Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Chalkarts on <01-17-19/1002:09>
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Sustained spells last until you stop sustaining them.
What about preparations?
They don't require concentration to sustain so how long do their effects last?
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Since Potency fades 1 point per hour prior to the spell being triggered, it stands to reason it still fades after the spell is being discharged.
If nothing else, a sustained spell preparation shouldn't last longer than a number of hours equal to the potency it had when triggered.
Edit: I shoulda looked it up before voicing opinion.
If the
spell is sustained, it lasts for (Potency) minutes (or in
the case of a permanent spell until it becomes permanent).
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Ahh, ok,
I didn't see it in the SRcore.
So a sustained force 5 prep will last for 5 minutes.
Good to know.
I can make that work.
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Notably this means that, in general, using a preparation to boost your drain stats while you make more preparations only works in some niche cases (need potency equal or higher than the force of the next preparation you are making, since it takes (force) minutes to make a preparation).
It also tends not to make them the most useful for surveillance or travel, but the duration is an order of magnitude or more than the duration of the average combat at least.
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Ahh, ok,
I didn't see it in the SRcore.
So a sustained force 5 prep will last for 5 minutes.
Good to know.
I can make that work.
It's not based on force. A force 5 prep with 1 potency will last for 1 minute. Force 5 with 10 potency will last for 10 minutes.
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It's not based on force. A force 5 prep with 1 potency will last for 1 minute. Force 5 with 10 potency will last for 10 minutes.
Ah, I misread.
I hate to ask such a basic question but how do I increase Potency?
I'm still learning the magic system, my last character was all cyber so I didnt bother much with the magic end of things.
I have just fallen in love with the concept of a Preparations Buffer.
I could make a bunch of command word healing preparations in the form of Ski Masks or Bandanas for the team to wear on the run, it hides their faces while being visible enough that as long as I have LoS i can trigger it.
If I were annoyed with the group I could put an Intuition boost in a clown wig and make them wear it into the firefight.
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Pg 305: Step 5: Create the Preparation
After the time elapses for creation of the preparation,
make an Alchemy + Magic [Force] Test opposed by the
Force of the preparation. The net hits from this test become
the preparation’s Potency.
Note that when you trigger the preparation, Potency is rolled at the moment the spell is finally "cast" in place of the alchemist's spellcasting skill. (see using a preparation, pgs 305-306).
That illustrates a fundamental weakness in preparations vs cast spells: with directly cast spells it's net hits directly determine the spell's effect. With preparations, net hits generate potency which THEN are rolled to determine the spell's net hits. In other words: your spellcasting hits are then rolled to get final hits with preparations.
Combat spells are a poor choice for preparations for this reason, but anything you can get away with having low Force is great as you'll score lots of Potency.
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I think I mentioned it above, the math for expected hits is:
Normal spell: 1/3 spellcasting dice pool
spell from a preparation: 1/9 alchemy dice pool + 2/9 spell force (so if you don't need a long life on the preparation (shelf life or sustained time), you want to go for as high a force as you can a) beat with your alchemy, and b) handle the drain for.
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The character has multiple Vaults of the Ages so shelf life isn't a concern(unless the gm blows up his house and van).
He can make them in downtime and store them for the runs. Even if they only last 5 minutes once activated, the shelf life will last easily through a run. If they aren't activated on the run they can go back in the vaults for later with an hour or two ticked off their shelf life.
I've tinkered with the math and gotten some help in another thread to get my dice pool up to 18-20ish for creating the preps.
I'm going to have to go back over the rules to figure out exactly what that means for potency, lol.
As for the drain, aside from making them in downtime, he's a quick healer and in time will have the centering thing from initiation(I hope) so I'm less concerned with the drain as much as I am with making them as strong as possible for later use.
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You'll roll your dice against twice the force of the preparation you're creating. So in the case of F6, you'd roll 18 vs 12 dice, with net hits being the Potency.
When triggered, the preparation rolls Potency + Force (with a limit of Force) to determine the spell's effect.
So a P2 F6 preparation rolls 8 dice, and a P6 F2 preparation also rolls 8 dice, but their limits are different so obviously the higher force is worth it if you can get away with it.
OTOH while high Potency doesn't help you with the limit, it does help you with shelf life and duration. And it's the easier value to pump up... you mathematically get a slightly better than 1:1 return by lowering Force! Also, one of the key advantages of preparing the spells ahead of time is you can blow resources like edge during downtime and then potentially recoup them before the next mission.
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OTOH while high Potency doesn't help you with the limit, it does help you with shelf life and duration. And it's the easier value to pump up... you mathematically get a slightly better than 1:1 return by lowering Force! Also, one of the key advantages of preparing the spells ahead of time is you can blow resources like edge during downtime and then potentially recoup them before the next mission.
I wouldn't mind making force 5 preps just to make it easier.
My biggest reason for leaning toward preparations is I liked the idea of pseudomagic items, I love playing support characters and since I could pop multiple sustained spells with preps to buff the party it sounded really useful.
I also plan to use the leadership skill often.
A Dwarven Ganger hanging in the back calling out orders, activating preparations, and laying down cover fire sounds like fun.
Especially if there is a tweaked out Street Sam raging around covered in my buffs.
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Yeah, the limit of 6 on a force 6 spell is wasted unless you've also somehow scored the 12 potency necessary to generate a P + F pool likely to hit 6 hits anyway.
Of course since the limit on the Alchemy test is the Force of the preparation, you're not going to be able to score a lot of potency in the first place unless you throw edge and/or reagents at the limit... if you don't you may as well go for max Force.
Edited in light of misreading the opposition dice pool in quoted rule upthread.
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One little trick is to buy the dedicated work space option on your lifestyle, to give you a +2 limit on the alchemy that you do in there, letting you run up higher potency on low force preparations Combine that with a vault of ages for some storage and you can save up some pretty optimized preparations (if a home type of game. In missions I'm not sure how they would handle that).
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One little trick is to buy the dedicated work space option on your lifestyle, to give you a +2 limit on the alchemy that you do in there, letting you run up higher potency on low force preparations Combine that with a vault of ages for some storage and you can save up some pretty optimized preparations (if a home type of game. In missions I'm not sure how they would handle that).
I was just thinking about that myself. In SRM anything done during downtime is required to be done via buying hits, which makes preparations exceptionally unattractive. However the same is true of binding spirits, and I know for sure there's an exception to the "buying hits" rule for that. Alchemy might as well, and if not could probably stand a test of reasonableness based on the binding spirit precedent.
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If nothing else, have a list of preparation you want to make, and as soon as your character gets the call from their fixer have them make up some preparations?
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Point of order. Preparations are resisted by Force, not twice the Force.
So a Force 7 preparation is resisted by 7 dice.
The trick is the higher drain caused by the preparation, and the [Force] Limit when you are making them, which means without spending reagents or having some other way to alter the limit, you can't have a preparation with a Potency higher than its Force.
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I was sure I read Force x 2, but I'm happy to be shown to be wrong on that.
Much more reasonable for using Alchemy.
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With introduction of Vault of ages, so long as your operating in game with down time. The drain question isn't a huge deal, for the really big spells. In the other direction for common buff spells, a duration that lasts even a single minute in SR Combat might as well be permanent. No SR combat is going last even single minute let alone multiple minutes.
Or Alchemy done by a contact also doesn't care about the drain, so long as it won't kill the caster, the risk is going to be minimal.
Keep in mind we have had something 3-4 MAJOR revisions to alchemy over the course of 5e. It's not what it was when released.
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I'm not sure I'd call what I've seen revisions, there are some additional qualities and metamagics and if you use them you get alchemy into the almost as good as spellcasting range at least after 4-5 initiations. Has there been any actual revisions? In my mind a revision would be getting rid of the really stupid test in the first place and have the type of trigger determine the dice pool penalty for your test when the spell goes off.
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Yes full revisions. We have gone from very limited and hindering trigger options, to advanced and modified trigger options, we have gone from no magic bullets to a alchemy spell specifically for enchanting a bullet. We have gone from no way to store preps to the long term storage of preps with the vault of ages. We have gained the ability to not trigger touch based preps, and carry around such trigger prep without triggering them. We went from potions are impossible to potions are totally functional, and can even be loaded into capsule rounds.
So yes over the course of 5e Alchemy went from utterly useless waste of character points to very effective tool for any character. To me a Full Revolution.
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I forgot all about Reagents.
Will definitely have to invest in a pile of those.
I was hoping to give the character a go in SRM, I was trying to do the proper action math to get 20 dice on a prep because of the purchased successes thing.
Its a concept I'm dedicated to even though I see the ways in which Alchemy is underpowered.
I know its not the most powerful or flashy character but im pretty sure I can make him extremely useful.
I mostly just want to see a Street Sam rampage with several buffs at once.
As for the revisions to Alchemy, thats all new to me. I only own the core book.
I'm still trying to brain crunch how exactly making one of these would work.
Tell me if I'm right(I've gone over the stuff in the core but need confirmation):
Say I want to make a good Increase Intuition do-rag(thanks for the tip on that one, much more useful than BOD)
I have Charisma 5, Magic 6, Alchemy 6.
I want to make it force 6 to match or exceed the targets intuition value(could probably go 5).
I use a bunch of reagents to boost my limit.
I then roll 12 dice(Force+Alchemy) resisted by 6 dice(force)
(Actually rolled) 7hits-3resisted for 4net hits making it a Potency 4 preparation
I then resist a drain of 3(F-3)+2 for command trigger.
I put the prep into my vault and sleep off the hangover.
Our Wired Reflexes high Chrome street sam wears it into the fight.
In the battle I look out from cover and use the command word,
The spell goes off and I use Potency+Force for the dice pool, 10Dice.
(Rolled) 2 net successes,
The Street Sams Intuition is increased by 2 for 2 minutes(Plenty of time to murder the Wage slave security guards)
Is that correct a correct example?
Did I do that right?
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looks pretty good to me, Chalkarts -- just one thing, for the drain, drain of F-3, +2 for the command trigger, is 5 drain to soak, not 3.
I don't remember the status of Forbidden Arcana for missions, but there are a few things in there that would help you. First is the vault of ages (expensive, but lets you store a small amount of preps indefinitely), and second are a couple of qualities that make your preparations last longer before losing potency.
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Practiced alchemist is the big one IMO. Its 5 Karma and doubles the duration of your preparations and gives a dice pool bonus for when your prep is triggered = to 1+initiation grade. Somewhere around grade 4 you are probably in the ballpark of balanced with spell casting, less dice than a spell caster but not stupid less dice. Its a master quality so it does not cost double to pick up after char gen, so a lot of people suggest waiting till after char gen for it on a min/max level. You can use it in missions though.There is another 5 point quality durable preparations that turns the duration of prep into x3 hours instead of x2, I have no idea how the two interact if they do x6 hours? But it does not have any additional perks so practices alchemist is clearly better. There is a lot in there that needs an errata though so I'm not sure what things will look like if that ever happens.
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looks pretty good to me, Chalkarts -- just one thing, for the drain, drain of F-3, +2 for the command trigger, is 5 drain to soak, not 3.
I don't remember the status of Forbidden Arcana for missions, but there are a few things in there that would help you. First is the vault of ages (expensive, but lets you store a small amount of preps indefinitely), and second are a couple of qualities that make your preparations last longer before losing potency.
Ah, ok, Action math isn't my strong suit, lol.
As for Forbidden Aracana, I hope its cool for SRM, the Vault of the Ages is kind of the Lynchpin for the whole build.
I want him to be superversatile, especially after getting some Karma and increasing his spell list.
A few vaults filled with buffs for every occasion doled out as needed before each run is essential to him working the way my brain envisions. I am going resources B so I can afford His Vehicle, Lifestyle, Lodge, foci, and several vaults. Between his home and Food Truck I'm hoping to have a sizable hoard of stored preps.
Since I don't actually own that book(yet) I don't know much about the qualities.
I'd heard of Practiced Alchemist but didn't know exactly what it did. I like it.
I was also hoping to drop some Karma on Initiation for Centering so I could handle the drain better and a couple foci as well.
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I also noticed that there were rules for what happens when you glitch at creating a preparation, but I didn't see anything about when you activate them(I probably just missed it)?
What if I glitch the Potency+Force roll at activation?
Does the Prep fail? And if so, can I try activating it again or is the magic expended?
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I also noticed that there were rules for what happens when you glitch at creating a preparation, but I didn't see anything about when you activate them(I probably just missed it)?
What if I glitch the Potency+Force roll at activation?
Does the Prep fail? And if so, can I try activating it again or is the magic expended?
You mean rolling a glitch upon triggering the preparation?
A critical glitch by definition is already a failure. Spell tries to happen and not only fails, something BAD happens.
A regular glitch by definition is a success. No reason the prep should fail to work. There's no need to attempt (or even be allowed to attempt) a 2nd "casting". Just per the glitch rules, something fun happens. Even if it's only fun for the GM and/or observers.