Does this mean what I think it means, that the Nosferatu would be immune to the effects of the sun (assuming three net successes) while this spell is sustained?? That seems a bit cheap.

ShadowRun's vampires* are sparkly vampires.

*And assorted related infected

Depends, does it still say allergy or does it say weakness?

The weakness the Nos has is an allergy, so either would be effective, wouldn't it?

For the record though, the spell removes the negative effects of an allergy (reducing the severity of the allergy by one step per success).

Both entries are "allergy." Alleviate Allergy alleviates the Allergy (Sunlight, Severe).

Allergy but I think any sane GM should house rule it into an actual weakness that can't be alleviated with a simple spell. I mean honestly it's just ridiculous.

Sounds like a sparkly, daytime vampire to me. Make sure you have Counterspell with you in case you meet one of these, I guess.

Helloo most underused game mechanics to annoy magic people with. BACKGROUND COUNT!

Especially in the really bad neighborhoods where the general crime and grime would make it a festering sore on the astral.

But of course, no GM will ever use this . .

A nosferatu wants to quicken alleviate allergy on himself to walk around in sunlight? More power to him. That's what the spell is *for*, hell. Nosferatu ain't undead, they're just diseased. I don't see any reason a nos with that spell - i.e. any nos you'll ever meet - wouldn't be able to use it just like that.

In fact, there's an NPC in Blood in the Boardroom and Threats (I think) who does just that.

Magic

Makes weaknesses null and void.

Stahlseele is right, though. People tend to underplay the drawbacks inherent in magic. In a case like this, one false step and it's game over.

Close, but not completly.
Regeneration is still disabled.

For rule text:

Edit: Doublepost.

However, that also means that if it dies during the day, as soon as the sun is down it gets a chance for a regen check.

Screw that. If I drop a vampire I take its head to claim the bounty and burn the body with an incendiary grenade.

Assuming the vaMpire isn't aura masked in some way you might want to counterspell that alleviate allergy spell.

That said id allow regeneration to function while the spell has completely surpressed the side effects of the allergy. That gives good reasons for PC vamps to cast at high force and avoid combat in the day or invest heavily in a high force sustaining focus in case of background counts or unconsciousness.

That said, the spell has been playtested by many other than myself by now I assume. The Nosferatu actually proved UNDERPOWERED for a standard missions based game without uber cheese. Not that the character couldn't perform his job as a magician, its just that there were no points left over for a minor area of focus.

Indeed. People sometimes forget when criticizing nosferatu that 250 BP is not really enough to make a decently rounded character, that their strengths in critter powers can be greatly affected by background count, and that, as a result of their general tendency as a species towards plotting, megalomania, sociopathy, murder, etc., a nosferatu PC whose nature is discovered by the authorities is potentially in very severe danger, more so than your regular shadowrunner in the same situation I mean.

Also, I personally think that allowing the Alleviate Allergy spell for nos PC's should be allowed, if only to lower the sunlight weakness to a mild allergy at most. If the rest of a team does not change to a nocturnal schedule to conform to the nos's, this leaves the nosferatu player in a somewhat problematic position in that he/she is essentially out of the game during IC daylight hours. As I myself have discovered in recent months, this can be especially problematic for nosferatu PC's in play-by-post games, although it is not altogether impossible to deal with.

Not really, remember how Regen works now. and that s critter can still die if brought below their overflow. Even if you allow them a roll after sundown, or in a dark ally, or whatever, the amount of damage potentially done to a "suspected" vampire after it falls? Unlikely (i.e. Hand of God unlikely), IMHO.

Like mentioned earlier, take his head, and it's all over, forever.

Is there anything inherently flawed in covering up every square inch of skin? Nosferatus should be wearing disguises as a matter of course anyway. I suppose one could rule that any amount of sunlight getting through his sunglasses is going to hurt like a bitch, but blacked-out glasses with a video feed isn't too out there, is it?

I can remember starting threads very similar to this myself a year+ ago. Interesting how the world turns, eh?

*chuckles* And thus the student becomes the master.

*bows to sensei*

I haven't played since 2nd Edition, so I am re-learning the entire world in a hurry - I really need to track down the more recent novels so that I can get a read on them and get a better feel for this new, shiny Sixth World.

I'd like to get and read at least one SR novel. I think I've read a grand total of two cyberpunk books total. Well, not including the rulesbooks for SR, in which case I've read nearly every SR4 book now.

It's not exactly cyberpunk but I would suggest Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels, they got cited as source material in the Eclipse Phase books and I know I've used them as a basis for shadowruns before.

what's stopping you?
you should be able to find some of them O.o

How many mages are running around just Seattle with an alleviate allergy spell up? Chances are in my game world at least there would be quite a few, even if the players never actually ran into them. That being said I don't think there is anyway to differentiate between an alleviate (pollution) vs an alleviate (sunlight) spell.

I love that series. Morgan instantly became one of my new favorite authors when I read his first Altered Carbon.

I don't think it's horribly unbalancing. As someone pointed out, the spell doesn't change the fact that they can't regenerate in sunlight - all it does is negate some penalties, and the damage that the allergen normally causes. To do this, the nosferatu either has to sustain the spell (incurring those penalties), use a sustaining focus (expending magical resources that could have been used for something else), or quicken the spell (spending karma, and even with masking, wards and the magician's aura both become more problematic).

Uhm no.

The HMVV are far from Bram Stoker's vampires but the are certainly not sparkly.

The joke is that to be in the sunlight, they need to cast a spell on themselves as protection.

Which is presumably sparkly.




-k

Nailed it.

Just wondering why a Vamp wouldn't use a variant of the physical mask spell? Something which creates a fine layer of sunblocking matter over them, which shields them from the sun? Or a spell which totally blocks UV light, as I believe it was stated (much to my disagreement) that this was the part of sunlight which harmed them? It would be a 'very' limited version of the improved invisibility spell, and likely have a drain between improved and regular invisibility. While this still has the sustaining problems, since the vamp is no longer in contact with the allergen in any meaning sense, they should be able to use full regeneration.

This is why I have no problem allowing them to regenerate after reducing an allergy to nothing with Alleviate Allergy.

You can't reduce the Allergy to nothing - you reduce it by one step per success, but you can't remove it.

That is essentially what I mean. Casting Alleviate Allergy with a high enough force that all of the negative side effects of the allergen are alleviated. The allergy is not gone, but it's effects are.

Physical mask is an illusion. It's not actually changing your appearance, it just creates the illusion that it is.

Whatever spell you use, it would have to be either Health or Manipulation to actually protect you from sunlight.




-k

Physical illusion can bend, block, and create light, so they should also be able to blend/block a specific set of wavelengths.

double post

It's really not clear what 'physical illusions' do, and to what. Magic is arbitrary, and such spells don't prevent you from seeing out.

While magic is arbitrary, it is possible (as in, not specifically impossible) to create a spell that blocks the "bad" sunlight like sunscreen blocks UV rays.

Right, sure. But not as an illusion, presumably.

Health or Manipulation, IMO.

Right.

Illusions should remain illusions. There's too many spells that blur the distinction already.




-k

Well, walls also do that. As does full body armor, I guess.

Don't see where this is such a big deal, really.

Bye
Thanee

With the pollution in a typical metroplex (since the pollution allergy is a big deal), there might not be all that much direct sunlight anyway.

Love that smog!

Also, there are quite a few ways people bend the rules with spells, not just the Alleviate Allergy spell. For one, I'm thinking of Increase Attribute on the drain attributes. Better casting through, well, casting. As others have mentioned above, though, having a sustained spell presents its own problems...sustaining it yourself, using a sustaining focus, or spending karma to quicken it, each of which presents an astral signature and creates its own problem for the caster (in terms of the -2 for sustaining, money and karma, or karma).

As I've stated before.... Improved Invisibility? It bends light around you, right?


Ok, maybe you don't understand my point.

Alleviate Allergy states that it "reduces the allergy level by one" and that it "does not remove the allergy, only alleviates its effects". As there is no level of allergy below Mild, you cannot lower its level below Mild. The absence of an allergy is not a level of allergy - it is a null set of allergy, a non-existance of it. This is a fair interpretation that still makes allergies dangerous, especially to those with Regeneration.

Except that you can still see. So its....a physical illusion and. Yeah.

We've been over that before. I'm just saying that the spell description says that it bends light around you, so logic would dictate that sunlight would be bent around you - not touching you.

Alleviate Allergy is by far a better option. Or a Shadow spell at sufficient Force, but maneuvering in that darkness would be problematic. Or an Evo HEL suit with a polarized face mask. Or a horseman with a polarized windshield.

There're lots of options for making someone move around in full daylight without ever experiencing full daylight.

If no light touch you, this would make you functionaly blind...