So my group had 30 mins before we had to end the game, and it was the final combat scene. I decided to set it up for the next game when the mage decided he could end it all right there with a well placed stunball.

I wanted to warn him about what he was doing, but decided as the GM, I should just let him play his character.

Now, this player rolls pretty bad often. So he decided to throw in his edge (7) to make sure he got plenty of hits. He also overcast it at force 12. Well he ended up with 13 hits, so he reached his max of 12 hits.

So now the party, who was in the 72 meter radius had to resist a threshold of 12. Most got only 2 hits.

It was at this time that I asked them to resist 12 + net hits damage, when the mage's jaw dropped. I guess he didn't really think about the overflow.

One member was almost dead, while the rest were left with 1 or 2 physical left.

He erased his signature, grabbed the party and ran for it.

Later in the news I informed him that 176 people died. (3 will, 3 body - average 1 resist hit, and 1 soak)

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I am torn because this is the sort of thing that can make the campaign really hard for everyone. His party is plotting his death. The entire group would had been on the trid as they were not very covert at this time.

2 questions.

1) Does it seem I miss understood the overflow of the stunball?

2) Not sure if I should let them do it over again, or try and move on.

Any advice.

Thanks!

You could perhaps have warned him about the possibility based on the fact that the mage character would know such thing even if the player didn't think about it. Depends on how hardcore you want you game really.

hi

1. The radius is only 12m (=Force)

2. if you use edge for spellcasting, you can have more than Force hits.

3. there is no soak test for direct combat spells, only spell resistance

4. The mage have to see all the targets and visible mods apply, so the spell don't work through walls and other things that block LoS

but the rest you said is right: Direct combat spells hit like hell, so always have an enemy mage with counterspelling.



cya
Tycho

A radius of 12m , not 72m. Easily reduced by withholding dice, especially in a situation where you only really need one net hit.

I probably should had just told him that we could pick that up at the beginning of the next game anyways so we could talk more about it.

1) Thank you both. For some reason I thought it was Magic * Force in meters.

2) Right. Infact we did play edge like that for other people. Not sure why I didn't think about it at that time.

3) Never noticed that. I had been running things with the idea that most tests against NPC's were oppossed tests, and simple tests were usually to perform some sort of skill.

4) Even almost a year into this system, and the specifics of the rules are still getting me. I always think of Area Effect in D&D terms. /sigh

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So the outcome would be much different.

The good news is that at 12 meters and LOS that means really on the combatants would be in the radius. Bad news is that without the 2nd resists, most of the players only got 1 - 2 hits on their spell resists.

So at 13 - 2 = 11 net hits + 12 force.

They would had taken 23 stun.

Human Rigger Body 2, Will 3 = Dead
Ork Gunslinger Body 6, Will 3 = Alive barely?
Elf Faceman Body 3, Will 2 = Dead
Human Hacker Out of range now.
Client they were protecting Body 3, Will 4 = Alive but not happy. (Mage used counter spelling on him so he would had taken 17 stun)

As no combat had actually started there were still some bystanders who were unaware and in LOS.

Ok, thanks. This is a much easier choice. We will just replay this at the next game.

As Kerberos said, the mage should had know even if the player didn't. Also all the rule messups make for a good do-over excuse.

Technically, I think, as the other PCs under the counterspelling protection of the mage, the mage should be able to protect them against his own spell. Well, some of them. He can at least save 1.

I am not sure he knew he could do multiple people for his counter spelling, but as he spent some of the game playing on a Neverwinter Nights server, I was willing to let him get into his own trouble.

Outside of the talk we are going to have about him doing that, for the most part I just feel bad for the other players.

His mage is a chimp, with a human illusion going at all times and he never talks to NPC's. So unless there is combat, he really doesn't have much to do. Usually I don't care if players are reading the gaming books or BSing, but he just got a laptop.

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On a side note: Our group has had no end of difficulty trying to play Shadow Run. The combats take a long time to run. The book layout has you flipping from page 325, to 78, and then to 219 (just a made up example) just to figure out how something you don't often use works. And the talks about how knowledges work vs. creating your own items has been the biggest headache.

The saving grace has been an amazingly rich world, and mostly this online community.

Infact if not for this board and everyone who posts here, we would had given up months ago.

Thank you all again for you help!

I hate retcons/do-overs. I say repeat it, but only insofar as rerolling the dice so it's all done by the book. Make the other PCs spend permanent Edge if they have to, in order to stay alive...

I guess you could let the mage take a Free Action to protect all his buddies, though. Willpower + Counterspelling (+ Edge if they're smart!) means they may have a fighting chance.

Shadowrun is indeed an AWSOME setting with a good system that is killed by EXCESSIVE complexity.
I'm really going to convert it to a simpler system...it HAS to be done

About your player.
Maybe it's the too long fights, maybe not...anyway I advise you: Seriously TALK to him, and the others too.
If he's so bored that he has the will (and the time!!!) to fire up NWN and play...there's definitely something wrong in the game.
If it's the game, find ways to correct it; maybe try to assemble and print cheat-sheets specific for every character, so that the Mage knows what he's doing, the Rigger knows what he's doing, and so on.
Heavily use the "Game Tweaks" that allow for lighter and faster rules...the books offer them here and there.

If on the other side the "fault" is just the player attitude, talk to him, figure out what he thinks is "wrong" with the game and what could entertain him more...and see if you can work it out.
If that more or less fails because (maybe) he's a cold- heated powergamer, then give him less Karma: because he is not being a good element for the overall game, because he roleplays poorly, etc.

Just my 2

As a Free Action, you may declare active Counterspelling on anyone & everyone in your LoS. If they move out of your LoS, the Counterspelling drops. If you do not spend a Free Action during each of your Action Phases, the Counterspelling drops. A mage never needs to declare active Counterspelling on himself to protect against spells he is aware of, but must be actively Counterspelling to defend against spells he is unaware of.

There is no way by RAW to entirely prevent one of your AoE spells from affecting or not affecting selected targets in the area - that is for what single-target spells are for. Counterspelling can give them a bonus on their resistance, however.

And yes, as other's have pointed out already, there were a lot of rules fuck-ups in that scenario.

Whomever is in the mages LOS and if the mage annouces is elegible for CounterSpelling. If the mage is in the rear and says I am CS then the entire group is so protected.

I disagree. Work out what everybody should have done, run a demonstration. Tell your players about rules they could use, especially as you are all still learning the ropes. He who does not learn from the past...

Force*Magic is the AoE of detection spells (extended range ten times that).

To cut down on all the flipping pages, you have two options. One, purchase the GM screen. Or two, copy each of the respective pages on a copier (or print them if you have it in PDF). You can then cut out the charts and glue them to a piece of poster board (see, those silly project skills developed in HS have real world applications) and then you have your own GM screen for a little less than the purchased product. I suggest 1, but that may just be me.

I don't know for a fact, but this sounds like you punished the character for the player's behavior. Not just that, but you punished a whole team of characters for a players action.



My experience exactly.

Your right, I did. Part of the problem with playing with the same people for over 14 years is that you can sometimes take things for granted.

I should had informed him that his character would had known better then to do this. Friendly fire, even if it had turned out to be stun only, is never a good thing.

I dont know about that, imo will depend on the situation, sometimes is better of a learning experience (counting both player and character) to do as he please and discover how things work by himself. It is usually for the good of, "he will, for sure remember it next time".

On a point of view his character has liltle time to act, maybe it was his first time using that spell on a really stressful situation, etc. so at the end, hi didnt think it too well before acting, and most of the time in SR, u dont have a great amount of time to think before making a move.

EDIT: this all w/o considering the missing rules or the wrong use of them. Totally agree with u, SR is a very attractive RPG but with full of rules and the BBB layout organization doesnt help often. Getting to know this board has been a GREAT help for me and my group.
Thx Keep it like it guys, <3

Nef

As a GM I really don't like that things like stun spells, narcojet, and tasers can relatively easily kill a character. In my game i have a house rule that unless extreme measures are taken (e.g. repeatedly tasering an unconscious person, injecting a person with enough narcojet to KO Ghostwalker) stun damage does not overflow into physical. It's true that it's not very realistic, but neither is my game.

that has already been done for you.

Aaron has a bunch of cheatsheets which you may find useful, for example.

Can you give me a quote for that? I understand that declaring Counterspelling requires a Free Action, but don't recall seeing anything about a 'maintenance action' being necessary.

I checked and it doesnt says its a sustaining action, nevertless sounds reasonable.

Funny. It doesn't sound at all reasonable to me.

I always thought that protecting any number of targets with counterspelling by having just one mage didnt sound reasonable, unless this requires some continual attention from the mage, for example spending his free action each action phase. The way I see it, a mage using counterspelling lets say for a group of 8 ppl, is looking everyones actions and always ready to focus, much more when u want to cover someone ass not to get shot by standing ready to put urself in the middle of the line shot.

Anyway as Weavermount quote, it should mean u are right. I still think consuming the mages free action is a reasonable rule for this.

May be a house-rule, or I may have just misread it. The book does not say it is a turn-by-turn deal, so for now I will assume you do not need to keep up Free Actions to sustain it.

yap, as the book says its only one time.

Just currious, but I know in previous editions, you could reduce the radius of a spell by 1 m for every few dice you withheld, is the rule still in 4th ed? I haven't seen it, but I've missed out of rules before, and might have just glossed it over.

Thought there was something like that.

I may be a bit late to the party on this one, but why would the game require the expenditure of Free Actions to maintain spell defense but not to sustain an actual spell?

well is clear now that it doesnt, but, If it does, it would sound reasonable to me. Sustaining a spell carrys out a penalty of -2 to other mage actions, this is a reflection of the concentration demand in order to sustain a spell. Well using counterspelling might demand the same reflected in another way, for instance consuming his available free action of his action phase.

I think some time ago was another thread discussing some sort of this, and most agreed that it cant be the same protecting 1 person than 15 (as long as they remain in LOS), this is not reasonable, penalty that affects vision arent even taking care here, no matter if there is a mist or a smoke, as long as u can see a shadow moving that u know is ur friend, u can protect it along with the rest and urself.

I have it houseruled that a free action is required. This is the mages effort to pickout his friends from the foes before casting his spell.