Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Aspecting background counts.
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
emo samurai
How do you aspect a background count? Do you hold a concert in a place 50 times in a month or something?
Ancient History
Blood rites.
emo samurai
Oh... anything else? Do you mean blood magic and killing people and stuff?
Ancient History
Yeah. Also, regular rituals held over a period of years...though things destabilized a bit during the Year of the Comet, so aspecting certain sites would be faster and easier.
emo samurai
Anything in MITS so that I can expect rules for it in Street Magic?
Ancient History
No hard-and-fast rules have ever been published.
emo samurai
KHAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!

Would it destroy game balance if you could?
Kanada Ten
Wasn't there a Power Site in the Basement quality in the SSG?

I don't think the idea is about balance, but more to do with cheese. "Real" power sites are the things magical groups fight over, even brining governments into it. Having a PC with one aspected to him/her is just sort of too much work, like a focus factory.
emo samurai
What would be the benefit of having a power site?
Ancient History
Bonus Dice On Demand™.
Laser
Bonus dice for doing magical stuff. Doesn't help with everything, since you obviously can't be there all the time, but things like ritual magic, hermetic summoning, and enchanting can benefit from it. I also think there's a way to key it to you, in which case only people to whom it is keyed can get the bonus and everyone else gets no bonus, or if they are sufficiently ideologically opposed to the people who are keyed to it, treat it as background count equal to the rating of the power site.
fistandantilus4.0
also the virtuoso metamagic creates and aspected background count. And that's portable!
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
also the virtuoso metamagic creates and aspected background count. And that's portable!

It's why every dragon has Singing at rating 8.
fistandantilus4.0
IIRC, the Sea Dragon is the only one that's that cheap. The other dragons don't want to be called *uber* or *munchkin* (except for Damon, who thinks it means something else).
toturi
Actually according to the latest book on SR dragons, only metamagics from MITS as well as other specific metamagics are mentioned. I have not seen a canon dragon with any adept power as yet, which leads me to believe that dragons do not have access to the adept metamagics although they may be aware of them and may tutor adepts in their use (Ryan "I Luv Brown Nipples" Mercury).
Daddy's Little Ninja
QUOTE (Laser)
Bonus dice for doing magical stuff. Doesn't help with everything, since you obviously can't be there all the time, but things like ritual magic, hermetic summoning, and enchanting can benefit from it. I also think there's a way to key it to you, in which case only people to whom it is keyed can get the bonus and everyone else gets no bonus, or if they are sufficiently ideologically opposed to the people who are keyed to it, treat it as background count equal to the rating of the power site.

I think it probably is a spot or different power for differnet people. A Catholic Priest in St Peter's in Rome will get a juju boost from the atmosphere that an other caster would not.

A Jew at Massada would thrive BUT some sites are more ambigiuous.

Here is a thought. They say a concentration camp has a high back ground count, but whom would it aid? The people who were imprisoned but survived ? The people who did it but now regret it? I mean a Jewish mage at Belsen. Does he gain power from the jews who were there and survived? Does it smother him? Does a Nazi gain from the back ground because his ground were at their peak there? Does a German who regrets the holocaust gain power because he aknowledges the evil and repents? Do the spirits of it still weigh him down with the guilt?

Maybe it is even miore complex.

Maybe an angry ethnic Japanese standing in the west coast camps can draw on energy denied to a more accepting person.

I think I just found out why it has never set down in the rule books
stevebugge
Not all sites with background counts are power sites either. Just because a site has a background count doesn't mean it can be aspected to a power site, some sites gained their background count because of their negative or even antimagical uses. A telescopic optics manufacturing facility for example would have to be so clean and sterile that t probably has a background count, but it would hinder any sort of magic. While an aspected power site acts like a background count to people outside the tradition of the aspecting group, it boosts power to the controlling group. Some power sites are new enough to have not been aspected, so they boost everyones power. Time and repetitive use is the most reliable way to aspect a site, my understanding was that geomancy simply helped you locate them, or in the case of Wuxing increase their power.
emo samurai
So if I had a power site, I could basically multiply orihalcum production?
hyzmarca
QUOTE (stevebugge)
Not all sites with background counts are power sites either. Just because a site has a background count doesn't mean it can be aspected to a power site, some sites gained their background count because of their negative or even antimagical uses. A telescopic optics manufacturing facility for example would have to be so clean and sterile that t probably has a background count, but it would hinder any sort of magic. While an aspected power site acts like a background count to people outside the tradition of the aspecting group, it boosts power to the controlling group. Some power sites are new enough to have not been aspected, so they boost everyones power. Time and repetitive use is the most reliable way to aspect a site, my understanding was that geomancy simply helped you locate them, or in the case of Wuxing increase their power.

But then there is the matter of toxic Shamen and toxic spirits who draw power from the background counts of toxic domains. A sterile nature spirit summoned by a toxic shaman would draw power from the background count of the sterile optics factory.

It isn't just a matter of aspecting a site to the magic. It is also a matter of aspecting the magic to the site. A sufficiently corrupt toxic shaman could thrive in places where most magicians wouldn't even be able to astraly percieve without suffering grave injury.
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (emo samurai)
So if I had a power site, I could basically multiply orihalcum production?

no. At least , not in third edition, where the test is using the enchanting skill, and has very little to do with magic attributes or the site of where you're doing it. That could change in SR4 I suppose, although I don't see why it would.

This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012