford more of whatever you've specialized in.

I suspect that the problem some folks are seeing is that if the difference between Full and Aspected is 5, 8, or even 10 points and is therefore so comparatively small, then why specialize? If you're saving only 10 points to be a pure Conjurer then you're giving up a whole lot of potential abilities for, say, +1 to an attribute. That doesn't seem like a fair swap.

I'll point out, though, that you're also not going to be spending points on your Sorcery skills nor your starting spells. So you're in effect "saving" those points too. A pure Sorcerer's savings would consist only of the Conjuring skills, so that sounds like it might actually be a "worse" deal. But hey, spells typically cost less drain than spirits, so it might be a wash.

Then someone could say that "well, I can save points on those anyway just by not picking them; I want a bonus for restricting myself in the long-term." My answer would be "If you intend on never conjuring ever, then take the three associated Incompetent qualities and here's your 'free' 15 BPs."

That might seem like "Hey, I can be an aspected mage for free!" but there's a more subtle expense going on. You used up 15 of your 35 possible Positive Quality points and 15 of your 35 possible Negatives as well. From a BP expense point of view, sure, that balances to a net difference. But you're restricting yourself in another way, and I find that equitable.

NightmareX

Oct 11 2005, 05:17 PM

QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)

Making a choice will always limit you in another way; what's wrong with that? So an aspected mage gets his own small edge over a full mage. So does a (Mystic) Adept. So does a Technomancer. So does a human over the much-more-BP-expensive elf. Big deal.

I have other complaints about the bp costs for races

QUOTE

Full mages get a lot of things that aspected mages cannot touch, and unless aspected mages get some kind of a scaling discount they will only get a trivially small BP difference for their pain. As you said, it's an off-screen ability; the spell and spirit discount was far more overt.

True, the bp cost difference is minor at best, but like Azralon said, freeing up bp that would normally be spent on (for example) Sorcery skills, spells, etc. are the real benefits.

Fortune

Oct 11 2005, 10:19 PM

QUOTE (Azralon @ Oct 12 2005, 02:41 AM)

I think I'm with NightmareX. The advantage to being Aspected over Full should be cheaper BP cost of your magician-type Quality, under the premise that you can do fewer things than a Full. The saved points should let you afford more of whatever you've specialized in.

I suspect that the problem some folks are seeing is that if the difference between Full and Aspected is 5, 8, or even 10 points and is therefore so comparatively small, then why specialize? If you're saving only 10 points to be a pure Conjurer then you're giving up a whole lot of potential abilities for, say, +1 to an attribute. That doesn't seem like a fair swap.

I'll point out, though, that you're also not going to be spending points on your Sorcery skills nor your starting spells. So you're in effect "saving" those points too. A pure Sorcerer's savings would consist only of the Conjuring skills, so that sounds like it might actually be a "worse" deal. But hey, spells typically cost less drain than spirits, so it might be a wash.

Then someone could say that "well, I can save points on those anyway just by not picking them; I want a bonus for restricting myself in the long-term." My answer would be "If you intend on never conjuring ever, then take the three associated Incompetent qualities and here's your 'free' 15 BPs."

That might seem like "Hey, I can be an aspected mage for free!" but there's a more subtle expense going on. You used up 15 of your 35 possible Positive Quality points and 15 of your 35 possible Negatives as well. From a BP expense point of view, sure, that balances to a net difference. But you're restricting yourself in another way, and I find that equitable.

I see no problem with this idea.

I also see no real problem in just assigning the Aspected Magic Quality a 10 BP cost, and list in the description the limitation to one Magic Skill Group (although other non-Grouped Skills are still able to be learned) and Astral Perception. The Group that the character does not choose is treated as if he were a mundane, in that, like all Magic Skills, the Defaulting rules do not apply. But that's just me.

elbows

Oct 11 2005, 10:27 PM

The ones who really lose out in this system are the elementalists and shamanic adepts (or whatever they're called in 3rd edition). They need to buy all the same skills that a full mage does, but they're a lot more limited in what they can do with them. And they can't get BP back by taking the Incompetent flaw.

I'm not sure there's a good way to bring them back in SR4, which is too bad, because they were neat character types.

Xenith

Oct 12 2005, 01:13 AM

I agree. They don't really have to be as powerful as they where back in SR3 and pervious editions, simply playable.
I keep reading the qualities but I keep finding that theres little in the way of creating Shamanists or Elementalists. unfortunately, custom qualities might be what the doctor ordered.

I'd say make Aspected Magicians be a 5 bp quality, with a certain defined specialization, using the classic definitions as a basis, but not necessarily the only options, and have only Astral Perception.

While I'd be willing to play this as is, perhaps something to balance it is in order... I'm just not sure what it would be that wouldn't cancel out the 5 bp cost.

[Edit: Perhaps a spirit bane for the opposing spirit type would work to gain a few more points back for the Elementalist or Shamanist. Also, for a Shamanist, if they have a bonus to a certain spirit or spell type, use the related spell type or spirit from the chart in the magic section for them. I think this would work, unless they receive multiple magic skill bonuses, a that point just use those only to determine their focus.

eg- A spirit gives a +1 Athletics and +1 Manipultion spell bonus. Use the Manipulation type to determine which spirit they may summon. If another spirit gives a bonus to beast and Healing spells, then the Shamanist is only able to cast Healing spells and summon Beast spirits.]

NightmareX

Oct 12 2005, 05:03 AM

Um, guys? Check the spoiler (The original post is buried a bit down on the first page of this thread, so it's easy to overlook)

[ Spoiler ]

Aspected Magician (7 bp positive quality)
A character with this quality is an aspected magician and starts with a Magic attribute of 1. This may be increased like any other attribute, up to a maximum of 6 + initiation grade. A character with this quality cannot take the Adept, Mystic Adept, or Technomancer qualities.

When this quality is taken, an aspect must be chosen for the character. An aspected magicians has only limited use of magical skills, depending on their aspect and cannot use magical skills not noted as available to their aspect. Available aspects include:

* Sorcerer: An aspected sorcerer can cast spells and otherwise make use of all skills in the Sorcery skill group.
* Conjurer: An aspected conjurer can conjure spirits and otherwise make use of all skills in the Conjuring skill group.
* Tradionalist: An aspected traditionalist can use all magical skills, but only to in a limited fashion. They can cast spells of one choson category, and conjure (and bind) spirits that their tradition links to their chosen spell category. Aspected traditionalists who follow a mentor spirit must choose a category of spells for which they gain an advantage due to their mentor spirit. (Example - Ryker is a shamanic aspected traditionalist who follows the Wolf totem. Thus, he can cast only Combat spells and conjure only Beast spirits). Aspected traditionalists use the Banishing and Counterspelling skills normally.

Like a full magician, each aspected magician follows a specific magical tradition that defines his worldview and how he perceives and manipulates magic. Aspected magicians may also have a mentor spirit as full magicians can. Aspected magicians can make use of astral perception (and can use the Assensing and Astral Combat skills normally), but they cannot astrally project in the fashion that a full magician can.

Though this quality is inexpensive, gamemasters should be careful not to allow it to be abused. It should only be taken for characters that are intended to be played as magicians.

I went with 7 bp for this because they get fewer abilities than a magician adept (10 bp), but more than an adept (5 bp). Kinda a halfway point.

Admitedly, tradionalists in this model aren't really a discount (for the reasons elbows stated). Any ideas about how to fix that?

Fortune

Oct 12 2005, 08:24 AM

Personally, if I really felt the need to balance things out to the nth degree, I'd go with 10 BP for Sorcerers and Conjurors, and 5 BP for Shamanist or Elementalist-type characters.

I don't like using 7, or other non-multiples of 5.

Gothic Rose

Oct 12 2005, 08:25 AM

I agree, 10 (or even 5, I guess) is better than 7, because 7 doesn't jive with all the other qualities.

NightmareX

Oct 12 2005, 08:43 AM

QUOTE (Gothic Rose)

I agree, 10 (or even 5, I guess) is better than 7, because 7 doesn't jive with all the other qualities.

Very true, didn't think of it that way.