Shadowrun Play > Rules and such
Magic house rules
Glyph:
I've never been fond of that optional rule. It penalizes mages for success, and actually encourages overcasting.
One optional rule I do like is, for overcasting, increasing the Drain by one for every point of Force over the mage's Magic. Overcasting seems to be where most potential abuses happen, and I personally feel, flavor-wise, that overcasting should be a desperation move, not something done as a regular tactic. I don't like it for normal spellcasting, though, because that's what mages do. I don't want to make one of their core functions something that they only break out in an emergency.
Remember the weaknesses of spellcasting - line of sight, successes (not net successes, all successes) capped by the Force of the spell, and possible background count or hostile counterspelling. Also remember that Shadowrun is a very tactical game, where the person who attacks first is often the one who attacks last. Spells are only one of many instant-kill attacks that characters are capable of.
Adrick:
--- Quote from: Glyph on ---I've never been fond of that optional rule. It penalizes mages for success, and actually encourages overcasting.
One optional rule I do like is, for overcasting, increasing the Drain by one for every point of Force over the mage's Magic.
--- End quote ---
ah sorry should have mentioned we allow the caster to pick how many successes they use from what they have gotten.
with added houserule the extra not used for damage is still used to overcome counterspelling and to damage mana barriers and spellls etc.
strain is based of damage pumped into the target.
That way they still can do something more than a less skilled mage but aren't a walking nuke.
I really like your optional rule and reasoning behind it, also its easier to manage. might give it a go in our game.
Adrick:
--- Quote from: street.mage on --- (forensics, for example), but a magic user can erase his signature, thus pretty much making a kill undetectable if needed.
--- End quote ---
Forensics doesn't matter as much in shadowrun depending on the tone of the game and in games were it is important you can get around it with periodic gene therapy.
But if the ease of removing magic signatures is a recurring issue you can raise the difficulty and time required to erase signatures.
Also consider the mage assensing the spell is the one that has to assense the mage to make the connection he can't store, copy or pass the knowledge on.
So on the street the likely hood of a left behind signature coming back to bite you is rare enough that it should nearly be a plot device.
In court i would think physical forensic evidence would be needed to get a solid chance of conviction with asenseing from experts being more of a witness testimony type thing.
So you don't have to be to afraid of making it harder to erase signatures.
street.mage:
True that about signatures Adrick. Erasing them hasn't even come up in my game, but I'm afraid it will because of an occult investigator at a recent crime scene.
I've a nasty Jarhead that will be on the trail of a certain shaman. His direct spell only effects living targets, so his physical wall spell is really the only help he has. He's really a one trick pony - I think he has a pistols rank of 1 or 2, and that's the firepower he has. No indirect spells.
I really liked the overcasting +1 for each force above magic rule on drain instead of net hits. You're right, Glyph, it does punish magic users. But someone with a 5-6 magic is still possibly going to lay the smack down for someone who isn't a caster. I guess I really don't like that every other combat situation a defender can react and roll to resist damage. But with direct spells, they can't. Indirect at least gets half impact armor. But a hapless troll street sam gets to roll his willpower (and that's it) of 2 to resist a stunbolt. Well, and edge is a given if it's available anyway. I guess that's why magic is always a great ally and even greater enemy.
I'm just afraid to throw too many opponents at the party and create a TPK situation or lots of deaths to make up for the shaman's "vaporize the enemy at will with my complex action spells."
Stan:
Out of curiosity, street.mage, what kinds of runs do your PCs usually wind up going on? From your posts I get the impression that the PCs, or at least this mage in particular, likes to solve problems by going in with the proverbial guns blazing. Is that accurate?
My preferred way of dealing with the issue you're describing - PCs who can kill or incapacitate foes in one shot - is to create runs where raw butt-kicking power isn't enough to win. If the PCs are doing a run on a corporate enclave, I promise you that no amount of really big manabolts will be enough to let him survive the waves of well-armed, well-trained guards that await if the PCs trigger a major security alert. Just to be clear, I'm not recommending that you unleash so many guards that you get a TPK. I'm saying that the threat of that type of response should (hopefully) teach your PCs to modify their tactics appropriately.
But of course, this assumes that your PCs behave rationally. YMMV. :)
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