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psychophipps
It's pretty well known that jamming foreign gizmos and doo-dads into your body lowers your Essence score in SR. It's often described as "breaking" the link of a character's soul from the manasphere or some such. You jam too much goodies into yourself and you die as your soul is severed too far from your body, barring some serious (and expensive) magical intervention by specialists.

If it effects healing spells as a dice pool modifier, why the heck doesn't it effect all non-physical magic cast on that character? If there is less "soul" and manasphere connection in there, there should be less for a mage/spirit/whatever to latch onto and manipulate, right? It might even give you a penalty to assensing-only perception checks as you'll be seeing a chopped up image of someone with heavy enhancements rather than the whole outline of their aura like normal.

I propose that the dice penalties should apply to all non-physical spells. Things like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, etc are completely unaffected, of course. If you want to run around skullfucking someone with serious headware using Mind Probe and the like, you're in for a bad day at the office with the heavily enhanced.

Thoughts? Opinions?
CaptRory
I can't speak for the Shadowrunverse, but in the Dresden Files books healing magic is very very hard because it requires extremely fine control of energy. Changing someone's hair color is orders of magnitude more difficult than chucking a fireball at their face. So I could see something similar here where healing someone is very precise work easily messed with which frying them with lightning is just manipulating electricity.

Now, as for why mental magic isn't affected? No clue. It seems like it should be. Might be something to throw Street Samurai a bone.
binarywraith
In-world explanation : Healing magic encourages the body to rebuild itself to its ideal state. Modifications that cost Essence have disturbed what the body recognizes as that ideal state, and therefore the more disruption to Essence, the harder it is to convince the body to heal.

Game balance explanation : SR Mages aren't meant to be D&D clerics or MMO healers, and SR damage isn't meant to be treated as a numerical life bar that needs to be kept above zero and topped off between fights.

I could understand why mental manipulation spells could be affected the way healing is, but I would say that's not the case for game balance reasons. Otherwise, mages would have essentially no toolbox for dealing with heavily cybered opposition, as they are likely to have the physical stats to easily resist damaging spells. Adding what amounts to spell resistance just covers for the stats that are most often dumped when trying to min-max a beatstick.
Isath
Mistreating your body, to the point where your very essence is disturbed, is supposed to be a drawback.
Stahlseele
Because it'd make magic mostly useless.
Draco18s
Because it's easier to destroy than to fix.
psychophipps
QUOTE (Isath @ Jul 19 2014, 04:19 AM) *
Mistreating your body, to the point where your very essence is disturbed, is supposed to be a drawback.


Like how players initiate not for the magic point, but to get a meta-magic ability and to jam cyber/bio into themselves without losing any magic ability for doing so?
Isath
QUOTE
Like how players initiate not for the magic point, but to get a meta-magic ability and to jam cyber/bio into themselves without losing any magic ability for doing so now?


More like, I am not quite sure, how that is supposed to work. Cyber means lower essence, which in turn means compromised magic abilites, if there were any to start with.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 19 2014, 01:19 AM) *
In-world explanation : Healing magic encourages the body to rebuild itself to its ideal state. Modifications that cost Essence have disturbed what the body recognizes as that ideal state, and therefore the more disruption to Essence, the harder it is to convince the body to heal.

Game balance explanation : SR Mages aren't meant to be D&D clerics or MMO healers, and SR damage isn't meant to be treated as a numerical life bar that needs to be kept above zero and topped off between fights.

I could understand why mental manipulation spells could be affected the way healing is, but I would say that's not the case for game balance reasons. Otherwise, mages would have essentially no toolbox for dealing with heavily cybered opposition, as they are likely to have the physical stats to easily resist damaging spells. Adding what amounts to spell resistance just covers for the stats that are most often dumped when trying to min-max a beatstick.


And honestly, if you WANT that magical resistance for your Full Conversion Street Samurai, you just pick up the Quality that provides it. That is what I did. smile.gif
ShadowDragon8685
It's basically just another kick in the crotch of augmented characters - their enemies have no trouble fucking them with Essence spells, but their allies need to overcome herculean penalties to aid them.
hermit
And what are Essence spells? Is that something new from Street Grimoire?
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (hermit @ Jul 19 2014, 02:13 PM) *
And what are Essence spells? Is that something new from Street Grimoire?


Gah, it's been awhile, I may have the terminology wrong. Astral? Essence? Bleh.

Either way, it's spells that affect someone by linking through their aura, rather than conjuring a physical effect ex nihilo which is then free to effect the world.
Sendaz
Direct Mana spells I think is what you want.
Moirdryd
Binarywraith's "In World" explanation is bang on the money for the reason given going back into at least SR2 I believe. What's missing from current editions 4-5 is the problems that mages had with Trauma Patches and other invasive medical procedures (including life saving surgery) that could effect their Magic rating. Of course Drain now ONLY heals naturally.
psychophipps
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 19 2014, 08:47 AM) *
Because it'd make magic mostly useless.


For a game called "Magicrun" on a regular basis, I seriously doubt that such rules would = "all mages fail and die immediately". At Essence .01 there is still only a 5 dice modifier and with the 15+ dice pool characters we see here all the time on the boards, it's not that much of a handicap.
SpellBinder
QUOTE (hermit @ Jul 19 2014, 11:13 AM) *
And what are Essence spells? Is that something new from Street Grimoire?
In SR5, Health spells like Decrease [Attribute], Increase [Attribute], & Heal are Essence spells (you'll see it in parentheses just below the spell's name). In SR4 only Heal is really an Essence spell. In SR3, a quick peek has a few spells that are impacted by Essence, but then IIRC there were a lot more things impacted by Essence SR3 than just the spells.
Stahlseele
QUOTE (psychophipps @ Jul 20 2014, 02:25 AM) *
For a game called "Magicrun" on a regular basis, I seriously doubt that such rules would = "all mages fail and die immediately". At Essence .01 there is still only a 5 dice modifier and with the 15+ dice pool characters we see here all the time on the boards, it's not that much of a handicap.

i'm probably the first to admit that magic needs a nerf bat with the foam taken off applied to it . .
but if you turn that around at the accepted 33% success rate, you give a 0,01 essence samurai basically 15 dice of magic resistance . .
and you do remember the wailing and teeth gnashing any time a mundane gets such a huge bonus, do you not?

you'd also have to basically redefine all spells again. if mana does not work as good on less essence beings, then does it work better on higher essence beings?
also, if mana does work less good on lower essence in one form of a spell, then why not in another form of a spell like invisibility and levitation to name the two all time favourites to cast on mundanes for fun and profit . .
rythymhack
Not seriously suggesting this, but wouldnt it be easier to count every point of lost essence as +1pt object resistance?
psychophipps
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 19 2014, 06:42 PM) *
i'm probably the first to admit that magic needs a nerf bat with the foam taken off applied to it . .
but if you turn that around at the accepted 33% success rate, you give a 0,01 essence samurai basically 15 dice of magic resistance . .
and you do remember the wailing and teeth gnashing any time a mundane gets such a huge bonus, do you not?

you'd also have to basically redefine all spells again. if mana does not work as good on less essence beings, then does it work better on higher essence beings?
also, if mana does work less good on lower essence in one form of a spell, then why not in another form of a spell like invisibility and levitation to name the two all time favourites to cast on mundanes for fun and profit . .


So adding dice vs removing dice changes things that much? Magic resistance 4 is 1-1/3 added successes on average. 1 Essence or less would be 1-2/3 successes removed on average. Not really seeing the 15 dice thing from my end.
psychophipps
QUOTE (Moirdryd @ Jul 19 2014, 02:25 PM) *
Binarywraith's "In World" explanation is bang on the money for the reason given going back into at least SR2 I believe. What's missing from current editions 4-5 is the problems that mages had with Trauma Patches and other invasive medical procedures (including life saving surgery) that could effect their Magic rating. Of course Drain now ONLY heals naturally.


I really miss those rules, actually.
Temperance
QUOTE (psychophipps @ Jul 19 2014, 06:12 PM) *
So adding dice vs removing dice changes things that much? Magic resistance 4 is 1-1/3 added successes on average. 1 Essence or less would be 1-2/3 successes removed on average. Not really seeing the 15 dice thing from my end.


I think it's because he's seeing it like this (Stahlseele, please correct me if I'm wrong):

  1. Sorcerer has 15 dice.
  2. Then 0.01 Essence removes 5 dice.
  3. Sorcerer now has 10 dice.
  4. Average success on 10 dice is 3.3 hits on the initial casting roll.
  5. Assuming Magic Resistance 4, Sorc is at 2 hits on the ave roll.
  6. Sam gets his actual resistance test to lower this further.


So the Sam only needs 6 dice on average, to completely negate anything a mage throws at him. (If my math is right.)

-Ariketh
binarywraith
QUOTE (psychophipps @ Jul 19 2014, 08:14 PM) *
I really miss those rules, actually.


You and me both. There are many reasons that era's fluff set my expectations for how the game should be.
psychophipps
QUOTE (Temperance @ Jul 19 2014, 11:00 PM) *
I think it's because he's seeing it like this (Stahlseele, please correct me if I'm wrong):

  1. Sorcerer has 15 dice.
  2. Then 0.01 Essence removes 5 dice.
  3. Sorcerer now has 10 dice.
  4. Average success on 10 dice is 3.3 hits on the initial casting roll.
  5. Assuming Magic Resistance 4, Sorc is at 2 hits on the ave roll.
  6. Sam gets his actual resistance test to lower this further.


So the Sam only needs 6 dice on average, to completely negate anything a mage throws at him. (If my math is right.)

-Ariketh


So the issue, in your opinion, is that a purpose-built "fuck mages" character...umm...fucks mages? Isn't that kind of like being angry that your Porsche goes fast?
Sendaz
Edit:

The essence issue is an interesting one, for while some systems treat manufactured items as more resilient to magic like SR, other systems like BTRC actually had manufactured items more vulnerable to magic as they lacked that inner essence a 'pure' item had, pretty much making them putty in a mages hands.

In the interest of streamlining the rolls I probably would go more with adding the cybered target's defense dice pool, so an essence 1 Sammie would have +5 dice defending against harmful magics he is resisting.

This especially helps with aoe spells, otherwise it gets a bit messy trying to assign the penalty for a manaball hitting 4 targets with each person with different essence.

For Healing spells and other mana spells that and not resisted the current style of penalty to the initial caster DP could work well for those.

Detection spells are mana based, but some of these are also AOE type from the person it is put onto, so again this will need to be looked at for how the penalty would work.

The main problem I can see is the cybermages who intentionally bump their essence down then initiate magic back up to get the best of both in this, spell casting plus added defence for having low ess.

If you are going to go down this cyber=magic affects you less route, then you need to maybe make sensitive system or something similar mandatory for mages/adepts or simply ban mages from using cyber flatout.

Like Resonance, it's one or the other. So a character chooses, Magic or Resonance or Technology.

You could reintroduce something like the bio index maybe to allow cultured bioware for mages (no direct ess cost, but have a limit on how much bio they can take) and allow TMs access to cyber since it is sort of related to them, but this can open whole cans of arguments just on its own.

If you do go no cyber for mages, then you may also need to monitor foci addiction as mages will be using more foci though they may also go more preparations, quickened/anchored and such.

That said, I am not totally convinced this is the best way to go as you can see how it sort of snowballs from that initial idea, but it is certainly worth looking at to better fit your worldview of how things could be.
Stahlseele
@Temperance:
I am not yet fully awake, so i don't really understand that posting . .
I was going with the whole "you need on average 3 dice for soak for every hit on the attacker" and went backwards from that.
So if the attacker loses 5 dice and thus 5 hits, then you have, in effect, just gained around 15 dice in soaking mechanics.
Temperance
QUOTE (psychophipps @ Jul 19 2014, 09:46 PM) *
So the issue, in your opinion, is that a purpose-built "fuck mages" character...umm...fucks mages? Isn't that kind of like being angry that your Porsche goes fast?


I don't have any issue at all. I was simply trying to explain what I saw as Stahlseele's thought process. Which I see I was off target.

I think the rule is excessive, but I know better than to defend magic on Dumpshock. nyahnyah.gif So generally, I lurk.

QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 20 2014, 01:49 AM) *
@Temperance:
I am not yet fully awake, so i don't really understand that posting . .
I was going with the whole "you need on average 3 dice for soak for every hit on the attacker" and went backwards from that.
So if the attacker loses 5 dice and thus 5 hits, then you have, in effect, just gained around 15 dice in soaking mechanics.


But if the attacker loses 5 dice, he's only losing 1.67 hits. So I guess I'm just not following you.

-Temperance

Draco18s
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Jul 20 2014, 05:49 AM) *
So if the attacker loses 5 dice and thus 5 hits, then you have, in effect, just gained around 15 dice in soaking mechanics.


5 dice -/> 5 hits.
psychophipps
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jul 20 2014, 08:39 AM) *
5 dice -/> 5 hits.


But 5 dice sans Edge produces 5 hits less than 1/3 of 1% of the time...
Smash
Before people start engaging in the 'Oh my god, the writers are such NUBZ, it's totally logical that low essence should make you resist magic better' discussions, they might want to think about the implications of such a mechanic.

I thought about it a while ago and I really don't think the game gains anything by it's introduction. For example:

1) Mental stats become dump stats for Samurais. I know that's what a lot of people seem to want but there should meaningful drawbacks to having all your mental stats at 2. Every Samurai becomes a 2 dimensional cyber-zombie and I don't want to play that game.

2) While samurais get a boost out of it some other archetypes get left further behind. Remember the 'Rocker' or the 'Detective' archetypes? Well they become even more pointless as they are still resonably susceptible to magic and don't bring much to the table in terms of combat.

There becomes a point where games become table-top wargames which was evident upon the release of 4th Ed D&D and you will notice that 5th Ed is basically a reprint of 2nd Ed. Going back to basics seemed to be the way to go at that point.
psychophipps
QUOTE (Smash @ Jul 20 2014, 09:57 PM) *
Before people start engaging in the 'Oh my god, the writers are such NUBZ, it's totally logical that low essence should make you resist magic better' discussions, they might want to think about the implications of such a mechanic.

I thought about it a while ago and I really don't think the game gains anything by it's introduction. For example:

1) Mental stats become dump stats for Samurais. I know that's what a lot of people seem to want but there should meaningful drawbacks to having all your mental stats at 2. Every Samurai becomes a 2 dimensional cyber-zombie and I don't want to play that game.

2) While samurais get a boost out of it some other archetypes get left further behind. Remember the 'Rocker' or the 'Detective' archetypes? Well they become even more pointless as they are still resonably susceptible to magic and don't bring much to the table in terms of combat.

There becomes a point where games become table-top wargames which was evident upon the release of 4th Ed D&D and you will notice that 5th Ed is basically a reprint of 2nd Ed. Going back to basics seemed to be the way to go at that point.


Funny, I see point #1 with mages all the time but for physical stats. It is bad for Sammies to be blunt force instruments only, which I agree with. The world of Shadowrun is far too complex for anyone to truly thrive in the shadows if all they can do effectively is sneak around and make things scream and bleed. But the "glass cannon" effect of mages has long been an in-game trope that is not only accepted, but is pretty much expected.

Dumping mental stats for Sammies are asking for trouble with the possible exception of Charisma (pretty much a dump stat anyway outside of a face archetype or shaman for Drain rolls) and maybe Logic (if no technical skillset is expected). Intuition is linked to Initiative and Perception which are pretty much critical for an effective Sammy and a low Willpower is easy to screw the Sammy over with just because of the smaller Stun track, the effect of Stun damage through armor, and the fact that simple stare-downs in bars will show him being a little bitch with Notoriety to match.

Point two is strongly dependent on the game you play. If you use social effects of bio/cyberware and/or equipment in your game, including bio/cyberware legality, then it's a largely a moot point. Having an Essence in the toilet certainly helps against Magical Force and Essence-based mages, but all of the standard physical-effect spells have 100% effectiveness. A Power 5 Lightning Bolt with 4 hits still sucks and has zero penalties, in other words.

I just think that it might be interesting to add a bit of "fuck the mages" to the laundry list of "fuck the mundanes" that has been a constant trope in SR for quite a while now.
Surukai
QUOTE (Temperance @ Jul 20 2014, 06:00 AM) *
I think it's because he's seeing it like this (Stahlseele, please correct me if I'm wrong):

  1. Sorcerer has 15 dice.
  2. Then 0.01 Essence removes 5 dice.
  3. Sorcerer now has 10 dice.
  4. Average success on 10 dice is 3.3 hits on the initial casting roll.
  5. Assuming Magic Resistance 4, Sorc is at 2 hits on the ave roll.
  6. Sam gets his actual resistance test to lower this further.


So the Sam only needs 6 dice on average, to completely negate anything a mage throws at him. (If my math is right.)

-Ariketh


Your math is not right.

A dice pool of 6 wins against a dice pool of 15 (!) a full 5% of the time. That is not that uncommon.

Mooks with pistols 6 hits the ninja with defence 15 one out of twenty shots (even when using an acc 4 gun!). Players always gawk at their dice when they roll 2- hits on their big defence pools but it does happen, a lot and it isn't even unlikely.

To get the true chances of success versus a pool of a certain size you have to sum all the outcomes

Sum_n=1 to Skill for : Chance attacker rolls n * chance defender rolls at least minimum of (LIMIT, n).

And, as a reminder: the chance to roll exactly n hits with k dice is, in excel format COMBIN(k, n)*(2/3)^(k-n)*(1/3)^n

The reasoning is basically the chance to roll exactly n hits in a row followed by k-n (the rest) misses, times the number of ways you can rearrange the hits and misses.

I made a full table of all this when I examined the effects of limits, the difference between accuracy of various weapons against various levels of enemies and to prove that grenades as per RAW are retarded. An attack pool of 10 dice has 78% chance to make a direct hit with a grenades against _any_ target. The same dice pool has a mere 65% against a target with only 6 dice defence (someone with just 3 reaction and intuition) and 23% hit chance versus 12 defence and 12% versus 15 dice defence. But, that is another topic so nevermind:)


Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Grenades are lethal for a reason. smile.gif
Just like Actual REAL Rockets and Missiles are Lethal. Which make them less fun for actual games, but that makes no never mind. smile.gif

But you are right... Different Topic for Different Times. smile.gif cool.gif
Draco18s
QUOTE (Surukai @ Jul 21 2014, 10:24 AM) *
Your math is not right.

[math]


Just so you know, he wasn't comparing 6 to 15. He was comparing 10 to 10.

QUOTE
Sorcerer has 15 dice.
[stuff you ignored]
So the Sam only needs 6 dice on average


While 6 does does work against 15 5% of the time, that wasn't what he said. He said that "with essence removing dice from spellcasting" the Sam would have a 50% chance against 15 dice whilst only having a willpower of 6.
Koekepan
I've been thinking about this one for a while, and here are my thoughts on it:

I think that mana based spells as well as essence manipulation spells should be harder, because there's less to target. If healing is less effective, so is mind reading, mental manipulation and so on.

On the other hand, none of this would make greasing the floor under a cyberzombie any more difficult or less effective, so what it really implies is that magicians of all types would have to think a bit harder about their tactical approach.

It doesn't make the cyberzombie invulnerable to magic, but it means that the magicrun aspect of things is constrained.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Koekepan @ Jul 21 2014, 10:31 AM) *
I've been thinking about this one for a while, and here are my thoughts on it:

I think that mana based spells as well as essence manipulation spells should be harder, because there's less to target. If healing is less effective, so is mind reading, mental manipulation and so on.

On the other hand, none of this would make greasing the floor under a cyberzombie any more difficult or less effective, so what it really implies is that magicians of all types would have to think a bit harder about their tactical approach.

It doesn't make the cyberzombie invulnerable to magic, but it means that the magicrun aspect of things is constrained.


I have always agreed with this approach, but sadly it has yet to be implemented.

I am a big proponent of diversifying the options/tactical thinking of Magicians, and there are hundreds of spells that hardly ever see the light of day due to most Magicians taking the same exact spells, time after time. frown.gif
Temperance
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jul 21 2014, 08:24 AM) *
Just so you know, he wasn't comparing 6 to 15. He was comparing 10 to 10.

While 6 does does work against 15 5% of the time, that wasn't what he said. He said that "with essence removing dice from spellcasting" the Sam would have a 50% chance against 15 dice whilst only having a willpower of 6.


Pretty much. Though WP wasn't what I specifically had in mind, with the fact that indirect spells have larger resistance pools. IE: Sorcerer has 10 spellcasting dice. Sam has 10 defense dice (6 from his pool, 4 from Magic Resistance). Assuming average hits at 33%, Sam ignores magic.

I wasn't trying to get fancy. smile.gif

-Temperance
binarywraith
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jul 21 2014, 08:42 AM) *
Grenades are lethal for a reason. smile.gif
Just like Actual REAL Rockets and Missiles are Lethal. Which make them less fun for actual games, but that makes no never mind. smile.gif

But you are right... Different Topic for Different Times. smile.gif cool.gif


Grenades aren't lethal anymore, though. frown.gif

After Run & Gun, they're strictly an initiative reducer, as everyone will immediate action move out of their blast radius.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (binarywraith @ Jul 21 2014, 03:45 PM) *
Grenades aren't lethal anymore, though. frown.gif

After Run & Gun, they're strictly an initiative reducer, as everyone will immediate action move out of their blast radius.


Which is sad. frown.gif
Draco18s
I imagine they're still lethal to anyone who can't.
Sendaz
Grenade launcher with a 3 shot BF option and it intentionally scatters them slightly to decrease the chance of you getting entirely clear of all of them. nyahnyah.gif
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jul 21 2014, 03:53 PM) *
I imagine they're still lethal to anyone who can't.


There should be absolutely no dodging of Launched Grenades. Impact means detonation. Though I know it is not fun to be on the receiving end of that (IRL OR GAME), which his why they work the way they do in Game. frown.gif
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