Clearly states the ACTING party is the preparation. It also defines the word trigger.



Again, clearly states the preparation is the actor (in this case the passive recipient of a condition (that's what trigger is defined as above).
Coincidentally, this actually places a restriction on the condition - i.e. a command trigger can solely be triggered by the alchemist himself.



It NOWHERE states that said simple action is magical - or even that it must be done with the intent to set off the preparation.
It only has to fulfil the trigger condition.



It doesn't have to say so, because i am NOT setting off multiple preparations. The preparations (as active - or rather, passive party) are set off after a CONDITION is met.



It says the command trigger is a condition that must be met, nothing else.
Exceptions from the general rule must be expressely stated, and if no two preparations could have the same trigger, that would be an exception to the general rule.

Here is where it gets much murkier. The problem is the wording "The next living being to touch the preparation activates the spell."

It is really vague on how to adjudicate what "the next living being" means.

Example:

"A Death Touch alchemical spell with a touch trigger bound
to a credstick, acid-etched with a haiku in kanji. It is left in
some barrens, just waiting for someone to pick it up."

Easy enough, the caster makes the preparation, puts it down, and the next living being to touch it gets hit with a Death Touch Spell.

The question is, does the caster touch it when he makes it? I.e., Rikki the Rat Shaman creates that preparation above. Does he have to touch it to make it? (Not that I am suggesting it would go off during the preparation, but does that mean that when he finishes the preparation, he is now holding it, and so he is not the "next" living being to touch it, he is still holding it. Now, he can put it down, or throw it at someone, and it will go off then.

OR

Does he finish it, and now it is lying there, waiting for someone to touch it - INCLUDING him?

Which brings up the next point - what counts as a "living being"? Does that mean if I pick up the credstick with gloves, will it go off? What if I pick it up with a tool, such as a a shovel? How close does it have to be to me to actually get triggered?

Now, you could say that you follow the rules for "Touch" ranged spells (page 281)

"Some spells can only be cast on targets that you’re
touching. You don’t need to see these targets, but you
might need to make an unarmed attack to make contact
with an unwilling target. Touching a target through
clothing, armor, or a layer of paint is acceptable."

But it doesn't actually say that anywhere.

In my opinion, it is the first way, i.e. the caster finishes the preparation and is now holding it, and may now throw it or put it down somewhere (although it does open more issues - more on that later).

As far as throwing two different marbles as two separate actions, each with a Fireball would definitely count as two attacks. Not because of the marbles, but because of the Fireballs.

Throwing multiple buff spells, however, would clearly be in the rules or even just handing your friend the 3 marbles, each with Armor, Combat Sense, and Invisibility.

Interestingly enough, that means if you want those three spells to affect the caster, he would have to put them down on the ground, and then pick them up again.


Now, for some more issues with the contact trigger. What if I put it on a bullet? Or multiple bullets? I fire a 3 round burst. Does it hit the guy with 3 fireballs, plus the bullet damage? Or 1? What about on 20 bullets and then I fire suppression fire? Does everyone who gets hit by the suppression fire also set off a fireball?

Now, you can figure out how to adjudicate this as you see fit, my problem is that the rules are just so vague on this point that it upsets me that such sloppiness went into the writing. I don't POSSIBLY see how the writers could have missed the whole - "wait, I want to make a bullet my preparation" and then failed to put in any cohesive ruling on it.

There are supposedly errata "on the way" but who knows how long it will be before then. Until then, the contact triggers are a little bit of a mess.

@Chinane

Guy, when you are at the point where you need to start talking about active and passive voice, and trying to pry apart the paragraphs to dissect and diagram the sentences, you are losing sight of the forest for the trees.

Do whatever you want in your games, live long and prosper, and I hope you enjoy them.

They have been scrambling over this on that other forum, and one of the semi-official words have been no preps on bullets, with the reason being as the impact on hitting wrecks the item, it fizzles out the prep, some were even claiming the scraping of the bullet down the barrel likewise could ruin it but that is still debatable.

So I suspect the errata in the end will say no to bullets, but knives and arrows are fine.

Now here is a thought for double whammy.

Take a grenade and change the primer so that it is fire sensitive. Yes all grenades will usually cook off in a fire eventually, but we want it to go off right away so the top of primer gets adjusted. Maybe put a protective cap over it for general carrying around.

Prep a fireball on it with a command trigger or whatever you want. Set the grenade for the standard 6 sec delay and throw the grenade. Use command to trigger the fireball as the grenade has not blown yet so the prep is intact. Fireball cooks the area as well as cooks off the grenade's primer which sets off the boom. Why set the delay at all? just in case something interrupts the user and they can't get the command off they still got a live grenade to deal with.

Then they can not argue that preps won't work on a grenade since in this case the prep is going off before the grenade's form is wrecked so the prep is intact.

Am I the only one that sees the absurdity in that? Does that mean I can choose a throwing knife as a fireball lynchpin but be unable to throw it because it's two attacks?

I've been putting off disecting the rules to show how weak the argument that the "one attack rule" covers every conceivable thing that could negatively affect an enemy really is.

I agree completely that the "one attack per action phase" is a stupid rule. Specifically because it allows for all sorts of oddities that never happened before in Shadowrun before because there was no artificial rule against multiple attacks per turn, so now you have all sorts of actions that are NOW a problem that weren't before.

Here is how ridiculous it is (not least of which is because the restriction to "one attack action per phase" is so inadequately codified.

Throwing a knife as a simple action. Legal.

Throwing two knives as one simple action, at one target, at short or medium range, with the multiple attack action. Legal.

Throwing two knives as one simple action, at two different targets, even next to each other, at short range. Illegal.

Throwing two knives as two simple actions, whether at one target or at two. Illegal.

Throwing a knife used as a preparation for an attack spell as a simple action. Legal.

Throwing two knives as one simple action, at one target, at short or medium range, with the multiple attack action, each one used as a preparation for a fireball spell. Legal.

Throwing two knives as one simple action, at two different targets, even next to each other, at short range each one used as a preparation for a fireball spell. Illegal.

I understand what they were TRYING to do, but I feel like no one actually ever PLAYED the game.

Also legal, coating a knife in toxin and then stabbing someone with it - clearly that is two attacks in one - but legal.

Lots of debate on how Shock Gloves work - do I get to punch you and do normal damage and then you get hit with the shock damage as well? I would say yes - but that again breaks the spirit of the rule.

Yeah, tell me about the tedium of breaking down a paragraph into parts small enough that the recipient of your explanation can grasp them.

Unfortunately it's the only way to communicate with the somewhat limited individuals of the 'it's not explcitely stated in the rules' faction, which often have no concept of the fact that there are logical implications from the way words are phrased.

Thanks for your thorough analysis. I actually like the idea of needing to split up your dice pool to attack more than once in a Combat Action. What I think is ludicrous is then taking a player's intent into account when deciding what an attack is.

Well, the one-attack rule could certainly be lawyered that way. I would counter this with pointing out that you can mass-order drones. But yeah, pushing a button and shooting may or may not fit in one "IP" anymore, depending on whether the button triggers an explosion or changes your music selection.

Also I agree with Shemhazai. In principle, I agree with the rulewriters that it will improve balance and playability, if you can only attack once per round, but the way it is phrased right now, it is very unclear and does not mesh well with the Reality. I think the following mechanics would all suit the purpose better:
- make a semi-exhaustive list of what does constitute an attack action (or simply mark the actions in the already existing list)
- convert all simple attack actions into complex actions, buffing them in the process.
- Introduce speed into the initiative system, e.g. making a simple action subtracts 5 from your initiative and a complex action subtracts 10 from your initiative for the next round.

Also, some clearer writing concerning both the contact trigger and to a lesser degree the command trigger would be appreciated. Hell, for contact, it does not even say explicitly how the target of the spell is chosen. If you really want to make me happy, please add something like a potion trigger, which activates when consumed. On the other hand, I could easily do away with the time trigger, as accurate time keeping does not seem to work well with the fluff of Magic.

I believe that healing spells can only have command triggers to prevent creating healing potions. The alchemist must still be there for the healing to happen.

Chinane, keeping it civil doesn't just mean insulting people in a civil way.