Setting up an SR3 game and printing up a house rules sheet for the players. Rebalancing a few bits of gear, what edges/flaws are no-go, that sort of stuff. Ran into a pair of rules I've always run with but now that I need to be able to cite them specifically I can't locate them in the corebook. Have these been house rules the whole time and I didn't realize it, or am I just not seeing where they're printed?

#1 Spell gross successes are limited to a spells Force. If you roll 8 successes with a Force 2 spell, you only get to keep 2 of those successes.

#2 Implanted augmentations neutralize directly corresponding physad powers. For example if a physad with Improved Ability: Pistols, then picks up a Reflex Recorder for Pistols, the Improved Ability stops working as the implant throws off the magic.

In both cases these seem like good ideas to slow down min/maxing, but that they seem so simple and straightforward is also what has my Canon Sense tingling. (After all, since when is SR simple and straightforward?) Are these official rules or house rules I've been using for 15 years? And double bonus plus points if you know SR3 page numbers. Thank you.

It's been a very long time for me as well playing SR3.

IIRC #2 is a house rule only.

I can't comment on #1 as I really don't remember (sorry).

-D

#1) is a house rule. SR3 does have a rule stating that you cannot add more spell pool dice to a test than the sorcery dice allocated (mentioned on pg. 180, under SPELL POOL, and on pg. 182, under Sorcery Test).

Hmm, guess I have to growl at my old GM or put out word he was making fun of Lofwyr or something. Thanks.

In SR3 there is standard cheese of casting Invisibility at Force 1 (where it costs less karma and draws less drain). You throw all your Sorcery and Spell Pool dice at it. You get a lot of hits. The opponents may scoff at such a feeble TN to beat your Force 1 spell... but they still cannot accumulate enough hits to beat your threshold. It sounds to me like the rule you quoted was a house rule designed to cut out such cheap tactics. Instead, you'd have to cast at a decent Force, save your pool for drain, and hope your opponents get fewer hits than you did.

Regarding #1: In SR3 there are some spells, such as Magic Fingers where this explicitly applies "The successes on the Sorcery Test become the spell’s effective Strength and Quickness, up to the Force of the spell." (pg 197, SR3) Most of the spells do not have this written into them, implying that it's a house rule.

That's amateur munchkinism, though. Spell Drain is a base Force/2, rounded down, before modifiers. No TN can be less than 2 - TNs of less than 2 are treated as 2. So a Force: 5 invisibility spell (or even a Force: 6 one with a fetish limitation to lower Drain), with a Drain of 2M, is resisted with exactly the same difficulty as that same spell at Force: 1, Drain-wise.

That kind of abuse works with lots of mental spells. It works less well with the elemental spells, but sometimes you can get away with a force 1 deadly lightning ball and still have it have some impact. There are lots of easy counters to that kind of abuse though. All in all, having a bunch of force 1 spells can make a mage more fun, even if there are situations you can't use them in. I can totally understand why you would houserule that kind of abuse away though.

Yeah but then at least you have to spend the karma and effort on learning a Force 5 spell. Which is why I intend to use it as a houserule anyways. Cutting out that kind of force 1 cheese is something I very much want to do.

It depends what you're aiming for. As you say, "No TN can be less than 2" so the TN for opponents to resist your invisibility is 2 if you cast at Force 1 and it's 2 if you cast at Force 2. Since the tactic here is to zerg the roll so the opposition cannot possibly get enough hits, there's no advantage casting at Force 2. There is, however, an advantage to learning Invisibility at "only" Force 1 in the first place: at Force 1 it costs zero karma with a fetish. For some spells, it's better to learn them at Force 2 with the exclusive limitation (for zero karma), but you wouldn't want to do that for a sustained utility spell like Invisibility or it would prevent you performing any other exclusive action while sustaining the spell.

So I wouldn't call learning Invisibility at Force 1 amateur at all - it's cheaper (free), safer, and often far more successful than at higher Force. By all means criticise the rules, but within the rules, this option is valid and optimal. Hence "cheese".

SR4?

If you're not getting a spell for "free", it's usually best to take it at a high Force. Because you can't improve the rating of spells; when you want to learn a spell at a higher Force, you have to pay karma for a brand new spell. Important and/or resisted spells, therefore, I generally take at 5 or 6. I only take lower Force for more "flavor" spells like trid entertainment or healthy glow.