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Metalsmith
QUOTE
I have to say though, that each of my points that you ignore in my post, I take as a concession that I was right about them. In which case, I hope that you're satisfied that giving up the materialisation power for possession is a sacrifice that costs a player a lot of interesting options.


They were not cosessions, you didnt bring up any concrete penalties that couldnt be overcome by dispacthing another Force 6 possesser from standby. Standby does not = bound. But this is under review. Your calm words enabled me to see this from your point of view. Infantile ranting however only made me more intractable.

Your objections consisted of:
Stats somehow being all important, Ive honestly never found much an issue between rolling 14 Dice and rolling 15 Dice. Especialy when you can squeze out Body 3 Agility 3 Reaction 3 Str 1, Intuit 5 Will 5 Cha 5 Logic 2 Edge 6 Magic 5 out of 270 points. and hit the Max Augmented with a Force 6 for a Human. I'll see if I can post Shiva later today or tomorrow.

A guy in HtH combat with his Pants is a guy not worried about what I'm doing. ( Its also Hella Funny!) But then I only do that against high Mental Stat opponents. Anyone with 9 Dice or less I dont care about, Hell the guy with 12 Dice I get 50% of the time.

Claming a spirit cannot get the needed successes to take someone over, which the average numbers prove false.
And Drain will hurt the spirit summoner, again the average successes proves false.

- You may dismiss the easy to calculate averages and claim that the Bell Curve will catch up to me eventualy but that really doesnt make much of an argument. It's also why you should always have as large an Edge that you can afford.

I dont know about you, but during our games Edge refreshes 5-6 times a "Run" The Meeting, Scouting/Info Gathering, The Pre-Run, The Break In, The Big Hit, and The Getaway.

To my way of thinking there were different categories of spirits: Bound, Unbound, Remote, and Standby. After reading what you wrote I will bring up that new information to my GM tonight. It all comes down to an intepretation of that paragraph.

Hell, Bound or Unbound doesnt make much of a difference, I've still addressed all of the concerns except where I dispached another "Pony" from my "Herd" and that was just Grandstanding when I wanted to Dispatch your Unbinder and bring on a new Possesser all in the same action. The Materialized Spirit still spends an action Manifesting (and getting shot/grenaded at by everyone before its next action) where the Possessing Spirit is apparently invunderable to physical harm. You remember when I asked about Manabolt and Possessing and Host. The only reply was the Host Dies and the Spirit is unharmed.

Having Special attribute use disallalowed when being Possessed/ Channelling goes a long way to justifying Possession. No Magic Att. No Edge Att sounds like it goes a long way to being reasonable.

---------------METALSMITH--------------^^^^
Jaid
actually, since you are going to be doing all this summoning on a regular basis, yes you will eventually get screwed on drain. you will get screwed on your force 6 spirit attempting to bind something with an OR of 3 and failing. it *will* happen sooner or later. 50% chance of your spirit being able to help you is not exactly wonderful odds, either.

and your edge will only save you so often. it seems in your games your GM must have edge refresh way more often than i have seen happen, and hey, if that's the case, then absolutely in your games that may be true. but remember, edge does not necessarily refresh in my games as fast as it does in your games... so spending edge on everything is not always an option. particularly when you may need edge for so many different things... extra IPs, go first in a round, negate critical glitches, etc.

and for the record, (maybe because i'm familiar with previous editions, and know how it used to work) i have never heard of anyone thinking they could have multiple unbound spirits (on standby or otherwise) until now...
lorechaser
Yeah, Edge refreshing 5 times per run really cheapens, well, everything else. If I can burn 3 Edge regularly, and have it back a few hours later, then yeah, I'm gonna have 5 Edge, and use it constantly....
Apathy
QUOTE (Metalsmith)
To my way of thinking there were different categories of spirits: Bound, Unbound, Remote, and Standby.

My interpretation had always been that spirits were always considered 'unbound', until the summoner performed a binding ritual on them to bind them. The actions that they were doing (performing a service, performing a remote service, or on standby) had nothing to do with their bound or unbound status.

So, if you wanted a whole bunch of spirits available then you had to bind all but one of them (which means you have to aim for lower level spirits since they resist binding with 2xForce).

It was also my interpretation that (subject to circumstances and GM fiat) spirits could always opt to spend edge to resist a summoning (which would be unusual except for higher-force spirits which are said to sometimes resent the process) or especially to resist binding. It would only happen once in a blue moon, but when it did it could really hurt...

Have I mis-interpreted [either of] these, or is this the way everyone else sees it, too?
Narmio
Does anyone else wish all these "X is ovarpowared!!!!!" claimants had actually read the rules?

PS: Yeah, this is a troll. However, we were all thinking it. Those that are still bothering to read this thread, at least.
laughingowl
QUOTE (lorechaser)
Yeah, Edge refreshing 5 times per run really cheapens, well, everything else. If I can burn 3 Edge regularly, and have it back a few hours later, then yeah, I'm gonna have 5 Edge, and use it constantly....

Have to totally agree here smile.gif

If edge refreshed that often I would never EVER take my favorite flaw bad karma....

For my games (and for the ones I play in) the standard has generally been when getting R&R.

The standard would be between 'runs' but sometimes back to back runs/events would transpire to keep us from getting 'rest' and on very rare occasions there would be enough of a 'lull' during a run to refresh mid-run.

but multiple times during a run, I could only dream....

Though would complain if my GM decide to go that route, though I would be buying off my bad karma REAL fast.
cx2
I see spirits that way too, two types: bound and unbound. Standby and remote service is just what the spirit happens to be doing at the time.

And I do agree that the edge refresh looks a little high.
mintcar
Just to show were the general view lies, I will tip in too. I read the rule section Metalsmith refered to as proving the exact opposite of what he claims; "A Magician may only have one unbound spirit summoned at any given time, and no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute. Spirts on remote service and on standby count toward this total." But it can be read the other way too. Off course, using proper sentence construction, anyone who wanted to get the point across that spirits on standby counts towards Charisma as a limit would put that in one sentence. For example; "A Magician may only have one unbound spirit summoned at any given time. She may have no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute and spirts on remote service or on standby count toward this total." See? I would think that they might have made it at least that clear if they were suddenly claiming that simply ordering a spirit to go stand in the metaplanar corner revokes their unbound status and makes them count towards the bound total.

When it comes to the issue of remote services, I see them as completely letting the spirit free only with some last instructions. It's not what you may want to do unless forced to by the circumstances, as spirits have their own free will and may be able to creativly interpret instructions if not under the watchful eye of the summoner. These things are in the rules, only overseen by number crunshers because... there's no numbers involved. Also, I think the option to send several spirits away as an army on remote services is an exploit that was somehow not forseen by the designers, and therefor I only allow one spirit on remote service at a time.

Edge refreshes 5-6 times a run? It sounds like a lot! Off course, runs are different in length so it really doesn't say anything. I personally don't allow Edge to refresh more than once every 2 gaming sessions, and only if something major has happened in that time. That may mean 5-6 times in a run, if the run is really long. I think that Edge seems to refresh to much if players feel confident to always have Edge to spend if they happen to suffer some Drain.



Thanee
QUOTE (Metalsmith @ Sep 12 2006, 04:07 AM)
I dont know about you, but during our games Edge refreshes 5-6 times a "Run"  The Meeting, Scouting/Info Gathering, The Pre-Run, The Break In, The Big Hit, and The Getaway.

Do you have any character with an Edge below 5 in your game? eek.gif

This is the 'official' guideline:

QUOTE
The gamemaster decides when a character’s Edge points refresh to the full Edge attribute. We recommend refreshing Edge at the beginning of each game session, though in some cases it may be more interesting or challenging to only refresh Edge when a full adventure has ended, or when specific goals have been met. One possibility is to refresh 1 point of Edge for each achieved goal, and the rest when the scenario is completed. Alternately, Edge can simply refresh every day.


Bye
Thanee
knasser
QUOTE (Metalsmith @ Sep 11 2006, 09:07 PM)

They were not cosessions, you didnt bring up any concrete penalties that couldnt be overcome by dispacthing another Force 6 possesser from standby. Standby does not = bound.  But this is under review. Your calm words enabled me to see this from your point of view. Infantile ranting however only made me more intractable.


I'm going to respond to your post here, Metalsmith, before SlitheryD does it in a more entertaining fashion. We're really not trying to criticise you (well Slithery might be, but it'sjust his way of being affectionate wink.gif ). But you've been posting things that are either misinterpretations of the rules or, as in the case of Edge refreshing, far from the guidelines for normal play.

I'm not going to go through all the points again, as that would just be repetition. I'll summarise by saying that you think a lot of my objections aren't real problems because you seem to think nothing of using Edge to smear out every risk that your character takes. As will be clear from the other posters now, pretty much all of us regard Edge as being a much more scarce resource than your GM does. So pulling up a Force 6 in the middle of a run is, while not flirting with death, definitely something with a risk attached. Doing it repeatedly is asking for trouble. This is why others have been talking so much about you having to bind spirits and why your GM having a different interpretation to us is so significant.

You might also look at what you're getting out of a service. You mentioned manabolting a host and leaving the spirit unharmed. Even if the spirit were unharmed, that still burns up a service (possessing is 1 service). However, a possessed person is actually a dual natured entity and the spirit will be harmed. The confusion probably came in when someone said (it may have been me), that the host can be killed by the loss of extra boxes when the spirit departs. This is true, but the spirit will have taken Stun damage too.

I'm not going to touch the use of Edge / Magic use while possessed. I personally allow both once Channelling metamagic is obtained and my feeling is that most people would agree with me. Your GM might disallow them, though.

Basically, I think your GM has done you a bit of a disservice and I respect that you're going to point out to him or her some things that are likely to reduce your character's power. But really, possession is balanced and I absolutely cannot say this any more clearly than I have done, in giving up Materialisation, a magician is giving up something very valuable. Your Force 6 spirit (which most would consider quite powerful), has a 50:50 chance of possessing that car. You risk drain or nuyen for something that may not even work against something that a materialised spirit could often do much better and without the uncertainty.

But peace, anyway! You've come in here and got a bit of a rude shock from how others play. Sorry about that, but welcome to Dumpshock - it ain't called that for nothing. wink.gif

Happy gaming. smile.gif
Metalsmith
Hell ya, 5 Edge!

When a Long Burst from a SMG does 10 wounds and they get 3 successes to hit, you roll reaction and get 2, are you going to count on your 12 Dice to soak that 11 wounds or are you going spend edge to re-roll your reaction?

It's all dependant on what kind of game you have. Maybe you all have "Tea and Crumpets" games when the "run" consists of lots of competent sneaking and info gathering with 1 or 2 threatening fights at the end instead of throughout.

Our group meets 1x a week. Adept, Mage/Face, Decker(me) We B.S. for 3 Hours and Play for 3 Hours. We get through 1-2 phases a night, and It seems there is a 1 "Threatening" encounter each time as well as role playing opportunites. Threatening means the example of the above. So it appears that edge is refreshing at the begginning of each game session. I may have been hasty in my original 5-6 times. But still, our world is dangerous and if Edge didnt refresh we would all be on our 2nd or 3rd characters. Money Earned: 35,000 Karma 20. Heck we even get hassled laying low in a bar for 2 hours while the Adept tries to heal up a few stun wounds.

Knasser:
I'm sorry your objections come down to "The Bell Curve is Going To Get You" and that others seem to think starting the game with 6 edge is an abombination.

Pulling up a Force 6 has no appreciable risk attached. 4 drain is eaisly overcome with 13 Resistance dice. Its not even remotely flirting with death its flirting with one box of physical damage if the dice yeild a subaverage roll. A joke because if you channel the spirit you will be gaining 3 Extra Boxes of capacity. Minor and Major permutations in probablility can be cancled out with Edge. If you have to spend 1 Edge to "Win" a Threatening encounter it is a cheap price to pay.

How many Goals are in your average run? How many Threatening fights? You get an Edge point for each goal.

QUOTE
What this character has given up is access to instant allies in combat, assassins that can appear anywhere without warning, servants that can go and get things for you, earth spirits that can take a bullet for you or hold the guards off while you retreat or air elementals that pick you up and carry you away through the air when you're hurt. He's lost the ability to set loose a pack of Force 3 fire elementals to wreak havoc when the flit hits the shan. He's given up a lot. And he will never, ever be able to rub butter on them no matter how many times he initiates.


Instant Allies in combat: Possess the opposition. or Ignore them! You have 29 Dice to soak damage. With a threshold of 12 Hardened armor. Reaction Dice 9 can sometimes be enough to handwave any hits.

Assassins: Possess the Target or his Bodyguard.

Servants: Possess a Neighbor kid or a Bum. This isn't the Smurf game.

Take a Bullet: Hardened Armor 12 and 29 Dice, I dont need anything to "take a Hit"

Carry you: Spirit of Air possess me and fly us away.

Pack of low power Bound Fire Elementals: Pack of Bound Low Power Possess a pack of bums. School children are nice. They will cause even more of a "Ruckus" (R.I.P. Principal Vernon) than Fire Elementals will as guards are less inclined to shoot them.

Inability to Rub Butter: Astral Butter™ from the Possessed Cow™, Our scientists are working 25 hours a day to bring you the best Astral Butter™

Every single one of your objections about not having a Materilised spirit at your beck and call are overcome with a Possessing spirit that reduces your opposition by 1 and also manifests as a whoopass combat machine-allie on your own side. Simple commands like " Possess that Guard/Drone/Car and attack them, starting with the Mage. (2 Services)


You can even take it to an absurd level. Summon up a Force 10. Spend 1 edge on summoning test (get one service) and 1 edge on resistance test. LOL you are out of Edge now. Take 10 Physical Drain, overcome 5 of it with a Poorly edge rolled drain test and take 5 physical wounds. 5 Boxes of Damaage. Who cares?! Your body just went up by that amount. Channel the Spirit. Physical stats become 13 (assuming physical stat 3 and no aug max like you referred to earlier) and Bounce Panther Cannon rounds off your chest. 20 Hardend +8 Ballistic +13 Body


Or even the Low powered example:

Combat Mage page 90. 13 karma later has channeling.
Summons a Force 3 with his feeble Summoning skills, Resists Drain eaisly. Channels the spirit. Add 3 to his physical stats and 6 hardened armor.
Bod 6 Agil 7 React 7 Str 6 Cha 4 Int 3 Log 4 Will 4
Dam Resist 6 Hrd +6Bod +8 Ballistic 20 Dice.


Take the Sam on page 101. give him 13 karma on whatever.
Skills aside, who is more survivable in threatening situations.
Bod 4 Agil 7 React 6 Str 7 Cha 2 Int 3 Log 2 Will 3
Dam Resist 4 Bod +8 Ballistic 12 Dice

-----------METALSMTIH------------^^^^^
mintcar
If you tried the above too often in my game you would soon learn to respect the wrath of a Force 10 spirit.

Summoning is simply not ballanced if the GM treats spirits as mindless assets.

-----

I don't have Street Magic yet, but from what I can see in this thread possession seems way cool. You seem to be right about the advantages it has over materialization (as far as I can tell), but I know the advantages of materialization that have been pointed out earlier are just as real.

PS. Just thought of something: One thing that made possession and homuculi a worse choice in SR3 was that all materialized spirits could move in 3 dimensions, were as possessed objects and beings could not. Now materialized spirits needs to have flight skill to do that. Does possessed objects and beings now get to fly if the spirit has the skill?
Butterblume
The refreshing rate of Edge should be worth an own thread.
lorechaser
And, while this isn't the Smurfs, routinely possessing a group of school children and flinging them at your opponents is still fairly sociopathic, and is probably (or should) come back to haunt you in some way.

And I'm confused by your slinging of "Tea and Crumpets" - a high Edge game, to me, is a game with little to no fear of death. You know that, if things get bad, you simply throw Edge at the problem. You have 6 "resets" per battle. A low Edge game is more about characters being in danger, and overcoming odds. And yeah, some people will die. Runners die in the fiction fairly often. If runners don't die fairly regularly, then eventually you're going to have more runners than Johnsons! wink.gif

Look at all the fluff - people who have run for 15 years are legends. They're special. So yeah, death should probably happen every so often....
Butterblume
Since you can only use edge once per test, there is still a good chance for you to die (disregarding the hand of god for the moment).
Edge is more like a way to get a second shot at crappy roll than anything else (in my games, at least).
Slithery D
QUOTE (mintcar @ Sep 12 2006, 02:27 PM)
PS. Just thought of something: One thing that made possession and homuculi a worse choice in SR3 was that all materialized spirits could move in 3 dimensions, were as possessed objects and beings could not. Now materialized spirits needs to have flight skill to do that.

No, they need flight skill to fly faster. Fly is the Run skill for creatures that can already fly. SR4 pg. 286. Spirits of air and fire can fly because their movement stats say parenthetically that they can. Fly skill just makes them do it more efficiently; it doesn't give them the ability fly in the first place.

Whether a person possessed by a fire or air spirit can fly is an interesting question. I suggest not, since a person possesed by a beast spirit should hardly get a run speed of 45.
lorechaser
If you can use Edge that often, everyone will have 5-6 edge.

So you're rolling 6 extra dice on any check that's important. And using the Rule of Six on them.

Say you have a pool of 12, for ease. You'll roll 2 6's and 2 5's. You spend Edge first, that's a pool of 18. 6 succcesses, 3 of them sixes. Reroll those 3 6's, that's another success. So you went from 4 success with your pool of 12 to 7 with edge. That's a lot.

There are very few times where adding 3 successes won't benefit you greatly...
mintcar
QUOTE (Slithery D @ Sep 12 2006, 03:16 PM)
QUOTE (mintcar @ Sep 12 2006, 02:27 PM)
PS. Just thought of something: One thing that made possession and homuculi a worse choice in SR3 was that all materialized spirits could move in 3 dimensions, were as possessed objects and beings could not. Now materialized spirits needs to have flight skill to do that.

No, they need flight skill to fly faster. Fly is the Run skill for creatures that can already fly. SR4 pg. 286. Spirits of air and fire can fly because their movement stats say parenthetically that they can. Fly skill just makes them do it more efficiently; it doesn't give them the ability fly in the first place.

Whether a person possessed by a fire or air spirit can fly is an interesting question. I suggest not, since a person possesed by a beast spirit should hardly get a run speed of 45.

My bad, but only on the minor note that it is not the skill that gives the ability. I am right in my interpretation that all materialized spirits can no longer fly though, no? That was the point. In SR3 it was clearly stated that possession took away the free movement of spirits, that all spirits had. I was wondering if it was now to be concidered a power that could be transfered to the subject.

IP's and runspeed of creatures and spirits and whether it is inherented by shapechanging mages or possessed beings has always been an open question in SR, and I guess it still is :/
Slithery D
The closest thing to an answer on materialized spirits is SR4 pg. 177. "Materialized physical forms are not subject to gravity, though most spirits (except air spirits) stay earthbound or close to it (perhaps floating or hovering)."

"Not subject to gravity" doesn't necessarily mean they can use their movement to go vertical, of course. Maybe they float but have to "push off" the earth to move, fire and air spirits excepted.
Metalsmith
QUOTE (lorechaser @ Sep 12 2006, 02:46 PM)
And, while this isn't the Smurfs, routinely possessing a group of school children and flinging them at your opponents is still fairly sociopathic, and is probably (or should) come back to haunt you in some way.

And I'm confused by your slinging of "Tea and Crumpets" - a high Edge game, to me, is a game with little to no fear of death.  You know that, if things get bad, you simply throw Edge at the problem.  You have 6 "resets" per battle.  A low Edge game is more about characters being in danger, and overcoming odds.  And yeah, some people will die.  Runners die in the fiction fairly often.  If runners don't die fairly regularly, then eventually you're going to have more runners than Johnsons!  wink.gif 

Look at all the fluff - people who have run for 15 years are legends.  They're special.  So yeah, death should probably happen every so often....


I agree. It's Despicable. I have 2 characters who would have shrugged and 2 who would have hunted down the offending mage.
However schoolchildren is just a funny example.
You still have the pack of Dogs and pack of Bums. Nothing is routine about it it was just a counter example of a group of inconsequential force spirits still able to cause a distraction.

"Tea and Crumpets" is just a label for the other end of the spectrum of RPG's. The opposite end of "Hack and Slash"

"Hack and Slash" is High Combat and minimal roleplaying
"Tea and Crumpets" aka "Tea Party" High Roleplaying and minimal combat.

Still the amount of Edge players choose to build is entirely dependant on what the players plan on doing with it. It can also be used for High Drama: After a horrific battle, the group is about to make their great escape in a helicopter when the pilot gets shot. Spend Edge for an extra Init Pass. Spend edge to Roll 6 dice to engage the autosoft/fly the group the hell out of there. Somehow hording your 2-3 edge just to save your own bacon spending it in the previous gunfight seems kinda... sad.

But then it seems you are tying to make a "Dying is more Fun." kind of compairison.

The more Edge you have the more options you have other than just keeping your ass alive.
Cha 1 and no Etiqutte skill. Spend edge to roll 5 dice to impress the Johnson whos trying to chat you up inspite of your having the Blandness Quality.
Trying to use the Medkit to keep the mage alive: Edge.
Crap roll on a Data Search check to find info about the run : Edge.
"Random Encounter" on the way to the meet and you dont want to show up Damaged: Edge.
Perception test to notice the Mono-wire strung accross the street at motorcycle head height: Edge
Ganger shoots a long burst at you getting 3 successes and all you need is one re roll to get out of the way of 14 Damage comming at you: Edge.

These were all examples that came up in one of the single game sessions we had.

----------METALSMITH-------^^^^
knasser
QUOTE (Slithery D @ Sep 12 2006, 04:26 PM)
The closest thing to an answer on materialized spirits is SR4 pg. 177. "Materialized physical forms are not subject to gravity, though most spirits (except air spirits) stay earthbound or close to it (perhaps floating or hovering)."

"Not subject to gravity" doesn't necessarily mean they can use their movement to go vertical, of course. Maybe they float but have to "push off" the earth to move, fire and air spirits excepted.


Ah, but the relevant issue for the original poster's question about Possession is that it says 'Materialised' spirits. Flight isn't a power that the spirit has (in which case the possession variants would have it), but rather an aspect of materialisation.

So for most spirits, I wouldn't let a possessed character fly or even defy gravity. I might give flight as an optional power for Air Spirits, though.

EDIT: And I would like to apologise to everyone for derailing this thread so very much. I didn't know this would happen, honestly. I just posted one little character build. frown.gif
Slithery D
Agreed. Possessed people should only have those powers that the rules explicity give them - boosted attributes and spirit powers. Methods of movements aren't a spirit power.
cx2
Edge is defined as "that something special". It's hardly special if you use it to try and impress Mr J at the meet.

And low combat doesn't necessarily mean high roleplay, it might be a B&E style job.
James McMurray
He wasn't saying that low combat equalled high roleplay or vice versa, just that those are the two ends of the spectrum.
Egon
Sams are not obsolete they are just different from adepts.

take an adept 400bp 150 karma you get:
a ninja death machine that rolls 20+ in 4 skills
with bag of extremely powerful magic tricks
and a big wad of cash
that cant use ebay and still needs a folding map to find the meet location.

take a sam and give him 400bp and 150 karma you get:
a harden combat vet that rolls in the upper teens in 8 skills and has 8 others at 10+dice
has 5 or 6 edge and near maxed physical stats
that is harder to kill then a mexican cockroach
and sill lives in a van that he parks in a different spot each night to eat mass amounts of cheep fast food and sleep because he only has 80:nuyen: till the next run.
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