I have a game to run in about an hour, and I really need to know if I can still ground spells

oh...for the days of SR2 when I knew the magic rules backwards.

I have a careless pc mage who is forever using spells without forethought, and I'd like for him to learn that there could be consequences, and I find myself longing for the good old days of mages in lead lined coffins.

So...can I still do it? I promise I'm only daydreaming about fireball, I'm planning on using something much less destructive

No. Many threads. First one I found.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...p=0&#entry0

Nope. Only consequences of continual spell-casting in SR4 are drain and the fact that you're not being subtle, astrally.

sucks...will have to find some other way to deal with his seedy peeping tomness!!!


thanks for the help

Grounding had been the true way of the jedi to make characters not carry rating 6 weapon foci from chargen without a specific use in mind.

heh, focus addiction anyone?

as for spells left right and center, roll out assencing and ritual tracking...

hell, one can even use the last one as a substitute for grounding, but sending of a ritual powerball

or just a manabolt. nothing like dropping dead because you left your magical fingerprints on some ganger in the barrens...

You know, Grounding was one of the coolest things about SR1/SR2. I really, REALLY liked it, metaphysically. Why'd they get rid of it?

Oh, come on, you can still do it!

"BAD MAGE! BAD!!! GO TO YOUR ROOM! AND NO MORE SHADOWRUNS UNTIL YOU LEARN YOUR LESSON! NO SOY-CREAM FOR DESERT EITHER!"

i think it had something to do with the fact that it led to either not using the astral at all, or everything suddenly exploding unless you were in the astral all the time making sure you explode the other guy before he explodes you. but i'm not totally sure of that.

grounding, for what little it added to the world, was a huge pain to grasp.

i recall reading that bit of text in SR2 over and over and still finding it hard to wrap my head around.

thing is that with ritual sorcery and spirits (especially now that everyone have access to on the spot summoning) you dont need it to lay the smack down on some flashy mage that thinks he is god because he is packing more bling then a downtown pimp...

the one thing to keep in mind with SR is to maintain a consistent world. leave prints behind on a big messy run? its going to be traced back at you. corps, dragons and vampires have something in common there. they may not come after you straight away like some trigger happy ganger with a need for revenge.

also, if one want to do the equivalent of a fireball from the astral today, get a rating 1-2 spirit bound, and send it of as a spotter for some ritual sorcery. end effect, a big ball of fire at the targets location. you can even whack mundanes that way iirc...

Grounding sucked! Good riddance!

While I do miss grounding, it could be abused by either/or players and GMs easily...

Now mind you, I haven't read all the other threads, but I don't get how it isn't slightly possible in a slightly different way than before. Your mage is leaving his astral sig all over the place, yes? He's got foci, yes? Ritual sorcery anyone?

I seem to recall we had signs and posters for this topic.

*Rustles around in the back room*

Ah here they are.

"Down with Grounding! Good Riddance to the Astral Sniper!"

Hooray for beer!

er...


I'm perfectly okay with ritual sorcery, you at least have a couple ways to detect it and it's an involved undertaking. It requires some thought and effort to whack someone with ritual sorcery.

You don't just zip around in astral space throwing huge dice pools into peoples orichalium codpieces.

While you can't blast someone from the astral anymore, you can still zap his active foci that way. So, if he's throwing spells with impunity because of well-chosen foci, you can neutralize it fairly quickly.

As a bit of a balancer you might want to keep in mind the force with which he uses those spells. Sooner or later Lone Star's (or some other security force) mages will notice he's maintaining spells and if the force is above 3 they're probably gonna assense the spell and determine if he's breaking the law by using or even having it. Plus they might even get so used to his astral signature that they can tell when he's used a spell that day which he shouldn't and just show up to arrest him.

I've gotta say that as a GM, it's handy to be able to give some mundane NPCs things like quickened spells, without the PCs having an instant way of killing them and everyone around them without taking any risk whatsoever. This way, they usually have to at least show up (or hack, but that should carry some risks, too).

why they got rid of it?
because noone would allow the mage to go astral while in the same car, room or general vincinity of the others in the group otherwise i'd imagine . .

That sounds like a physad pro-wrestler's weapon.

As I said before, just send him to his bedroom without dessert. There, he's grounded!

Don't forget to revoke his flight status too!

The Peoples Orichalium Codpiece?

Fear it!

Grounding broke a couple of metarules. Grounding through a projecting mage broke the LOS requirement to target spells/effects is the big one. There's a couple of other corner cases (which I admittedly can't remember since I transitioned to SR3 when it came out); but my memories say that once you get rid of grounding you have to have a lot less funkiness in magical theory as applied via the rules.

The LoS rule was actually taken care of by being able to cast only Area of Effect, indirect spells through it (at least this is how I remember it), making the Focus the epicenter of the effect. It worked out in the Magical Theory department in that Foci are dual natured, and as such, create a convenient bridge for the spells to come across.

The funky part is when an astral mage decides to ground a Fireball through a dual natured creature. That gets a bit janky, but the theory would somewhat support it.

As it stands, grounding is something I miss terribly, and wish would be able to return on a limited basis. This is prime territory for a house rule, with a little Magical Theory behind it. Something well thought out would be nice. I have a few ideas, and once they percolate more, I will post one, and the background.

Mages have always been one of the most powerfully abused archetypes, first because they start powerful have their enemies have limited resistances, and second because they have no real "ceiling," like essence, when it comes to raw power. Then again. Drain codes that hurt would fix all of that quick. Not to say a mage needs reigning in per se, but in the arena of ideas, it never hurts to see what people are thinking.

IIRC you couldn't ground out damaging manipulation spells, which were the only category of spell that permitted effects to extend beyond the caster's LOS. Remember that any other category of spells required LOS to all the targets, to the point that targets in the AoE, but out of LOS, were not affected. My memory could be shaky, and I don't hae an SR2 rulebook or a grimoire handy right now, I suppose.

I don't miss grounding, there's so many more subtle ways to hose the mage without it.

Grounding hosed the mage, yes. But more importantly, it hosed everyone around the mage. The stereotypical grounded spell was a Hellblast or Fireball. And if everybody was in the van...

It was fun times, but I don't miss it. The idea of Spell Locks also had its charm, but not so much that I'm house-ruling them back. On the whole, this issue is the least nostalgic part of SR1 for me. I'm much more concerned about bringing back the mohawks. If you absolutely need to blow up the mage and his buddies in the van, have your mage geek theirs in astral combat, so he can't spot your street sam sneaking up with the hardware to deal with the van. Yes, it's a pain in the ass compared to just insta-killing everyone from the astral; but it also includes, wait for it..., TEAM EFFORT, which I support in Shadowrun. (unless we're playing Sega, then all glory is mine)

Haven't they been replaced by Sustaining Foci? Or is there some difference?

went back and checked the text (yay for keeping all my rpg books on a shelf, even if they have been surpassed by at least two versions), and they behaved more like cheap-o anchors.

you cast the spell, spend 1 karma and the spell is stored, ready to be triggered by the caster or anyone else of the same tradition.

this also allowed for the idea of putting a force 1 spell in a spell lock, slip said lock into someone pocket and then *BOOM*...

these days, its done by ritual sorcery, a system that have taken for most of what one could pull of using grounding.

want to blast someone from far away? do it voodoo style by getting someone from the person, or make a representation of him. target a mage? just get a look at that astral signature. or if worse comes to worse, send of a spirit to act as a spotter for the magical artillery barrage

ok, i went back and refreshed my mind, and the biggest difference between grounding and ritual sorcery is the time taken. grounding was near instant. ritual sorcery is a 12 hour process. so its not like you can send of some rating 1 bound spirit (this limitation btw makes watchers not a option for a task that seems to be made for them) and then pop a spell of ritually when they find the target.

or in other words, one cant build security around having some mage sit cross-legged in the basement while waiting for patrols to call in, then send of a spirit and start dropping spells all over the place.

you can decrease the amount of time ritual spellcasting requires.

ah yes, found it. missed that bit in my refresh.

still, it have 1 hour as minimum, so its still slower then grounding was. also, with its 12 hour base and reduction by magic rating your looking at around 6 hours pr spell most of the time.

but its still a out-of-the-blue kind of attack when done right