Magic preview info.

http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/05/s...re-a-hem-there/

Called it, just saying to someone last night if spirits lose edge, it would make sense for the caster to be able to spend there's to assist.

On the other hand, edge is cheap now that 3 good meals and a good nights sleep will refresh 4 dice of it . .

Traditions being given back some unique flavor, like that. Stun spells drain looked at, previews are giving me high hopes for the rest of the nit-picky issues that plague us. (Looking at you adrenal Pump, my personal irrational nit pick.)

Yea but that doesn't help during a run, and my PC"s rarely take time to sleep. I've more then once had to impose penalties due to the fact they just bull ahead when on the job rather then risk downtime.

Out of curiosity, Stahlseele, how often does Edge refresh at your gaming table?

As per the rules?
Never, i still play SR3.
As per the SR4 Rules?
Once every Session.

So if a complicated single-night run lasts over the course of two or three sessions, then Edge should refresh two or three times during that run. Am I reading that right?

Interesting.
Not sure I like that foci are cheaper but we never had characters trying to make and sell the things themselves. We did sell the odd one from a defeated magician but the tricky bit was always getting it away from him first.
I'll have to see the actual revised drain and damage rules but I guess that is an improvement. Once more, not something we really have had an issue with. The fluff has always supported the idea of a magicians being potentially scary powerful. I like that the rules supported that.
Spirits, we handled by using the optional rule to only give them half force in edge. We also paid attention to how the spirits are treated and if they were treated poorly, they would use that edge to resist summoning and binding. Magicians in our games tend to not try to call things beyond their magic attribute so using it in that case has never been an issue. Why? Because our GM rolls crazy good on the spirit resistance test for summoning and binding. No one wants to die calling a spirit.
I'm not too sure about the Alchemy skill. Magicians have enough places to spend karma without adding yet more skills to the mix. Again, our play style never really got into enchanting much so probably a non-issue for us. Maybe we will use it more with this rule change.
Adding some more depth and distinction to the traditions will be nice. I always liked that a shaman felt different from a hermetic in previous editions and hopefully these changes will bring that feeling back.
I like that for the most part this will be tweaks rather than rewrites for magic. Keeps my hopes up for the new version.

A mechanical benefit for having a visible totem along with its drawback (the fact that your magic use is more noticeable) would be a nice little addition. Probably too late in the game for that to be added now, though.

Adjusting Drain Values: Good. I hope it's done well.

Restraining spirits: Good but I hope they did more than change the Edge. I personally don't have many problem with Edge (in the groups I play with, use of Edge by the spirit is the GM's choice). What I have a problem with is the fact that a mage can summon a spirit that will have roughly 1.5x better stats. I also have a problem with spirit powers that are too powerful (Concealment) and/or are hard to make sense of in game (Movement)

Enhancing Alchemy: On one hand preparations are an interesting ideas that weren't really possible in previous editions and that prevented players from playing classic witches who brew potions and use magic wands. On the other hand, I hope they have been really careful to take into account what this could mean on a bigger scale: can megacorps sell "health potion" and "cure disease" potions and completely change the pharmaceutical industry?

Adjusting tradition flavor: Great. Looking forward to this.

Simplifying spell damage: Good idea

Rebalancing foci: Interesting

What I miss in this list is a way to avoid mages players always taking the same spells: Invisibilty, Levitation, Influence and Manabolt are all individually far more useful in most situations than Animate, Makeup, or the spell that affects dreams. Yet, they cost the same price to learn.

Potions were there. It was a metamagic technique.

That is a Player thing, though. I have seen characters weighted down with all the spells that have "detonate" effects and nothing else, and then I have seen characters with nary a Combat spell at all. The spells my current mage possesses are just over half Manipulation Spells (28 or so) with a splash of Detection (11) and Health (7) Spells, and a few Illusion Spells (4). I bought my first combat spell a session or two ago (Spirit Bolt). It really depends upon the concept of the character.

I do agree that I would like to see MORE diversity in spell selection, but many of the Mages I have seen have been combat mages, and thus, lots of Combat spells, followed by spells that let you get into combat (Invisibility. Levitation). Oh well...

I think some of that just comes from the granularity (or lack thereof) of the system as a whole. Is every character as likely to get as much mileage out of "Aeronautics Mechanic" as they are "Perception" or "Pistols," really? Probably not, but they still cost the same to learn (as as "Manabolt" versus, I dunno, "Fashion" or something).

Down the road of ranking things by popularity and some measuring stick of utility (which is innately going to be a hot topic in and of itself) lies varying skill prices, ranked abilities and attributes all scaled based on how useful they are, and all kinds of other crazy stuff that complicates a system (even if they get it exactly right).

Indeed, I have played games where Skills, Powers and other stuff is ranked by difficulty of learning (Immortals 1st Edition is a PRIME example of such things (making individual skill ranks as incrementally expensive to learn, as well as individual skills having a difficulty level from which to learn), even if it is a very enjoyable game). And while that may be more realistic, it brings a level of accounting into the game that many are not happy with (like my wife).

Shadowrun has made various attempts to deal with this issues regarding skills. The unique Firearms skill in 1st and 2nd edition was broken down into five different skills in 3rd edition (Pistols, Submachine Guns, Rifles, Assault Rifles and Shotguns), down to three in the 4th (Pistols, Automatic Weapons, Longarms), along with the introduction of skill group mechanic. Computer also used to be a single skill, that 4th edition broke down into five skills (Computer, Data Search, Software, Cybercombat and Hacking). The 4th also streamlined the list of Mechanic and Pilot skills, though it could be argued the four Mechanic skill could be wrapped into a single one with appropriate specialization, only based on the skill use in game. On the other hand, Artisan has often been decried as not making a lot of sense (another example of this was 2nd edition, where you could learn entire language families at once, like "Roman Languages" and speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian...).

Spells would be obviously more difficult to divide or merge the same way. The more useful are too straightforward to be divided (unless anyone here consider making Levitate Human a separate spell from Levitate Elf is a good idea). Merging spells would require to combine different effects into either a single rule or lengthy description (like detailing Fashion so that it effectively and legally double as a "Turn to Armor" spell if cast as a high Force spell).

51 spells known?

How long have you been playing this character? :boggle:

A while... he has around 300 Karma or so. 95% of which went into spells.

It's really hard to tell for sure, but it seems that the changes cure the right issues with the wrong treatment. The main problem with Stun spells is not that they don't produce enough drain, but that average character has around 3 dice to soak 10 damage. Drain or not, it leads to combats becoming one-sided if there's no mages on one side. The same about spirits - I haven't once used spirit Edge with my summoner, having a Force 10+ spirit to do your bidding is enough in itself. But again, too hard to tell anything yet with no solid rules.

Steamlined damage rules - that's something I really look forward to.

I think the final sentance in the post says a lot.



This hints at a fairly significant nerf, which if done right would be a good thing. Here are my thoughts.

Adjusting Drain Values: Probably a nerf. A big dice pool and good drain resistance made some spells too good, and the mana/stun combat spells were near the top of my list. Limits could make completely resisting drain impossible in more cases.

Restraining spirits: As discussed in another thread, this is debatable. Could make summoners even more powerful, especially with liberalized edge rules.

Enhancing Alchemy: I think this should be a skill group: Enchanting, Alchemy, Formula Design (or Disenchanting).

Adjusting tradition flavor: Excellent if done right. The magic supplement should have more awesome traditions.

Simplifying spell damage: Great if done right. This could he a huge nerf, especially with the new limit mechanic.

Rebalancing foci: I think preventing people from having a huge secondary income is a red herring, and there are other ways to do that. I would like to see magical items that mundanes can use, and they should be very expensive.

Look at the Kurokawa in Digital Grimore, a rating 6 weapon focus that automatically bonds itself to whomever wields it, awakened and mundane alike. Don't forget to read on how it was made.

I saw that. It's something of vulgar power. I would like weapon focuses to be usable by non-awakened, though. I also saw someone on this forum mention a spell defense focus. I liked that idea too. Items of protection from spirits, that do extra damage to certain beings, enchanted armor and the like are cool ideas, but they should be rare.

There have always been limits (aka. Force) when doing magic. In fact it was this idea that they wanted to expand to other areas.

Moved this to the thread I should have put it into in the first place. Nothing to see here.

These legendary enchantments are essentially one-of-a-kind plot devices, and those are supposed to be "impossible". If anyone could create it, why hire runners to steal it?