I know this has been brought up before, but I am unable to find the thread.

I have been thinking about how to create permanent spell effects on an individual. This is possible, through RAW, using Quickening, but this comes with it's own problems - notably, the ability to be dispelled (although difficult), & wards.

I have been looking at another way to create permanent spell effects, and settled on a process similar to augmentation - the spell is bound to a character's aura, effectively becoming part of them, at the cost of Essence. I know there will be numerous people saying this should not be possible, with various reasons why, but I honestly cannot think of any good, hard reason it could not work, if done correctly.

The problem, then, is balancing it appropriately. How much should such magical augmentations cost, in both Essence & Nuyen? And what type of spells should be allowed?

As to the second question, although I can argue for some Detection, Illusion, & Manipulation spells, only Health effects truly make sense. As such, I suggest that only Sustained Health spells may become augmentations in this manner.

The thing that has me held up is how to determine the Essence costs of these augmentations. I know it should be based off the Drain of the spells, as that is a gauge of how powerful the spells are, but am unsure of what formula to use for balanced costs. Should Force play a part, or Net Hits (I know one of them should have an effect, but which - both maybe?).

As for the Nuyen cost, this should be easily determined, once the Essence cost is finalized - they should be proportionate to each other.


So, my question to Dumpshock is, what do you suggest the formula for the Essence cost of such enchantments should be? I am looking for something roughly comparable to Bioware - they may cost more in some cases, but should never cost less Essence than obtaining the same effect from Basic grade Bioware.

And please, for those of you who think this should not be done, keep to yourselves. I know you are there, & frankly do not really care. I am looking for opinions on how to balance this, not on if it should be allowed.

OK I read this thread and gave it some thought. I would say that any Magical Augmentation should be of less Essence than Basic Bioware, but the cost should be in the "OMGWTF!!!!" range. The reason I say this is because it is Magic, and it should be quite easy on Essence. Here's what I'm thinking:

Essence Cost: same as Delta grade Bioware
Nuyen Cost: triple that of Delta grade Bioware (30 times the cost of Basic Grade ware should be in the Ouchy range

A few problems with that:

First, although I expect it to be expensive, this should be something reasonably obtainable. If it costs so much more than Bioware, why would someone (aka player) take it over the bio alternative?

Second, while most spells have an augmentation/bioware equivalent, not all do. How would you fit in Increase Logic beyond Rating 3, or Increase Willpower? Further basing it purely off bioware runs into numerous potential problems with designing new spells.

why not just introduce blood charms? =P

Perhaps because I am not familiar with them. Care to explain?

Basically magical cyberware from the Fourth Age.

Well let me see, weren't there things called spell-locks in older Shadowrun?

I would say that magical augmentations should be essence-free and cost karma along .

Characters that would want magical augmentations are the ones that value the integrity of their aura (awekened and emerged), this characters burn karma like ther's no tomorrow, having to slow their development in order to gain the augmentation boost would make an interesting chois to make (and would keep the thing balanced).

This is a link to a post of mine in the "magic tattoos" thread:
My idea hope can help

Just my 0.02

Here's my idea.

Magical Augmentations doesn't cost essence but magic rating instead.

The character can buy Resources equal to half his magic rating for MA. These resources are ONLY allowed for MA.
The character cannot have more than half his Essence or half his Magic in MA (Whichever is lower).
The character loose magic rating instead of essence equal to the essence cost in SR4 Books regarding augmentations.

Any loss of Magic Rating and/or Essence will impact both magic rating for casting spells and will temporarely turn of a number of implants equal to essence/magic lost (ie total the MA cost in essence and turn them off).

This can be countered by Initiating and increasing magic rating to get them "online" again.

The Magic Rating used for MA will count against magic use for the character. If they have used two points of magic for implants and they have six in magic rating their effective magic rating is 4.

The optimal use for this is permanent effects that cannot be found through normal sensors like Cyberware Sensors or medical examinations.

Someone making an assension test can use the rules for Cyberware Scanners to detect the magical augmentations of the character.

Essence loss brings Magic loss, and it is Magic loss that stinkes. Also consider that only awekened characters have a magic attribute, everyone else gets the shaft, and the awekeneds try to keep the essence loss to the minimum because it reduces their primary attribute.
I would go for no essence/magic loss, tied to the essence (so technomancers can benefit from them), that costs karma, alot of and some serious search-fu.

The problem I see here is also game balance and what i can do at char gen.

This should be available at chargen and be expensive and/or restricted because what people want here is basically the cyber/bioware without the drawbacks.

How about this then.

1 Piece of gear per magic rating and count as Delta Grade for Cost.
Each begun point of essence cost count as one used magic point.

So, a rating 2 synaptic booster takes up 2 magic points and cost 1600000Y.

Perks:
Cannot be removed
Invisible to Cyberware Scanners and means that can detect bioware
Cost no Essence or Magic Rating

Cons:
Expensive
Can be detected through assension

The mystic adept approach doesn't sound bad. Except instead of tying magic into Adept powers, it's tying Magic into permanent spell effects.

All you'd have to work out then is a cost chart that covers how much Magic it costs based on spell type, force, and number of hits.

It's really in effect (IMO) altering how you use your Magic such that it powers a permanent effect rather than being available for use in casting / summoning.

Thus I (with Magic 6) could allocate 1 point of Magic toward permanent effects and keep the other 5 for casting. Or go 2/4 or 3/3, etc etc.

Let's be honest, what y'all really want are ED blood charms.

Well, i could see Aztech introducing them on the market. They seem to be pretty knowledgeable about that sort of stuff. I'd personally tend towards having them cost physical wound boxes instead of essence, but i'm not sure thats the best way to do it.

I would prefer something that costs karma and money instead of essence and money, and that doesn't maim you.

Ah, c'mon. Just a little maiming? You have two of lots of things, you know.

I have to agree, anything that changes a being's pattern damn well should cost Essence.

Although certainly doable, I just have this nagging feeling that the Mystic Adept-like split is a bad idea.

Using Karma for such effects is already covered by Quickening. Such spells are basically permanent effects. What I am looking for is a way to make a spell part of the person/aura, which implies an Essence cost. As they would, in effect, be remarkably similar to Bio/Cyber/Gene/Nanotech, why not go with Essence as the balancing effect?

As for Earthdawn Blood Charms, can anyone give me a (semi)detailed explanation of what they are & how they work, or the name of book references for me to try & obtain?

AH's Blood Magic file gives a fair overview of blood charms. I will only add, since i couldn't find it, that their balancing mechanic in earthdawn is reducing your maximum hit points, meaning you have to take less damage before you go unconscious or die. Also, some of them are more actively dangerous to use, since they can catastrophically destabilize your aura (that means you die)

The only reason I went with the Mystic Adept split (other than it being somewhat mentioned in an earlier post before mine) is that you are tying your Magic into an effect. Your Magic comes from your Pattern matching up sufficiently with Astral Space to channel mana. Well, in order to power a permanent Magical effect that is a part of your Aura, you would have to divert some of your magical ability into maintaining that. Which would result in a corresponding decrease in the rest of your Magic related capabilities.

But if you have a nagging feeling it's a bad idea, please explain. We both might come to better understandings.

I can detail the ED Blood charms once I get home and read up on them again in my ED manual.

old school sustaining foci, those. with maybe a touch of anchoring mixed in, iirc...

I have thought about it a bit, and one major reason is that this limits the use purely to Awakened characters. This is something I would like to avoid - I am thinking of something along the lines of casting a spell on a subject, & then binding the spell to their aura, effectively making it permanent at the expense of something else (my intention being Essence). There are other reasons why I think it is a bad idea, but I for some reason am unable to identify them.

I reviewed Ancients document on Blood Charms, and do not think they are what I am looking for.


After some thought, I am considering something like the following - comments welcome:



[Insert Metamagic Name]
Prerequisites: Quickening, Anchoring

This metamagic allows the caster to forge [Insert Name] spells - magical effects permanently bonded to their recipients soul. [Insert Name] all have a variable rating, which is used in place of Force & Hits for all effects of the spell they duplicate. The Essence cost of [Insert Name] is equal to ( (Rating x 2) + Drain Modifier) x 0.1. The Nuyen cost of [Insert Name] is equal to ( (Rating x 2) + Drain Modifier) x 20,000, with an Availability of Rating x 5R.

To create a [Insert Name], the enchanter must make an Extended Enchanting Test, with a threshold of Rating x 2 & interval of 2 hours. The enchanting process is a ritual taking hours; the enchanter must possess a Magic attribute equal or greater than the desired Rating, & know the spell to be bonded. A similar process can be used to remove such enchantments, but lost Essence is not returned. Lost Essence leaves an "Essence Hole", similar to Bioware & Cybernetics that can be used for further enchantments.

Only Health spells with a Sustained duration may be made into [Insert Name] enchantments.

Ok!
You try first! I'm busy right now!

On a more esrious note if you give a look to the link that I've posted above I would like to know what you think about it.
Even if a bit a sadist you're still an authority here.

I am who I am, and who I am is not necessarely who I was or who I will be.
We're all bound to our experiences, they are what made us what we are, shaped our perception of the world, given us our knowledge and skill. Experience is instument of change and growth, what allowed us to be what we are and what will allow us to become what we will be. Do not think our spirit as a static thing, it flowes and growes with us for we it and it is us, the day it will become a static thing it will be the day of our death.
People change over time as they grow older and gain experience, so their spirit do; in game terms this potential of growth is expressed in the form of karma. Karma in the awakened world has very tangible effects, it can affect our body (improving phisical attributes), enlighten the mind (mental attributes), improve our abilities, but it can also be used to bring into being things that would be only hypotesis otherwise (quickening spells, creating and binding foci, creating ally spirits, etc.).
In game terms a magical augmentation (as I see it) consist in casting and sustaining a spell on the subject, than using enchanting techniques to match the spell pattern to the subject signature, if the spirit acceptes the augmentation it can use karma (potential for change and growth) to absorb it and make it part of itself (a particulary bastard GM could let the player go trought the whole process just to tell him/her that his/her character's spirit rejectes the augmentation living the character with the expences without the benefit).
For balance concernes I would say that karma is a good bet if high enough.

No, Karma represents learning, not changing. When you increase your Body, it is not because you are spending Karma, it is because you are working out for a period of time. Karma is in place as a game mechanic to say how much & when you can make such increases. It has nothing to do with those increases in-game.

Essence is a representation of your spiritual health. Augmentation, drugs, and similar can all disrupt (lower) your Essence. When something is being bound to your aura (spirit), Essence is what it would cost.

Maybe I will!

The way I see it, extrapolated from the actual rules, karma is the brick and mortar of the metaphysical, though thread might be a better analogy. It is used to build Patterns, and to build them up. With magicians and free spirits, this is fairly direct weaving of karma into Threads and Patterns, and using Threads to tie patterns together, though it is often obfuscated by ritual. When you increase your Body, you are doing the same. You are adding to your Pattern, but this is obfuscated by the ritual of exercise that is necessary to achieve this.

Can't magical augmentations add to the patter while being offuscated by the enchanting ritual?

I like the idea of being able to make magical effects augmentations. But you're right in that making it cost essence or magic would not really be worthwhile. If it costs essence or magic, why not just use cyberware instead, because essence cost is the primary barrier to augmenting a mage. The problem then is to balance it so that you don't have radically augmented mages who are also slinging high-powered spells. I like the idea of costing karma, and obviously bucketloads of nuyen, but maybe being able to do magical augmentations should somehow be tied to a magician's initiation level as well (like, at a level of initiation you don't gain a point to your magic rating, but instead gain the ability to do magical augmentations. The magical augmentation should probably also cause significant risk to the magician performing it as well, with at least some percentage of death or permanant injury during the procedure as well.

Tieing augmentation to the initiation level gives the shaft to non-awakened, magical augmentations should be aviable to technomancers and odd people who shy away from main-stream augmentation, also if rule that in order to gain magical augmentations you have to initiate giving up the ability to raise the magic rating you end up with a magitian turned to mystic adept, you could go for mystic adept in first place or a magitian who takes some delta-grade bioware.

I'm not saying to tie the ability to have magical augmentations to your initiation level. I'm talking about having to be initiated to be able to perform the magical augmentation. So in comparison to cyberware, some form of magical initiation would be equivalent to the cybersurgery skill. I think this would help everyone and their uncle from being able to load up on magical augmentation. If any mage could perform magical augmentations on someone without taking a hit to their other abilities, then every runner team would have a magician who'd load everyone up.

Y'know, we do have something like this. It's called cy-ber-man-cy.

Cybermancy is vastly different from what I am aiming for.

As for requiring Initiation, check my rough-draft write up (post #21).


After thinking about the various alternate-method suggestions, I have decided that Essence is indeed the best way to go for costs, so anyone with suggestions regarding the amount of Essence loss are welcome to make them.

My bad, I've missuntherstood everything.
Well obviviously magical augmentations are cutting edge, something that requires specific studies/research, not a things that every street mage, let alone wizkid, can do; it MUST require a metamagic tecnique, probably one that can't be taken st initiation but must be researched or learned as per Street Magic optional rule (naturaly if said rule is disallowed it chould be take at initiation).
As for tieing the augmentation to the initiation level I think that having the metamagic is enough.
Here is (again) a link to an idea of mine Idea on magic tatoos, if you read it you can see that magical augmentation can have a quite hefty karma cost at high force (unther my pseudo-rules a force 6 tatoo would cost 110 karma), that should put the player in the position where having a fully augmented is not the best way to go.
Pleas take a look to it, I'm still waiting a comment about it from Ancient History and I would like to discuss my idea because I think it has the potential to be cool and not overpowered; and pleas even if the answer is "It sucks" let me know what you think.

Wheren't we talking about augmenting the characters without filling them with 'ware?

It is sort of the same principle though. You are magically dicking around with the Essence of the character. And the same dudes that are responsible for a lot of the in-roads in Cybermancy are the very same people that have personal experience with Blood Charms in the 4th World.

Same principle? Just like most of the things this is a matter of point of view.
While I can untherstand where you're coming from I would like to point out that everything followes the basic laws of the univers (phisics and the kind), and while things are based on the same basic principles the end results are all over a quite wide spectrum of possibilities (heck just think to E=MC², a few gramms of matter could wipe out a city yet the same ammount of matter doesn't seem so threatening when you flush it down the tube).