Does anyont know why third edition started allowing people to astrally project through living matter? It used to be that a corp could just grows some ivy over their walls and cut off a large portion of astral penetration capabilities. Now they have to erect a ward instead.

Anyone know why the rule that worked for (IIRC) 2 editions was changed?

Does anyone still use the old rule?

1. The question should rather be: Why shouldn't a non-material entity that (temporarily) exists only on the astral be able to pass through anything that doesn't exist on that plane?
2. The ivy solution is still functional. It just takes a special form of ivy (which is dual natured) => It's not just wards
3. Problems with the interaction of two planes that are supposed to be seperated
4. I've heard of that, just as some groups still want to use the tunneling rules. I do neither this nor the other

I blame Mike Mulvihill. Steve Kenson wrote two magic books, the second which contradicted several aspects of the first and came out before SR3... And for no apparent reason; not for logic, consistency, or because there was some major conflict in how the rules were changed.

It's especially telling with the Voudoun rules that a new system which (rightly) took up a whole chapter in Awakenings was reduced to about a half-page in MitS and treated with essentially the same rules as Shamanism for no particular reason.

This isn't to say that I don't hold Kenson responsible, because I do consider him to have contributed to my dislike of SR in the late 90s by filling it with (most annoying to me, uninformed) crap aside from MitS.

But given the circumstances and timing of its release, MitS has been a SR3 book. The whole system changed in SR3 across the board in many ways-- some glaring, and some minor--but it had its intended effect of attracting and keeping more players with SR3 compared to SR2, which in the 6 years it existed went through three or four Line Developers and towards the end was getting inconsistent, whereas SR3 is just throwing a metric f-ton of rules for everything except taking a piss at gamers (rules for the same skill or action are spread through several books, which is something that still annoys the hell out of me). One of these inconsistencies came about, frankly, was when FAB was introduced in Corp Sec Handbook, and people even in game began to ask, "What happens when someone's astral form is pinned between a FAB net and a FAB floor?"

Well, something dies.

Even though astral space doesn't exactly abide by the laws of physics, six or seven years of SR canon had indicated that no two Astral objects could occupy the same space at the same time, even in the Meatworld.

Additionally, the Loa rules that were in Awakenings further questioned this assumption because Houngans effectively had the power of Channeling in SR2 when the Loa "rode" them, which again didn't make sense in the context of two astral objects being able to occupy the same physical meatworld space.

It was a big deal, and while I suspect that there were other agendas ("Everyone has an agenda, and everything we do is political" is my motto) they did away with this rule in MitS and SR3. It made Voudoun less special (although I'm not surprised entirely about Channeling because sooner or later someone would figure out how they did it), but it also gave us the following:

Shedim
Channeling
Possession
Emphasis on Wards
[edit]
No more Grounding
[/edit]

While I don't like them pulling a 180, and it probably pissed off some people (CircuitBoyBlue is the first person I can think of off the top of my head) that one of the most powerful tools in the astral defense arsenal for nine years was treated as if it never existed, the tradeoff for the above features is if not exactly worth it, but good enough.

It changed because of the major can of worms that was opened up by the concept of FAB Nets from the Corporate Security Handbook. A simple enough idea in and of itself (a net made of hollow plastic tubes filled with FAB bacteria suspended in a nutrient solution) that lead to SR Rules Gurus having some of the most twisted and convoluted debates they've ever had.

If the old ShadowRN mailing list archives from that time period are still available, it can make for some interesting reading.

There's also the fact that you get into the question of what counts as life. Nothing like projecting and being unable to move because of bacteria, or being trapped in a bedroom being cleaned because you just got nailed by a hail of dust mites.

~J

They also made astral porjection less powerful with the removale of grounding and (IIRC new to SR3) physical drain for all spells cast while projecting, which with the inability to heal such drain magically is an actual concern.

Honestly, I like the change but think a Warding focus is in order... Although, the ability to have spirits and other Awakened aid in Ward creation helps.

Ah, yes. The removal of Grounding was, IMO, a good thing that also came out of this change.

For those of us who have only ever known SR3, what did grounding do?

Let a projecting mage cast an area of effect physical spell into a dual creature, astral mage, or foci and have the spell's effect take place on the physical plane (in the case of astral mages: at their body). Pretty lame, actually. Now, one cannot evem cast physical spells on the astral.

To quote Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Real Life:

One of the classic grounding tricks in SR2 was to astrally project, find your enemy's power focus (or whatever) and cast a fireball at it. The fireball went off in the physical plane, toasting the mage and his team. Whole generations of SR players grew up completely mistrusting foci as a result, because the mage became a ticking time bomb.

And then they introduced Focus Addiction in Awakenings, and kept it in MitS.

And they also limited the number of Foci to Int in SR3.

Imps were introduced in Threats 2 (Shedim in YotC), and I fully expect to see a metamagic that allow the summoning of Imps for a reasonable karma cost.