Newest PDF-Only Mini-Sourcebook. New traditions, spells, and adept abilities.

Shadow Spells on DTRPG

I wonder what Giatronics is and what it does. And why they have beef with the same guy Gaeatronics was fighting with in the last few PDFs?

Also, say hello to the first official Shadowrun DLC.

That's new, innit?

Yup.

Yeah, the giant Giatronics (sic) typo right at the start was real PTSD trigger, dredging up memories of, well, every other SR5 product.

But overall, I would call this great value for money. No wasted pages, just meat - delivers as promised on spells, powers, traditions, and groups.

If it wasn't meat ripped from the writhing, mangled body of Street Grimoire, I'd be inclined to agree.

Now, now. You know Street Grimoire was going to be a crack baby at the very best. Maybe this was some sort of twisted mercy killing, the developers desperately clawing for a few more weeks to try and unbugger at least -part- of the rules.

Apparently, it wasn't.

According to Critias, the ebook and the core book lines are completely different. I'm willing to believe him, but I'm not pleased about it. And we are still lacking spell creation rules.

-Temperance

Maybe it'd put too much power into the hands of the customers. Limit what we know to what they're willing to spoon feed us.

Of course, maybe they're still also tiptoeing through their own shit for the lack of some consistency and trying to figure out how to fix it, like the drain change for AOE spells ranging from +1 to +3 with no rhyme or reason.

I dunno, I've never known the spell creation rules to be all that helpful. Mostly, they just get used my munchy players trying to break the system.

Honestly, I don't think they ever will, just because they don't want to let us know they were eyeballing it.

the problem with the spell creation rules is that they didn't tend to add new effects. you couldn't really make your own completely new spell idea using them, you could only combine other effects to make a spell; for example, you could decide that you wanted a different elemental ball spell that wasn't released yet, or make an AOE invisibility spell, or a spell that buffs an attribute but only for elves, etc.

you couldn't really use them to make something completely different, because no guidelines whatsoever were given for that. some things you could simulate to a certain extent (you couldn't make an illusionary monster that wracks the target with pain, but you could make an area-effect spell that inflicts pain and move it around and pretend that it looks like a monster, for example), but anything that wasn't already in there you just had to make something up anyways. it wasn't so much a way to build new spells as to customize existing ones, in that way.

on a side note, as far as systems for creating your own spells, it is by far one of the least abusive i've ever seen. i'm not saying it didn't have potential for abuse or anything, mind you; just, as far as it goes, other systems i've seen to accomplish the same goals (being able to design your own spels) tend to be far, far worse. even when you did do something ridiculous, it was hard to come up with something that was worse than the basic stuff; i mean, really, what did you ever see that was more destructive to the game than a stunball or mob mind spell? you could get some nice discounts on occasion, but most of the really powerful stuff was canon anyways.

Well, we also lack the promised item creation rules. Remember those? I'll hazard a guess: there won't be vehicle creation rules either.


Well. I tend to favor suspecting incompetence over malice, but this is another serious screwup, if it indeed was one and not malice.

First, the book blatantly claims on the front page the material was cut (in that smartass way CGL seems to consider tongue-in-cheek I learned to loathe in run&Gun):



Then, on the topic of the missing, but referenced, Melanin Control and Living Focus powers, Namikaze, member of the Shadowrun Supporters, quotes an unnamed developer that these powers will be released in an upcoming PDF, Shadow Spells (since it was to that date unnamed, he definitly had insider knowledge, though he was wrong about Melanin Control - probably mixed it up with Keratin Control).

Now, maybe this was a screwup - the powers weren't put in because of the disorganisation and lack of editorial professionalism we've come to expect of Jason Hardy era Shadowrun. It seems fairly likely it was. But if so, you have a communications disaster on hand, CGL. And it'd not be the first. This bumbling along has been going on and on since the disasterous release of War, and you've always promised improvements, and it has never happened. What the hell is wrong at CGL? Because evidently, something is. Very much so.

I still say these are the actions of a company that knows they're about to lose the license and desperately wants to get shit out, no matter how much it stinks, before they do.

I've seen quite a few abuses over the years. To be fair, it was better than the 2e AD&D spell creation rules, which was "The DM makes stuff up", but mostly I've seen players try and figure out how to get overpowered spells an even-lower drain code, so they could throw high force spells with impunity. This has held true for every edition of Shadowrun to date.


Hearing that the e-books and the core line are totally separate sounds more like incompetence to me. There's no good reason to divide things like that, not if you know what you're doing.

Forget the players, the use of a creation system would be to have consistent spell designs by the developers. Keep the system secret if you want, but spare us the arbitrary Drain codes.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I rather believe that the SR5 drain codes were made up on the spot. I think they're not going to release the spell creation rules for that reason-- they don't want us to catch on.

Aside from whining about the usual CGL quality, it's a nice little book. I'm not overwhelmed, especially by the fluff bits, but it's solid.

As for CGL losing the license, has there been any indication anything like that is coming? Who's to take over? I'm not exactly seeing a queue.

Quick question, anyone have any idea what that Reagent Cost Table on page 24 is good for?

The adept powers near the table, naturally. Power swimming, most likely.

Actually, for Core and Street Grimoire, I figure. I see mentions of reagents, but I don't see any price table at a glance in either book.

Got a chance to flip through it. Not impressed. Keratin Control and Living Focus make an appearance, but they're included in the SG Errata, so that's nice and dispells (see what I did there?) those nasty DLC accusations for Shadow Spells.
First things first: The cover is horrible. Just about the only thing I like about it is the haircut of the stomped dude.
There's a few glaring errors, such as "Giatronics" and the Boston not-Merlyns apparently cannot learn spells through one formula for stun bolt, but treat them as one-use D&D scrolls instead and throw them away. Really creative use of the last name Soprano, too. And is it really O'Rilley or O'Riley, or did they mean O'rly (disregard, this is a really subjective and personal irritation).

Onwards then! NPCs apparently do not need to follow rules, as impressively shown by a certain Kincaid (forgot the first name), who apparently gets his kicks from having a sorcery skill group at rating 14, but maybe he traded the title bar of his table for that, just like the adept before him who has gymnastics at 14 and unarmed combat at 16 (and yes, I've checked. He has Improved Ability 2 for that skill, making the notation 16 (18)).

Another thing that amazes me is the appearance of HMHVV specific buff spells. That's great, I guess. Finally players have the ability to make their opponents stronger if they're not challenged enough. Or it's a GM-only tool.
Or a not-so-subtle foreshadowing for the return of PC Infected.

Other people mentioned the lone and weirdly placed reagents table, slap dash in the middle of adept powers. That confused the hell out of me, but then I remembered the average layout of SR5 books, so that lessened my surprise.


BUT!
There are also good things. A bit of fluff about a metaplane. These kind of things always interest me, and it's okay-ish, apart from how people apparently funnel energy from there and get in trouble with crystal alien spirits. I'm not sure if I want precedence of direct connections to the metaplanes in the fluff, but there it is. Some may like it, others may not, but it's interesting either way in my opinion.
Then we have four new traditions, complete with preferred spells, although for some reason only vikings have preferred adept powers. That's a shame.
Not all the magical groups are as uninspired as the somethingsomethingblasters, and they're diverse and international from what I saw.
Threats are also a good thing to have. I really loved Threats 1 and 2, and while this book only contains magical things, it's to be expected. No arguments here. Short writeups, lots of adventure hooks.
Some beloved spells make comebacks, but I havent' checked for the (probably inevitable) rules issues. I've read at other places that some of these spells are only resisted with one attribute again, which would make them problematic. But there's a lot, and a good amount of adept powers, too.
Overall, I also liked the artwork used inside, and the price point is good, as it was for most PDF-products.
Won't buy it myself, since I don't play SR5, but depending on your tastes, it could be for you. 6 out of 10, with -1 for layout and typos and another -1 for ignoring the rules for NPCs.

I'd say there have already been a few. Digital Grimoire was, arguably, the first, and "Way of the Adept" was the first "pay $5 to increase your character's power by 10%" DLC.

The spell creation rules is what made me want to play a mage. In all Shadowrun editions they were the best custom creation rules and the only ones that stayed mostly in check. It's sad that they were removed.

Not to my knowledge. Suspicions that CGL are trying to squeeze some more milk from a cow they know is dying (or being repossessed) have been leveled since the Year of Chaos, but they still have the license.

AFAIK, SR 5 is a great commercial success.

Whose commercials?

Maybe I've made a bad translation from french.

I've meant they sell a lot of SR5 books.

Naah... Your translation was fine...
It is just that I have a hard time seeing SR5 as a commercial success when it is so chock full of errors and issues.
CGL would say it is successful, the consumers (of which I am one) would likely heavily disagree. *shrug*
Not that SR5 does not have great ideas... they were just implemented so horribly that I have a real hard time getting onto the band wagon of support.

Successful is measured in net sales.
No matter if the product is riddled with typos, layout issues and even rules problems, if people buy it, it's successful. And it caters to a specific crowd, so I can easily imagine that sales are good.

Success is measured in whether it CONTINUES to sell... Initial sales mean nothing if further sales dry up and blow away.

Nothing, except operational funds. But that's neither here nor there.
a) We've got no insight into internal information like sales figures, costs, income and net earnings. We can only guesstimate from things like how fast e.g. the core book and the limited editions sold out, and
b) This is not the thread for that kind of speculation, nor is it helpful.

So, a thread talking about the merits of a newly released book is not the place to discuss the merits of the book and its predecessors? Huh... Who knew?

No, that's not what I meant.
The merits of a book aren't how it's being sold in your imagination. If you have any hard data, let us know, though.
The merits (or lack thereof) are substantial things, like how it is written, layout, usability, cover, artwork and so on. Anything to say on that matter?

Sure... It sucks?
Not happy with it at all, but then, in my opinion, each subsequent book has been less impressive than the one before it.
And the Main book, though pretty, is so flawed that I just can not get on board with any praise whatsoever.
It is like CGL just quit caring. I don't know why that would be, but it sure seems like it to me (and apparently a lot of others as well).
Sad, really, since I did originally have high hopes for the line going forward.

That depends. Core books sell the best, this has been the default assumption ever since D&D 3.0 came out. So, it's possible that CGL considers that great initial sales of the error-laden SR5 BBB to be the main profit center and everything else is just a sop to the fans. Expect 5.5 to be out in a few years.

i dunno. stunball for spirits *is* an excellent spell, but you probably already know stunball and/or stunbolt anyways, and those are ludicrously good already. is stunball for spirits really dramatically better than stunball, to the point of being more broken? honestly, i'm not convinced it is. basically all of the brokenness of it comes from stunball, not from being limited to spirits only. i suppose there's some room to argue that maybe vehicle-only power bolt is a bit too much, maybe.

likewise with most other custom-designed spells. they're good and all, but are they really more destructive to the game than the default overpowered and broken spells like mind probe or mob mind or stunball? i've seen tons of threads where people ask what to do about those spells, and i can't recall a single thread where someone was super-frustrated by a spirt stunball or anything like that.

Small, TTRPG-heavy publishers like CGL have to live by short-term profit. They're too small and their profit margin too small to be able to rely on reserves should a product tank. So the mere fact that CGL is still operational seems to imply their lines sell successfully. They're extremely small. If one of their major lines would tank, we'd see them come crashing down fast.

As for abysmal quality restricting the success of a product: No. That is just false. GM, Apple, Facebook, Lockheed prove you wrong.

Try spirit-only stunball with a range of touch. It explodes out centered on the caster, but since the caster is immune, there's no drawback.



Problem is, CGL can put out really good product. Their Battletech line is pretty solid, the typos and editing issues Shadowrun is having wouldn't fly there. It's not just a question of short term profit, it's that Shadowrun seems to be their red-headed stepchild.

As can be seen in the vast increase in layout and artwork quality with shadowrun after the purge, it's the person in charge that makes or breaks things. The BT people are competent. The art director at CGL's Shadowrun team (well, one of them anyway) is competent. The line editor is not. The PDF editor also seems not to be. And Shadowrun under Line Dev Jason Hardy massively sufers from nepotism - I mean, not to diss Kat Hardy too much, but she is an amateur artist with zero education for her job, yet she made art director in a few years? Seriously?

Shadowrun is not necessarily the red-headed stepchild. It's more like badly governed and badly led. While bias on part of CGL's owners may play a role, I'm certain that, with a decent editor who doesn't create posts for his wife, the line would look a lot better.

I'm not at all sure of that. My understanding is that the problems go all the way up to the top. While I suspect Hardy is in over his head, it doesn't help that he seems to be too busy with other things to be an effective line developer. I mean, in addition to the RPG, he's expected to oversee a video game, a card game, novels, and a board game. That's an awful lot for anyone to handle, plus I suspect he's often drafted to help with Battletech.

still not feeling it. yeah, it's useful. but before i spend the karma or BP to learn that, i'm going to learn stunball and stunbolt first.

the low draincode is nice. the selective targeting is nice. but stunbolt already has low drain code and selective targeting, and i can use it on stuff that isn't a spirit.

if i had infinite spells, then sure i'd make use of that one. but ultimately, i have to ask whether i really want to spend my karma on that spell, or whether i'd rather initiate or learn a new metamagic instead. personally, i'm inclined to say that other things would really take priority. it's nice, but it's not that much nicer than the ridiculously broken stuff that is available in core. when i can overcast a force 11 stun bolt and only have to resist 2 drain on probably ~12 dice, does it really matter how much lower the drain code is? i'm already facing the absolute minimum drain value anyways. what kind of spirits are you casting spells at that force 11 isn't good enough? and if that isn't good enough, then are you even able to succeed on the spellcasting test in the first place?

I forgot another one: personal-only buff spells, like increase attribute, increase reflexes, anxd armor. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen those spells cast on other people. Same's true for many detection spells.

the drawback to stat-buff spells is that you need to sustain them somehow, and the force needs to be equal to the base stat or the number of hits you want to use, either of which result in requiring a high force sustaining focus per spell or taking a penalty to everything you do. drain is not what keeps those spells in check. sustaining penalties are.

detection spells, i suppose that's true, but how often do you need a high force one? i suppose getting the drain a bit lower is nice, and at least in these cases you're not likely to need the standard version either, but i'm still not seeing the problem. apart from mind probe, which most GMs seem to feel earns a witch hunt for anyone that uses it if they can even remotely justify others knowing about it, detection spells are not breaking the game whether or not you can cast them with minimal drain.

also, sometimes it's nice to be able to give the sense to someone else, although i'll admit that's pretty rare.

That was only true starting with SR4. In SR3, you could increase it up to a max = Force, which made self-only spells more valuable. Also, in every edition, you could start with a sustaining focus, so getting an Increase Reflexes spell sustained wasn't too hard. Sure, you could slow down the spell lock trick by using wards, but that's where the lower drain of personal only spells came into play: you could cast it in combat with no fear of drain.

Combat Sense comes to mind. I saw an awful lot of it over the years, with enough you were basically unhittable. (This was more a problem in SR4, where defense pools were constant; in SR3, it added to your combat pool, but was used up every time you dodged.) SR3 had Enhance Aim, which was always useful; SR4.5 had Analyze Device, which was basically free dice to use any given piece of equipment.

so in your experience, there's no possible benefit to be derived from casting combat sense on anyone else in the group? there's never any advantage to, say, buffing 2-3 of your teammates with increase reflexes and letting them fight?

that doesn't reflect my experience. certainly, if i learn those spells, it's likely because i want to use them for myself... but having the option to cast them on others does add something to the spell.

also, in my experience (which is somewhat limited, admittedly; i've barely plaid any SR3 and nothing before it) casting buff spells in the first round of combat tends to result in everything being dead before you get to use the buff spell in combat. so yes, you can cast increase reflexes in combat... but then by the time your action comes around again, there isn't much to do.

and again, spell locks/sustaining focuses are great and all, but you still have to go through a ward every now and then, and you're still lit up like a christmas tree on the astral.

sustaining penalties make buff spells a lot less appealing in shadowrun, particularly when combined with the presence of (commonly available) defensive options that make it harder to use the tools which provide relief from the sustaining penalty.

Didn't say that. I'll just say that in all my years of playing Shadowrun (since 1989!), I have *never* seen those spells cast on someone else.


The trick is, you deactivate the focus just before you walk through a ward, then recast the spell on the other side. So, you more or less constantly have the spell up. Unless you get ambushed the second you pass through the ward, you'll keep the benefits. You can slow down this trick by having multiple nested wards, but then you slow down game play as the player constantly rerolls for the spell.

The rule-based trick to stop this is Drain. If the spell has a high drain code, each successive casting increases the risk that the mage will take damage. However, personal-only spells negate some of that penalty, making Drain much more manageable.

Last time I ran a mission, I had a player that had Improved Reflexes spell, and in more than one fight had asked about casting it on someone to help in a fight. Was pointless and the two combat characters knew it. Only once did a fight last more than a single round of combat, and that was because they were dealing with hostile spirits with a +3 BGC aspected towards said spirits. Mind, this was SR4a using SR5's initiative rules, and the fastest character was, on average, rolling into the mid/high 20's constantly.

well yeah... you don't cast them after combat starts. they're useless whether you're casting them on yourself or anyone else if you do that.

Street Grimoire has an interesting presedence with "Vampiric Speed" as an area spell that buffs a specific group. Shadowrun needs more of those spells.

Stunbolt, Buff spells and the like all suffer from the same problem. The opportunity cost to learn spells as well as have spells active are very high in Shadowrun.

The problem with stunbolt really is that it is a "one size fits all" spell in a world were the vast majority of mages knows less than a dozen spells. If learning spells were cheap or spell cost actually scaled with the power of a spell, the game could get away with making universally useful spells expensive and spells like spiritbolt could shine. People would chose the right tool for the job. But with the current spell cost there is zero reason to pick something specific over something general as long as the drain isn't way out there. This also leads to many many spells being virtually unused. Spells like makeover, fast, nutrition, trid spectacle etc are nice in theory, but at 5 karma each (or spells like analyze device, mind control etc as alternatives) they are too expensive. Three spells equal a grade of initiation. In order for those spells to be worth it, they better be damn useful.

For buff spells, the problem lies with the fact that a mage can chose between making himself better or making another better. There are no party spells. If I want to buff my group (we are three players) with the same spell I either take -6 to everything or find some way to offset the penalties. The game is turning into magic run because mages don't synergize with their parties, they compete with them. If a mage could cast one combat sense, buff the entire group and pay a -2 penalty (or the opportunity cost of a focus) for it, it would add to everyone's enjoyment and people would love to have mages around. Dispelling active spells would actually be worth it as a tactical option. Instead, the mage's increase agility spell competes with the street sam's muscle toner for dominance.

On top of those, there is is the overcasting problem and the fact that physical drain is only a drawback if you actually take drain. Without it, overcasting becomes free power that double dips because not only do you increase the base damage/ effect of your spell, you also increase the limit of the spell. If either of those two were hardlimited by your magic rating and one the other could be influenced overcasting would still be powerful but nowhere near as problematic as it is now.

Nothing stops a character from choosing the right spell for the job. The issue is that most players won't make that choice over an increased Magic Rating or Initiation.

The last Magician character I played (4th Edition Game, just wrapped up a few months ago) had over 60 learned spells, with another 50 (or so) formulas purchased for learning (when Karma came available). Yes, it meant that his Magic did not raise, nor did he initiate excessively, but I saw that as a better option than just the straight increase of POWER. In my opinion, you see POWER mages all the time (Dime a Dozen), but you rarely see a character that has the right spell for the right occasion. He worked out amazingly well, in that regard.

Yes, Spells are expensive, but they are extremely useful (and thus their cost). The Cost is simply an excuse that Players use to justify why they don't have something when the simple fact is that they could just purchase it. Yes, it comes at the expense of something else, but do you really need a Magic rating of 9 and 5 Initiate Grades?

And with the Spell creation rules of SR4A, you could do exactly what you are describing with little difficulty (AOE, Limited Targets).

As for Overcasting - If PLAYERS were less willing for their Characters to take the equivalent of a Pistol/SMG/AR/AC round to the head, you would see far less overcasting going on. Players are far too willing to "roll those dice of luck" than the Character would likely be. The above mentioned Mage I played overcast less than 5% of the time, and ONLY when there was absolutely no other choice. Mainly because he DID have the right spell for the job, more often than not.

You're right that there is a choice, but being sub par compared to the other players at the table is generally not fun. You're missing the main point though, spell costs are not proportional or in any sense related to their usefulness. A spell always costs 5 Karma no matter what. That's what leads to the widespread practive of trying to get the biggest bang for your buck.

Utility equipment, such as armored clothing, sensors and 'ware scale in cost with their power and usefulness. Spells don't.

Spell creation rules allowed for such spells, but the problem lies in the fact that none are canon. Long before the creation rules came/come out, the game of "buff yourself" was established.

Not sure why you consider choosing Spells over Magic/Initiation as Subpar. I sure don't. As for "biggest bang for your buck," I have found that having more spells is far more useful than having fewer spells. It is also far more useful than obtaining a higher Magic rating or Initiation grade.

Spells scale in power based upon Magic Rating and Foci. No need to differentiate based upon other criteria.

So none are canon. So what. Why would that stop you from Creating them. And if they are created with the Spell creation rules, they are portable. As long as the rules are followed, they are legitimate. Which does not change the idea of "Buff Yourself" on bit.