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Tapping the leyline house Rule. feedback appreciated.

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Senko

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« on: <06-02-16/1820:43> »
Quite a few fantasy novels have mages drawing on a ley lines power to boost their magic and I was thinking about how that could be replicated in shadowrun. This is my first draft and in curious what people think of this as a house Rule.

Metamagic: Tap the leyline

Recent studies have found ways for mages to draw on the magical energy flowing through a leyline although doing so is still very difficult and risky you have mastered these arts.

After acclimating to a local leyline the mage with this metamagic is able to add the leylines force as a positive modifier to their magic e.g a leyline of force 3 drawn on by a mage with magic 3 would raise their effective magic rating to 6 for the duration they are drawing power from the leyline. This tapping ability can be used on the leyline in question or up to 1 kilometre away per point of force rating for the leyline. However doing so puts a considerable strain on the mage tapping the leylines power doing X damage and takes considerable concentration.

Essentially the rules I was thinking of are.

1) You must be acclimated to a specific leyline to use the metamagic on it.
2) When tapping it you add the leylines force to your magic and are treated as having a Magic of that new rating while doing so.
3) To tap the leyline is treated as sustaining a spell of that force rating apply penalties as if you were. Focused concentration will work to remove the penalty but foci won't.
4) When tapping the leyline you take damage I have three possible rules not sure which would be better.  ..
A) You take the force rating as lethal damage each combat round resisted with body.
B) if it's force rating 1-11 you take non-lethal damage resisted with body, 12 or greater it's lethal.
C) It's difference so if your tapping a leyline up to 5 points higher than your magic it's non-lethsl, 6 or more higher it's lethal.

Thoughts?

AwesomenessDog

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« Reply #1 on: <06-02-16/2111:56> »
Hmm... Sounds like you made mages adepts...

Sounds fine, but I would make drain be taken any time the mage casts and have it be a bonus to the amount of drain you have to resist equal to double to normal rate for the difference (as if the bonus magic were simply a force increase). I.e. You cast force 10 spell normally with magic 4 normally taking drain 9P, but since you are tapped into a layline rating 3, your new magic is pushed to only S drain and the difference is 6: you now resist 9P6S drain with the first drain being resisted is the 6S.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #2 on: <06-02-16/2306:33> »
I'll be honest here. In my opinion, such a thing would really work best in a more open-ended magic system than either Shadowrun or D&D/Pathfinder have.

That said, I would love to see a good open-ended magic system including these things to represent playing a mage of various levels from the Velgarth setting that Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books take place in.
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Sendaz

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« Reply #3 on: <06-03-16/0243:45> »
Whilst getting ley'd is the goal of many a mage, you have to know your limits lest your performance suffers.  ;)

There was something similar written up some time ago, will have to dive through the archives and see if we can dust this off as it may help....
« Last Edit: <06-03-16/0931:44> by Sendaz »
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Shaidar

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« Reply #4 on: <06-06-16/0109:45> »
Isn't this already covered with the Geomatic Rituals, aspecting the Line/Background Count to your benefit?

Rosa

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« Reply #5 on: <06-06-16/0509:44> »
No Senkos version is much more powerful. In the normal version of the rules an aligned BG gives you the rating as a modifier to the limit of your magical skill use and you have to be quite close to them if not directly on them. with Senkos version your magic rating goes up by the rating of the ley line, meaning that it gives you more dice, allows you to cast higher levels without risking physical drain...etc. plus you can do it from a very high distance. Senkos version of ley lines are more in line with previous editions of SR, but still even more powerfull than they were.

As for feedback, i would tone Down the distance over which you could tap the leyline, 1 km pr. point of force is quite powerful. Also i imagine that if this was possible, the competition between magical Groups, corps, governments and individuals for control of ley lines would be even more vicious than it already is, so holding on to "your" ley line would probably be quite an accomplishment.
« Last Edit: <06-06-16/0830:10> by Rosa »

Senko

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« Reply #6 on: <06-06-16/1337:37> »
Hmmmm so there was something like this in earlier version I'll have to see if I can find that thanks. As for shorter distance maybe a set value rather than variable, as 100m per point of force doesn't seem to get that far for most leylines. I'll give it some thought.

That's the other advantage of a longer range you don't need to hold onto your leyline because there isn't a way to block access short of aspecting to your own tradition since anyone attuned can tap it. This is also why I had the physical drain hitting every combat turn your tapping the leyline whether you cast or not. Sure you can cast more powerful spells but your taking more damage from tapping the leyline than you probably  would from the spell so most of the time its not going to be worth the trade off.

Rosa

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« Reply #7 on: <06-06-16/2215:06> »
Hmmmm so there was something like this in earlier version I'll have to see if I can find that thanks.

No there wasn't anything like this in earlier editions, however mana lines or powerless or ley lines or what they have been called over the editions did give you bonus dice, same as any other powersite  ( that's what they now call positive aligned background count and they wonder why the books gets thicker.... ).