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Yerameyahu
The trick does work badly. *rimshot*
snowRaven
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 8 2012, 11:47 PM) *
The trick does work badly. *rimshot*
grinbig.gif

Quoting myself just because I can't find a 'neat' way to solve this, and I would really like an opinion from those wanting to use a separate astral track:
QUOTE
Also - new can of worms with two damage tracks:
- You have 6 boxes of damage, and project. On the astral you use a Heal spell while someone on the physical plane applies First Aid - each side heals 3 boxes of damage, but when the bodies merge they get 6 boxes again?
- You have 6 boxes of damage and project. On the astral you heal 3 boxes. On the physical, someone shoots you and does 4 boxes of damage. In the astral you take 2 boxes of damage in astral combat. How many boxes of damage do you have when you merge, and how many of those could be healed?
- You have 6 boxes of damage and project. A heal spell heals 6 boxes on your astral form. You merge. How much damage do you have? Can it be treated with first aid?
- You have 5 boxes of stun. You project. Your body is comatose and should heal stun damage because it's resting - can you add Willpower to that roll (or even make it?) Assuming you can make it, you rest away 2 boxes of stun while you are out. Your astral form isn't resting and doesn't heal - how many boxes do you have when you merge?

Oh, another interesting situation, kind of related to the partially de-railed original thread: If you rule that the astral and physical bodies are so separate as to have different tracks, what happens if you hit the body with a manabolt? Can it still resist with Willpower even though the mind is 'out', or does it become immune?
Yerameyahu
Yeah, it's tricky. Good scenarios. smile.gif

I don't know if you can manabolt a comatose person, but I assume so. I don't know if an 'empty' mage is distinct from a comatose person, nor even if an 'empty' mage has an aura at all. My guess is 'yes', a 'blank' one?

Other options are to say that astral form inherits body damage, but not the reverse; or that the total damage is split on split, and merged on merge (come what may). All obviously house rules.
phlapjack77
Could you treat manabolt on a projecting mage's body as an "inanimate object"? So beat the OR etc...

As far as damage tracks, could we say that the astral form shares the stun track with the body? Or even, while projecting, the physical body has no stun track. While projecting, all attacks against the body are physical damage, or something like that...

While astrally projecting, I would say any mental stats aren't available to the physical body. So healing stun from resting is possible, but no adding Willpower or whatever.
snowRaven
QUOTE (phlapjack77 @ Mar 9 2012, 03:26 AM) *
Could you treat manabolt on a projecting mage's body as an "inanimate object"? So beat the OR etc...


...except that Manabolt is a Mana spell and can't affect non-living things. It's resisted with Willpower, so if you rule that the mind is entirely separate from the body...does it have Willpower?
Yerameyahu
That's an interesting, weird idea: the astral form takes the stun track away with it. smile.gif Hmm. … That could actually work, I think? So you'd keep all the stun you had before projecting, naturally, and you'd get knocked back to your body when it was filled (on the astral). In the meantime, your body… what, goes straight to physical overflow? (This makes the mage a bit more vulnerable, which is honestly fine with me.) This also allows for a non-KOd stranded astral form (if the body is killed), and there's no problem with Irion's 'keep First Aiding' issue. Right? Also, it means the astral form is more 'fragile', because it has only one (small) track (again, oh well, poor mage!).

As for manabolt, I'm still not sure. I think the safest, simplest assumption is to say that a living body always has a 'base' aura, even when the mage is projecting. So it remains a mana target, just as a comatose or sleeping person is. Might as well just use their base Willpower, unless you're feeling particularly cruel. smile.gif (Again and as always, this is all house rules, cuz the book doesn't seem to explain any of it.)
snowRaven
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 03:31 AM) *
That's an interesting, weird idea: the astral form takes the stun track away with it. smile.gif Hmm. … That could actually work, I think? So you'd keep all the stun you had before projecting, naturally, and you'd get knocked back to your body when it was filled (on the astral). In the meantime, your body… what, goes straight to physical overflow? (This makes the mage a bit more vulnerable, which is honestly fine with me.) This also allows for a non-KOd stranded astral form (if the body is killed), and there's no problem with Irion's 'keep First Aiding' issue. Right? Also, it means the astral form is more 'fragile', because it has only one (small) track (again, oh well, poor mage!).

As for manabolt, I'm still not sure. I think the safest, simplest assumption is to say that a living body always has a 'base' aura, even when the mage is projecting. So it remains a mana target, just as a comatose or sleeping person is. Might as well just use their base Willpower, unless you're feeling particularly cruel. smile.gif (Again and as always, this is all house rules, cuz the book doesn't seem to explain any of it.)


Might almost just go the SR1/SR2 route then - the astral form takes both tracks with it, and any significant wound kills the body.
Yerameyahu
Heh. I dunno, I kinda like this. The astral form is mental, the body is physical, each gets one, no fuss. smile.gif phlapjack may be a mad genius!
snowRaven
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 03:48 AM) *
Heh. I dunno, I kinda like this. The astral form is mental, the body is physical, each gets one, no fuss. smile.gif phlapjack may be a mad genius!


So how would you treat physical damage inflicted on the astral form?

Rule away physical attacks on the astral entirely, have all damage affect the stun track regardless of type, or apply it to the body?

This would have the side-effect that it is impossible to kill a mage on the astral - you can only disrupt the astral form and send it back to the body.
Yerameyahu
I'd apply all to stun. And yes, that's definitely what would happen. I think that's fine. It indeed depends on whether you want astral forms to be disrupted (like the inverse of spirits), or for mages to actually die there. As a tradeoff, they'd be very fragile there, and their body would be taking physical damage from all attacks.

Like I said, we're definitely talking about a whole reinterpretation, and not everything can be integrated. frown.gif

I guess you could indeed say that astral physical damage gets shunted straight to the body (physical) track, in which case you could die on the astral. That brings us back the issues of Irion's 'cross-plane healing' and the lack of 'stranded astral mage' (which is so niche that I don't care too much). It's slightly more complex.
snowRaven
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 04:09 AM) *
I'd apply all to stun. And yes, that's definitely what would happen. I think that's fine. It indeed depends on whether you want astral forms to be disrupted (like the inverse of spirits), or for mages to actually die there. As a tradeoff, they'd be very fragile there, and their body would be taking physical damage from all attacks.

Like I said, we're definitely talking about a whole reinterpretation, and not everything can be integrated. frown.gif

I guess you could indeed say that astral physical damage gets shunted straight to the body (physical) track, in which case you could die on the astral. That brings us back the issues of Irion's 'cross-plane healing' and the lack of 'stranded astral mage' (which is so niche that I don't care too much). It's slightly more complex.


It has the side-effect of making mages much weaker on the astral vs spirits...and while I'm all for weakening mages, I'm not fond of empowering spirits in the process indifferent.gif (quite the contrary)
Yerameyahu
Only on the astral though; I don't care what they do as long as they're not on the physical plane bothering decent people, with their dirty ITNW. smile.gif

I guess the flipside of being 'weaker' vs. spirits is being immortal vs. spirits. Hm.
phlapjack77
QUOTE (snowRaven @ Mar 9 2012, 10:30 AM) *
...except that Manabolt is a Mana spell and can't affect non-living things. It's resisted with Willpower, so if you rule that the mind is entirely separate from the body...does it have Willpower?

Doh! You're right. So manabolt would have no effect. But I'm ok with that - just like a "control actions" spell wouldn't really affect the comatose body either...

QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 10:48 AM) *
Heh. I dunno, I kinda like this. The astral form is mental, the body is physical, each gets one, no fuss. smile.gif phlapjack may be a mad genius!

Hehe - at least a better idea than the auto-hits one, right? wink.gif

QUOTE (snowRaven @ Mar 9 2012, 11:03 AM) *
So how would you treat physical damage inflicted on the astral form?

Rule away physical attacks on the astral entirely, have all damage affect the stun track regardless of type, or apply it to the body?

This would have the side-effect that it is impossible to kill a mage on the astral - you can only disrupt the astral form and send it back to the body.

Can you do physical attacks on the astral? Or is everything "astral", and only interpreted in ways "we" understand, like a "melee attack" which isn't really melee at all. You can't even use Physical spells on the astral.

I would see the "mage killing" the same as disrupting a spirit - the spirit isn't dead, it's just sent back to it's home plane. A disrupted astral mage returns to it's home plane (body).

QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 11:09 AM) *
I'd apply all to stun. And yes, that's definitely what would happen. I think that's fine. It indeed depends on whether you want astral forms to be disrupted (like the inverse of spirits), or for mages to actually die there. As a tradeoff, they'd be very fragile there, and their body would be taking physical damage from all attacks.

Exactly. This is how I would see it working.

QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 11:09 AM) *
I guess you could indeed say that astral physical damage gets shunted straight to the body (physical) track, in which case you could die on the astral. That brings us back the issues of Irion's 'cross-plane healing' and the lack of 'stranded astral mage' (which is so niche that I don't care too much). It's slightly more complex.

If my line of reasoning above is correct, there is no "astral physical" damage. Maybe stun-overflow from astral would appear on the body, showing what a powerful attack / massive amount of damage was sustained. I don't think there are any cross-plane healing issues with astral / physical track separation?
Yerameyahu
Not physical (vs. astral), but physical (vs. stun); there's definitely non-stun damage on the astral (just cast manabolt). This setup would certainly change that (converting it all to stun, effectively).

Yeah, that last bit is a distinct variant. I don't prefer it, but it's interesting to brainstorm.
phlapjack77
Sorry, yeah - I see that. I also don't like the mana / physical spell divide. I would do away with that too, if I could smile.gif

pbangarth
QUOTE (phlapjack77 @ Mar 9 2012, 12:32 AM) *
Sorry, yeah - I see that. I also don't like the mana / physical spell divide. I would do away with that too, if I could smile.gif

A bit of an aside:

Yet this divide is a major barrier to my FSPC being able to carry all kinds of cool spells into the astral with him, eg. spells that beef/speed him up. I'm happy to live with this limitation.
phlapjack77
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Mar 9 2012, 02:11 PM) *
Yet this divide is a major barrier to my FSPC being able to carry all kinds of cool spells into the astral with him, eg. spells that beef/speed him up. I'm happy to live with this limitation.

What kinds of spells?
phlapjack77
QUOTE (almost normal @ Mar 9 2012, 06:21 AM) *
Wrong. Completely wrong. The RAW clearly states there is.

I'm still waiting for this too.

The RAS override thing seals the deal, I think (in addition to everything said before, of course!). When astrally projecting, your body is limp, a meat-bag. When in cold/hot full VR, your body is still functional, but with large penalties (by bypassing the RAS override). That says that in VR, you don't go anywhere, but rather, signal is coming to you. So Resonance Trodes is a way of bringing a VR signal to someone who wouldn't normally be able to (or might not want to) receive VR in the first place.
Irion
QUOTE (snowRaven @ Mar 8 2012, 11:49 PM) *
grinbig.gif

Quoting myself just because I can't find a 'neat' way to solve this, and I would really like an opinion from those wanting to use a separate astral track:

I wrote you a formula. twirl.gif


@phlapjack77
QUOTE
What kinds of spells?

Increase attribute for example. But there is no reason why it should not be a mana spell. (Actually it should be a mana spell, unless it grows you a bigger brain or more muscles.)
And yes, it is not said that physical spells carry over. And again we have the whole issue of Cyberware in the body of the mage and spells cast on the body of the mage...


(And to add insult to injury: The mage is projecting and you are implanting cyberware. Does he loose magic? It is actually cybermancy, without cybermancy.)

Like I said, the whole astral thing is written poorly for beeing such a major part of SR
phlapjack77
QUOTE (Irion @ Mar 9 2012, 04:58 PM) *
Increase attribute for example. But there is no reason why it should not be a mana spell. (Actually it should be a mana spell, unless it grows you a bigger brain or more muscles.)
And yes, it is not said that physical spells carry over. And again we have the whole issue of Cyberware in the body of the mage and spells cast on the body of the mage...

If I were king for a day...Doing away with the mana/physical divide - yeah, increasing a mental attribute would carry-over to the astral, while a physical increase would not.

QUOTE (Irion @ Mar 9 2012, 04:58 PM) *
(And to add insult to injury: The mage is projecting and you are implanting cyberware. Does he loose magic? It is actually cybermancy, without cybermancy.)

Like I said, the whole astral thing is written poorly for beeing such a major part of SR

In this situation, it seems that adding cyberware damages the aura, and so it would definitely affect the projecting mage. Magic loss and everything. This works with the weird Essence rules, where cutting off your arm doesn't cause Essence / Magic loss, but then adding cyberware to replace the arm does.

OR maybe if we really want to make the physical / astral divide wider, then no, whatever you do to the body (short of killing it) doesn't affect the astrally projecting mage, until the mage returns to his body, then all effects take place immediately. Blammo!
pbangarth
Others have answered for me, phlapjack77, but for another example, the one spell so many like to keep sustained on them is Increase Reflexes. Also a physical spell.
Yerameyahu
It's usually not that the mana/physical divide itself is the main issue, but that specific things seem incorrectly assigned to mana or physical. smile.gif A lot of it could be solved, perhaps, by making many things 'both'. But that's another whole discussion.

But, I wanna say that, assuming all the other house rulings, the *living* body of an 'absent' mage retains an aura. This could be a pale shadow of the real one (dim, but still unique), or it can be some kind of 'blank living thing' aura, or whatever. But as long as the living body has an aura, and a mystic connection to the astral form, I think we can handle any weird issues of mana spells, Willpower resistance, and (seriously?) simultaneous cyberware implantation.
pbangarth
The discussion of Shedim in Street Magic tells us that they can treat a magician's vacated body as a prepared vessel for possession. So they still have to overcome the magician's Mental Attributes, but with an advantage. Seems like that could apply to other attempts to mess with the mind of a magician's vacated body.
Yerameyahu
Nice! So that supports the idea that it's still got the mage's normal aura and/or Mental Attribs? Maybe some kind of penalty due to the 'absence' or 'distance'? I'd still say that mental manipulations, illusions, etc. would have no effect, but for the purposes of manabolt, Heal, Increase X, etc.?
Irion
@Yerameyahu
Sounds good right now.
Can't see any problems with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there would be a hand full.
Yerameyahu
That's the fun part. smile.gif
Wiseman
Ok, there is actually two topics in this thread. Think the resonance trodes portion of the thread is resolved for the most part, and I for one concur with the conclusion that using the power on a projecting mage means nothing happens until the spirit/mind returns.

The second issue keeps spiraling into separate damage tracks for astral vs physical, which has no basis in the rules other than some counter-intuitive fluff. While physical and matrix clearly delineate the tracks used and how they're defined by RAW, no such thing exists for a separate astral damage track, and as Snow noted, has no historical basis.

So the real issue appears to be two things. Wound modifiers and how they affect astral forms (since they fluff can't feel the body) and what to do about the rule where the spirit exists after the body's death.

Wound modifiers imho should accumulate and be passed from body to spirit, regardless of which is damaged, sharing only the single physical track. "But they can't feel pain" you might argue, but alas, the spirit is supported by the body, damage to the body (and the representation of essence) via augmentation does diminish the spirit and magic in general. Why wouldn't less invasive albeit temporary augmentation function the same on some level?

Rather than rewriting separate damage tracks and thinking of wound modifiers purely as a distraction due to pain, they remain a RAW mechanic and can be justified that though the astral form has subdued awareness, on some level the wounds still make it more difficult for the concentration conducive to anything done on the astral. If I have a wounded leg, and take pain killers, the leg does not necessarily function as well as it would unwounded, whether I feel it or not.

Now if a body is dead, should it then continue to pass the maximum wound modifiers to the fading astral form? I'd say no, the link to the body is gone, and any further damage to the astral form ends it's already limited existence. So though dying would remove the hindrance of the body, it's of limited use/temporary anyway.

Edit: and more importantly, the astral form existing past physical death is a specialized exception to rules governing the connection of physical and astral.
Yerameyahu
Interesting. You're saying 'fully shared damage' up *until* the body dies, at which point the stranded astral form has what status? A clean, if quite temporary, condition monitor?

This seems like a perfectly viable alternative. I'm sure some people don't like the idea of 'free' astral form boxes, but I agree: who cares, he's dead in 6 hours. It's a kind of 'moment of clarity' effect. smile.gif However, this has the same problems as other 'fully shared' models. I don't think Irion's wrong in pointing out that a projecting mage with his body being First Aided could be problematically resilient on the astral.

This suggestion is also non-RAW (the temporarily 'free' astral form). That's fine, because there's no suggestion we've seen that's fully RAW, and I contend that no fully RAW model is even possible. nyahnyah.gif
ShadowDragon8685
I'm beginning to think that only a genuine Astral Condition Monitor can resolve this sort of mess. I imagine that it would probably start clean, even if the mage was hanging on to consciousness by a single box when he projected.


This could lead to nice complications for one's players; need to kidnap/kill a wizard? Uhoh, he escaped into the Astral just before you could knock him out. If he's a good conjurer, chances are you're about to wind up facing a nasty spirit; hope you had a spirit or a mage or both standing by on the Astral to beat him up so bad/kill him so he can't pull off a summoning.

There should probably also be some kind of technique to force an Astral mage back into his own body, or prevent him from projecting in the first place. Maybe some kind of spell?
Yerameyahu
That's another (viable, to me) possibility, but I think you're right about the consequences that people didn't want (more mage power, basically). Also, it means that astral damage either doesn't matter (vanishes when you go home), or we have to deal with merging.

So, I'm losing track. smile.gif We've got:

A. fully shared condition monitor,
--1. with or without the body-death exception clause (Wiseman)

B. fully separate condition monitors, with…
--1. initially-inherited damage (snowRaven), or not (ShadowDragon)
--2. upon-return merged damage, or not

C. split condition monitor (astral-stun, body-physical) (phlapjack)

D. ?
Wiseman
QUOTE (Yerameyahu)
Interesting. You're saying 'fully shared damage' up *until* the body dies, at which point the stranded astral form has what status? A clean, if quite temporary, condition monitor?

This seems like a perfectly viable alternative. I'm sure some people don't like the idea of 'free' astral form boxes, but I agree: who cares, he's dead in 6 hours. It's a kind of 'moment of clarity' effect. smile.gif However, this has the same problems as other 'fully shared' models. I don't think Irion's wrong in pointing out that a projecting mage with his body being First Aided could be problematically resilient on the astral.

This suggestion is also non-RAW (the temporarily 'free' astral form). That's fine, because there's no suggestion we've seen that's fully RAW, and I contend that no fully RAW model is even possible. nyahnyah.gif


Pretty close. I'm saying once the body dies there is no condition monitor and any damage ends the Astral Form. No doubt any conjecture at this point is a huge grey area, as often the case when going into RAI, but RAW as proven by everyone else doesn't really support a perfectly clear answer.

My intent is to change RAW as little as possible to match RAI. All the way up until the point that the body dies, RAW has not changed. A little vague fluff regarding what pain is felt might be stretched in imagination when considering wound modifiers, but by RAW, the wound modifiers apply (and it's easy to think up fluff reasons why that's the case even without pain felt).

So issue two becomes what to do with the lingering Astral Form. If you apply all wound modifiers of a dead body, well then it's just an observer at that point and doesn't fit RAI. If you give it a separate condition monitor, you effectively have to not only add new rules, but modify quite a bit of existing RAW to fit.

I get that healing the body could heal the astral form and so forth. But I'm not sure that wasn't intended anyway. This game is already lethal, and what exactly does a means of damage mitigation/recovery, already applied throughout the game really going to unbalance? If I get shot, first aid helps, if an Astral Form gets smacked around, you pretty much have to repair the body to heal anything anyway, so first aid still helps.

Remember you can only heal the same wounds once by a method. So having an autodoc drone patching you up is no guarantee of perfect safety.

I'm not saying my interpretation is perfectly RAW, but in my opinion it requires the least amount of gamemaster tinkering than any other option presented.
snowRaven
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 07:51 PM) *
So, I'm losing track. smile.gif We've got:

A. fully shared condition monitor,
--1. with or without the body-death exception clause (Wiseman)

B. fully separate condition monitors, with…
--1. initially-inherited damage (snowRaven), or not (ShadowDragon)
--2. upon-return merged damage, or not

C. split condition monitor (astral-stun, body-physical) (phlapjack)

D. ?


Nope. I'm under 'A'. I'm not advocating split condition monitors, but fully shared ones - except with split wound modifiers (that part is only there to satisfy the RAW statement of 'distant pain', really).

QUOTE (Wiseman @ Mar 9 2012, 08:25 PM) *
Pretty close. I'm saying once the body dies there is no condition monitor and any damage ends the Astral Form. No doubt any conjecture at this point is a huge grey area, as often the case when going into RAI, but RAW as proven by everyone else doesn't really support a perfectly clear answer.


Yeah, that's pretty much my opinion as well. Removing all penalties when the character dies works for me, as well.

Alright, summing up my 'version':

- Both forms share the same condition monitor.
- If the Stun track fills up, the character is pulled back into the body, unconscious.
- When the Physical track reaches max overflow, the form that received that damage dies. The other lives on as per RAW.
- Upon either forms death, all wound modifiers go away and any additional damage to the surviving form kills it.

Only question is whether to go with the extra book keeping of separate wound modifiers, and whether or not a full Physical track should knock the mage out on the astral...

One option would be to kill the astral form immediately when it reaches a full Physical track, letting the empty body live on if someone stabilizes it or accumulate overflow as usual. So if the astral form gets full Stun, he is disrupted back into his body, but if he gets full Physical he is permanently disrupted. Spirits don't get overflow on the astral after all... (afaik)
Wiseman
QUOTE (snowRaven)
Nope. I'm under 'A'. I'm not advocating split condition monitors, but fully shared ones - except with split wound modifiers (that part is only there to satisfy the RAW statement of 'distant pain', really).


Agree with everything above with the exception of this. Distant pain is really fluff. Wound modifiers are RAW mechanic. There is enough metaphysical basis to explain by fluff why the wound modifiers stack even without directly feeling and being distracted by the pain.

Example: The Astral and Physical self are still intrinsically connected. Wound modifiers mostly represent distraction from the pain, true, but that really is just a signal of the nervous system, which the brain/mind are a part of. So though it may not "hurt" to the Astral Form, it could still cause "interference".

Regardless of the actual reason the wound modifier applies, I personally see no reason to change to tracking them separately.
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 01:51 PM) *
That's another (viable, to me) possibility, but I think you're right about the consequences that people didn't want (more mage power, basically). Also, it means that astral damage either doesn't matter (vanishes when you go home), or we have to deal with merging.

B. fully separate condition monitors, with…
--1. initially-inherited damage (snowRaven), or not (ShadowDragon)
--2. upon-return merged damage, or not


Here's my knee-jerk idea of implementation:

When you astrally project, you're blowing your spirit out of your body; your consciousness is no longer bound by limits of blood circulation or even neurology. At this point, your Astral form is a separate entity from your body; call it your soul, if you want to. Your projection doesn't inherit any damage your body may have had; you may have had all but one boxes on both your physical and stun tracks filled in, somehow (I dunno, maybe you pissed off Adalai Niska or something,) and your astral form starts with a full condition monitor, which has 8 + (Mag/2 + Initiate Grade) boxes.

When you're an Astral form, you only have the one track. Any Mana-based damage spells targeted at your astral body do damage to this track, whether or not they would do Stun or Physical damage normally, as does getting a robust Astral Combat-style beating with a Weapon Focus Fire Extinguisher or whatever. Any Drain you incur, from spellcasting or summoning, applies itself to this track. When you hit the end of this track, that's not it, however. Instead of just vanishing immediately, you start to dissipate. You effectively have Astral "dying" boxes equal to your normal Astral Condition Monitor's boxes. You aren't rendered unconscious or even unable to act, but you will continue to lose a dissipating box every (Will) combat turns, because your spirit has taken so much damage it can't hold itself together and is starting to dissolve. A wise magician would use this time to seek out his body and rejoin it, if at all possible, though a wrathful magician (or one who knows he's done for anyway) might take the opportunity to overcast the biggest, meanest spell he possibly can and go out in a blaze of vengeance. Either way, when you fill in more than twice your astral condition monitor's boxes, you're gone; your spirit has left the building.

When a Spirit rejoins it body with Astral damage, the shock hits the body like a sledgehammer. Take Stun damage equal to your Astral damage, but this can never go into physical overflow, even if you're rejoining a body which already had a full Stun track. It can't kill you, but it can certainly knock you out, or make you wish you were dead.
snowRaven
QUOTE (Wiseman @ Mar 9 2012, 10:11 PM) *
Agree with everything above with the exception of this. Distant pain is really fluff. Wound modifiers are RAW mechanic. There is enough metaphysical basis to explain by fluff why the wound modifiers stack even without directly feeling and being distracted by the pain.

Example: The Astral and Physical self are still intrinsically connected. Wound modifiers mostly represent distraction from the pain, true, but that really is just a signal of the nervous system, which the brain/mind are a part of. So though it may not "hurt" to the Astral Form, it could still cause "interference".

Regardless of the actual reason the wound modifier applies, I personally see no reason to change to tracking them separately.


Yeah, my 'problem' is that you aren't connected to your nervous system anymore. Not being able to feel anything that isn't damage etc. I can buy a fluff explanation of a weakened body weakening the soul, though.
Wiseman
QUOTE (snowRaven @ Mar 9 2012, 04:19 PM) *
Yeah, my 'problem' is that you aren't connected to your nervous system anymore. Not being able to feel anything that isn't damage etc. I can buy a fluff explanation of a weakened body weakening the soul, though.


yea, that's a simpler/better way of saying it. I was trying to be fancy embarrassed.gif

The major point is that "distant pain" is fluff. What wound modifiers exactly represent is fluff. The mechanics of wound modifiers subtracting from dice pools is not fluff however.

And there is an established link between the body and astral self as suggested by essence/magic reductions from augmentation, botched surgery/healing, drugs, toxins, etc. to say it's not too far a stretch of imagination that wound modifiers apply to both forms.

Yerameyahu
Okay, sorry about the misplacement snowRaven. smile.gif
So, this is the only 'novel' part: "Upon either forms death, all wound modifiers go away and any additional damage to the surviving form kills it." This seems like… weird. Why bother having no wound mods if you're one-hit-fragile anyway?

Oh well, the 'stranded mage' scenario really isn't that important anyway. smile.gif And I agree that fully-shared is the 'most RAW' model; we just have to *write off* the stranded mage, and *accept* the Irion's First Aid scenario. Those are the tradeoffs. (I, too, am totally fine ignoring the 'distant pain' fluff in favor of a 'bodily wounds affect the astral form, duh' fluff.)

I still like the weird split-tracks, but obviously it's less-RAW. It's a major-house-rule alternative. I like that it handles the stranded mage and the First-Aid-abuse situations, at the cost of making astral mages deathproof and fragile.

I agree that fully separate condition monitors seems like a big pain: it's less-RAW, and either creates messy split/merge situations, or gives mages significant extra power.
snowRaven
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 10:36 PM) *
Okay, sorry about the misplacement snowRaven. smile.gif
So, this is the only 'novel' part: "Upon either forms death, all wound modifiers go away and any additional damage to the surviving form kills it." This seems like… weird. Why bother having no wound mods if you're one-hit-fragile anyway?


Mainly: if we leave in wound modifiers the dead astral mage should be unconscious as well...

Secondly: It's fluffy. With the possibility of -6 or -9 dice, you may as well just kill the poor bastard immediately.

I'd possibly be fine with a 'clean' CM even, with the mages fresh (though short-lived) existance.

Heck, I'd possibly even let him be immortal in the hours he has left. It's hard to kill what is already dead, after all...but that's open to tons of abuse, so no.
Wiseman
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Mar 9 2012, 04:36 PM) *
So, this is the only 'novel' part: "Upon either forms death, all wound modifiers go away and any additional damage to the surviving form kills it." This seems like… weird. Why bother having no wound mods if you're one-hit-fragile anyway?


My reasoning is thus:

First, having wound modifiers from maxed out condition monitors prevents pretty much anything being done. It also assumes there IS a condition monitor (maxed though it may be), which could confuse players into thinking they can reduce the wound modifiers/heal damage some how (and with those kind of penalties they'll try).

Second, the astral form lingering after death is kind of already a free benefit. You're already dead, your spirit/soul just doesn't know it yet. There is no coming back, just a limited amount of time to do something. Given the far reaching penalty of wound modifiers, it defeats the whole purpose to continue to exist but unable to succeed on any task.

Third, where does any additional damage go? the monitor is filled, and you sure aren't going to resist any damage or cast anything. So it's pointless.

By saying, "no condition monitor and no wound modifiers", something unique happens. They can still succeed in tasks, but being that ANY damage ends them means they have to play it safe. They can cast and summon etc, but it might be their last act since drain can cause damage. This allows them a (albeit small) window to succeed at something, without being overpowering/invincible and not directly contradicted by RAW.

So while they're on borrowed time, they can still pose enough of a threat and apply to the rule of cool without breaking anything really.

As you said, it's really only a minor interpretation of a noted RAW special scenario at this point that doesn't happen often, and one that doesn't rework everything else prior to this stated exception.

[Ninja Edit] - And a body without the astral form is comatose and easy to perform a coup de grace on. So it doesn't need a condition monitor or wound modifiers. It does nothing. So really the only time a player can conciously control anything is as the Astral Form, and it shouldn't really be all that more resistant to damage.
Yerameyahu
QUOTE
Secondly: It's fluffy. With the possibility of -6 or -9 dice, you may as well just kill the poor bastard immediately.
I agree. smile.gif But I feel the same way about the '1-hit' version. That's all.
almost normal
Allright. Thanks for the input folks. The conclusion is that the mage would be snapped back to the body, unless one feels like completely ignoring a section of rules that they don't agree with.

Thank you for your comments.

Mods, lock the thread at your nearest convenience.
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (almost normal @ Mar 9 2012, 10:20 PM) *
Allright. Thanks for the input folks. The conclusion is that the mage would be snapped back to the body, unless one feels like completely ignoring a section of rules that they don't agree with.


Hold on, what?

That's a little extreme there. Please cite chapter and verse where it says that a mage taking any damage gets snapped back to their body, because no matter what your thought on whether or not a Projected mage still shares the same damage tracks as your physical body, I haven't seen anything that supports the snap-back theory.


QUOTE
Mods, lock the thread at your nearest convenience.


Translation "I've made my mind up and nobody may challenge it." That's more than a little presumptuous there, especially since there's a lively discussion of something tangentially-related going on. Frankly it's arrogant and comes off as a command.
snowRaven
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Mar 10 2012, 04:29 AM) *
Hold on, what?

That's a little extreme there. Please cite chapter and verse where it says that a mage taking any damage gets snapped back to their body, because no matter what your thought on whether or not a Projected mage still shares the same damage tracks as your physical body, I haven't seen anything that supports the snap-back theory.


I think he was referring to my suggestion for handling a filled in Stun track, based on the SR1/SR2 rules of the astral form disrupting at Deadly Stun and being pushed back into the body...
Yerameyahu
What's your damage, almost normal? They don't lock threads when someone randomly decides they're over. biggrin.gif

ShadowDragon, I think he's actually still talking about Resonance Trodes 'beating' mages. I agree: there doesn't seem to be anything in SR4 that returns the astral form to the body, except presumably KO-ing the astral form? Certainly not Resonance Trodes.
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