And what does essence do? It serves as a cap, that's really about it. It doesn't make stuff more powerful. However, funny thing, essence is really just essence index on its head. In other words, essence is a measure of how much you have NOT changed.

So I still ask, should an awakened infant have the same magic rating of a mage with 20 years experience?

Well, your question ignores both initiation and Magic Loss. Putting that aside, though, my opinion is yes—I like the idea of the raw magical power of a person being, barring damage to that ability or specific, directed attempts to increase it through deep ritual, identical to that of others.

~J

Couldn't you make Magic, as a cap rating, Essence?
Magic Loss, etc, could be done with Essence. How natural you are.

Then that frees up Magic to be able to start from 0, while Essence can function for the pool, loss, etc.. that Magic presently does.

Magic, of course, would not be able to exceed Essence rating, but would default on 0 except where anyone feels like starting a race off with a natural + or - for Magic.

*shrug* just a passing-by thought.

You probably could, but the "why" part is the sticking point. Convince me it's a good idea, and I'll be spending all kinds of time figuring out how to make it work

~J

Well, from what I can tell, you guys have a concern with the power of a Mage against mundanes.

One proposal seems to be to take magic and lower it's rating to 0 and make mages work that up to 6 instead of starting at 6.

The idea seems to be that this will make mages work harder at having great and powerful spells that will rip mundane's to shreds.

The problem posed back to this idea was that Magic does more than this and also acts as a buffer rating in the opposite direction than using it as an attribute would allow.

If this is the case, then shifting the buffer rating responsibilities over to essence (which is tied into magic rating right now anyways) and making magic an attribute would solve that concepts issue.

I think it was Sphinx who posted alternative magic char. gen rules a while ago that I found to be so good I used them during the last go round of new players. It allowed you to still spend the same number of build to make a mage, but allowed you to tweak it a little, so starting with 6 magic wasn't a requirement.

I was working with Sphynx on clarifying them before he went on baby leave. I shot him a message. I do have an updated version of the doc, I *BELIEVE* it is THE most updated version (barring formatting issues) that I can send to whoever has an e-mail address.

He wrote the rules up so basically you can mix and match everything, your magic rating, your tradition, etc., while it still comes out with the same end costs as if you used the traditional methods. There are a few things I suspect Kage won't like (where it's a bit too universal), and also some interesting odds and ends (like an adept can buy astral perception with BPs instead of Power Points), but overall I think it would nicely solve our problem, it would only need to be pruned back to avoid overstepping the scope of the issue.

And again, while I know Kage doesn't run low powered games, most people run 120BP games or slightly lower. I regularly run ganger campaigns. I can assure you, the SR3 rules are pretty lousy for low level characters on a number of points. Magic rating is one of them. So most certainly, it is an issue for anyone playing that sort of a campaign. But like I said, for me it's also a huge paradigm issue. Your essence is a measure of how in line your spirit is with your body. Your magic is a measure of how well you can channel the natural forces of the universe to do stuff. The first should start at its max, but it does not make sense to me that the second should. Generally, when we're talking about our abilities to manipulate the world around us, it starts at 0 and goes up, it doesn't start at the human maximum and go down (unless you're counting things like the ability to drool or poop). Perhaps if Kage could explain why he thinks that does make sense, it would get me to stop complaining

I would see Magic vs. sorcery the same as strength vs. unarmed combat. In both cases, the first is the physical ability, the attribute, the second is the skill to apply it towards a specific ends.

Do we have anyone with LaTeX, ConTeXt, or other TeX variant proficiency for book typesetting here? My experience is pretty much purely mathematical typesetting.

~J

The following is in reaction to the 'magic is too powerful' vibe some are putting on this thread; and the desire to 'balance' it.

Why? What is unbalanced about it? Control Thoughts? Mana Blasts? All the spells? Some? I -hear- that it's unbalanced, but I'm not seeing it. If it's just certain areas, it'll be alot easier to fix those areas than to revamp magic overall. I've played 3rd edition so much over the past decade, and not once seen the abuse/over-power of magic that is being implied in this thread.

I haven't ever experienced this myself, but I do know that pretty much any aspect of Shadowrun can be taken to such an extreme by any player or GM can create a habitual over-powered version of nearly any component in SR.

So, I suppose it's possible, though an example for reference for us folks that haven't seen it in action would probably be helpful.

To answer Sphynx...

1) Astral perception. You touched on this in the other thread.
2) An imbalance between character types. A mage is close to invulnerable to a sam. He can shoot him from kilometers away, he has spells the sam can't dodge and will have trouble soaking (no spell pool), while the mage can still dodge, still wear armor and soak shots. The only real defense against a mage is another mage or a drone.

Those are definitely the big ones.

2) Ok, but how is that unbalanced? The Sam has no chance of knocking himself out when he shoots at you, his high willpower and body are compensation enough for most offensive spells, and for the ones that it's not, his impact armour comes in handy.

A defense can be made for any class of characters, to show how 'more powerful' they are, but they're still all balanced. I know personally, I quit even having offensive spells (and I -always- play a mage) because a gun was so much more effective. Mages are more for 'tools' than offense in most games I've been in.

The only other possible flaw I see is in the ease of having cyberware (like a smartlink) for a mage. And I'm honestly all for greater cyber limitations to magi, but that's a problem in geasa and initiation, not magic in general.

Most mages have the willpower to stage the drain to basically nothing. Sams generally can't afford that willpower. Even for those that don't, spell pool/defense makes all the difference. A mage has a pool to defend against any kind of attack. Sams depend solely on a single attribute, no armor, no chance to dodge. Again, maybe I spend too much time playing with 'fresh' characters or lower powered characters, but generally Sams pawn average Joes, mages pawn sams, riggers pawn all. However, there are more defenses against a rigger than against a mage.

If your sams know of some serious mage defenses that are available at chargen and don't involve another mage, I'd love to hear them.

Every sam in our game has a WP of 5+ That's just a necessity, like having armour is for a mage. When's the last time a Sam had any trouble at all killing a mage with a gun though. Anything from a 2+ (despite any stats the mage has) to 5+ under really bad conditions. Rolling as many dice as the mage would cast with (12 to 14), with ammo and guns that do S+ damage. The only real defense is Dodging for alot of these guns, and I assume since we're talking best-case scenarios for mages, we're doing the same for Sammies.

My character could never stand up to a burst-fire 6M shot from a Sammie under a condition where he would at least still be standing if I mana bolted him. And he'll probably shoot me first anyhows, and as I take that Deadly wound, I risk magic loss, whereas he risks a headache and if I didn't die, that mana bolt will surely knock me out if I cast it. There -is- a balance in magic vs guns.

However, it seems that the suggestion is that Combat Spells are the problem, not magic in general. No? If so, and everyone disagrees with me, then we should work on that area.

Seems to me, one solution would be to simply limit the casting dice for combat spells to the force of the spell.

I wouldn't agree that Combat spells are the only problem. A whole bunch of spells are annoying without necessarily being problematic because their usefulness degrades rapidly above Force 1. Improved Invisibiliy and IR are the classic examples (and they have extraordinarily powerful effects, to boot!), but most of the indirect illusions have that problem: rather than bothering to up the TN to resist the spell, you can just roll a double fistful of dice and get more successes than your target has points of Intelligence. This would be a bigger deal if II wasn't so much better than most of the other indirect illusions: Camouflage, Double Image, etc.

The elemental manipulations are also dangerous: their code is lower than you'd see for a gun, but since they affect half impact armor and aren't affected by range mods, they're more dangerous than guns.

Armor's problematic too, as by the spell description it stacks with all other forms of armor. It's showy enough that mages can't have it up all the time, but doesn't it strike you as odd that the Q4 mage can have much better armor ratings than the Q10 street sam?

I've heard bad things about Use (Skill) where Skill = Launch Weapons or Throwing or something nasty like that. The key is that since the spell has range, you can throw grenades or shoot missiles or whatever from as far away as you can see, without exposing yourself.

Mind Probe has a number of known issues, I'll not rehash them here.

Other spells are depressingly weak: the resisted detection spells (which is almost all of them, and what a trap that is for new players!), Decrease Foo, Decrease Cybered Foo, Gecko Crawl. Agony in particular sucks like Paris Hilton: read it, then do a quick compare/contrast with, say, Stunbolt. In fact, if you use Stunbolt as the measuring stick quite a large number of spells come up short. You can blind your enemies, impairing them for as long as you can sustain the spell...or you can knock them out. You could Confuse them...or knock them out. You could turn them to stone...or knock them out. Combat spells are part of the problem.

Some other spells are just weird: Gecko Crawl, for instance, can increase a character's movement rate when walking on the ground!

I have a plane to catch, or I'd go into yet more detail, but I feel that the issues with SR3 magic, and specifically SR3 spells, are many and pervasive.

I've never seen a problem with Improved Invis. Even the most simple of security systems overcomes all but Force 5 or greater versions of that spell. Could you clarify?

Elemental Manipulations have never been a problem in our games. They're so damn drain intensive that few people will ever take anything other than maybe a simple firebolt. Guns are tons better.

Armour isn't problematic for me either. Why shouldn't a mage end up with a better armour save than a Sammie? And in our groups, it's often the Sammies which are the recipients of the Armour spells...

Use/Magic Fingers: Never heard of a problem. Things still only move a certain number of meters per success based on magic. You can't throw something to the moon with any of the spells in a single round or anything.

Mind Probe: Again, what problem?

Yes, some spells need some working on (like your Gecko Crawl example which should never go above half your ground movement rate). And detection spells are in discussion still for just that reason. But I'm not seeing the items you're stating as being problems

So Invis is unbalanced because it works against everyone? It's not Camouflage, it's invisibility. However, you can't walk through a ward of any kind with one, trying to with a focus less than Force 5 is more likely to destroy the focus than not, you can't have a sustained spell on you without the astrally aware around you being aware of it. It's a tool spell. Where's the unbalanced? Should half the people around you see you when you're invis? o.O

If there is to be a spell revision for SR3R methinks it'd be good if it were organised or systematic, like the lists for matrix and the astral. Perhaps a list of assembled spells with their issues spelt out so they may be resolved.
Even the innocuous Gecko Crawl spell which has been noted in SR3R before has polarised opinion here

Agreed, maybe an entire thread dedicated to just spells.

I'm planning on creating that thread after work today. Until then, we have this thread

(My thinking is "Spells, Sorcery, Spell Defense, and the Spell Pool". Anyone have an opinion of that scope?)

~J

"Comprehensive yet focused"

Sphynx, the problem is you're pitting your mage toe to toe with a street sam, which should never be the case unless he walks in while you're using the john. A mage has UNLIMITED RANGE on his spells, and can summon up an elemental which is COMPLETELY INVULNERABLE to those pesky guns. I would say that those right there basically sends the sam packing. That's assuming you don't just cast control actions on him (and with your pool, you're basically guaranteed to win. His armor does nothing, he can't dodge, the only way to beat it is a lucky roll or spotting you from where ever you are before you cast).

So sam vs. mage, the mage has:
Combat pool to dodge and to soak
His own gun and combat skills
Armor
Body
spells (as appropriate)

The sam has:
Speed
A high willpower (hopefully)

That seems pretty unbalanced.

Combat spells are certainly not the problem. Take away combat spells and you still have a dozen other 'sam killer' spells. Control thoughts, barrier, armor and so on. The problem is spell defense. Mages have it and non-mages don't.

BTW, security systems do not beat improved invis of even force 1. As stated, 1 success is enough to beat any cameras. Security systems only win when they use other detection methods like IR lasers and radar.

Actually, the problem if I have one, is that I'm not pitting them against each other, since the Sam always wins initiative if we do that.

Elementals that are completely invulnerable. Total agreeance. For years we've house ruled the opposite, you can blow elementals away with a gun in our games (they only have basic level armour if anything)

The problem isn't the mage. It's the fact that most mages are also falling under the Sam category with the BMFGuns, Smartlinks, Armour, etc. Are mages more powerful? No, I don't think so. Their spells aren't doing more damage than that burstfire 10S is, and unless you min-max your mage purely for combat, you are taking drain (unless you treat the Trauma Dampener as a drain-assistant). The Sam isn't. You are taking drain/damage when you throw that Area effect spell (unless it's stun maybe), the sam suffers nothing when throwing that Frag Grenade. The mage has EXCELLENT range, the Samurai has EXCELLENT hand-to-hand. Sure, if you're beyond 300 meters, the Mage may have the upper hand. If you're within 2 meters, the Samurai will pwn. The same samurai who had the excess points to buy up super speed, ruthenium suits, and stealth skills while the mage is struggling to afford a half-decent stealth skill and is worried about the enemy astral side of things as well as the physical assaults.

I'm sorry Nezumi, but there's not any inbalance here. Everyone has their good/bad areas/points. And of -course- the Mage has more options, that's what he gets for putting 25 to 30 points into having magic as an option instead of being bigger/badder in the bod.

Now, that being said. I do think Mages are way better. I would never play anything else, we get options. I can fly invisibly with an armour spell through the night and with enough time/money, have as much cyber as any Sam could ever get. But that's not an inbalance, that's a payoff. You sacrifice in the beginning to receive more in the end. Spells rock as long as they're not being resisted.

But I know for a fact, anytime I've pit myself against a Sam, I've fled with tail between the legs in any form of combat unless I completely owned him via surprise; because almost every single time the Sam has a WP of 6 and B of 6 and I won't do the cheese decreased Charisma from range type spell.

It's only 90% that way. My phrase stated they absolutely resist regardless of any rolls, doing something they would normally never ever do (like shoot self).

Personally, I agree, the drain is too high, I never ever take that spell, and I always play a manipulation style mage. But if that's one of the spells that has everyone thinking magic is too unbalanced, I'm all for weakening it by somethng more than Drain.

Oh. Then I disagree--what's the point? It becomes "sorta control thoughts" or "maybe suggest something they weren't completely against anyway"? SR3R has forbidden the book, but a Social Adept by canon and using SotA:64 and some edges can, IIRC, get a Hostile person to do something disastrous (the word used in the modifier table) for themselves just by talking to them.

I mean, we might need to do something to it so that it isn't so easy to mindrape an average Joe, but amongst Shadowrunners and opposition that's no more than moderately inferior, I'd call it just fine to slightly underpowered.

~J

I agree with you Kage. But the objective of this thread of conversation isn't to ask if Control Actions/Thoughts should control actions/thoughts, but rather to ask, if such spells are unbalancing from the viewpoint of a non-mage (it was a mage vs sam comparrison) how to 'balance' it.

However, I do not find them unbalancing. They're actually annoying enough as a caster that I don't even want the spells. That's balanced enough for me.

No, actually, the objective of this thread is to determine whether or not it needs to be changed balance is only one of many factors that will determine that, and "making things make sense" is a very high priority for me.

Edit: I'm not sure if I missed "of the conversation" or you ninja-edited me, but either way, the Whole Package™ is very important to me.

~J

You missed the "of the conversation" However, no biggie.

So, putting Control Anything aside, the only flaws in the magic system seem to be that it exists and non-magi have no defense other than base attributes, despite the seeming fact that, that lack of defense does not win a mage combat (and the non-defense discussions do seem to focus on the combat side of things). I assume the goal of those who agree with that assessment is a way to get more dice for resisting, or reduce the number of dice available to cast with, or both?

I remember seeing a house-bioware originally written for SR2, but the effect may sate those who want more anti-mage defenses.

It was effectively a bacteria colony implanted under the person's skin. The concept was to make spells less applicable to the augmented by adding an overlapping aura that makes getting a spell to stick more difficult. In mechanic terms, it would be 1-3 points of increased TN for some bio index cost deemed balanced and always treated as an unwilling target for magic.

Always being treated as unwilling is pretty much a dealbreaker, IMO. Just the fact that it seals off Heal and Treat make it essentially not worth considering.

~J

Saying barrier and armor are balanced because a mage can cast it on a sam ignores the stipulation of the problem, sams are in trouble without magical support. A mage with firearms skill and a sustained armor spell can easily shrug off a 10S shot. I can come up with a dozen situations where the mage has a clear advantage solely by virtue of being a mage, while very few when the sam has an advantage (the one big one is when they're 'toe to toe', but that's really about it.)

You also seem to be under the impression that willpower 6 comes standard with sams, which really is not the case in my experience. I can't remember the last time I saw a starting sam with a willpower of 6.

There are bazillion threads about this problem, I do know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'd sort of like people who don't play mages or super powered sams weigh in on this.

I do like Herald's suggestion. Very cool piece of bio. There really isn't ANY equipment designed to work against magic, which doesn't make a lick of sense. After twenty years of dealing with magic, you'd think they'd have some ways to deal with magic!

Any team will naturally be more powerful than an individual, and each person has a role to play. Mages have certain abilities and penalties. Your mages are also vulnerable to things that sammies aren't. If you feel that mages have too much of an advantage, then change some of the base mechanics.

#1. switch initiative back to how it was in SR2 or use a more distributed initiative scheme. Everyone going at the same time was a lame mechanic. yes I know mages hated waiting while the sammies went twice before they could act ... but too bad, speed kills, and that's how it should be.

#2. Allow grounding, or allow magical repercussions for having foci always active. I would think that if you have foci active, you are going to start to attract FAB. After a while of being sick or have the possibility of having to cast through a background count, you can equalize things a little.

As for magic defense for a sammie, that is just munchkin. Shadowrun is a game of paper rock scissors, mages kill sammies, sammies kill adepts, adepts kill mages. That's just how it goes, and that is not a bad thing. It actually encourages the team to stick together and actually become a team.

Grounding was awesome, but we can't consider it. Force 1 nature spirit, order it to materialize, ground AoE spells through it.

~J

Why not .... if you do that a few times ... you start to get bad spirit karma. (ie a flaw)

Have it so that the maximum rating of the spell that gets channeled through if equal to the rating of the spirit/focus. The rest backs up in astral space. If you order a force 6 spirit to material and ground through ... then things are different.


Edit: the max grounding through astral perception is equal to the augmented magic rating of the mage/shaman perceiving.

So I realized many of our problems depend on either fixing or scrapping Spell Design. The Sorcery thread will be delayed a little bit while I consider this and post my thoughts.

~J