So, as the perennial magical Reaction enhancement discussion has come back once again, I've been having a few thoughts.

One of the character types that sometimes annoys GMs or other players who like sammies is the mage who decides to become mega-mana-buffed by quickening or sustaining via foci spells to increase his stats (usually his reaction).

One common complaint is that the reaction buffs are too easy. I just had a thought.

How well would it work to set up the appropriate buffing spells like this:

On both accounts, no. Those are both crippling, especially the latter, and you're preference for a "no need for seperate cybered-attribute spells" comment is just baffling if you find these types of "buffs" annoying to begin with. They also break the rules for spell design in multiple ways.

I honestly don't see the problem beyond a semantic one anyway. There's nothing easy about a Reaction-enhancing spell, let alone the others, and especially if you consider all the reprecussions thereof instead of just blindly looking at the numbers. The only one that's even close to "broken" is Increase Reflexes and the common houseruled version of that spell more than "fixes" it for those who find it broken as such.

so let me get this straight... for a guy with 1d6 normally for init he'd need to get 6 successes before he could get another +1d6? hell no! if that was actually implented permamently into a game i'd just abandon my mage and create another murder machine bleeding fast street sam and go ape-shit all over the place.

Fair enough. I _did_ say that I hadn't thought the implications through yet.
I wrote this in response to the "increase iniative spell is munchy" argument starting up again in another thread.

I don't think I'm familiar with the common house rule for increased initiative. What is it?

i think it's usually TN=reaction, every 2 successes give +1d6 init up to half the force of the spell.

+1d6 Initiative per 2 successes, max number of successes = Force? There was a poll of this once...

[Edit]Here it is. Funny results, though. Over 3/4 think the spell is just fine the way it is.[/Edit]

Prolly 'cause they see the big picture instead of just an "easy" +3D6 boost.

They they're nearsighted, cause I see lot's of NPC's that think the same way, and there's more NPC's than there are PC's.

What are you talking about?

NPCs have the exact same benefits available to them. An average of two actions per round, with three coming up maybe 40%ish of the time with a Reaction 5 magician, is hardly unbalancing.

Or are you telling me that you'd honestly be more scared of a full troll mage with Increase Reflexes 3D6 (who, at best without further augmentation one way or the other, has an initiative of 4+4D6 and a couple of Force 6 spells) over a troll sammy with Wired Reflexes 2 (8+3D6, plus allllll that other room for Body and Armor improvements, not to mention all the other toys and Reaction enhancements sammy's have available), or hell, even a troll adept with Improved Reflexes 2 (8+3D6)? I mean, if it's so broken, troll mages should be waaaaaay more common than troll sammies or adepts in a munchkinland, right?

Hmm. Interestig ideas with the thresholds ETC, but it makes it just as hard (or easy) as a stat 3 character reaching an attribute of 12 as a stat 11 character, and they both need the same force of spell which strikes me as wrong. I personally think that the TNs of the current spells should just be replaced with some fixed number. 10-essence may make i too easy to achieve high stats, but something in that ball-park (Blanbket TN6?) could work.