Wrong Topic Doc... But you are indeed right about that...

Keep the Faith

Weird...

My GM is toying with the idea that if a quickened spell is destroyed, the karma (or just half the karma) used to create it is returned. I personally think half is better, since there should be *some* cost...

I prefer the idea that defeating a quickened spell results in a temporary dispelling for a number of hours (or possibly days) equal to the net hits on the dice test. Permanently destroying the spell should honestly take a high threshold extended test. Given that masking can be used to keep the spells on the downlow, this would be enough to make it all worthwhile and the ability to switch them on and off at will wouldn't really be necessary.

What about a system similar to disrupting spirits?

Any reason out there not to assume that major Corp presidents and CEOs would all have high force Increase Logic, Increase Intuition, and Increase Charisma spells quickened onto them? Their decisions make (or lose) the companies billions of nuyen, so they should naturally take any mental edge they could get.

I frankly can see them doing so. Additionally for many of the real power players who would have quickened spells cast on them they will likely make arrangements to have all or most of the wards they would need to pass through allow their spells to pass through. Just because something isn't the best for Joe Runner doesn't mean it's not awesome for Mr. Big.

Because cerebral boosters, etc. are cheaper? In the skill levels examples in SR4A I think CEO's are already 5-6 level so he'd be a pretty naturally charismatic and smart guy just to reach that level. Which means cyberware can cheaply get him to the attribute cap, so...

Hey, what would happen if a character with a quickened spell on them is magecuffed? The spell's aura would be constantly triggering the FAB inside and the cuffs would just keep shocking the subject, right? 12S x4 would kill most anyone, so this seems like a bit of a risk

No, not really. Mages know that doing things like that cost them something very tangible and real. Anyone with a decent occult knows there are even some types of spirits which feed off it, and many spirits are willing to make pacts and bargains for it. The idea a mage would part with any, for less the a truly staggering sum of money, is actually rather funny. I could either give karma to Mr. Big shot to pamper him, or I could cut a deal with a spirit in exchange for the power materialization.... let me think, whats more useful? Money, or the ability to teleport?

And if you do that every 2-3 enounters, the mage who 'horded' his Karma now his another couple of grades, and metamagic feats on you, and won't be troubled by problems you might find crippling.

Yep, because as a mage, I'd charge you billions for those spells due to the amount of Krama you'd want me to sink into them to ensure they are not going to be disrupted by the dozens of wards these guys walk through just on their way to the bathroom in the morning.

The simple answer is that everyone will always have a price for anything. Maybe the price is as high as, or higher than, Delta Wires 3, or the even the bio version. Someone will want the magic version for some reason, and someone will sell it to them, at some price.

A mage using Karma siphoned from others by a free/ally spirit with the Energy Drain (Karma) power would be much more likely, especially when a corporate exec can run a couple dozen wage slaves past the spirit to get the karma to quicken the spell and pay the spirit and the mage.

Wow, karma vampire master for the benefit of big wigs gives an all new meaning to 'wage slave'.

I think one of the coolest parts of quickening is that with enough karma a lot of the things that are impossible in shadowrun become possible.

"Want a flying sail boat that glides along the currents 2000 feet above Seattle? No problem."

"Perpetual motion machine? EASY!"

"Magic armor? Reinforcement spells."

"Magic sword? This sword is perpetually sheathed in rippling waves of fire... you probably should not touch it. We are still working on that."

Logically they could be used to construct machinery that is not normally possible.

"The gun explodes when ever you fire it? We will use magic to reinforce it and keep it from over heating. This gun barrel is thick a tube of toilet paper and harder than diamond. Why you say? Because we can that's why! And yes, your assault cannon still explodes when you use it, but it weighs 5 pounds. What did you expect? Magic?"

That's true. And the only cost is pure essence of life accomplishment. (Nothing wrong with that, classic tradeoff.)

That is problematic, only shadow spirits have that power as far as I know, and they would only relinquish that amount of karma if allowed to keep much more in return. Also Depending on the spirit, the effects of the drain are actually so terrible to living human would willingly submit to it. Something like a sucubus maybe, but most of the others need terror, pain, or death to feed. As bad as corporations, you're talking something which in general would cause far more pain and suffering then blood magic, and given the forums general opinion on that sort of act, you'd be hard pressed to find a mage who wouldn't magically light your head on fire for even coming up with the idea.

People will do anything.

I doubt there would be a shortage of wage slaves willing to trade a few moments of sorrow or lust and a bit of their soul, which a good face could easily convince them would be replaced in time, for a few grand added to their next paycheck. And that's assuming they consent. Imagine a whore house with a succubus spirit ally of the madam, that drains karma from the patrons so that the madam can then place quickened enhancements on people willing to pay.

Harly I guess would be quickended out of his arrse with spells. Reflexes, combat sense all his stats maxed. Same gose for any of the GDs of huge magical power.

Free spirts can willingly trade karma. Both parties need to be willing and it takes a while. They can sell items for karma not nuyen ect. Hell I'm toying with a free spirt PC that uses social skills to leach karma of people you know 1 or or 2 for a relatively mundane thing. The idea of a free spirit posteuture amuses me as well. Even more so with a verity of realistic forms.

sucubi can't be ally spirits, nor can ally spirits have the energy drain power. Also what incentive could a sucubi possibly have to cough up Kara to a CEO? Spirits exchange services for karma, and a sucubi has no problem getting karma on its own.

I just realized a power pact with a spirit that knows Energy Drain (Karma)... So I want a succubus and a quickened orgy spell...

Don't be so small-minded. Maybe a succubus gets smart and decides that having money would be a useful form of power. Duh. Again, *everything* happens, given the right circumstances. It's silly to say that something is not normal, and therefore impossible.

Except that Astral Form, Inhabitation, Materialize and Possession cannot be gained through a Power Pact... And since a Free Spirit Cannot grant such a thing, I would never let a Greater Form Bound Guardian Spirit do so either, as they tend to be a lot more limited in power than a Free Spirit... Not everyone will agree, but there you go... Your Mileage may indeed vary...

Keep the Faith

You just thought of this now? That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw power pact.

Except that thse wards can be attuned, by those who set them, to allow such things through, and If you think that the CEO's and such who would seek these things out do not have control over that, then you are mistaken.

Keep the Faith

I think it depend on what you mean by tons. I can easily see 4-5 sustaining focuses on a mage.

Improved initiative
detect enemies
combat sense
improved stat of some kind
deflection

All are good choices for something you want all the time and you may not want to rely upon spirits to sustain them for you.

But to the main topic yes, quickening sucks I have never from 1st edition found a use for it due to the permanent karma loss when one goes down. And back in 1e and 2e you got it as soon as you initiated, now I'd have to spend one of my precious metamagic slots on it, um hell no. It sounds cool, but it just doesn't end up that way.

Basically unless it was only temporarily disrupted it is not worth it.

I've never really been that into the magical side of SR, so I don't know all that much about it (I had to look up in SM what it was that allowed the theft/transfer of Karma, and I was pretty sure it was a metamagic ability before I did).

Do I think eveyone is making the wards has access to all the aura's of all the people they need to attune all the wards to? Hell no!!! Given how common people say wards are, and how many awakened there are making wards, to have all the wards at all the places you go attuned to YOU would mean disseminating the signature of your aura, and those of all the spells quickened to you to everyone responsible for putting up even a single one of those wards. Can you say ritual 'powerword NUKE'? I'm sorry but that is about the most tactically unsound idea I've heard put forth yet.

You can not have wards being common, and have them all attuned to you, without having knowledge of your astral signature, the signature of the quickening mage, and the signature of the quickened spells widely known as well.

While I don't know if there are rules for this, it doesn't seem hideously improbable to me that if one studied a ward long enough, you should be able to work out just what signatures are allowed through without triggering or collapsing it. This has some interesting implications with regards to leaving the fingerprints of the high and mighty everywhere they go.

To the people who have no idea what the heck I'm talking about with "tattoo magic":

Tattooing is a metamagic power that allows the spellcaster to quicken a spell into a tattoo placed on the recipient's body. Without getting into the heavy rules, if you want to purchase it, you have to have the tattooing skill & Quickening as a metamagic power. When a Quickened tattoo spell is disrupted, the spell is not gone for good. Rather, the force regenerates over time. I forget the interval, but it's pretty swift, or was in 3rd edition. I haven't looked in depth at 4th's tattoo magic.

This is a metamagic heavily used by the Yakuza and Triads.

On free spirits and karma, Street Magic's sidebar on learning metamagic outside of initiation mentions you can do so from a spirit mentor - and when you do, the karma cost(15) is paid directly to the spirit for its services. (52, street magic)

Which means a college professor type spirit, with knowledge of a few metamagics, teaching mortal mages how to do stuff in exchange for karma isn't a far-fetched idea. Particularly if it has a high instruction/arcana skill, to help reach out to students of other traditions(pretty sure there's rules for formula translating in several cases, at least for spells and foci plans). With a free spirit's ability to trade karma around, such an NPC could very easily operate as some sort of..... magical karma broker for a group of awakened people.


It trades knowledge(metamagics) for power(karma), which people(mages/adepts) need, and in turn grows stronger(buying up force), which in turn lets it learn more(using karma to buy edge), which gives it more knowledge to sell(NPC free spirits gain another power when they gain Edge, and a power choice can be a metamagic). Call it a vicious, profitable cycle, a scam, or a good retirement plan. There's probably a social spirit out there, swimming in karma, and willing to lend a few karma to people for big, interesting projects in exchange for favors.

Also, Energy Drain(karma) is a general Free Spirit ability, which anyone can potentailly learn - shadow spirits just get it for free, limited in some fashion to go along with their theme. Energy drain -also- has a very important feature of being 1) quick and 2) doesn't require the spirit to give up its formula, like the transfer-ritual does(so the spirit is probably going to know a laes supplier, too).

Well, for a wage slave, selling karma might be a pretty interesting proposition. Its kind of like selling a kidney - not terribly pleasant or anything, but it fetches a lot of money.

Hmm. The idea of AAA CEOs basically burning through one or two mages a year to achieve an edge is appealing, too..

The problem is threatening a mage is tantamount to suicide. Threatening groups of mages to power a CEO is a great way to have your corporate headquarters evaporate one day.

Not if you have other mages. Come on, man. Besides, those mages have families to think about. Power is power, period.

While I don't think threatening mages if you are a CEO is that big of an issue, what do you do if your mage says, yeah oooh I'd love to quicken X spell for you but I don't know how to do that. Initiate mages aren't that common and ones who took quickening are even rarer.

You snap your fingers and your servants find one who can, before your exquisite meal ends. Duh.

Honestly if you got the money go for it, but unless you want to keep dishing out absurd cash you can't go to clubs or whatever else a CEO does to have fun because of all the wards. So would you do it? I kind of doubt it.

TBH, I think karma is one of those things that is too much of a game mechanic to discuss in the way we're currently talking about it. It's a limiting factor yes, but frankly, doing shadowruns can't be the only way of getting whatever it is karma represents aside from making use of spirits.

Magic in SR has that problem. Things have to be quantified in the game world, but… we're talking about actual experience points here. Messy.

I kind of assume you get it doing your day job as a wage slave just slower and it is logically spent on things that help your day job or help avoid you remembering your day job. So I kind of assume everyone earns karma shadowrunners earn it on runs in an accelerated fashion.

Sort of my point, either everyone knows your signature to make wards you can pass through, or you go nowhere. Everyone knowing your signature means you're only just 1 good mind probe away from exploding randomly one day.

I think you are right on this. Given how people describe the game world with wards background count etc. I do not see quickening as a reasonable commodity for CEOs or anyone else. They would be too short lived unless you wanted to restrict your habits a great deal. And lets face it what's the point of being rich if you can't go to awesome places, which would have wards that break your fancy quickening.

Could some random weird CEO do it because he is a magic fanboy or something um I guess, but it would be uncommon among CEOs an already uncommon bunch. And CEOs are probably among the few who could afford it.

It's too bad there's no counter for that at all. Alas.

Maybe there's a reclusive person who's concerned about privacy and security? Being rich isn't about awesome places, it's about getting richer.

Point being... if you are a CEO of a Major Megacorp, and you are the one employing the Mages to create wards, and those mages are the ones quickening your spells, then you really do not have to worry about having them attuned, as they can just let them through their own wards by default if they so choose (it is their signature after all)... what CEO is going to trust an outside mage to protect his ass from people outside of his organization?

It is not that difficult actually... nor that risky for the company as a whole...

And Mind Probe does not bypass Signature requirements, so, why should you really worry about that anyways... Signatures are not a Mental Thing, they are an aspect of your being... Wards are linked to their creator, just follow the signature back and you have access to the Signature... pretty easy...

Keep the Faith

Besides having the wards attuned to you is not the same thing as allowing them to perform ritual sorcery on you.

Exactly...

Keep the Faith

In fourth edition tattooing is something that is done with the Quickening materials in digital grimoire. Sadly, it doesn't work like it used to. It "allows" you to spend karma equal to twice the force of the spell instead of its force to make it more resilient to magic.

I figure quickening is for if you are going to go the route of not being subtle then why not burn like a blazing star and be strong enough to take all comers. But as some one pointed out the auras from multiple spells can still be concealed.

An elf mage that does not go the way of burn out and manages to survive a couple decades might quicken a few spells just to avoid sudden catastrophic death; sniper bullet to the brain, freak car crash, collateral damage nerve gas aimed at some anonymous shadow runner with no street cred. Life is after all so very short, avoiding death might be all the more important to someone who does not want to be cheated of near immortality.

An ork mage too might try to extend his life with magic. Approaching middle age he pumps himself with health spells to improve his vitality. Healthy people live longer after all.

Another mage might use magic to restore his mental attributes to their norms they were before he started slipping into the indignity of dementia. Dementia brought on by some malady incurable even in the 2070's. I think no CEO looking for power would be as interested in quickening as a determined man trying to stave of a terminal disease.

It starts to cross into some dark and interesting territories: using magic to keep you alive. It reminds me a little of cybermancy.

Here comes the problem. Many people are proposing wards are everywhere worth going. This means everywhere the CEO wants to go MUST have been warded by someone that knows the signature of the spells placed upon him. Anyone of them is quite suddenly a weakpoint in security, and because of that the CEO is a walking homing beacon for any number of mages who may take issue with him. For the company as a whole it is not a problem, for that CEO in genral, its like walking around with a bulls-eye stapled to his face.

This still leaves the issue of finding mages who had NOTHING better to do with their metamagic choices then take quickening, and have NOTHING better to do with their karma then quicken spells on some rich guy. I can possibly see a mage doing this to themselves if they have masking and extended masking, but certainly not to or for anyone else for less then a truly obscene amount of money.


And what are they odds that any of the mages who had to put up all the wards you now have to pass through would know what the signatures they're supposed to let through look like? I'd have to somewhere between VERY GOOD, and EXCELLENT. This means any of the mages who put up wards said CEO needs to pass, now know what his astral signature looks like. Probe any of them, and you now know what your target CEO "looks" like, and will be able to target him from anywhere on the planet.

What rules say about Ritual Magic and Quickening and who pays karma costs. For some reason i can see small group in some basement where Mage and several wage slaves are in sitting and chanting and some big shot CEO is standing in center shouting "i have the power".
Could ritual magic be used share karma costs.

( if i remember right, you have to be awakened to have ritual magic, so that wouldn't work by RAW, Maybe Blood magic could be used to lessen costs which Mage has to pay)