Indeed...

Look, screw Astral Hazing for the moment. If background counts effect a spell that's targetted inside them, you work out how, then come back to Astral Hazing.

Astral Hazing is already abuse-able by renting an apartment near a megacorp for a month and never leaving.

If you find a baby who's astrally hazed (unlikely, but let's make the assumption) and give them immediate cocoon-matrix living (whatever the hell the name of it was) and he lives to be 100, at the time of his 100th birthday, his Hazing will cover 2,410,711 square kilometers (in Euclidean space; as Earth is a sphere, the area would be slightly larger). That's the land area of Alaska and Texas combined.

Huh?
Doesn't the Hazing stop at Essence Meters?
And why SQUARE Kilometers?
Does it not extend in form of a sphere?
Also: Leonization Treatment.

Starts at. If he "stands still" it extends 1 meter per hour from there.



100 years * 365 days * 24 hours = meters. Divide by 1000. That's the radius. Square it and multiply by Pi to get the area.



Hence actually covering more land. If you'd like to work out the intersection area of two spheres, be my guest.
(Here's the first step: the radius as measured on the surface of the earth is 876.7239 meters, that's 7.9885144 degrees of the circumference)



Which means he lives longer. Woo. It'll still take something like 1400 years to envelop the earth.

1456 years, 2 months, 4 days, 19 hours, and 12 minutes. And that's just surface level, based on the average diameter of the earth.

Well, now we know how the mana down-cycle happens

Ok, I completed the integral calculus required to know the true landarea effected by 100 years of Astral Hazing.
It's 2,410,782.68 sq. km, or 71.68 sq. km more than flatspace, due to the Earth's curvature.

So where does that get us?

into a world where nobody can do magic below level 5 anymore.

Yeah, that's why I was trying to take Astral Hazing out of the conversation for the moment. It's a badly designed negative quality. It makes more sense as a side effect of cybermancy (though it still clearly needs some fixes) but taking the cybermancy astral hazing text and copying it and pasting it into a negative quality doesn't work very well.

Still, the interpretation that astral hazing does not help against stuff cast into it makes CZ's pretty weak . .

Precisely.

Well, yeah, and while I was not involved in writing Augmentation, I'm guessing that the intention was for it to act as a sort of magic resistance. That makes sense when we're talking about beings whose souls are bound to their bodies with powerful enchantments. It even makes some sense that cyberzombies might generate a mana field, since these enchantments need to be powered by something and are probably fed from the metaplanes. And because cyberzombies are always dual natured and always considered magical beings as part of that arrangement.

It all falls apart when it's applied to a negative quality, though.

so it's like the difference between ghouls critter and ghouls player character . . exact same thing, different set of rules . .

I am mostly comfortable with the idea that background count alters spells cast into it from outside, even though that wasn't my intention when writing it. And it doesn't conflict with RAW, really, so even a GM who feels bound by RAW can easily make that ruling. I do still have an issue with the ritual magic aspect because that interpretation seems to kill the point of doing a ritual within an aspected domain.

I have major issues with the Astral Hazing negative quality, to the point where I wouldn't allow it in my games. Not without a substantial rewrite of how it works. And yes, even in the case of cyberzombies, astral hazing needs an upper limit on how far the hazing will expand because otherwise it can get ridiculous. Hell, don't put any legs on your cyberzombie and you have a background count generator.

And there's still the question about whether cyberzombies generate mana fields and what happens when a cyberzombie is within an area of more extreme background count than their hazing effect. Do they really totally ignore ambient mana levels or would a mana void or mana warp possibly tear a cyberzombie apart like they do to spirits.

What happens if the hazes of two cyberzombies with different levels of hazing start overlapping?

The "BGC set to this level no matter what" mechanic is asking for abuse. You should never let an unstoppable force or immovable object get into players' hands

And there is a problem with that how, exactly?

because it means that the magic 4 guy can astrally hang above the CZ and snipe killbolt him from the astral without the CZ being able to retaliate, like a dumb little ghoul . .

There's not a problem in this equation?

Cyberzombie == Weak

(== meaning a comparison operator, rather than = meaning an assignment operator)

The problem is that the oh-so-scary cyberzombie isn't scary anymore, because a mage can just stunbolt him to death from the astral plane, hovering just outside the astral hazing.




Nerd

I'm not so bothered by it as the mana conditions at the caster(s) and the recipient locations *SHOULD* have an affect. They do when adjudicating mundane actions. Should work the same for magic too.

Logically, do you really want to attack your opponent while they are in a position of strength? So your spotter has you wait until the target moves into a less advantageous location.

In the event of a target with Astral Hazing, you simply have to deal with it.



The simple solution IMO would be to have it tied to the absolute value of the CZ's essence. Rating = Absolute Value of negative Essence. Have the starting range be the same value and it can grow up to 10x the absolute value. Yes, it does make it easier to track it down since it's a smaller area but at the same time, it only gets so big before the overpowering strength of the Earth's manasphere begins to normalize it.



I would handle this like so:

Take the ambient mana field and subtract the absolute value of the haze. Then have the CZ make the resistance test (I think it's mentioned in SM) but with bonus dice equal to the haze rating.

Example:

Haze rating: 4
Ambient Mana: 10

Subtract like so... 10 - 4 = 6

Base the resistance test against the result.

Reasoning: The rituals used are to ensure the spirit stays so it stands to reason that anything that would try to disrupt that would be actively resisted by said enchantments.

And your point?

A Cyberzombie is an investment in the Millions, if not tens of Millions for any Corporation that cares to produce them. Do you really think that Cyberzombie has no support Magical, or Mundane? If you do, well, you are likely in for a very unpleasant surprise.

I think the writers of the CZ rules thought that the local BGC caused by the CZ was a protection against magic.

Edit: What I mean is, I think that the writer of the CZ rules expected BGC to also apply to incoming spells. (As did most of us.)

Ditto (along with a good dose of 'whatever the intent, it should be'). And they're not supposed to *need* massive support. What would be the point of making them, then?

My internet decided to crap itself (as it does once every two weeks or so).
So I was editing my last post to include the following:



Considering everything else has pissed all over ritual casting (seriously, remove the skill = #participants limit, instead make it the Leader's skill = #participants*) I don't see a problem with reducing the force of the spell entering an area of BGC. It makes ritual magic a little weaker, but you can always add in the cavat that the Lodge provides a buffer zone ("reduce the BGC by the Lodge's rating before applying the BGC as a penalty to the spell's force").

With these two changes you turn ritual casting from "something you do by yourself and generally sucks" to being "really, really useful." Your mark hiding out in an aspected domain? No problem, nuke him from outside it.

*This allows for the cabal of mages lead by a skilled caster with all the participants in ritual magic being the initiates with only a single rank in the skill

Not massive support. Just a clean-up crew to make sure the cyber zombie didn't miss anything (or to finish off whoever takes it out), and maybe a cybertech/medical person to repair any minor damage in the field before clearing the next area.

Cyberzombies shouldn't be too weakened by sniping from outside. Cyberzombies have access to ranged weapons, and their essence goes into the negative. How far below 6 is a -4 essence Cyberzombie? That's 10 dice that should be taken from any casting pool to do anything to them. At higher magic ratings, you're broken anyways. At lower magic ratings, that's significant. Who cares about the background count when their negative essence already grants them magical armor against spells?

Essence Loss only intrinsically protects them against Health Spells (through losing Dice due to 'Ware), though, not Combat Spells, or any other category of spells...

Sure, HunterHerne, but that's not what Tymeaus said. He said, 'enough support that it doesn't matter if they can be magic-sniped'.

Actually, Yerameyahu, what I said was this:

A Cyberzombie is an investment in the Millions, if not tens of Millions for any Corporation that cares to produce them. Do you really think that Cyberzombie has no support Magical, or Mundane? If you do, well, you are likely in for a very unpleasant surprise.

No where does that say, or even imply, "enough support that it doesn't Matter if they can be magic-snipped." Go on, Look again, you will not see that... Please do not put words into my mouth...

Um, pardon? You directly quote-responded to a post that specifically and solely referred to magic-sniping a CZ. (From the astral, so I dunno why you think mundane support matters anyway.) That's called context, and it means you absolutely implied that your response (support presence) was directly relevant to the quoted argument (astral sniping). I guess there's no room in your mouth for words, it's full of foot.

Late, I know, but y'all had this thread explode while I was at work. Now I just want to rip from Harry Dresden and do a ritual to use my magic hands (giggity) to pull down space stations. Now, back to CZ talk.

But... Explain to me where you got the "Enough Support that it does not matter" quote. Context DOES matter, but you are quoting WAY out of Context.

A single Mage can support a CyberZombie in the Field.

A Cyberzombie will have support in the Field, to assume otherwise is a quick way to death for the one making the assumptions. You might look at your mouth to insert that foot...

I have absolutely no problem with sniping a CZ from Astral Space, just like you would (should) do against any other significant dual natured threat. It is the only sane approach in many instances.

That's the point. You 'said' that astral sniping did not matter, because they had support. However much necessary to make it not matter, that's how much you 'said' they'll have. (With the additional implication that it'd be sufficient and substantial, based on the CZ investment.)

Look, nevermind: do you agree with Ascalaphus that CZ vulnerability to astral sniping makes them vastly less scary, or not? In the same way that being Dual Natured makes ghouls vastly less scary.

No, I SAID that they will have Support. Never said it would (or would not) matter... You did that...
If you look at the Quote immediately prefacing the one you quoted, you will see that I had no problems with Astrally Sniping that CZ. Oftentimes, that is the only safe approach. Which is WHY the CZ will have some support. Those who created him know that as well...

The fact that you responded to Ascalaphus' assertion means you were refuting it. No? Were you not refuting it?

It's not a question of 'having a problem' with astral sniping. Either it will work or it won't. If they have support, it *won't* work. (Unless it's worthless support, I guess, but that's hardly worth mentioning.)

Re: mana bolt and mana ball...




emphasis added

This could easily indicate that mana bolting mage might not hurt that armored cyberzombie despite using mana spells. Armor, according to this, would protect the wearer, unless they happen to be astrally projecting at the time. While in their meat body, they're covered, and Cyberzombies don't have the option to leave theirs. So, 12 force mana balls would be hurting the caster, while being resisted by the armor on the Cyberzombie. The maximum hits, pre-resist, would be 12. Those hits will not be protected by overage, except by Edge rerolls. I'm not sure it makes sense, but

That's *elemental* spells.

2x Armor for combat spells, just armor for spells with an elemental effect. Mana bolt is...?

Those are rules for damaging non-living objects.

Cyberzombies, despite being warped all to hell, are still living.

...which, I suppose on the other hand, make Cyborgs all that more frightening.





-k

… not affected by armor.

On the other hand,


So since objects don't actually get to roll any resistance test against Direct Combat Spells, they don't get to roll Armor in that test. And in no case does any target get to roll Armor to resist Direct Combat Spells, because it bypasses Armor.

In other words, the passage you quoted above only applies to Indirect Combat Spells.