You've played too much Morrowind?

Remote assassination (combat spells), intelligence gathering (mindprobe), run prep/utility (influence/control thoughts to force a target to turn off a security system, call in a false alarm, whatever).

With Sympathetic Linking in SM it becomes much, much more useful. You'll need to do legwork to get a ritual link, but the ability remotely manipulate people important to your run, who can't always been in a ward, can be very useful for clever players.

But the best skill? No.

I'm guessing on that btw. I just thought that he was group freelancers, so it was a decent bet based on context.


And as to the Ritual thing:

Ever have a time you wish you had 40 dice for a spellcasting test? Could you have found a way to take [force] hours to cast it, and found a few friends?

The second I put my vote in I regretted not picking ritual. Espeically now that material links have been reintroduced. The core rulebook ommitted it and I thought that they just choose to strip what used to be a key point in SR fluff. But it's back and a good ritual group that can work together can name their price for a ton of things...

There are decisions I made as the writer of the enchanting rules, and there were descisions others made I had to work in. That's not to say maybe I didn't eliminate the less-Karma-per-unit-of-orichalcum rule, but don't make too many assumptions. 'sides, I warded my house. Your poxy little pox can't do /squat/.

This was good in SR3, but isn't possible in SR4. With teamwork rules, your added dice from people aiding you in the ritual are cut by 2/3. And then you've got the force cap. The only groups ritual that can do in SR4 what a normal group could do in SR3 is 30 blood mages using Great Ritual to get enough dice and Sacrifice to handle the drain so they can put those successes to work. Good luck with that.

The only real use of group ritual spellcasting is maxing out your Force/successes (which won't be too high) with a few friends. The best use is just the ranged spellcasting part of it, at the cost of time and making a link somehow.

That rule was broken beyond belief. Glad it's gone.


Voted Spellcasting, because there is no real contest. Summoning is great, no kidding, but nowhere near the power and utility (and cost in Karma (for the spells) ) of Spellcasting!

Banishing is by far, far, far the worst of all the magical skills. It's so bad, it would still be bad even if you got it for free on the same level as your Summoning (or rather Binding, which would make a little more sense probably).

Bye
Thanee

Worse than Astral Combat? I don't know. And, uh, Banishing is a lower drain and faster way to get rid of a hostile spirit than a mana bolt against...a high force SM spirit that has Magical Guard? Yeah, that's the ticket.

Actually, Frank Trollman suggested a "fun" reason to have banishment - banish, control, and then bind spirits not of your tradition so you'll have access to unique spirit powers/services you wouldn't normally have. Efficient? No. But fun!

Aside from brokedness versus unbrokedness, it seems that Enchanting is greatly diminished in SR4. How do you view the function and utility of Enchanting as a PC skill (as opposed to a background NPC task that will likely be handwaved as opposed to meticulously rolled out)

It's not broken if I like it.

In general, I'm actually happier with Enchanting now than in previous editions. It is not (as much of) a gold mine as it was in earlier editions, where players would seriously debate the merits of shadowrunning vs. alchemy for a living. Characters with a very moderate level of skill can accomplish a number of basic tasks - like crafting fetishes or preparing vessels - without having to devote the same level of Karma and nuyen necessary in previous editions. Frankly, the number of options for players has increased significantly - magical compounds being one of my favorites.

Players that do choose to tweak their characters into serious enchanters and invest a good deal of time and money in them will find that it can be a very rewarding process - but they're still probably not going to break anyone's piggy bank.

There is very little from former editions that was left out - primarily a couple of obsolete foci and an analysis technique that was almost never used. Several areas were clarified and expanded upon to a greater degree than in any previous edition, such as unique enchantments. From a strictly flavor viewpoint, I really like how the clarified descriptions and greater number of options on reagents came out.

Of course, there are a few things I can't tell you about yet.

actually, i would argue that if you like it, it probably *is* broken

in any event, here's your solution: houserule it just like you houserule in all the other broken stuff. it will take you about 2 seconds, and you're the GM, and i know you don't have a problem houseruling stuff, so why do you even care?

anyways, since edge can surpass the limit of force on spells, i would say massive ritual spellcasting works just fine... as long as the main caster is a high-edge human

anyways, it's way too hard to pick just one skill to be the best. it really is just too situational.

What, no Sister Mary Poppins?

Funny, I voted for Summoning for the same reasons.

Anyway, can we agree as to the worst Magic skills? Ritual Spellcasting and Banishing are both pretty underwhelming...

-Frank

Very much so. Astral Combat is quite useful (also defensively). Not on a level with Spellcasting or Summoning, surely, but at least it does something.

Lower Drain? A Force 11 Stun Bolt only has 4 boxes of Drain and is probably the closest thing to a guaranteed spirit disruption. That's the equivalent of banishing a Force 6 unbound spirit in terms of Drain. And once you try banishing bound spirits (not that you necessarily know that beforehand) or higher Force spirits the Drain becomes extremely high. And that's usually in a combat situation, where you really do not want to run around with 8 boxes of damage or something like that.

And considering, that the banishing attempt then doesn't even work, if you do not score enough net hits (you only need one with the spell), but only reduces services (that very well may have no immediate effect), that's pretty suck-a-licious.

Bye
Thanee

Uh, no. Ritual Spellcasting. Let's you get even more successes with the Orgasm spell! Isn't it better when you have a few friends to help you? (Assuming that they have high skill ratings).

And maybe you could combine Ritual Spellcasting with increasing the area effect as the rules say you merely have to withold dice from the spellcasting pool rather than achieve successes to expand the radius. Can't wait until my Discordian cabal hits the Bellvue mall with a giant Orgy spell.

That was an "uh" of hesitation and embarassment, not a "duh" aimed at you. Spirits really need SR3 style personal spell resistance dice equal to Force. Make spirit Magical Guard limited to providing the same dice to others and dispelling, rather than making the spirit itself a harder magical target.

Well, for "fast" I was proposing you were up against a spirit with Magical Guard, which might take two or three mana bolts to knock out. If it only has one service, you could banish it in one turn! Wow!

Bold emphasis mine... uuhhhh... circle jerk?