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Dunsany
QUOTE (ornot @ Mar 19 2009, 12:36 PM) *
It is kinda arsey to stick sensors specifically designed to stymie the runners all over the place, since then they can't go anywhere.


Now you're pushing my argument to an extreme. smile.gif
I didn't say that these sensors should be used everywhere. What I did say was that the use of the proper sensors in the proper places would counter this spell easily. If you have a problem with players walking around with heavy weapons in places that have little to no security because they actually have resources to be able to do that (a spell that counters the most basic of security) then my question remains, what effect would you like improved invisibility to have? If it can't let them get around security that isn't designed to find what they are trying to hide, what exactly should it do?

QUOTE
The munchy PC was actually in an online game. My tabletop players are generally reasonable, although they do have their downsides. That being said, the mage can hit an OR4 more often than not, and he's little changed from chargen. Most of his karma has gone on new spells, and learning some small degree of skill in conjuring. The player is absurdly lucky though.


Really? Can you give an example of his die pools for a variety of spells? As I said, it's possible to be able to consistently (about 50% of the time or slightly more) hit OR4 on a select group of spells. But if the character is designed to do illusions they'll probably have a bit of a problem dealing with combat spells or manipulation spells that require that threshold. I, personally, don't have a problem with that. It's a lot of resources to spend to be good at something and spreading out your resources means you're significantly less likely to be able to handle that threshold in *any* area. After a bit of karma and some nuyen you can try to increase your chances in your weak areas through spellcasting foci, or make yourself stronger in your main area. The threshold still isn't easy, but at least it'd be possible. Again, I see nothing wrong with this.

People claim that this new OR means that these spells aren't "trivial" to cast successfully. My question has been, and remains, who are these characters that can "trivially" hit an OR4? Synner's example of a character with a rather large investment in illusion magic (a force 3 spellcasting focus) could do it 50% of the time and could only hit this new OR6 with Edge. Are there a lot of characters out there that can do that with illusions *and* with combat spells *and* with manipulation spells? And if not, if in fact they can only do so in one category after some specialization, is that really a problem?






darthmord
QUOTE (Mr. Unpronounceable @ Mar 19 2009, 04:31 PM) *
QUOTE
(Synner @ Mar 15 2009, 01:51 AM)
In the case of area spells, the heighest number of net hits counts for Drain purposes.


So, either you get screwed when you cast AOEs, or maybe you can choose your level of pain by letting the highest resist test go unaffected...but linking the amount of drain you take to the worst resistance test all but guarantees the Skippy scenario above.


Stop a moment and think about that. Highest number of net hits.

Example:

Joe Mageguy casts an AOE DC spell. Gets 6 total hits. Target A rolls and gets 2 Hits. Target B gets 4 Hits. Target C gets 6 Hits. Joe mageguy wants to affect as many targets as possible but not kill himself in the process so chooses to use 5 Hits since he missed Target C regardless of Hits.

His totals of Net Hits is...

Target A = 3 Net hits
Target B = 1 Net hits
Target C = 0 Net hits

Joe Mageguy saves against Drain +3 Net Hits. That should also mean Target A gets cooked more severely than Target B since Target A is taking Spell + 3 Hits of Damage. Target C takes no damage either way as his number of Hits was equal to the Hits scored by Joe Mageguy.

Basically, you got some free cooking for the same drain. That Spell + 3 Hits cooks everyone else for varying amounts of damage as long as it had +1 hit over the target.

I don't see that as a bad thing per se.
Dunsany
QUOTE (ornot @ Mar 19 2009, 01:07 PM) *
Dear gods. You have to go and make it personal, don't you. I use an example of why I think increasing the OR of things makes magic better balanced with tech, and you start some crazy vendetta. You know nothing about my situation with my players but you slag me off anyway. *golfclap*


Now, I'm not one for personal attacks in debate, but to be fair to the poster, you gave us an example from your game as to why you think OR4 is trivial and why OR6 will be better. Your position that improved invisibility makes getting past security too easy is unreasonable to many of us given the amount of ways that the game allows for the spell to be countered.

While I would hesitate to say that your players have been "babied" I will state that you can't reasonably argue that magic is overpowered while at the same time ignoring its weaknesses.

Draco18s
QUOTE (Dunsany @ Mar 19 2009, 03:59 PM) *
While I would hesitate to say that your players have been "babied" I will state that you can't reasonably argue that magic is overpowered while at the same time ignoring its weaknesses.


Thanks for that elegant post. I will admit I was a bit harsh, but there's a point at which beating someone into assault instead of a lesson in the obvious.

"How many times do I have to hit you with this book before you realize that it contains pertinent information?"
darthmord
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 19 2009, 03:23 PM) *
No other mechanic, anywhere in the game, requires the character to invest himself in the flow of raw energy through his body/mind. Force is the primal element to a spell, and all spells are affected the same way by it. If you look at the Drain Modifiers Table in the Spell design section of Street Magic (p. 163), the modifiers are almost all linked to ways in which the magician tries to control and direct the flow of magic: level of permanence, area affected, extra effects, etc.. The more the magician tries to exert control of the initial 'blast' as defined by Force, the higher the Drain.

The SR4A modification to Direct Combat spells is completely in line with this solid tradition that dates back to the beginnings of Shadowrun. The more a magician tries to mold the flow of energy to do more damage than the Force, the more Drain he suffers.

The SR4A mechanic is not a radical change in Shadowrun, it is a conservative realignment with the basic principles.


But falls flat on its face when taking Overcasting into account. It's quite literally safer to Overcast for high damage and take just enough successes to ensure the spell goes off without a hitch and then resist drain than it is to cast at max normal Force and pump up the succcesses.

Force 5 w/ 4 Net Hits
--or--
Force 9 w/ 1 Net Hits

Sure the Overcast is physical damage, but a good mage will still be able to resist most / all of the drain. The right equipment will even give a buffer on the damage (Trauma Damper).

Overcasting being safet than regular casting is NOT and HAS NOT EVER been within the fine tradition of SR Magic.
Mr. Unpronounceable
QUOTE (darthmord @ Mar 19 2009, 08:59 PM) *
So, either you get screwed when you cast AOEs, or maybe you can choose your level of pain by letting the highest resist test go unaffected...but linking the amount of drain you take to the worst resistance test all but guarantees the Skippy scenario above.


Stop a moment and think about that. Highest number of net hits.

Example:

Joe Mageguy casts an AOE DC spell. Gets 6 total hits. Target A rolls and gets 2 Hits. Target B gets 4 Hits. Target C gets 6 Hits. Joe mageguy wants to affect as many targets as possible but not kill himself in the process so chooses to use 5 Hits since he missed Target C regardless of Hits.

His totals of Net Hits is...

Target A = 3 Net hits
Target B = 1 Net hits
Target C = 0 Net hits

Joe Mageguy saves against Drain +3 Net Hits. That should also mean Target A gets cooked more severely than Target B since Target A is taking Spell + 3 Hits of Damage. Target C takes no damage either way as his number of Hits was equal to the Hits scored by Joe Mageguy.

Basically, you got some free cooking for the same drain. That Spell + 3 Hits cooks everyone else for varying amounts of damage as long as it had +1 hit over the target.

I don't see that as a bad thing per se.


With a relatively low number of "net hits" it isn't -- at least if you let the caster choose how many hits to keep AFTER announcing the resistance test results. The way ornot was suggesting, would mean that the caster would have to predict how many resistance hits people would make. If he guesses high, the caster is likely to KO himself. If he guesses low, then he will have manageable drain, but possibly not affect anyone, even if he had enough real hits to do so. (say, if the caster in your example had said 2 net hits, he'd have affected noone.)

The thing to note here is that when calculating drain - one additional success on the spellcasting test is equivalent to increasing the force of the spell by two.

The way I suggested would have allowed the mage to apply one net hit, targets A and B take spell-standard damage, C would be undamaged because he resisted the spell, and he'd have taken drain of standard +1. All-in-all not that different - maybe a mook stays up, but damaged, a little longer than otherwise, while the mage stays concious a bit longer too. But it would help enormously on those outlier rolls - say when your powerball hits two drones and Skippy the janitor. Should you really take +6 drain because of Skippy?
pbangarth
QUOTE (darthmord @ Mar 19 2009, 03:04 PM) *
But falls flat on its face when taking Overcasting into account. It's quite literally safer to Overcast for high damage and take just enough successes to ensure the spell goes off without a hitch and then resist drain than it is to cast at max normal Force and pump up the succcesses.

Force 5 w/ 4 Net Hits
--or--
Force 9 w/ 1 Net Hits

Sure the Overcast is physical damage, but a good mage will still be able to resist most / all of the drain. The right equipment will even give a buffer on the damage (Trauma Damper).

Overcasting being safet than regular casting is NOT and HAS NOT EVER been within the fine tradition of SR Magic.


As has been shown elsewhere, the current argument continually focuses on only two of the options available to the magician in this respect. In the SR4 system, the mage can cast multiple low-Force spells at once to do cumulative overkill damage equal to a spell overcast to the max, and yet still avoid any Drain damage, and without having to resort to the various implants and tweaks brought out over and over again to show how it is possible to overcast and avoid Drain if you build just right. In other words an ordinary mage can do the equivalent of overcast overkill by shooting a bunch of little spells at once, with no Drain damage to herself. The SR4A system makes this 'death by a thousand cuts' as painful to the magician as overcast overkill.

I don't know what the reasoning behind this change was in the minds of the developers, and I'm not sure we need to know every thought they think in designing the game. This one effect on mage play is enough to make me feel the SR4A system deserves a chance.
Mikado
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 19 2009, 06:58 PM) *
As has been shown elsewhere, the current argument continually focuses on only two of the options available to the magician in this respect. In the SR4 system, the mage can cast multiple low-Force spells at once to do cumulative overkill damage equal to a spell overcast to the max, and yet still avoid any Drain damage, and without having to resort to the various implants and tweaks brought out over and over again to show how it is possible to overcast and avoid Drain if you build just right. In other words an ordinary mage can do the equivalent of overcast overkill by shooting a bunch of little spells at once, with no Drain damage to herself. The SR4A system makes this 'death by a thousand cuts' as painful to the magician as overcast overkill.

I don't know what the reasoning behind this change was in the minds of the developers, and I'm not sure we need to know every thought they think in designing the game. This one effect on mage play is enough to make me feel the SR4A system deserves a chance.

You could dual cast in SR3 as well. IIRC it increased the drain by 2 not 1, however.
I have a teammate that can pull off 2 shots per pass with a light pistol and drop 2 different targets with moderate armor. More so if he is using APDS. I have another teammate that can shoot two people dead with a sport rifle with armored jacket equivalent, without using APDS. I have even another teammate that can drop two people dead with two short bursts from an assault rifle with armored jackets, without using APDS or suffering recoil penalties. Or that same person can pop a grenade from the assault rifle and do allot (maybe not kill) of damage to many targets. And, except for the assault rifle, the weapons are stock. The assault rifle has a few extra points of RC. 3 people, 3 ways to kill without using magic.
Direct Damage spells are only overpowered now because people want their mages to get 4 passes per turn and drop 20+ dice on every test. (Yes, not everyone feels that way but the forums themselves lead evidence that enough do) Using that mentality I understand why the dev's made their change to the rules, the problem is, when you balance the game for the high end the low end are worse than useless and the moderate players feel like they just got beat into a coma with a nerf bat.

Damn... When did I get to moving target... Need to slow down the posts. If I start running I'll be at -2 to posting!
knasser
We've got a few different threads overlapping, so I'm just going to post a link to a comment I made in the "New Drain Mechanic" thread.

Link

In short, I've made the suggestion of dropping Physical Direct Combat spells altogether. That leaves creating actual physical effects as the only means to cause actual physical damage which works thematically. You can then keep the original ORs without impacting on combat spells if you wish because Mana Direct Combat spells never affect non-living targets anyway.
Ryu
Basic Mage (generic spellcasting 12, drain resistance 10)
  • magic 5, spellcasting 5, power focus 2 (chargen-legal)
  • willpower 5, drain attribute 5, edge 4
Capabilities (without edge):
  • 17,8% odds of six hits on any spell, 78% to beat 6 defending dice, 41% to beat 12
  • indirect combat spells are only desireable if the mage risks drain
  • safe manabolt damage potential DV 5 (no drain)
  • max. overcasting DV 10+net hits (mode drain 2+ net hits)
  • multicasting 2*force 5 at pool 6: 37% odds per spell, or 14% for double hit

Specialised Mage (specialised spellcasting 14++, assume 15)
  • Spellcasting (spec +2)
  • Mentor Bonus (+2, might go to another field)
  • Spellcasting Focus 3 (chargen-legal)
Capabilities (without edge):
  • 38,2% odds of six hits on the boosted category, 87% to beat 6 defending dice, 57% to beat 12
  • safe manabolt damage potential DV 5 (no drain)
  • max. overcasting DV 10+net hits (mode drain 2+ net hits)
  • multicasting 2*force 5 at pool 6+3=9: 60% odds per spell, or 36% for double hit


These are not the limits, at all. No initiation, bad and few foci, no supporting aid spell services, and no edge usage. One of the most lethal options in the game used to be powerball multicasting by a lucky human mage. It did remind me of ED middle-circle windling beastmasters for some reasons. One combat turn and your edge/karma is gone. It is a double-edged sword now.

Observations:
  • Your maximum damage potential does scale with your casting prowess, and your to-hit chance does. Since your best bet at causing damage was always "doing as much as possible with overcasting", you loose little damage potential if you stand to have few net hits, and none if you are willing to take the drain. It pays to be specialised now.
  • Average direct spell damage will be more constant, almost like mundane weapons handled by average shooters. Casting twice will increase you max. damage at the cost of to-hit odds.
  • Increasing the force-based drain instead of the SR4A rule reduces the "ideal" force, making drain likely to be stun, killing the generalist damage potential (force-generated), but keeps the specialist mostly untouched (lost damage used to be excessive).
  • Normal casting is for those who are afraid of drain, overcasting for those who arenĀ“t, and multicasting is a viable tactic for specialists.
ornot
QUOTE (Dunsany @ Mar 19 2009, 08:51 PM) *
Now you're pushing my argument to an extreme. smile.gif
I didn't say that these sensors should be used everywhere. What I did say was that the use of the proper sensors in the proper places would counter this spell easily. If you have a problem with players walking around with heavy weapons in places that have little to no security because they actually have resources to be able to do that (a spell that counters the most basic of security) then my question remains, what effect would you like improved invisibility to have? If it can't let them get around security that isn't designed to find what they are trying to hide, what exactly should it do?



Really? Can you give an example of his die pools for a variety of spells? As I said, it's possible to be able to consistently (about 50% of the time or slightly more) hit OR4 on a select group of spells. But if the character is designed to do illusions they'll probably have a bit of a problem dealing with combat spells or manipulation spells that require that threshold. I, personally, don't have a problem with that. It's a lot of resources to spend to be good at something and spreading out your resources means you're significantly less likely to be able to handle that threshold in *any* area. After a bit of karma and some nuyen you can try to increase your chances in your weak areas through spellcasting foci, or make yourself stronger in your main area. The threshold still isn't easy, but at least it'd be possible. Again, I see nothing wrong with this.

People claim that this new OR means that these spells aren't "trivial" to cast successfully. My question has been, and remains, who are these characters that can "trivially" hit an OR4? Synner's example of a character with a rather large investment in illusion magic (a force 3 spellcasting focus) could do it 50% of the time and could only hit this new OR6 with Edge. Are there a lot of characters out there that can do that with illusions *and* with combat spells *and* with manipulation spells? And if not, if in fact they can only do so in one category after some specialization, is that really a problem?


The mage in my game was throwing a spellcasting pool of 11 dice with +2 for manipulation spells. No foci, nothing. He has the devil's own luck though, so perhaps that's to blame for my opinion.

Anyway.. yesterday I found a post by Synner from a few days ago stating that the new mechanic does indeed give the mage the choice of using or not using hits after the target has rolled resistance, so it turns out I misunderstood the new rule after all. I don't like that interpretation, but it does seem to be RAW. I will change what I need to in my game, upon consultation with my players (cos I'm a filthy socialist like that).
Mr. Unpronounceable
Heh - no worries. I've got a guy like that in my group too: he just about always gets 3 successes per 4 dice, no idea how.

OTOH, I roll for crap most of the time, with occasional wierd spikes like either 0 or all hits.

Put the two of us in the same system and you see a LOT of the dice mechanic problems come bubbling to the surface.
darthmord
QUOTE (Mr. Unpronounceable @ Mar 20 2009, 11:07 AM) *
Heh - no worries. I've got a guy like that in my group too: he just about always gets 3 successes per 4 dice, no idea how.

OTOH, I roll for crap most of the time, with occasional wierd spikes like either 0 or all hits.

Put the two of us in the same system and you see a LOT of the dice mechanic problems come bubbling to the surface.


One guy from my old gaming group and I are like this. I get lucky a LOT. I'm usually getting just above what I need for success... better than 80% of the time. My friend would typically get massive spikes of good luck. When the two of us were working together, we'd get my rate of good luck combined with his magnitude of good luck.

To put it in SR4 terms... I'd get 5 Hits when I needed 3 or 4. 6 hits if I needed 5, etc. My friend would get 15 hits when needing 3. Put us together and we'd pull 10-12 when needing 3 or 4. We even used different dice. Poured them out of a cup even. Didn't matter.

Needless to say our GM was most displeased with the two of us. We could ride on stupid sheer luck and be wildly successful.
ornot
I have several lucky players in my group. The aformentioned mage, and the hacker. She was rigging a big truck once, and I managed to hit her with a surprise AV rocket. However, she rolled 15 hits on 20 dice, to all but negate my damage. This is not unusual.

I, on the other hand, quite regularly critically glitch on 10+ dice. Don't ask me how. When I get 1/3 hits it's regarded by the rest of the table as a lucky roll for me.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Mr. Unpronounceable @ Mar 20 2009, 11:07 AM) *
Heh - no worries. I've got a guy like that in my group too: he just about always gets 3 successes per 4 dice, no idea how.

OTOH, I roll for crap most of the time, with occasional wierd spikes like either 0 or all hits.

Put the two of us in the same system and you see a LOT of the dice mechanic problems come bubbling to the surface.


There was a guy who hung around our group (would occasionally join in games, even ran a few once--mind that this is "any system"). When he rolled up D&D characters he'd consistently get 3+ stats at 18, before racial mods (4d6, drop lowest). That not withstanding though, he was still not a fun guy to play with (as a player he insulted my ability to make characters while I was playing my first ever rogue and realized, "oh, this character doesn't do so well with combat," as a GM he dropped a bridge on me just before a big epic fight (the first combat of the campaign, actually) and I didn't manage to dig myself out until it was over--he rolled most of the players stats in that game too, lots of 16s and higher). When one of the other GMs and I made our own stat system for a world he created (you have 20d6s, spread them around to your stats, no fewer than 2 dice in any stat without GM approval, if you have less than 4 then give +1 to the result for every missing die (so 2d6+2), roll pick best 4 dice), this guy simply could not roll a valid character, he rolled too well all the time (if you had more than 18 you had to reroll).

I myself and pretty average with the dice. I get the occasional poor roll (few weeks ago I rolled dice to shoot someone twice, short bursts, I have 13 and 11 dice doing so. First roll of 13 gave me 2 successes, I spent edge and rerolled failures and got 1 more success: 3 out of 24 dice, second attack was much the same) and get the occasional amazing roll (got hit with a grenade, taking 12P damage grab body (4), edge (5), armor (cool.gif or 17 dice: 12+ successes, two of the original 6s rolled 6 again and then again).
Browncoatone
QUOTE
OTOH, I roll for crap most of the time, with occasional wierd spikes like either 0 or all hits.
Sounds like me.

Some people just got the charm. Once, when our resident cyberbitch (yes she was a bitch in real life too) got it in her head to blow a hole through the brick wall ahead of her with a grenade launcher at a range of 3 feet, I saw a new player who's character had no armor, no magic, and I think it was a body of 2 (she played a spy/face), dodge enough of the grenade blast (she was standing right next to the cyberbitch when she fired) that she not only survived but scaled down the damage to light. As for the cyberbitch, you remember how Obewan described Vader, "he's more machine now than man, twisted and evil." Well that's a good description for this girl. She fired that grenade launcher at the wall in front of her and didn't even dodge or flinch the blast or hesitate when it was brought to her attention that the blast would almost definitely kill her partner standing next to her. Between her armor and her cyber she soaked all the damage, managed not to be blown off her feet and stepped through the hole in the wall in pursuit of her target like a goddamned Terminator.
Cain
QUOTE (ornot @ Mar 20 2009, 10:41 AM) *
I, on the other hand, quite regularly critically glitch on 10+ dice. Don't ask me how. When I get 1/3 hits it's regarded by the rest of the table as a lucky roll for me.

Whenever I GM Shadowrun, I *will* critically botch on at least one roll, involving 4 or more dice. This is an unbroken string running back to the mid-90's. Yes, that means it started in SR3, where you needed to roll all 1's to critically botch. My record is something like 12 dice, from those days.
AllTheNothing
QUOTE (ornot @ Mar 20 2009, 06:41 PM) *
I have several lucky players in my group. The aformentioned mage, and the hacker. She was rigging a big truck once, and I managed to hit her with a surprise AV rocket. However, she rolled 15 hits on 20 dice, to all but negate my damage. This is not unusual.

I, on the other hand, quite regularly critically glitch on 10+ dice. Don't ask me how. When I get 1/3 hits it's regarded by the rest of the table as a lucky roll for me.

Did your parents take the "Bad Luck" negative quality at childgen?
eidolon
I solved my rolling problems by buying pink and black dice of doom. I was rolling hot shooty PC death at FtC.

Of course, they were rolling hot dodgy GM mockery. grinbig.gif
Ryu
I got a brick from a parting player. Figures it was not he who was lucky all the time, but his dice...
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