Elsewhere, during a discussion of House Rules, this thread was referenced: Old thread asking about the spell - Influence

After skimming the thread, it got off track about helping curb the Inluence spell, which could easily be curbed by not having the spell work until it became permanent. But then people will naturally point to the mechanics for making a spell permanent where the effect happens immediately, which is how Influence (to me) gets abused.

I thought of the standard example of using Influence to have a guard decide they need to use the bathroom, they leave their post, the runners move past the post, all in far less than 15 turns required to make the spell permanent, so the magician no longer needs to sustain the spell and it never bacame permanent. In my mind, then the spell should not have provided the benefit, but I don't feel like arguing about it.

Since then, I thought of a better example, or even series of examples. The magician casts Influence through the ballistic glass of the guard shack: Buzz the door open. The guard buzzes the door open, the runner team starts through the open door on the next turn. The magician drops the spell because why sustain it 14 more turns? The magician sees the guard going for the panic button and casts Influence: It is useless to hit the panic button; it hasn't worked for weeks (or some other suggestion forestalling hitting said panic button.) The magician only sustains it long enough for the other runners to engage the guard. The magician drops the sustainment after a turn or two and casts Influence on the guard: resistance is futile; I should surrender before they kill me. The guard surrenders and is restrained, so for a third time the magician quits sustaining the spell. This entire scenario could easily play out in much less than 15 combat turns.

All this is perfectly legit by the rules, but it breaks the need to have the spell be permanent which is a rule for using the spell at all. The really exploitive player will design a Sustained version of the spell, meaning the spell only works as long as it is sustained, and get a Drain reduction to further exploit the rules.

Seems reasonable to me.

So I mentioned in previous discussion the idea of having a side effect during the sustaining period only to dismiss that as epicycles, but having read your points in that thread and thinking about it more, I’ve come around to them as an idea. So:

Heal/Treat only heal damage when they become permanent, but while sustained the target doesn’t bleed out.

Influence only has the suggestion take effect when the spell becomes permanent, but it creates a low-level mesmerization that causes the subject to be unconcerned about the act of casting this spell while it’s sustained; they can still react to other events, including things the caster does beyond casting and sustaining the Influence spell. Dropping the spell before it’s permanent creates an opportunity to notice the subject’s own odd behavior.

Stabilize stabilizes temporarily while sustained, permanently when permanent.

This all has no basis in the canonical rules, of course, where it seems to work exactly as you outline.

~J

We always play it that the influence has no effect until the spellcasting is complete i.e. you have taken all the requisite time/combat turns to finish spellcasting and turn it into a permanent effect. Until that point it has no effect, and the target isn't affected by the spell. So, in the examples you gave - until you've spent 15 turns casting, the guard doesn't think he needs the loo, and he's not leaving his post. Also, during that time, they're fully aware, and will act - and if they spot the mage giving them the funny eyebrow wiggle, they get to make their perception test at 10-F to spot the casting and become suspicious. So at that point it's beholden on the rest of the team to be the distraction or run interference for the spellcaster and help them succeed. That way the spell is harder to cast, sure - but it's not breaking the game or plot, and neither are the NPCs / enemies using it to screw over your team at every opportunity.

That's my normal go-to when a player in my Pink-Mohawk tries to game stuff or abuse rules like this. Just start deploying bad guys using the same rules, and see if they want to play in that world. It only takes one session where all the trained enemies are doing called shots to the face to bypass armour for people to suddenly say "Ok, let's not do that, and I'll have my character save the called shots for when it's more appropriate and cinematic..."

Keep in mind that that means the Stabilize spell is useless on average humans or weaker, since it becomes permanent in 10 turns while Body 3 will bleed out in 9.

~J

That's actually not correct. Kren said that he and his group treat the Influence spell in this manner. They are house ruling / applying rule #0 to that particular spell and not all spells in general and thus doesn't affect Stabilize (which still can have its effect immediately) at all. Is that "not RAW"? Yes and no depending on where you see rule #0. Is it in line with the generalised meta rule that goes somehwat like this "Magic can act inconsistently and GMs are allowed to vary how it works as long as it is somewhat consistent"? Absolutely.

That is a fair point, I had not considered the possibility of having some permanent spells work differently from others in terms of when they take effect. Thanks for the clarification.

~J

Influence is not the same as Control Thoughts. What you're describing sounds like mind control.

SR3 p196

Powerful post-hypnotic command to me, implies that the command is registered on a subconscious level. Pure RAI and not RAW, but I don't think influence is meant to control people to do things they know would get them in trouble or put themselves in danger. It's just meant to be Jedi Mind Tricks™.

But that's me.

Control Thoughts is fundamentally mind control. But tisoz is largely aiming at what he seems to consider as a problem with the exact point in time when ...



... this "post-hypnotic command" takes effect and thus the victim follows through with said command and the main argument about the potential abuse revolves around permanent spells typically starting their effects when cast and becoming permanent after the pre-defined number of combat rounds thus leading to victims "instantly" responding to / fulfilling the hypnotic suggestion and completing it even before the caster can make the spell permanent and the caster having the option to drop the spell once his goal - the victim acting in a certain way - is achieved / completed. So it ultimately boils down to an attempt of replacing Control Thoughts via Influence for its lower Drain and then going the extra step of making a sustained version of Influence with an even lower Drain.


What in my opinion is over-looked there is this:

The spell description you just quoted explicitly states "post-hypnotic command" where the "hypnosis" occurs over the entire time that the caster has to sustain the spell until permanence and just by the meaning of "post" the reaction can actually only be expected after the "hypnosis" ended => The spell's description actually provides a reasonable enough RAW (and not just RAI) basis for treating it differently from other permanent spells (like Heal / Treat or Stabilize) in terms of when the effect starts to actually manifest and when it becomes permanent in the sense that sustaining is no longer needed as well as how the target of the effect may revert to the original state if the spell is not sustained long enough.

As a consequence of this there's also nothing to gain with the idea of changing the spell from permanent to sustained. While technically allowed by the design rules a sustained version would simply fall short at that post-hypnotic part since in this version you'd be planting the idea in the victim's mind (potentially even longer than what it takes standard Influence to become permanent) but it could never come to fruition because it lacks permancence once you are post the act of magical hypnosis (= casting and sustaining the spell).



And I would go as far as to say, that the intention of the spell is indeed in the ball-park of Jedi Mind Tricks™ but doesn't necessarily exclude harmful actions (you quoted the special rules on how the victims can get repeated resistance tests) and its RAW description already solves the "problem" that tisoz is seeing when comparing Influence against Control Thoughts (the latter actually doing what he wants to accomplish with Influence).

Ignite (SR3.198) is an interesting spell. It is Permanent. It has a Drain Level of Deadly so it takes 20 Turns of Sustaining for its effects to become Permanent (SR3.178); "if the caster stops sustaining the spell before the required time has passed, its effects disappear."

Whereas all other Permanent spells begin their effect immediately, Ignite specifically lays out that its effects begin after a delay of 10 Turns divided by surplus successes after the Threshold has been satisfied. That's unusual. It then goes on to say that the effects last for 1d6 Turns, inflicting 6M, 7M, 8M, etc. damage, applied each Turn. So you have a timeline like this:

1. cast Ignite and begin Sustaining
2. Sustain
3. Sustain
4. Sustain
5. Sustain
6. Sustain
7. Sustain
8. Sustain
9. Sustain
10. Sustain. Target stages 6M.
11. Sustain. Target stages 7M.
12. Sustain. Target stages 8M.
13. Sustain. Target stages 9M.
14. Sustain. Target stages 10M.
15. Sustain. Target stages 11M. Flames burn out.
16. Sustain
17. Sustain
18. Sustain
19. Sustain
20. Sustain. Spell now becomes Permanent and no longer needs to be Sustained further.

Taking Tizos's objection, why bother to continue Sustaining the spell beyond the point where it's actually doing anything useful? Once you've got the full benefit of the spell, simply stop paying for it.

Hypothetically, you've got some runners. They have abusive players because that's gritty. The magician takes point, runs up to the locked wooden door blocking access to the building, and casts Ignite, then picks his nose for thirty seconds. The door catches on fire and burns for 1d6 Turns - long enough for the team to compromise it and get inside. The magician then stops Sustaining the spell and the door goes back to being in perfect condition. The team gets on with their mission while guard patrols pass by the perfectly ordinary door, unaware that minutes ago it was a supernatural inferno. There's no lingering smell of smoke or scorch marks because the effects go away if you don't Sustain for the full 20 Turns.

Perhaps the players supply their Johnson with 57 seconds of TriD footage of them burning a drug lab and get paid for completing the job; then they approach their fence to sell a Chemistry Shop that never got burnt because they stopped Sustaining Ignite when their pocsec timer told them to.

If a GM cited such shenanigans, I could get onboard with the concern that abusive gamers are playing with fire. But if a player merely looks at SR3 p196 and says, "Well I could take Control Actions at +1(M), Control Emotions at +1(M), Control Thoughts at +1(S), or if I am really, really cunning I could custom design Sustained Influence at +1(M) to further exploit the rules!!!" I'm unlikely to fret about it eighteen years later.

If SR3R could hotfix Permanent spells, Ignite is where I'd focus. The fewer exceptions and special exemptions, the better.

While reading through this, the thought occurred, "Why not just design an Instant duration Influence spell? Iirc, the Drain should go down another level to Light, and with the Magician's best piece of bioware - the Trauma Damper - they can cast it all day log and never take Drain."