I have a character with this power (I made a gnome for the looks small and helpless advantage), and I don't really understand how it works.

Here are a couple of corner cases:

A bad guy mage casts a force 6 direct spell at me with 5 success. Normally I would take 11 damage. As the arcane arrester do I take 6 or 8? If the spell was actually a force 3 spell, the hits would be capped to 3: meaning I would take 6 damage. However in this case I think the spell has been cast, so prehaps the 5 successes add to the force of 3... meaning 8 damage

The same argument applies to buff spells or healing spells: does the reduction in the force of the spell cap the nett hits.

My opinion is that the nett hits are capped at the force of the cast spell, and that arcane arrestor impacts only a very few spells (damage and those in which the force has to be more than one of your attributes).

You'd take 8.

Take the first line:

"The character—and she alone—treats Force-based effects (damage, paralysis, etc.) at half (round down) actual strength."

Adding hits is not done on any part of your test, it is the spellcaster's test and the spellcaster still treats the spell as it's original force. That means the effect you are hit with can have more hits then the Force (that the target gets hit with, "Note that the actual Force of the spell is not actually reduced.").

And yes, this does reduce it's effectiveness in some areas. Course your table is free to house rule it the other way around, but this is the RAW.

Thanks.

Not direct to the question, but if you really want to be pretty spell proof combine Arcane Arrester with Astral Hazing. Depending on the order the GM applies them, it will take ether a force 6 (Hazing, then Arrester) or 10 (Arrester, then Hazing) to even effect you with a spell. I believe RAI would be Hazing, then Arrester since the Hazing has an area effect. Hazing will also actually reduce the force of spells cast into it by 4 which has the nice effect of lowering to cap on successes.

I am not certain that this is the RAW.

Adding hits is still a Force-based effect, it doesn't matter whose test it is part of, the character still treats it at half actual strength. So while the spellcaster has 5 hits and can apply 5 hits to his spell; for the character with Arcane Arrester, the spell hits him at half with hits limited to that force. If instead of a single target spell the spellcaster casts an AOE spell, the spellcaster still has his 5 hits to apply to everyone else.

I think this is the RAW but you are free to house rule it the other way.

toturi, you missed what I said. Astral Hazing (not Arcane Arrester) will reduce the actual force of the spell by 4.

Toturi was actually replying to Tagz...

Brain fart...

Yeah, the interpretation on this one can go either way easily.

Personally I like yours better but I'm holding out because of a very compelling argument for hits not being adjusted and I can't seem to remember exactly what it was. I'll likely change my stance if I can't recall it, but for some reason I just can't shake the feeling like I was proven wrong when I took up the opposite side of this debate.

That is not correct.

"A spell’s Force limits the number of hits (not net hits) that can be achieved on the Spellcasting Test."

It is completely irrelevant, what part of the spell's Force affects the target. There is only one Spellcasting Test, and it is made at the spell's original Force. Only that number can restrict the number of hits.

Arcane Arrester only modifies the spell's effect, that is based on Force, in relation to the target. It even says specifically, that the spell's actual Force is not altered. It cannot change the result of the Spellcasting Test at all.

Besides, adding hits is certainly not a Force-based effect. It is not an effect of the spell at all. It's the result of the Spellcasting Test (and there is only one such result for one such test).

"...though the spellcaster could still add hits to improve the effect."

Hits improve the effect, they are not an effect (or part of it).

You are reading way too much into that.

It is exactly as tagz said.

Bye
Thanee

Meh, either way is fine. The real rationale is this: Arcane Arrester is already stupid-strong, so choose the less powerful of the two options.

@ Thanee: Thank you. I will look into that line of reasoning. It looks solid, however.

Astral hazing will also make the character a complete pain in the basckside for any Awakened he's running with. First your aura will be very distinctive and probably raise red flags fro any security mage or spirit who sees it. Second if you stay in the same location for any length of time with them, they will suffer hard. Should some non-magic threat come knocking on the door, they'll be seriously weakened. And probably worried about the effect a long term association with you is going to have on their magic.

Other problems can include tainting the magic mc guffin you wre paid to steal, ruining deals with magic-oriented factions and the like.

Basicaly it is a bit a way of telling the GM and the others players 'no magic in the game thank you'. It's defnitively not a party-oriented disadvantage.

Rules as Written

The quality is ambiguous on if the original Force, or if the reduced Force, is used as the limit to the caster's spellcasting Hits. Either way is technically correct.


Rules as Intended

Developer input suggests using the modified (reduced) Force for determining the maximum number of spellcasting Hits in regards to the character with Arrester.



I strongly suggest using the reduced Force for limiting Hits for a number of reasons, the two most notable being that without it, the quality is extremely overcosted, and that without it a huge number of spells are essentially unaffected by the quality.

Can you give me a quote on that? The astral space around that character would be very disruptive, but I am not certain that the character's aura would be distinctive in any way.

Remember the character with the Astral Hazing will "always stand at the heart of a Rating 4 Background Count". My players have found ways to make it work for them (quite a few times in fact during the events of Ghost Cartel and DOTA).

Here's the quote from 'Runner companion' : A character with this quality has expressed metagenes that
somehow catalyse and feed on the character’s darker emotions and negative feelings, disturbing the character’s aura and any ambient mana in her vicinity.

Sounds rather clear to me that the character's aura looks at least as bad as the tain he's leaving behind.

[edit]ninja'ed on the quote ![/]
So I'd say yes, it shows in your aura, if your character being straight in the center of a cloud of astral perturbations that clings to him is not enough to raise a few eyebrows.

An Assensing roll and maybe some magical Knowledge still would probably be required to understand exactly what's going on, but not to feel that there is something rather unusual and bad going on.

I know about the disturbed aura, but where is the "very distinctive" aura in your initial quote?

How does the astrally perceiving character know that the cloud of astral perturbations is clinging to that particular character or that the character is straight in the center of that cloud? We know that the character has Astral Hazing, but how does someone astral perceiving know that? Especially if the character is in a crowd or a large number of people? Simple Astral Perception actually does not give much information (p191 SR4A) and the Background Count affects Assensing.

The cloud may be 2xEssence meters in diameter, but it moves with the character. Unless he's in a crowd it's not that hard to pick out someone who moves like the disturbed area, is close to the center of it and has an aura disturbed by similar negative emotions and feelings.

Also compare the 4 background count of the haze with a few other references in term of background count intensity :
- a fresh murder scene : 1
- the worst slums of Lagos soaked in generation of despair and violence, plus decades of pollution - they makes Glow City look like a decent place) : 3
- the theater of an historical battle, with lots of dead and relatively frequent commemorations (think Omaha Beach or Gettysburg) : 4
- the relocation camp in Abilene, the extermination camps of WWII, Ground zero in Hiroshima : 6

It's really, really bad, worse than the archetypal blood sacrifice by a mad mage, the kind of thing you feel in a torture room or on the scene of a mass murder, likely to hit an assensing mage like a kick in the nuts. But generated by a single person...

In term of Background count intensity and extension of the affected area if you stay in a place, Astral Hazing is as bad as a cyberzombie !

We know that it moves with the character. But to another character simply Astral Perceiving, how would he link the Background Count to that character? What would be immediately noticeable to a person using Astral Perception but is not Assensing? You need to Assense the Background Count, the person's aura and make the connection.

Sure we know that it is generated by a single person, but the characters do not necessarily know that.

They would probably figure it out relatively quickly, though.

Perhaps, if they are skilled enough. Someone with average skill and attribute may not be able to do so.

I mean, someone with average skill and attribute can't see across the street. Anyway, as long as it catches up with the munchkin eventually, that's fine.

6/2 equals 3 force for the effect. The hits add 1 damage per. So effect is 3 + 5 hits for 8 damage.

And how is this overcosted compared to magic resistance?

Your magic going down the crapper each time the gonk (and just him) comes closer than a few meters but coming back as soon as he leaves may hint at a connexion even for a relatively obtuse character...

One thing to keep in mind in that regard is that assensing is part and parcel of the security mage's job - the equivalent of his mundane buddy watching the crowd for suspicious-looking peoples nad hidden weapons, or the spider scanning for hidden comlinks. With an aura that's on par with a cyberzombie, the character will stand out and be kept under watch as a potential source of trouble. Just like some gonk walking around downtown with a signal 4 jammer turned on in his pocked 'cause he's afraid of being hacked' will draw flak from the security. Though the jammer can be turned off.

He might also be barred access into magic-heavy areas to keep them from being tainted - or just like you wouldn't let some unwashed hobo wrapped in dirty rags into a restaurant. Any diplomatic encounter involving Awakeneds is also likely to be complicated just by having the hazer along with the other PCs. Even mr clean would have trouble making himslef welcome with the hobo equivalent tagging along.

Oh and one thing : if someones notice his magic is going awry, assensing he area to figure out what's going on sounds like what most mages will do. At which point the hazer's aura will probably be noticed. From the description it's as easily noticeable as emotions, basicaly a single success will be enough... Making a connection between that gonk with his weird aura and magic going wrong isn't exactly rocket science.

Can you name a few relevant spells, which would be unaffected?

Besides, even for the extremely potent effect on direct combat spells, the quality is more than worth it.

Bye
Thanee

As the OP:

The distraction into cyberhazing is amusing: I can see a walking magical toxic waste zone having problems. As a GM I would regard it as a curse on the character and play it as such.

I still don't have a clear view on arcane arrester. I think the question outstanding is "does the reduced force restrict the spell casters hits or not". There are two places this is interesting: buffs and resisting offensive spells.

If we take the idea that nett hits are reduced:

• Buffs would be (mildly) impacted by arcane arrestor (most buffs are restricted already by the sustaining foci, which is often 3, and there is little difference between force 3 and force 6).
• Resisting offensive / detection spells is much easier. Given that you can have countermagic, if the spell is cast at force 6, you only need 3 successes on the resistance roll to ignore the spell

If we take the idea that nett hits are not reduced:

• Buff spells are not impacted
• Resisting offensive / detection spells is much less effective than above. The original question showed that there was 2 difference in the combat spell example. Control mind spells, detection spells are no easier to resist than for other characters.

When resolving questions like this I like usually to go for the least power option. In this case it feels to me that the nett hits not being reduced is the least powerful result. What do the rest of you think?

Good question. Basically it isn´t. At least not as much as i remember it. Could you please quote the description and if you are talking about the quality or the adept power?

The player knows that his character's magic goes down, how does the character know that?

Excxept that there are those who cap the added hits to the Force of the Spell effective on the target... So Force 3+3 hits = Damage 6...



Well... Buffs take a heavy hit in my opinion, as the Buff needs a Force at least equal to the Stat (For Stat-Boosting Health Buffs anyways)... If you are trying to Buff a Troll with a Body of 7 (Say A Body Buff Spell) with Arcane Arrestor, you would NEED a Force of 14 just to attempt it at all... that is a pretty heavy drawback in my opinion... Even a Human with Agility 4 would require a Force 8 (Minimum) Spell to have his Agility Boosted... Seems like a pretty high impact to me...

Resistance, of course, benefits the most... which is why Arcane Arrestor is so useful when you have it...

-foci shut down
-sustained spells fail
-spirits go *poof*
-adept powers disappear
-astral barriers drop
-"the Force feels weak here, Luke."
-it's harder to cast/conjure/counter/banish
...

Indeed... a LOT of ways to notice your magic has been impacted, even without Assensing...

He asked which way should it go. I feel it should not limit the spellcaster's hits except by the original force not the modified force. It only states that force based effects (paralysis, damage, etc.) are half the original strength rounded down for the individual in question and only that individual). It does not reduce the force of the spell or the hits. Nowhere in the text does it state that it limits the number of hits.

And how does the character know all those things have or are happening?

Most of the things listed are as a result of the spells/spirits own Force dropping. Not the character's own Magic, in the case of bound spirits going poof, the character's Charisma might have dropped. Unless the character is trying to cast/summon/whatever, how does he know that it is harder to do those things?

The character probably would know his Bod is reduced because he feels weaker but he might not notice that if he isn't exerting himself. He might know his Agility is reduced because he is finding it harder to move about but if he is vegetating in front of the trid, he might not even notice that. Thus how would someone whose Magic is reduced know that his Magic is reduced if he isn't involved in something magicky at that time? This applies to any other Attribute, not just Magic. How does one know that the character's Attribute is reduced if that Attribute isn't being used at that time?

Well, there is a bit more involved in the whole process than dice and numbers. But how does it feel when a spell is cast, or when a spell is more powerful than another? Who knows...

I don't think the rules spell out much of this, but there is a mentioning in the Spellcasting section about noticing whether a spell was successful or not. Maybe you can go from there, if you need something from the rulebook?

Bye
Thanee

edit: talking through my hat. need to read again.