Guys... if you want to punch MagicRun in the gonads... we have something EVEN BETTER than 5e's Background Counts! Why take away some of their dicepool when you can take away their Willpower! It's the same thing as -dice, but even better!
Well, though you and I both agree MagicRun is a problem, the various solutions to that we don't necessarily look at equally. I personally liked the concept of background but disliked its implementation, but not as much as I disliked Blight, which I know you are a fan of.
The astral rabies isn't too awful. . .but I would still rather just see a damn system in place that is mostly internally balanced and doesn't need external elements to balance.
I feel similar about noise. There is little shittier than making a character with a mechanical concept (magic / matrix) who takes a dice penalty to their roles just because the setting says so. We can do better man.
On the one hand, I really don't like BGC as it works in 5e. Slapping dice straight outta the player's hand on the grounds the GM said so, in a way that they cannot mitigate through cleverness or preparedness: nope. That's about the least interesting approach I can think of to balancing MagicRun. Plus it screws over physads, and physads have already got enough on their plate.
On the other hand, this sounds worse. I don't care for how the escalating tiers change the type of penalty, I think that's fiddly. Also even if (as per subsequent posts) these penalties stack, even in aggregate it's not much of a penalty really. Changing dice pools feels like a tacit admission that 6e's Edge mechanic isn't flexible enough to achieve its explicit design goal of replacing modifiers. And finally, if this mechanic is in addition to a different BGC mechanic that is still to come... that's a bit redundant and cluttered.
I completely agree. We can keep the concept (which I do like) but implement it in another way that does produce felt impact to the archetypes without just robbing them of the ability to perform.
Yeaaahhhh ... just came across that first section, all I had to go on during review was the second section... sooooo .... maybe this is what background count is meant to be. IDK!? ugh
Who knows man. It could well be expanded on in the magic book too. Either way, this is what we have to examine at present.
Just to expand on this one a little, something that bothers me deeply: there's a pretty flat power curve for increase attribute. Once you have the spell and the ability to quicken or otherwise sustain it, you're almost guaranteed +3 or +4 to the stat as easily as you can get +1 or +2. Compare to (say) cybernetic or adept powers used to boost stats, which are typically at least linear (ie +2 costs twice as much as +1.).
It means you can't put mages on a progress curve, where they can get a small boost early on, then improve it as they grow in experience. Instead they just jump all the way to +4 comparatively early (and easily and cheaply, compared to other archetypes; eg consider the cost of Muscle Toner for a samurai).
I don't have a problem with increase attribute existing, but I think folding them all into one spell was a big mistake. You want your 8 increases? Ok man, you can do it, but bare minimum investment is 48 post chargen karma.
I also think it would be more balanced if mages only got access to mental attribute increases, while adepts got the physical half. Even then I am not necessarily sold on the idea. I am pretty fine with everyone having access to increases. The opportunity cost could just due to be a little better. For example, maybe quickening should cost 1 karma per hit, up to your roll's allowance. That would also be quite helpful.
Yes, I do miss "your spells go away, and your foci turn off", and even Astral Rabies doesn't do that.
And that could be a version of superior BCG implementation. Maybe have 3 levels of so.
Low reduces the hits of all active spells by 1, force of all active spirits by 1, DV of damaging spells by 1, and gives targets of spells 1 extra defense die.
Medium does that at -2.
High at minus -4.
That would be pretty stiff without completely boning the mages, like say an SR5 BCG of -8 would (which came up in at least 2 missions that I recall off the top of my head).