Okay. Well I submit this general point for you and see if you agree with it or not.

As a general Shadowrun rule, offence beats defence. (I personally am very happy with that as this wouldn't be a game of planning, treachery and panic if it were otherwise). It is also possible, regardless of "method" (e.g. magic, firearms), to create characters, even from chargen, that can really excel at what they do, far beyond what is "average" for the setting. Thus if you start from the proposition that if you can blast through some opposition very easily, then pretty much everything would get called "overpowered."

I guess what I'm asking is why is magic singled out for being considered overpowered? Both firearms and magic have constraints on their use. These constraints are different. The key question to me is not whether either is "overpowered" (both can kill most reasonable opponents stone dead similarly quickly so there's no way to really say one is more powerful than the other in that regard), but whether one method benefits from having much less significant constraints than the other.

To me the answer to the above question is no. The constraints are different. Both the environment and the nature of the opposition have very large effects on the utility of either method. Also other effects such as cost (witness your 100,000 power focus vs. the 1,700 Ares Alpha) and character building considerations (the necessary purchase and improvement of an entire extra stat that has no cheap cyber/bio implant ways of improving it).

So if you agree with the initial proposition: that both mundane and magical methods are capable of hitting the "effectiveness cap" of killing opponents and can be so out of chargen, then do you accept that it is the constraints on such methods that make the significant difference? (e.g. counterspelling, mil-spec armour, frequency of combats, resources and lots more) that make the difference? And if you agree with that, then what imbalance in the constraints do you see that leads you to think magic is significantly preferable to mundane methods?

Peace,

K.

I can agree with your new talking point and would like to see where this can go. I have a general dislike of all systems (beloved ED included) that set magic apart from everything else as a result of my contact with D&D 4e. I would like to see if you can alleviate some of my problems with it.

Magic consistently gets singled out because of a few things: (btw a lot of these apply to TMs as well but not as big an issue since they don't affect the Physical directly)

a) DC spells in particular because they have a sub-system that further lowers defense (no dodging and no armor)
b) The most effective counters to magic are magic -- it sort of creates a second game that no one else can play (like how hacking used to be)
c) Versatility -- mages are just hands down versatile
d) Gear --my 100,000 power focus makes ALL my magic better whereas your Ares Alpha is only good for shooting (see also Falconer's possession mage with Ally spirit in Bugfoxman's Cyberzombie thread)
e) Unlimited progression -- as the campaign goes on mages only get better whereas everyone else eventually hits a hard cap
f) Spellcasting Drain -- no where near as punitive as it should be for the results, you can cast all day, with drugs, sustaining foci, increased Willpower, pick your poison


PS. Please don't use Focus Addiction as a reason for anything above. It is lame and should be just as common as Sams who are Augmentation Addicts but for some reason that doesn't usually get applied to them. Convince me without it.

In my opinion it's the base mechanic that is unbalanced: rolling Magic (which with initiation is virtualy limitless) + Spelcasting against Willpower + Counterspell (both of which are capped) means that you probably are going to have slim chanches of resisting the spell (you can easily reach DPs of 15+ with a dedicated built) and with overcasting (which was problematic from the beginning and the changes introduced in 20th Anniversary edition encouraged it rather than toning it down (O_o) ) you realy need only a single hit to knock out an enemy.

In my opinion the spellcasting should be divided in two tests, one to shape the spell (consider it a single shot disposable weapon) and one to "fire" it, they tack a simple action; the shaping test is a Magic + Spellcasting + Casting Force (this should grant a base DV roughly equal to the casting force as long as the magic attribute, the spellcasting skill and the casting force are more or less equals to each other, while giving diminished returnes for overcasting) the number of hits determines the Effective Force of the spell (the caster can chose to lower the effective force and use part of the hits to bust the Drain Resistance Pool, this rapresent the effort of stabilizing the flux of mana throught the caster aura rather than trying to cram more juice in the spell), after that the caster makes the Drain Resistance test, and than he/she/it can sling the spell making a Spelcasting + Drain Attribute test opposed by an Intuition (+ Willpower if the target enters in full defence and possibly + Counterspelling if aviable) test if it's a direct spell or a Reaction (+ Dodge if the target enters in full defence) if it's an indirect spell, in case of a succesfull hit the target must rest a number of boxes of damage equal to the spell's Effective Force + Net Hits scored on the spellslinging test, the resistance test is a Willpower + Counterspelling (if aviable) for direct mana spells, Body + Counterspelling (if aviable) for direct physical spells, Body + Armor for physical indirect spells and Willpower + Astral Armor for indirect mana spells (yes I know, officialy they don't exist but there's no reason for not allowing them).

Counterspell:
the Counterspelling can be used for defence against direct combat spells in two different ways: attempting to prevent the spell to lock on the target or brute force resistance. If the counterspeller choses to attempt to prevent the spell from locking on the target he/she/it adds his/hers/its counterspelling skill to DP of the spell's target (the Intuition + eventual Willpower test), if instead the way of brute force resistance is chosen the counterspeller adds Magic + Counterspelling dices to the DP of the resistance test; the counterspeller must chose to apply his/hers/its conterspell to either the defence test or the resistance test, in case of multiple counterspells (from multiple counterspellers) applied to the same test only the best bonus applies.

This are alot of words but in the end it boils down to:

-chose the spell and the casting force

-make a Magic + Spellcasting + Casting Force test

-chose how many hits are allocated to the Effective Force (that becomes the spell's base DV) and how many are used to boost the Drain Resistance pool

-make the Drain resistance test (the drain is based on the casting force)

-make a Spelcasting + Drain Attribute test opposed by:

A) an Intuition (+ Willpower if the target enters in full defence and possibly + Counterspelling if aviable) test for direct spells

B) a Reaction (+ Dodge if the target enters in full defence) for indirect spells

-if the spell hits the target must resist a DV equal to the effective force of the spell + the Net Hits scored on the attack test by making:

A) a Willpower + Counterspelling (if aviable) test for direct mana spells

B) a Body + Counterspelling (if aviable) test for direct physical spells

C) a Body + Armor test for physical indirect spells

D) a Willpower + Astral Armor test for indirect mana spells

In other word: Shaping Test => Drain Resistance Test => Opposed Test => Damage Resistance Test.

Both Shaping a spell and slinging it take a Simple action; the caster can chose to not sling the spell immidiatly, in order to do so he/she/it must sustain it incurring in the usual penality for sustaining spells unless a Sustaining Focus(combat spells) is used, the force of the focus must be equal or greater than the Effective Force of the spell.

My other suggestions are:
- Get rid of the +1 drain modifier on physical spells and reduce the one of elemental effects from +2 to +1 (this sould make spells like Ligthining Blot more attractive)
- Make Drain non healable by first aid so that the mage can't just go all out and be at full health moments later

Personally, I don't find direct combat spells overpowered in and of themselves. Mages should have a bread-and-butter spell that is effective and won't knock them out for using it. A Force: 5 or 6 spell, capped at 5 or 6 hits, has a decent, but not foregone, chance of taking someone out, putting it on par with firearms.

To me, the real culprits are:

1) Overcasting. I like it as a last-ditch desperation tactic that a mage can use when he really needs to take someone out. The trouble is that it is fairly easy to make a build that can regularly and repeatedly overcast. I would fix this by making the Drain increase by one for every point of spell Force over the caster's Magic, rather than the usual point of Drain per two Force points.

2) Unlimited advancement. If a street samurai can only get up to 6 or 7 skill in his gun, no matter how many years he has devoted to mastering it, why should a mage be able, even theoretically, to reach high double digit initiation grades? I would limit initiation grades to somewhere between 6 and 12, and possibly separately cap Magic at double Essense (which would make getting cyberware more of a meaningful sacrifice, instead of something you can initiate and make as good as new).

well, no, but it isn't unrelated either. if the argument is "a mage can turn into an eagle and mana bolt the guards, and this is really powerful." (assuming this is true for the given situation; strong in wide open areas, not so strong if you're hiking through the sewers)

so, examining the argument: it could be that the particular combination of powers is good, but neither is good separately. mana bolt would not be too powerful in this case. it could be that shapechange is good, and mana bolt is nothing special. in this case, mana bolt would not be too powerful. it could be that mana bolt is good, and shapechange is good. in this case, mana bolt might be too powerful. it could be that shapechange is not very good (note: if you think this, you need to re-examine your views imo) and mana bolt is good, in which case it is possible that mana bolt might be too powerful.

so you can see, looking at that... the eagle + mana bolt (or stunbolt or stunball or whatever) is not a very strong argument regarding the power level of manabolt etc, unless the time is taken to examine all the options. the only way to demonstrate that mana bolt is good independant of shapechange for being useful is to demonstrate mana bolt being useful in a scenario where shapechange is not used.

this applies to more or less any combination, really. it's one thing that bugged me about D&D 3.5 metamagic actually. they got all crazy about not allowing you to stack the same metamagic twice, because it was supposedly a horrible problem. they cited as an example of the brokenness stuff like people with metamagic rods + divine metamagic + various other means of reducing or removing the level adjustment cost of metamagic... and so they would show that a quadruple empowered fireball could deal 30d6 damage, which is too much for a level 3 spell. now, while 30d6 damage is too much for a 3rd level spell to be doing, the problem is not quadruple empower. quadruple empower would put the spell as a level 11 spell, requiring 2 epic feats (ie level 22-23ish), at which point 30d6 is quite pathetic. so instead, now you just have to twin-empower-energy admixture the spell, and it's just as broken when you make the metamagic costs go away.

which is a rather roundabout way of saying: if you're foolish enough to waste your time solving the wrong problem by restricting the wrong thing, you wind up needlessly restricting things and you still wind up with a broken mechanic that unbalances the game... net result: you've lost options, spent time, and gained nothing.

i just want to avoid people making that mistake with this situation: if someone decides to nerf direct combat spells, it should be based on the power of those spells, not based on the power of summoning spirits, increase reflexes, ally spirits using aid sorcery, or anything else.

Okay firstly... in the buffed out street sam thread. I missed the mundane only bit (in fact I only added the possession at the end when I realized there was enough karma & high enough essence & BP to do it). Said character COULD NOT CAST ANY SPELLS!!!! (so is irrelevant to this thread... I don't know why you brought it up; He had an initiate grade of *2* and a magic of *2* (initiations capped by magic)). It was simply to throw an abuse on top of an abuse (unlimited delta grade cyber/bio... on top of possessions stat boosting mechanic). Basically ally spirit == unlimited services... custom designed... so long as background count doesn't reduce his magic to 0 he can possess himself using channeling (as your magic goes down you can lose access to metamagics).

Secondly I disagree that all of your examples are typical straight out of chargen cheops. Some of the stuff you claim requires a higher grade mage.
Also once initiation is taken into account, I believe the average NPC magic score is not a 3 but a 4 or 5. (it's like saying a trolls average str is 3.... the attribute in play actually goes from 1 to 6,7,8+). In order to know the average magic score, we'd need to know the average initiate grade (which I'd say is 1 or 2). Also, typical drain pool of of chargen is 8-12, not 12. Not everyone softmaxes stats and not everyone is a dwarf or elf.... some of them actually play orks or trolls as magicians *gasp*.

Again, I must stress... starting WELL ROUNDED character will have easily 14 dice, no issues w/ recoil, (5 attrib, +3 augmentations, +4 skills, +2 smartlink). And I didn't even include a specialization there. And w/ 5point RC they can fire 2 wide bursts a pass w/o issue. Lessee 14 dice vs. 3-4 (-2 wide burst)... twice per round. The ONLY thing stopping that from being completely hosed is the damage resistance test.

Big difference... two attacks (both at full pool against a single attribute), vs two resistance tests. Versus, 1 complex action magic cast (at full pool vs single attribute single test (+counterspelling w/o giving up actions for full defense even))


On background counts... and the magic 4 mage isn't any less hosed than the magic 4 adept in a background count 1?!
Remember force caps hits. Casting in a background count increases the drain of the spell!! (If I cast at force 3, calculate drain as if it's force 4 in a rating 1 BGC... which is +1 drain). Taking a low magic adept is a poor example (is his magic lower because he has a point of bioware?! EG: synaptic booster 2 rather than adept increase reflexes 2?). If it is a low magic adept, then he probably has plenty of non-magical skills & cyber to fall back on.





Now, this example is slightly wrong. (I can work with the power focus, but I said combat spell focus to start, just to illustrate that not all bonuses which you' were adding before the split would apply to all spells).

Presplit: reduce magic by BGC... so assuming 0, here just adding it to show how many times it can reduce the pool. Assuming a 3/3/4 base split.
First spell is stunbolt at 9 == (3split, +4 focus, +2 spec) MINUS Visibility, wounds, sustaining, BGC (focus reduces by background count)
Second Spell Invis at 7 == (3split +4 focus) again minus wounds, sustaining, and BGC.... note this spell is sustained
Third Spell levitate at 8 == (4 split, 4 focus, +2 mentor... possibly -2 sustain) again minus wounds, sustaining, and BGC.
Drain is 1st: (5/2-2+3) == 3. 2nd: (5/2+0+3)==5, 3rd: (5/2+1+3)==6. (so w/ 12*3... 36 dice probably 12 out of 14 is soaked, expect to come out with 0-5 drain; again BGC can easily increase the drain by 3+ points as all these force 5's take advantage of the round down)

I honestly can't remember the last time I ended up in combat and WASN'T sustaining something important. (increase reflexes 4-5 force w/ 3-5 hits most commonly). W/o advanced masking (grade 2 initiate)... sustaining spells can be good, but it can also shout out, here's a mage to other awakened and result in nasty surprise attacks on the mage.

Gm's may vary on whether sustaining penalty comes after cast or before. Spells take effect in caster desired order (unclear whether they just take effect in that order, or are cast in that order). Just keep it consistent. (EG: you could cast 'awaken' first to ignore wound penalties from spells cast afterwards if you allow sequential. If you assume they all are cast first then resolved).


I STRONGLY disagree that mage is nearly as strong as a gunbunny coming out of chargen. A gunbunny has MANY ways to augment not only agility but reaction. Many pieces of kit which help the skills as well (such as reflex recorders), and is much more likely to take genetech treatments to increase stats than a mage worried about essence. The only way you can consider a power focus in perspective is to give the advantage of 20BP worth of gear (+4BP binding, +5BP quality restricted gear). For the cost of a magic two power focus... you're looking at muscle toner 2 + enhanced articulation + guns. For the cost of a power4... restricted for even more muscle toner plus a lot more than that (and I'm dealing in expensive essence friendly bioware here, not essence hungry cheap cyber!) Also, ever notice how almost all gunbunny skills are tied to agility... stealth, gunbunnying, etc. or failing that reaction.


Glyph:
I agree with your first point to a degree. The +1 drain penalty though is draconian. I like the concept, just the penalty is too severe.
I'd suggest instead, try simply removing 1 die from the drain soak pool for each point over would be a lot more moderate, and achieve the same ends. (5 points over... -5 dice from the soak pool is fairly significant; ESPECIALLY if the overcasting is dealing w/ spirit summoning!!). You don't want overcasting removed, you want it to be something to consider once or twice per run when critical, but not a regular course of action (barring characters who have spent tons of karma to enhance drain).


Second point: complete disagreement. The amount of karma represented by a mage of that grade is ludicrous... and just what are all these initiation grades in?! He's spent how much karma on say foci, what about monstrous amount of karma to invest an ally spirit? In order to have initiate grade 12 you must have bought magic 12. How many trolls you seen who bother to buy their natural body stat up from 9->10 for 50 karma? Yet for a mage buying the stat up from 9->10 for 50 karma is considered par for the course?! (and lets not forget the 22 karma for the 4th initiate grade on top of that (more if the character has essence loss!!).


AllTheNothing:
I see nothing of value in your post. All of them are bad suggestions which have been addressed numerous times in this thread.

Personally knasser I think the reason that magic gets summoned out as being overpowered is mostly because people aren't as likely to use the proper limits as they are with mundane methods, although I also think I agree with Glyph's point about magic being "unlimited" as singling it out, however I personally also agree with Falconer's rebuttal, the fact that the devs made a mistake and didn't cap magic really doesn't matter very much since it just doesn't happen in actual games.

Ravor:
Actually it does in a very wierd way... IIRC the dragon in earthdawn with the absolutely highest magic rating... had something in the high 20's. I can't recall the exact number. However, it's not something you're ever going to see on a PC, only on the most powerful of ancient NPC's dating back to the previous age.

I don't know how earthdawn numbers compare w/ shadowrun. But given the prior edition of multiply by 2/3... that would still leave a magic attribute of 16-18 on an ancient dragon (if he was still around). The only thing I can see approaching that is some kind of an immortal elf or similar. (there's also a spirit pact which essentially stops aging IIRC, as well as no one knows the limits of leonization).


Personally, I've never seen a character w/ a SR4 equivalent magic over 9, or more than 6 initiations. But that's just my anecdotal.

Granted, it's a hard limit that's unlikely to actually come up, but I like my game mechanics to be consistent across the board. If you are using a range of 1-7 to represent the full range of unaugmented human capability, and have all of these other hard limits, then why should Magic and technomancy not have limits?

And while they are unlikely to make a difference in most games, they would make a difference in the really high-level games (where it doesn't make sense to be anything but awakened), and the cheesy NPCs like Harlequin and his ilk. I actually wouldn't have a big problem with a Magic of 18 or so for a great dragon, but unfortunately a lot of people stat them or immortal elves by applying game mechanics like "Okay, say one grade of initiation per 10 years, for 20,000 years...".

Ah, slag it all. If Harlequin's twin brother (at least in terms of omgwtfbbq powerlevels) had somehow failed to Awaken, I'm sure he'd be a -18 Essence cyberzombie with 20+ in all his stats and hardened armor that could you could bounce a tank off, if you dropped it on him from 50,000 feet. There's always something better.

Glyph:
Again... I point out that 1-7 is not human range. 1-8 is for attributes (genetic + enhanced attribute)... now we add cyber and that goes up to 12. If we add in surged or other metas, it gets even worse. So I categorically reject your argument where you equate the 'Magic' grade w/ 1-7. Even skills (which are capped at 1-7... and even there you have things which allow modified skill allowing for up to rating 7(10). There's nothing which allows you to modify your spellcasting skill up to the 150% cap if you haven't noticed, so that's still stuck at a 7 (which generally isn't worth the price compraed to a 6).

It gets worse if we're talking meta's and half the cheese in runner's companion (I really wish they hadn't published this one or done it in a way that was GM only). Then we can see attributes in the high teens unaugmented.

I point out that magic rating was on a earthdawn great dragon which I don't believe made it... and was supposedly the highest magical ever. So while theoretically possible... I just don't see it happening. Especially when there's so much to spend karma on... return on investment here. The marginal improvement of going from magic 9 -> 10 as opposed to spending that karma on quickened spell, ally spirit, kickass focus, base attributes & skills (not everyone likes being a one trick monkey).

Edit: glancing at ancient's page... Rhonabwhy: Magic rating 25 in prior editions... so 16 or 17 in SR4.

You are right about people not being as aware of or using the limits on magic as they are with mundane weaponry. I've been on and off working on a revised Matrix Examples document, but perhaps I ought to do a Magic Examples document. The unlimited progression on Magic was also a problem of mine when SR4 came out. But over time and game play, I've simply stopped caring about it. It's never come up and is never likely to. Especially now with the errata'd karma costs for increasing attributes.

Cheops - I don't have time to go through all your post the way that I would like to. I'll offer one suggestion to you (and others who are interested) that will solve most of your stated problems. I'm of the mind that if you keep fighting against the way Shadowrun works, you'll end up doing a lot of fiddling for something that never really is completely satisfactory. May I suggest that you simply remove Direct Combat spells, leaving only the Indirect.

There is little in the fluff that demands such spells exist. At a stroke, you've solved your issue with disparate game mechanics, you've mitigated the issue with drain and you have neither introduced new, untested for balance rules nor impacted other areas of the magic rules. Mages may even play in a more interesting way as most of their magic, they'll be making choices based on Elemental effects. Is he a lightening mage or a wielder of pure force (Blasting), etc. All nice and thematic. It leaves you with the issue of effectiveness on the astral plane, but consider this an unexpected bonus. Astral combat and relevant stats become significant again whilst spirits in astral form become as nasty there as they are when manifest. And the issue of flying astral magicians sniping helpless dual natured critters is gone.

This is a serious suggestion to you and others who have big issues with Direct Combat spells - just get rid of them all.

The rest of your points I'll have to go through some other time, except to say that I completely agree about Focus Addiction. Odd given how very much in disagreement we are on the central issue of magic's power, that we are both completely in accord over this. But as far as I'm concerned, the rules on Focus Addiction might as well just read: "Hey, if you find the magician PCs doing too well and you can't cope, just single them out and arbitrarily impose these rules to punish the player according to your whim, our completely undefined guidelines and rather shaky fluff justifications").

Seriously though, the solution to your problem is not any of the long-winded fiddling around with systems. It's to remove Direct Combat spells. A one sentence fix.

K.

i'm inclined to think that would only make the non-elemental direct spells more appealing, and then they would take the place of the elemental direct spells.

you'd have to work out the exact value, but note that clout and mana bolt have the same drain code even though the mana bolt has otherwise a +2 drain modifier while the clout has net +1.

this would imply indirect is worth a +1 modifier. which sounds quite reasonable. in comparison, if you make that fire damage, it quite suddenly starts to get overpriced.

Just be careful with what you do: I've decided to have the drain of overcast direct combat spells be based on Force instead of Force/2... And now my mage uses mind control spells in combat, which can be much more devastating.
Hopefully, it's more interesting and funnier this way... and it pushes the mage further down the road of mind control abuse.

Radiation is the nastiest of the elemental effects. Sure, it's sidebar appears in the Threats section, but the elemental effect isn't limited to toxic magicians. Look to Arsenal for some more fun ways radiation can fuck up everyone. Next time you want to make your players (or GM - whichever's opposite the screen from you) cry, use Nuke 'Em (Indirect, LOS, Radiation) or Nuke 'Em All (as before plus Area)!

Theoretically I already took your advice. I haven't played SR in more than a year now. Removed that cancer! Been playing Earthdawn and Exalted, two much better systems (although with their own problems but not as bad).

Was thinking of getting back into shadowrun but not likely to happen. I'm starting to realize more and more that my problem is actually likely with the basic mechanics of the game and the design principles ("that's cool...put it in"). One of my group has just mentioned that he is willing to run D&D 4e so that means I actually get a chance to play a game (instead of GMin)! Happy day!

This thread helped to open my eyes yet again to the fact that there is too much stuff that pumps dice pools and that the higher the dice pool the harder the game breaks.

So you guys have convinced me that DC spells are not broken! Congrats. The game is broken.

You didn't spell it quite right, but I'm here.


Welcome to the fold, brother.

Newsletter, subscription, etc.

Cheops... HappyDaze... I don't know whether or laugh or cry.

You know I wasn't going to reply, but something is really bothering me. Why would 2 posters(Cheops... HappyDaze)
who admit they do not play anymore because they think the system is broken continue to run down the game by posting in here. I know everyone has a right and they are more then welcome to do it, but why waste your time as well as mine discussing something you have no intrest in anymokre?

Trevor

Ok that last post sounded kinda harsh, and I apologize to the above people. I didn't mean to come off harsh. Just kinda of a bad day and the above posts just kinda irked me. Sorry.

Trevor

Personally I get the feeling that both of them love the setting, but just find the rules unbarable.

However, personally I think there is one really good reason to keep the direct combat spells around, and that is ritual spellcasting, throwing a fireball halfway around the world just doesn't seem "right" to me.

Ok, I have to admit that I've just read the OP before answering, but I didn't have much time, so I've just posted what I thought to be improvements; I find your answer to be a bit blunt for my taste.

Anyway in my post I've tried to address the following problems:
-Overcasting
-Unlimited Progression

the Magic + Spellcasting + Casting Force test is meant to tone down overcasting, if a mage with Magic 5 and Spellcasting 5 (no other modifiers) casts a force 5 stunbolt he/she/it has a probability of the 59,59% of scoring at least 5 hits and one of the 79,08% of scoring at least 4 hits, which means that it's almost like using the spell's force as base DV; if the same mage overcasts to force 10 he/she/it would have the sequent probabilities:
Hits____Probaility
_0_____00,03%
_1_____00,30%
_2_____01,43%
_3_____04,29%
_4_____09,11%
_5_____14,57%
_6_____18,21%
_7_____18,21%
_8_____14,80%
_9_____09,87%
10_____05,43%
11+____03,76%
which means that the probability of scoring at least a certain number of hits is the sequent:
Hits____Probaility
_0_____100,00%
_1______99,97%
_2______99,67%
_3______98,24%
_4______93,96%
_5______84,85%
_6______70,28%
_7______52,07%
_8______33,85%
_9______19,05%
10______09,19%
11______03,76%
a far cry from the Force 10 = base DV of 10.
The introduction of this test would solve the problem caused by overcasting and help to solve the issue of the unlimited progression as once the you have reached to cap on the Spellcasting skill you are going to have to have to depend on your Magic attribute and the spell's Casting Force, slowing down the power curve.
Another important change is the one applied to the opposed test, using Spellcasting + Drain Attribute instead of a Spellcasting + Magic capped by the spell's force avoides the unlimited progression issue and gets rid of that singular effect that forces you to increase the spell's force not to increase it's power but to grant the minimum number of hits necessary to hit the target (this change also allowes a skilled mage to inflict damage using lower force spells, you know, "it's all about control"); and adding a damage resistance test to the direct combat spells is a thing that should have been done from day one.

As you can see (at least I hope you can see) my post was not without its value; you can disagreed and to not like my
suggestions but they have their own value, even if only as the opinion of a member of this forum.
And for what concernes the Drain of the physical spells and if drain should be healable via first aid skill my opinion is that the drain modifiers are excessive (while physical spells can be used against objects thay are resisted using the body attribute instead of the Willpower, which is usualy the higher of the two) and reducing them would make physical spells more attractive to the caster, resulting in a greater variety of spells actualy used and for the issue about the First Aid skill being able to heal the drain I think that it produces a Cast-First Aid-Cast-First Aid dynamic that defeates the reason that brought to the drain being not healable via magical means: unresisted drain is supposed to stick around for a while.

The only thing that I can add is that Foci can throw a monkey wrench in my rule but this can be solved by imposing the use for augmented attributes and skills to them: a power focus will grant at most a bonus equal to half (round down) of the user's magic attribute, a spellcasting focus at best will grant a bonus equal to half (round down) of the user's spellcasting skill, and so on.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say.


I can only speak for myself here, but that's pretty much exactly where I stand.

I agree with your newsletter and would like a subscription. I just like to shorten it down a bit.

Ghost say WHAT?

What you said previously totally made sense until you said that. I've played both those games, and I've played Exalted an order of magnitude more than anything else I've got on my shelves.
Those statements taken together make as much sense as demanding the US government take it's 'grubby hands' off of medicare.

Exalted rolls more dice than anything else I've ever played, and it most definitely breaks the Exalted system. and it's the literal poster-boy of the "that's cool ... put it in" attitude. It has DINOSAURS FLYING JETPLANES FOR GHOST's SAKE!!!

If that came off as offensive, please forgive me, but my mind just snapped trying to make sense of a viewpoint that claims to hold all the problems you mention with Shadowrun, and then proceeds to hold up Exalted as a better example. Earthdawn however, I can't argue with you about (it's definitely better than Exalted, and somewhat better than Shadowrun at representing certain things).