Hrm, although because of the formula, the Stun damage boxes will always be equal to or less than Physical boxes when overcasting (since Stun damage will be at a lower Force). I guess it would highly depend on the spell. Certainly for Stunbolt, you could probably overcast into oblivion and only take at max 3 boxes to show for it (5 if you are really unlucky on your Drain Roll and you are chucking an ungodly Force 12 Stunbolt). Again, I'm still hunting through the rules about healing Physical Drain damage.

Like your typical wilderness Nature Spirit, except they also get powers to control animals. Every 3 Force points of the Spirit, you get to pick one additional power for the spirit from a list, specific to that Spirit.

There was a little misinformation about this.

There is now the third way to treat wounds, by using Medicine. It is not meant to be used in combat. Each hit adds to your natural healing test, so should help reduce healing time. Yes, even physical wounds will heal naturally over time. A glitch on the healing test may kill you though, actually a glitch on the First Aid test may kill you.

Erm, this has been in SR3 since Man and Machine, under the Long-Term care rules. You can heal each set of wounds once by First Aid, followed by Magic. Then, when you are healing physical wounds normally, you can also get bonuses to your healing through the use of the Medicine skill.

Actually, it's not a glitch that may kill you but a critical glitch. Be sure to note the difference as I've had people become irate because they didn't realize there was a "Glitch" (which is usually just an annoyance) and a "Critical Glitch" (Bad Things).

I've read nothing in SR4 to that suggests this so far.

Yes. It even says so specifically in the Increase Attribute description.

You sustain Ritual Magic just like Spell Casting, by taking a -2 sustaining modifier.

And yes, Increase Body does give you more Wound Boxes for as long as the spell last.

Stimpatches last Rating x 10 minutes. After they wear off you receive an additional point of stun so eventually you'll kill yourself if you keep using them.

Eep. I suppose not, although repeated use of Stimpatches may call for the player to make an Addiction test with Threshold 2 (according to the addiction table on p248). Then they might start seeking harder stimulants to keep their "edge", which may result in Essence Loss down the line.

I don't believe that was what the poster was asking. I think the poster was referring to the rule that you can have a ritualized spell sustain itself through the ritual by withholding some of your spellcasting dice.

Damn I always liked the idea of a Ritual mage who could buff a team for a few hours. Or who could ritually shapechange someone for an extended scouting session. Ah well.

Yes, while it is possible to twink out it does do a lot to make sure you don't twink out too much at character generation. If you're really really good at one thing, then you're going to suck at everything else.

Certainly no more than in sr3.

Not really, but in areas I consider far worse.

Ok, but didn't that require staying at the facility? Now it is like a trip to the prompt care clinic. I didn't see anything about remaining hospitalized. I thought I read that all wounds will heal over time without any healing at all. Only glitching on the time test could increase damage.

It used to be if your wound required hospitalization and you did not heed the need, you died. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Now you can get first aid within 12 hours (and actually reduce the damage level), naturally healing in the interim. Then you could get magical healing and actually reduce the damage level. Again healing naturallyy in the interim. And before or after (optimally to not bypass first aid) magical healing, you can be treated by someone with the Medicine skill, which should speed the rate of your natural healing.

It seems a lot easier and less expensive to heal from serious wounds than previous editions.

You are right, of course.

A glitch doubles the amount of healing time, a critical glitch adds more damage.

An elemental can sustain the spell, or a sustaining focus.

I don't think it required a facility, although it helps (not being in a hospital or clinic applies a +2 penalty). I think my point is that these rules are simply transplanted (and simplified) rules from Man and Machine for long term care, which showed two ways of healing physical damage (one with medical care, one without medical care), both of which heal by the box (like SR4).

The only wounds that required hospitalization were Deadly wounds in SR3 canon, I believe.

has already been asked and answered elsewhere on this thread: NO

What you do with your ally spirit is none of my business.

Well, why not create your own Mentor Spirit with this two voices. Each grants a bonus but as drawback it always takes time to listen to the two rant at each other and till you make up your mind.

As in every rule, this can be crafted to your needs, given the GM approval.

Make a mentor spirit with multiple personalities. That would make for an interesting character.

Just for the record "Exclusive Actions" are gone at this point in time in the game across the board.

You add Counterspelling dice (one of the skills in the Sorcery Skill Group) to any hostile attempt to cast spells on yourself and any protected individuals. All magicians are always considered protecting themselves with Counterspelling dice, and it takes a Free Action to designate others as protected. You can only protect those within your line of sight.

I had seen that, i just wanted to make sure all the limitations that they implied are gone as well or if any of the limitations remain under different wording.

Does counterspelling count as an action or does it work like the old spell defense? How will the shielding metamagic work into the counterspelling, or will it work differently?

It's passive, in that it doesn't take an action to use (except for the Free Action to extend protection over your friends). Shielding adds your Initiate Grade to your Counterspelling attempts for the purposes of spell defense only (There are other ways to use Counterspelling, and Shielding doesn't help with that).

Initiation is 10 + ((Target/Would-Be) Grade x 3).

As for the Adept, it would be 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, etc... if I've read the book correctly.

But you'd still have to pay for the Karma cost of the increased Magic attribute, so it would be an additional 21, 24, 27, 30, etc. So really, to get powers above Magic 6, it would be a total cost (including Initiation and buying the Magic attribute) of 34, 40, 46, etc., adding 6 each time.

It was mentioned at the "Whats Up with FanPro" seminar that rules for alternative character types such as Ghouls (I heard Rob say "infected" and had to ask "what the....?" myself), Shapeshifters, etc... *MIGHT* be in an upcoming book (Running Wild??? did I hear that right?).

The rules for such are not currently in the SR4 Core book.

Ah yeah, I keep forgetting that about the new rules. This is one that we are "House Ruling" out of existance, or at least altering pretty quickly for ourselves. It is of interest that the Core Book does not mention the ability to buy additional Power Points with just Karma as in the 3rd Ed rules.

Sounds a lot like the "Loa Spirits" of 3rd Ed with their Standard/Petro paths.

I have to admit something here, I keep looking for "limits" to how many targets can be defended using the new rules. I realize the "within LOS" limitation exists, but let's say for instance the magician is trying to protect a whole crowd of people that are immediately in front of him from being negatively influenced by a <insert fave evil bad guy with mental manipulations here>. Does this mean one magician can protect 100 people as evenly as s/he can protect one provided they are in LOS?

No, that defunct patch in SR3 didn't make it.

Before you go off and seriously drop the cost of Initiating you might want to reconsider. Remember the only way to lose Magic [at this point] is implanting 'ware. So there is even less check on Magic than in SR3. Also SR4 had a big reduction in karma spent on Spells as you increase Magic. You spend no karma there unless adding new spells, and even those only cost 5 karma each.

Maybe it wouldn't be as bad for Adepts, but cheapening Magic that much for all awakened characters is just asking for mage power to overwhelm your game.

EDIT: As an intermediate step you could remove the cap from Magic for Adepts only (but not MW Adepts). They could then raise at attribute costs w/o having to Initiate. But if there is a metamagic power they want they have to initiate to get it, but get no Magic increase for Initiating.

I have to admit, this (ritual rules) is something I hope has more expansion for "alternative rules" in the upcoming Street Magic book, because quite frankly if these are the new rules ... wow, I know I'll be using them a LOT for villains in upcoming games.

As for that Increase Body to stave off a person's from dying ... what a neat trick. My next question would then come with "does the new Body Attribute also get to resist the wounds suffered already?" My personal answer would be "of course not for wounds currently suffered from" but the question is likely to be asked.

Only? Many Spells in SR3 were very useful just with force 1-4.

SYL