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Stormdrake
So having read over the changes in SR4A a few thoughts came to mind. The first of course, was it sucks to be a mage! Second was, same can be said for Technomancers. Then I got to free spirits and all I can think is no one is ever going to play them with the new rules. An exaggeration, but with attributes being x5 target and Force being the Free Spirits Attribute cap the cost of playing a Free Spirit makes it very unattractive. As Mages, Technomancers and Free Spirits all have to double pay as it were with initiating (or some version of it) before they can even raise their magic/force/resonance the increased attribute cost is just one more smack in the head.

I may be missing something but this really does seem rather harsh towards characters that need to increase magic/resonance to keep improving.
Ustio
I've been lurking in all the SR4A posts for a while - and been wondering how my group would take all the changes.

Howevere whilst I myself am 100% behind the changes (even though I play TM's almost exclusively - when I actually get to play), I know a lot of my group dont like the x5 for attributes and the significant impact it has on TM's and awakened so I came up with a nice simple houserule(with the added benefit of a little nostalgia):

Initiating comes with a metamagic and a point of magic

Done, simple, shouldn't through the balance off too much - as you still have an extra stat that just keeps getting more and more expensive.
Stormdrake
I thought about that myself. Have actually done that in an old game. For the latest game was going to do more along RAW but with this latest change may not as it gets rather punative towards just one part of the player base.
crizh
Heck that was the original RAW back in the day.

I don't think it's going to be necessary though. Synner's finally said that karma awards are going up to compensate. I imagine this will also mean that RC will be errata'd to 1000 karma for karma-gen.
Ustio
Problem with redoing karma gen is that under the 750 and x3 limit you could soft max every stat as a human, [8 stats @ 5 = 336] now its 560, since under BP you could only eek out an avearge of 3.5, and with a 750 cap you can get an average of a little over 4, i have no problem with the x5, except where it pertains to metahumans, please please please can we adopt the suggestion to not include the racial modifiers when working out the karma cost - for those who say that it takes more effort for a troll to gain +1 str to reach his maximum , irespond with the example of cuber/bio ware - if i get +1 str from 'ware raising my Str to 5 i still pay the cost as though it was 4 even under SR4A RAW, why cant the same apply to racial mods?
Neraph
Silly Stormdrake, this is how you play a Free Spirit!
crizh
QUOTE (Ustio @ Mar 19 2009, 04:03 PM) *
Problem with redoing karma gen is that under the 750 and x3 limit you could soft max every stat as a human, [8 stats @ 5 = 336] now its 560, since under BP you could only eek out an avearge of 3.5, and with a 750 cap you can get an average of a little over 4, i have no problem with the x5, except where it pertains to metahumans, please please please can we adopt the suggestion to not include the racial modifiers when working out the karma cost - for those who say that it takes more effort for a troll to gain +1 str to reach his maximum , irespond with the example of cuber/bio ware - if i get +1 str from 'ware raising my Str to 5 i still pay the cost as though it was 4 even under SR4A RAW, why cant the same apply to racial mods?



By increasing the amount of karma available in karma-gen by exactly one third the balance should remain exactly the same.

What it will do is reward skill-monkeys. If you're willing to sacrifice a few points in stat's you'll be able to afford an even wider spread of skills. Which was kinda the point really.
pbangarth
So, crizh, do you think that the 4A changes were guided by the karmagen build, rather than the BP build system? Is the karmagen system becoming more prevalent?
Neraph
Interestingly enough, the Karmagen as it stands now starts your characters off with 75 Street Cred...
crizh
I think karma-gen has informed the changes particularly in light of the knowledge that the intent was to balance the cost increase with improved karma awards.

I don't think that karma-gen is becoming more prevalent and I'm fairly sure that upcoming releases will focus on BP, leaving karma-gen as a poor step-child. The effort involved to focus on both systems equally is just too great.
Stormdrake
Backing up a step here I thought pc free spirits could not be of the possesion type? Discounting that though free spirit players are still pretty abused when they have to raise two attributes pretty regularly (force and edge) compared to the mages or technomancers one.
crizh
No, Free Spirits may not be of the Inhabitation type. They are free to choose Possession or Materialization.
darthmord
QUOTE (crizh @ Mar 19 2009, 01:10 PM) *
No, Free Spirits may not be of the Inhabitation type. They are free to choose Possession or Materialization.


But Free Spirits can be a Former Ally Spirit (negative flaw). Ally Spirits can be of Posession, Materialization, or Inhabitation Traditions. So one could legitimately claim to be an ex-Ally from an Inhabitation Tradition.
crizh
QUOTE (darthmord @ Mar 19 2009, 07:30 PM) *
But Free Spirits can be a Former Ally Spirit (negative flaw). Ally Spirits can be of Posession, Materialization, or Inhabitation Traditions. So one could legitimately claim to be an ex-Ally from an Inhabitation Tradition.



Except that RC explicitly bans you from taking Inhabitation.
Adarael
QUOTE
Synner's finally said that karma awards are going up to compensate.


Barring Missions-based characters aside, the concept that any GM would need a book to tell them it's okay to award more karma - especially if everyone at their table is bitching about advancement speed - shocks and appals me.
crizh
QUOTE (Adarael @ Mar 19 2009, 08:23 PM) *
Barring Missions-based characters aside,


Unfortunately that is the whole point of this SR4A debate. It will be the new default baseline and you cannot expect to get something different in a game you aren't running yourself.
Adarael
No, that's the whole point of *your* beef with SR4A. That isn't to say it isn't valid, but you are quite frankly in the minority of shadowrun players around the world, in that your concerns are based around sanctioned missions games.
I think Draco18s has unrelated issues with it, as do many others.

The majority of Shadowrun players are not people who play Missions at sanctioned events. What's more, the solution to the missions problem doesn't even lie in changing SR4A. It relies on The Dunner saying, "Hay, we'll print this with more karma awards."
darthmord
QUOTE (crizh @ Mar 19 2009, 03:18 PM) *
Except that RC explicitly bans you from taking Inhabitation.


Yeah but Street Magic specifically allows Ally Spirits to be of Inhabitation Traditions. It even goes into detail about preparing the vessels and so forth.

I understand that Specific typically overrides General, but in this case we have two separate instances of Specific in collision over the same topic. I would think the book on Magic would overrule the book on Character Options on Magic related issues.
Caadium
QUOTE (Ustio @ Mar 19 2009, 07:41 AM) *
Initiating comes with a metamagic and a point of magic


While this is how initiating used to work (pre SR4), I wouldn't quite go down this path. Street Magic specifically added the optional rule for adepts to choose a point of magic instead of a metamagic so that they do not get screwed for advancement due to the limited amount of metamagic they can use. If you begin giving out both as you suggest the adept is once again given the Cindarella step-child treatment. Instead, maybe consider simply applying the optional rule for adepts across the board. Then, the player can decide what is more important, the higher magic or the metamagic. If the answer is Metamagic, he can initiate again or raise the Magic with karma.
bluedragon7
QUOTE (crizh @ Mar 19 2009, 04:31 PM) *
By increasing the amount of karma available in karma-gen by exactly one third the balance should remain exactly the same.

Actually the karma-gen wasnt in balance with the BP system in the first place with only maxed out TMs just reaching 750 Karma when build with 400BP.
Archetypes however were around 500 Karma. Even with 5* attribute costs you can rebuild any sample character with 750 and be still left with Karma to make him better than a 400BP char, so why is there a need to give out more than 750 Karma?
merashin
QUOTE (darthmord @ Mar 19 2009, 02:17 PM) *
Yeah but Street Magic specifically allows Ally Spirits to be of Inhabitation Traditions. It even goes into detail about preparing the vessels and so forth.

I understand that Specific typically overrides General, but in this case we have two separate instances of Specific in collision over the same topic. I would think the book on Magic would overrule the book on Character Options on Magic related issues.

it allows you to play as a former ally spirit, which is just that someone has your formula. It doesn't allow you access to any of the ally spirit rules, it's just a way of saying someone knows how to control you.
Neraph
You guys misunderstand. You don't build a free spirit and claim to be an ally spirit with inhabitation.

You make a mage, get the Ally Conjuration metamagic, create an ally spirit with Inhabitation, and have it inhabit you. Bam, free spirit PC with all the power of a free spirit NPC.
darthmord
QUOTE (Neraph @ Mar 20 2009, 12:23 AM) *
You guys misunderstand. You don't build a free spirit and claim to be an ally spirit with inhabitation.

You make a mage, get the Ally Conjuration metamagic, create an ally spirit with Inhabitation, and have it inhabit you. Bam, free spirit PC with all the power of a free spirit NPC.


No, you forgot a couple of steps. Go through the effort of summoning an Ally spirit, use him to help you survive the Drain to summon a bigger one, rinse & repeat a few times. Then once you are happy with your Force 20+ Ally Spirit, have HIM use Inhabitation on your body and get a perfect merge. Voila!

Don't forget though... the spirit will have all of your skills, abilities, and powers on top of its own.

One thing I do have to question though... What would the stats be for a flesh-form merge? You have True Form (Stats = Force), the middle grade merge where it's plainly obvious the host was warped by the spirit (Stats = Force + Original stats), and the last one Flesh-form. That's the ideal merge. Host becomes dual natured, spirit gets full use of abilities, control of DNI, etc. Doesn't talk about Stats at all and that's in the CGL Street Magic. The text is identical between it and the FanPro Street Magic.
Neraph
QUOTE (darthmord @ Mar 20 2009, 08:25 AM) *
No, you forgot a couple of steps. Go through the effort of summoning an Ally spirit, use him to help you survive the Drain to summon a bigger one, rinse & repeat a few times. Then once you are happy with your Force 20+ Ally Spirit, have HIM use Inhabitation on your body and get a perfect merge. Voila!

Don't forget though... the spirit will have all of your skills, abilities, and powers on top of its own.

One thing I do have to question though... What would the stats be for a flesh-form merge? You have True Form (Stats = Force), the middle grade merge where it's plainly obvious the host was warped by the spirit (Stats = Force + Original stats), and the last one Flesh-form. That's the ideal merge. Host becomes dual natured, spirit gets full use of abilities, control of DNI, etc. Doesn't talk about Stats at all and that's in the CGL Street Magic. The text is identical between it and the FanPro Street Magic.

Wrong.

The Hybrid Form is the one that gets to use DNI. That's the Ideal Merge. DNI and force + stats? Count me in.
darthmord
QUOTE (Neraph @ Mar 20 2009, 11:57 PM) *
Wrong.

The Hybrid Form is the one that gets to use DNI. That's the Ideal Merge. DNI and force + stats? Count me in.


Read the sidebar on Page 1000 of Street Magic.

True Form: Gets Astral Form, Materialization, doesn't need a body to inhabit. Otherwise only spirit attributes, skills, and knowledge.

Hybrid Form: Wipes the host's skills (if any), gets stats + Force for attributes, spirit warps the nature of the host, can fully operate the host body's cyberware. Gains Dual Nature, Immune to Normal Weapons, loses Astral Form.

True Form: Virtually indistinguishable as a merged entity. Retains all of the memories, abilities, and skills (Active & Knowledge, except Conjuring) of the host. Gains Dual Nature, has Immunity to Normal Weapons, all of vesel's natural and augmented abilities. Gains Realistic Form and Aura Masking.

True Form is rather nice. My question is... does True Form get attributes + Force like Hybrid does or not? It would seem they should since the form is an amalgation of the two original entities. Not to mention Possession Spirits always add their Force to their hosts. Both Hybrid and True have a spirit in a host, just like Possession would.
Neraph
No, based on the use of DNI and the stat + force, I believe the overwriting of the host's shtuff is more than acceptable.

For less obvious, Flesh Form FTW.
For bringing the spirit into the Material, True Form FTW.
For unabridged power and versatility, Hybrid Form FTW.
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