JustSix
Mar 14 2006, 03:40 PM
I stopped keeping up with SR3 a little while ago (my campaign ended). Now, though, I'm starting up a new one using SR4 rules at the request of my players.
Anyway, I was wondering if I missed any "in-game" background material that explains why the magic rules have changed so drastically. For example, mages can now have totems (while all shamans don't automatically get one), summoning an elemental is no different than summoning a nature spirit (no ritual required), and shamans can now bind spirits. From a rules perspective, these changes make sense, it streamlines the magic-users. However, it's a pretty big departure from how the Sixth World worked just a few game years ago. So, any official explanation? Did astral space crash too?
Geekkake
Mar 14 2006, 03:49 PM
I believe it was SOTA 2064 that discussed some very exciting 2063 advances in thaumaturgical theory, including mages who could switch between spirits and elementals and were slowly bridging the gap between the two groups. Some kind of unified magical theory.
So if their work was popularized and funded, it may very well have become more commonplace among the magical folk in seven years.
Brahm
Mar 14 2006, 04:30 PM
UMT was the thing. It was a small section in the SOTA book. The basic premise underlying it has been in the game for some time, that dragons for example are not locked into the Hermetic/Shaman moulds so having to Hermetics and Shamans work differently with conjuring like they did was an artificial metahuman constructs created by limited understanding.
Moon-Hawk
Mar 14 2006, 04:50 PM
Has someone worked out how to make a character that hasn't jumped on the UMT bandwagon yet? I guess a shaman would just have to take Incompetance: Binding, right? What about an old-school hermetic? No totem/mentor and an inability to summon unbound spirits? How would that work?
Brahm
Mar 14 2006, 04:56 PM
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Mar 14 2006, 11:50 AM) |
Has someone worked out how to make a character that hasn't jumped on the UMT bandwagon yet? I guess a shaman would just have to take Incompetance: Binding, right? What about an old-school hermetic? No totem/mentor and an inability to summon unbound spirits? How would that work? |
For Hermetics it is more a roleplaying choice, they always Bind after Summoning without getting the spirit to first perform tasks. That means they need roughly 50% to 100% more karma for their conjuring Skills than the shamans do. Which nicely simulates the edge prior Shamans had.

Once Shamans initiated they could get Great Spirits. Maybe take the Incompetence:Binding but allow it to be bought off with karma later once they Initiate?
Moon-Hawk
Mar 14 2006, 05:01 PM
Agree on Shamans. But how to simulate the old-school Hermetic's inability to use an unbound spirit? A mental flaw? How to simulate his belief that an unbound spirit will not obey him even if he has services? It really ought to be worth something, at least as a mental flaw. I agree that it could be done as a RPing choice, but it wasn't just a preference for Hermetics. Generally self-gimping like that is a flaw, and merits some points.
Azralon
Mar 14 2006, 05:05 PM
Old school shamans would be easy, yeah. Incomp: Binding and Mentor Spirit pretty much covers it, although you're going to find yourself capable of summoning Fire spirits now and you'll be unbound by domains. No existing game mechanics to restrict you in those ways, so it'd be flavor declarations to the effect of "I will never summon Fire spirits and will only summon in the appropriate domains."
Old school hermetics can simply not take a mentor spirit and then do their own flavor declarations of "I will never summon elementals of Man and will summon only in my library, Binding every time."
Yeah, it's self-gimping without any BP compensation, but the player and GM are always welcome to come up with their own Qualities as appropriate. Make the appropriate packages worth like 10 BPs and call it "Mystical Retardation" or something.
Brahm
Mar 14 2006, 05:07 PM
How about the Hermetic believes that space aliens are watching intently and will punish them if they order around an unbound spirit. The PC is obviously so delusional about the realities of space that the GM allows them to take the Incompetence:Pilot Aerospace flaw.

QUOTE |
call it "Mystical Retardation" or something. |
mdynna
Mar 14 2006, 05:27 PM
QUOTE (Azralon) |
Old school shamans would be easy ... "I will never summon Fire spirits ... " |
Shamans in SR4 cannot summon Fire spirits anyways. If the spirit isn't on your list of associated domains you cannot summon that spirit type. There are only 5 types of spirits outlined in the SR4 BBB (woefully few IMHO). Each tradition can only summon 4 spirit types. Hermetics can't summon Beast and Shamans can't summon Fire.
Brahm
Mar 14 2006, 05:29 PM
QUOTE (mdynna @ Mar 14 2006, 12:27 PM) |
There are only 5 types of spirits outlined in the SR4 BBB (woefully few IMHO). |
Enter Street Magic, unless you want to design your own.
Eryk the Red
Mar 14 2006, 05:50 PM
I did find the fact that differences in traditions were so insignificant a little disappointing, though. The Unified Magical Theory business makes sense and all, but it sort of ruins the mystery of shamanism. I at least would have liked some other meaningful differences in the traditions. Oh well. House rule time!
nick012000
Mar 14 2006, 08:14 PM
QUOTE (mdynna) |
QUOTE (Azralon @ Mar 14 2006, 12:05 PM) | Old school shamans would be easy ... "I will never summon Fire spirits ... " |
Shamans in SR4 cannot summon Fire spirits anyways. If the spirit isn't on your list of associated domains you cannot summon that spirit type. There are only 5 types of spirits outlined in the SR4 BBB (woefully few IMHO). Each tradition can only summon 4 spirit types. Hermetics can't summon Beast and Shamans can't summon Fire.
|
Umm... there are spirit types in the BBB, and each tradition can summon five.
Azralon
Mar 14 2006, 08:45 PM
QUOTE (mdynna) |
QUOTE (Azralon @ Mar 14 2006, 12:05 PM) | Old school shamans would be easy ... "I will never summon Fire spirits ... " |
Shamans in SR4 cannot summon Fire spirits anyways. If the spirit isn't on your list of associated domains you cannot summon that spirit type. There are only 5 types of spirits outlined in the SR4 BBB (woefully few IMHO). Each tradition can only summon 4 spirit types. Hermetics can't summon Beast and Shamans can't summon Fire.
|
What was the SR3- shaman list, again? Sky, Land, Water, Man...? There is mental fuzz.
But yeah, SR4 has six spirit types (not including watchers), and each tradition can do only 5: shamans can't do Fire, hermetics can't do Beast. Mea culpa and stuff.
Brahm
Mar 14 2006, 08:48 PM
Six types including Watchers, and each traditon has access to 5, including Watchers for Shamans and Heretics. Shamans don't do fire and Hermetics don't do beasts. Man, earth, water, and air they both do, although they are associtaed with different spell categories in each tradition.
hyzmarca
Mar 14 2006, 10:26 PM
The odd thing about the new unified magical system is that countless spirit types suddenly vanished along with elementals while shaman and hermetics alike learned to conjure wujen spirits of the elements for no apparent reaason.
Brahm
Mar 14 2006, 11:03 PM
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Mar 14 2006, 05:26 PM) |
The odd thing about the new unified magical system is that countless spirit types suddenly vanished along with elementals while shaman and hermetics alike learned to conjure wujen spirits of the elements for no apparent reaason. |
Hermetics still summon fire elementals. The generic term is Spirit of Fire, but for a Hermetic that would be a Fire Elemental. For Shamans Spirits of Man are City and Hearth Spirits, Spirits of Air are Sky and Storm Spirits, Spirits of Water are Ocean, River, and Lake Spirts, and Spirits of Earth are Mountain and maybe some of the Forrest and Desert Spirits. Spirit of Beasts are some sprinkled in the domains, like Forrest.
Jaid
Mar 14 2006, 11:35 PM
flavor is mutable. it's only the mechanics that you really have to worry about too much.
for example:
spirit of water = water elemental to a mage, ocean/river/swamp/etc spirit to a shaman. there doesn't need to be a mechanical difference, you just call it something different.
as another example, consider the relatively small list of drones in the BBB. supposing you wanted a fast, agile, lightly armored attack drone, you could do something like the following:
suzuki mirage
rigger adaptation
weapon mount
toss in appropriate software (prob default rating 3), maybe two from the following: defense, targetting (almost guaranteed to have this), maneuver(groundcraft).
if it's probable that it's been upgraded, you give it better software, 2 weapon mounts, and all software needed for it.
as an extremely high end example: pilot 6, maneuver(groundcraft) 4, defense 4, targetting(automatics) 4, targetting(heavy) 4, clearsight 4, ECCM 4, and two ares alphas with gas vent 3 and smartgun system. (i would assume ambidexterity effectively for a drone, but you may prefer otherwise). toss a satellite link onto it (unjammable now, i believe? danged tough to anyways). also give it a nice sensor package (vehicle sized, remember)... pretty much just choose one item not to get. throw lots of nice enhancements onto the camera and microphone (you definitely want those both, don't forget), and i'd say other major picks would be motion sensor, radio signal scanner, and maybe either MAD or cyberware scanner. all at a range of 4 km. and your players will never laugh at drones again if you send a few of these after them...
now of course, this carries a rather hefty price tag, but there you have it: you've just created a 'drone' of your very own. this can, of course, be done with more or less any of the vehicles in the BBB. just remember, the fact that a specific name is given to something, doesn't mean it can't be used perfectly to represent something else.
Eyeless Blond
Mar 15 2006, 02:55 AM
The somewhat more subtle, but no less important, differences are, for example:
- The average Magic attribute now being 3 instead of (by default) 6, Essence Loss now hits mages roughly twice as hard as before. That, plus the greater role the actual Magic attribute plays in spellcasting, makes the cybermage a much more difficult concept to pull off.
- The change to Object Resistance makes it nearly impossible to stealth your way past cameras and drones unless your character is specifically min-maxed for that purpose. In SR3 such things were comparitively much easier; your middle-of-the-road mage could pull such spells off without too much trouble.
These changes aren't
bad, necessarily, but they are departures in the gameworld that are caused by the changed mechanics.
nick012000
Mar 15 2006, 03:26 AM
QUOTE (Brahm) |
Six types including Watchers, and each traditon has access to 5, including Watchers for Shamans and Heretics. Shamans don't do fire and Hermetics don't do beasts. Man, earth, water, and air they both do, although they are associtaed with different spell categories in each tradition. |
6 types not including watchers. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Man, and Beast.
hyzmarca
Mar 15 2006, 03:42 AM
QUOTE (Jaid @ Mar 14 2006, 06:35 PM) |
flavor is mutable. it's only the mechanics that you really have to worry about too much.
for example:
spirit of water = water elemental to a mage, ocean/river/swamp/etc spirit to a shaman. there doesn't need to be a mechanical difference, you just call it something different. |
I can give you a steaming bowl or dog turns and call it chocolate ice cream but I don't think you'd like it.
Much of the flavor is a product of the mechanics. There should be some difference between the spirit of a swamp and the spirit of a lake. There should be some difference between the firey spirit of a raging volcano and an abstract elemental of fire.
And don't even get me started on bugs.
nick012000
Mar 15 2006, 03:45 AM
Not really. Because then we wind up with proliferation of spirits that isn't really neccessary. Volano spirits, fire elementals, efreeti, archangels (with flaming swords), demons... they're all really fire spirits, so why give them all different stats?
hyzmarca
Mar 15 2006, 04:03 AM
Because their different. Why give the career Red Samurai and the newbie Halloweener different stats? They're both metahuman.
Dissonance
Mar 15 2006, 04:07 AM
Except the manifestation of a summoner's will isn't quite the same thing as two guys on the street.
That's like asking somebody to draw a scary halloween costume and then asking them to draw a triangle.
hyzmarca
Mar 15 2006, 04:24 AM
It is highly probable that spirits are far more than just an abstract manifestation of a sumoners will and are, in fact, closer to being individuals who you would randmly meet on the street.
Dissonance
Mar 15 2006, 04:27 AM
I'm pretty sure that, at least in SR3, the form of the spirit was highly dependant on the views and background of the summoner. I'm pretty sure that the examples mentioned so far were straight up examples from Magic in the Shadows.
hyzmarca
Mar 15 2006, 04:50 AM
True, but that leasve a big question. Do does to form of the spirit reflect the summoner's beliefs or is it simply that spirits are mor elikely to heed to call of a summoner whose beliefs relect them? Many things suggest it is the latter rather than the former. In particular, the relationships between Bugs and their shaman.
However, those examples were for different flavors of hermeticism. Nature spirits bring up an antirely different problem due to the diversity of nature. The difference between the spirit of a gentle breeze and one of a violent huricane should be profound.
Dissonance
Mar 15 2006, 04:53 AM
You mean the difference between a force 1 spirit and a force 6 spirit?
hyzmarca
Mar 15 2006, 05:38 AM
I mean the difference between a pacifistic nurturer and a rampaging monster built for destruction.
Dissonance
Mar 15 2006, 05:41 AM
Right. The difference between a force 1 spirit and a force 6 spirit. The latter has higher stats, will generally look more imposing, and will have two more optional powers that the former doesn't.
Azralon
Mar 15 2006, 06:18 AM
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Mar 15 2006, 12:03 AM) |
Because their different. Why give the career Red Samurai and the newbie Halloweener different stats? They're both metahuman. |
IIRC: In SR3, the elementals and their spiritual analogs had identical stats (except for the Water Spirit and Water Elemental's Reaction).
Unifying them wasn't that big of a stretch.
mfb
Mar 15 2006, 09:21 AM
QUOTE (Dissonance) |
Right. The difference between a force 1 spirit and a force 6 spirit. The latter has higher stats, will generally look more imposing, and will have two more optional powers that the former doesn't. |
does not compute. just because something is stronger and smarter doesn't automatically make it more violent or hard to control.
SR4's magic system makes magic both more and less homogenous than SR3. more because individual traditions don't have many options in terms of mechanics-backed flavor; for instance, it's pretty hard to reproduce SR3-style voodoo in SR4, or obeyifahs, or a lot of other 'weird' traditions. on the other hand, players--especially new players--are not bound by the rigid shaman/mage split. what it boils down to is, you can make anything you want--but whatever you make is going to be nearly identical to anything anybody else makes.
Johnnycache
Mar 15 2006, 11:28 AM
Man you know what ticks me off? They didn't clarify the language in the Barrier spell about it going down if it gets "penetrated"
Azralon
Mar 15 2006, 01:47 PM
QUOTE (Johnnycache @ Mar 15 2006, 07:28 AM) |
Man you know what ticks me off? They didn't clarify the language in the Barrier spell about it going down if it gets "penetrated" |
Heh.
Dashifen
Mar 15 2006, 02:19 PM
QUOTE (mfb) |
SR4's magic system makes magic both more and less homogenous than SR3. more because individual traditions don't have many options in terms of mechanics-backed flavor; for instance, it's pretty hard to reproduce SR3-style voodoo in SR4, or obeyifahs, or a lot of other 'weird' traditions. on the other hand, players--especially new players--are not bound by the rigid shaman/mage split. what it boils down to is, you can make anything you want--but whatever you make is going to be nearly identical to anything anybody else makes. |
Sure the stats are the same, but the group I'm playing with as a tribal Amazonian Wise Warrior shaman and a hermetic mage in the group and I guarantee you that no one thinks of them as the same. The numbers on the page are very similar: the mage has one extra point of magic but the shaman has a mentor spirit. Other than that, they're almost identical (okay, the mage is uncouth with the shaman is uneducated).
The stats are the same for spirits, but I as the GM make the difference between the shaman's spirits and the mage's spirits apparent to them and the group when I describe them. The mage's spirits are raging elemental fury loosely tied to a humanoid form while the shaman's spirits are described as mammalian beings with correlations between the element and the animal: water spirits have been giant anacondas (they hunt in the water), air spirits have been eagles and vultures, beasts have been jaguar and other great cat hunters of the amazon.
Does the book tell me to do this? No. I do it because the is a difference between shamans and mages and the way in which they deal with the spirits of the world. The states for the shaman's spirit of the sky (an eagle) may be exactly the same as that Air Elemental that the mage just whipped up, but the way the move, act, think, and use their powers is vastly different.
I've even noticed that the optional powers that the two players give to their spirits also help to differentiate them. The mage tends to use his spirits for combat while the shaman uses hers for support roles. Thus she likes concealment, movement, etc. while he's often going for venom, noxious breath, and the like. Thus, the optional powers may help to provide me with some insight into the spirit's potential and personality. Do I spend a great amount of time describing them to the group, no. But I do work toward making sure that there's a difference, not because the stats tell me there is one, but because the text in the traditions -- that have no mechanical basis on the stats at all -- tell me there is one.
Azralon
Mar 15 2006, 02:47 PM
Well done, Dashifen.
Azathfeld
Mar 15 2006, 03:34 PM
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond @ Mar 14 2006, 09:55 PM) |
The somewhat more subtle, but no less important, differences are, for example:
- The average Magic attribute now being 3 instead of (by default) 6, Essence Loss now hits mages roughly twice as hard as before. That, plus the greater role the actual Magic attribute plays in spellcasting, makes the cybermage a much more difficult concept to pull off.
- The change to Object Resistance makes it nearly impossible to stealth your way past cameras and drones unless your character is specifically min-maxed for that purpose. In SR3 such things were comparitively much easier; your middle-of-the-road mage could pull such spells off without too much trouble.
These changes aren't bad, necessarily, but they are departures in the gameworld that are caused by the changed mechanics. |
I don't know about either of these. First of all, I've yet to see a magical character without a Magic attribute at anything but one of two levels: 5 or 6. Buying the Magician quality and a magic of 5 uses up 55 BP, a roughly equivalent sacrifice to an A priority in SR3; if anything, it's less, in terms of attributes or skills. The Magic attribute may be lower, on average, but it's because most magicians have 5; the cybermage may give up more, but not twice as much as the last edition.
As far as stealthing past cameras and drones, you need to be built for it, but you hardly need to be min-maxed. A mage with Spellcasting 4 + Magic 5 can easily expect to get past cameras (Threshold 3), and may have to spend Edge to get past drones. It's not trivial, as in SR3, but it's not hard.
mfb
Mar 15 2006, 05:44 PM
QUOTE (Dashifen) |
But I do work toward making sure that there's a difference, not because the stats tell me there is one, but because the text in the traditions -- that have no mechanical basis on the stats at all -- tell me there is one. |
that's laudable. i wasn't saying that the SR4 setup is bad, just saying what it is.
brennanhawkwood
Mar 16 2006, 02:37 AM
QUOTE (Brahm) |
UMT was the thing. It was a small section in the SOTA book. The basic premise underlying it has been in the game for some time, that dragons for example are not locked into the Hermetic/Shaman moulds so having to Hermetics and Shamans work differently with conjuring like they did was an artificial metahuman constructs created by limited understanding. |
My only issue with UMT being the in-game justification is that I just don't see 'all' mages/shamans having converted to a UMT based premise as an underlying principle behind their magic. I've always been under the impression that being a magician is, among other things, very tightly bound with belief, a level of belief that allows you to take advantage of your genetic legacy and impose your will upon the physical world. Didn't matter if you were hermetic or shamanic, that belief had to be there.
The upshot of this is that there should still be many magicians in the SR world that are still using old-school 'limited' magic because that is how they were trained and how their belief structure is oriented. Some of the older 'generation' of magicians may have adapted to the new-way and most newer magicians are likely trained in techniques that were the result of the increased understanding of magical theory (such as the development of UMT), but given the level of belief and ingrained learning that I perceive as being involved in working magic, I would think most magicians trained pre-UMT (mid-to-late-2060s?) would still be 'hindered' by the old style limits.
Going with this idea would also add an interesting social-economic change to the magical culture, especially in corporate and academic circles. Magicians trained in the 'new-way' can be argued as being more flexible and more capable than 'old-way' magicians and thus represent some level of threat to the less flexible 'old-way' trained mages in the work force. The 'old-way' mages are still too valuable to just be dumped, but would they still be able to get the 'good' jobs?
Based on this I'm thinking that I will add something like the following qualities as an option in any SR4 games that I end up running:
Please note that I just came up with these so they may not be particularly polished. I'm also not too worried about them being 'fully balanced' since I'm trying to reflect an aspect of the world that used to be represented in the rules.
Old-School Shamanic Magician (10 BP)
Possessing the quality counts as having the Magician quality.
Replace the second paragraph of the Magician quality with this:
You are a magician trained in the older, pre-UMT, style. You were either trained before the mid-to-late 2060s or by someone else who practiced that style of magic and have been unwilling or unable to adapt to the UMT-based techniques that your newer colleauges use.
As an Old-School Shamanic Magician, you follow the Shamanic tradition and must take the Mentor Spirit quality and Incompetent: Binding. You must also be in an "appropriate environment" to summon any particular type of spirit (for example, someplace people live to summon a spirit of man, near a river to summon a spirit of water, etc.) This limit does not apply to watchers.
Old-School Hermetic Magician (10 BP)
Possessing the quality counts as having the Magician quality.
Replace the second paragraph of the Magician quality with this:
You are a magician trained in the older, pre-UMT, style. You were either trained before the mid-to-late 2060s or by someone else who practiced that style of magic and have been unwilling or unable to adapt to the UMT-based techniques that your newer colleauges use.
As an Old-School Hermetic Magician, you follow the Hermetic tradition. You may not take the Mentor Spirit quality. With the exception of watchers, you cannot gain any services from a spirit you have not bound. Material (or an accepted symbolic equivelent) appropriate to the spirit summoned must be present in order to summon said spirit (for example, a bonfire for a spirit of fire, a bowl of water for a spirit of water, etc.)
Edited Old-School Hermetic Magician as per suggestion from mfb
mfb
Mar 16 2006, 02:42 AM
i'd change the wording for the hermetic one to "you cannot gain any services from a spirit you have not bound."
brennanhawkwood
Mar 16 2006, 02:50 AM
QUOTE (mfb) |
i'd change the wording for the hermetic one to "you cannot gain any services from a spirit you have not bound." |
Good suggestion! I was kinda fighting with how to put that.
nick012000
Mar 16 2006, 03:10 AM
QUOTE (brennanhawkwood) |
[QUOTE=Brahm]Old-School Hermetic Magician (10 BP) Replace the second paragraph of the Magician quality with this: You are a magician trained in the older, pre-UMT, style. You were either trained before the mid-to-late 2060s or by someone else who practiced that style of magic and have been unwilling or unable to adapt to the UMT-based techniques that your newer colleauges use.
As an Old-School Hermetic Magician, you follow the Hermetic tradition. You may not take the Mentor Spirit quality. With the exception of watchers, you cannot gain any services from a spirit you have not bound. Material (or an accepted symbolic equivelent) appropriate to the spirit summoned must be present in order to summon said spirit (for example, a bonfire for a spirit of fire, a bowl of water for a spirit of water, etc.) |
Sr3 Mages can get Mentor Spirits. Take a look at elementalists and the like.
brennanhawkwood
Mar 16 2006, 03:40 AM
QUOTE (nick012000) |
Sr3 Mages can get Mentor Spirits. Take a look at elementalists and the like. |
I was looking at this as simulating the core Shamanic/Hermetic magician rather than any of the many variants (including but not limited to Houngan, Wu Jen, or elemental mages (your elementalists I suspect)).
Beyond that, in the specific case of the elemental mage, to me it seemed that they are hyperspecialized in the magic associated with a specific element...they don't really have a 'spirit mentor' per say...they are just really good at (for example) 'fire magic' and weak in the use of the opposite magical forms (whether by simple lack of training or due to some sort of spiritual or symbolic reason).
On the other hand, I do agree that the basic spirit mentor mechanic is a good way of simulating this effect. I'd be tempted to rename it 'Elemental Specialization' and write up a handful of elemental specializations along the same lines as the spirit mentor writeups.
emo samurai
Mar 16 2006, 03:42 AM
You could always make up new spirits with stats balanced against other spirits'.
brennanhawkwood
Mar 16 2006, 04:08 AM
QUOTE (brennanhawkwood) |
QUOTE (nick012000) | Sr3 Mages can get Mentor Spirits. Take a look at elementalists and the like. |
... On the other hand, I do agree that the basic spirit mentor mechanic is a good way of simulating this effect. I'd be tempted to rename it 'Elemental Specialization' and write up a handful of elemental specializations along the same lines as the spirit mentor writeups.
|
Apparently I am in an adapting and homebrewing rules mood this evening...
This probably isn't the best place to put this, but going off the idea I mentioned earlier regarding elementalists I came up with this:
Elemental Specialization (5 BP):
This quality is only available to characters with either the Magician or Mystic Adept quality. This quality is also limited to characters who follow the Hermetic Tradition. The character is hyperspecialized in the practice of magic associated with a specific element. They are correspondingly weaker with that element's opposing element. A character may only ever have a single Elemental Specialization. The player must select one of the following specializations for their character. This choice is permanent for this character once made. It is not unusual for a magician with Elemental Specialization to begin manifesting personality characterists commonly associated with their element of specialization.
(Note: This quality is based off the Spirit Mentor quality of SR4 and the Elemental Mage of SR3 found in MitS. It does not gain the hint giving benefits of a spirit mentor nor does it suffer penalties for not following the mentor's philosophy.)
Air Specialization
Air mages tend to be cerebral and thoughtful.
Advantages: +2 dice to Detection spells and +2 dice for Spirits of Air
Disadvantages: -1 die to Manipulation spells and -1 die for Spirits of Earth
Earth Specialization
Earth mages tend to be materialistic and practical.
Advantages: +2 dice to Manipulation spells and +2 dice for Spirits of Earth
Disadvantages: -1 die to Detection spells and -1 die for Spirits of Air
Fire Specialization
Fire mages tend to be willful and aggresive.
Advantages: +2 dice to Combat spells and +2 dice for Spirits of Fire
Disadvantages: -1 die to Illusion spells and -1 die for Spirits of Water
Water Specialization
Water mages tend to be intuitive and emotional.
Advantages: +2 dice to Illusion spells and +2 dice for Spirits of Water
Disadvantages: -1 die to Combat spells and -1 die for Combat of Fire
ludomastro
Mar 16 2006, 09:30 AM
This has been a good discussion to read and some good points have been brought up; however, I would like to point out that the supposed limitations on magic and spirits for hermetic/shamanic traditions really aren't hard and fast in the RAW. Why? Don't forget about "Creating a Tradition" on page 169.
A mage can be anything s/he want's to be. I have included a sample tradition in the spolier.
[ Spoiler ]
Druid (roughly based on hermetic tradition)
Symbols and legend dominate this tradition which is based on the beliefs of those who think that a return to nature is required for metahumanity to endure. A small portion of the natural world is required to perform magic. Dust for a wind spirit, a fang for a beast spirit or a handful of dirt for combat spells.
NOTE: The quasi-fettish/summoning materials are more an RP thing than a mechanic.
Combat: Earth (think the trees and vines coming out to get you)
Detection: Beasts (think bloodhounds)
Health: Water (think pure water and that we all need it to live)
Illusion: Air (it was left over and I didn't want to use Man)
Manipulation: Fire (think forging and smithing)
Drain: Willpower + Intuition
I used inutition for drain because these Druids are linked to the land and draw inspiration from it. Probably not everyone's cup o' tea but it's a new tradition that is neither hermetic nor shamanic but somewhere in between.
brennanhawkwood
Mar 16 2006, 05:30 PM
QUOTE (Alex) |
This has been a good discussion to read and some good points have been brought up; however, I would like to point out that the supposed limitations on magic and spirits for hermetic/shamanic traditions really aren't hard and fast in the RAW. Why? Don't forget about "Creating a Tradition" on page 169.
|
Very true...though I would point out that as far as I can tell your example tradition can still summon and bind spirits, may or may not have a Mentor Spirit, is not bound by domains, etc. They are different in flavor and style from a hermetic or a shaman or an elementalist or whatever which is very cool, but they are still an SR4 UMT-based magician.
Just creating a new tradition within the standard SR4 rules does not seem to recapture some of the differences between a pre-UMT (SR3) and a post-UMT (SR4) magician. I don't have a conceptual problem with the SR4 magic rules themselves, I am just in favor of providing an specific option that better simulate the earlier style of shadowrun magic in SR4 terms.
I probably wouldn't even worry about coming up with a way to represent it if the in-game time gap between the versions had been longer. I just can't see all magicians alive in 2070+ having swapped over to the new-fangled Unified Magic Theory model of I can do anything magic (that most likely didn't become this widespead until the late 2060s). A lot of NPC magicians and possibly even PCs are likely to have been trained pre-UMT. Some would adapt aquiring the new techniques, but many wouldn't...that is just human nature.