Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Jayde Moon on <03-13-15/1437:09>
-
So, looking at quickened spells I can see that they can be pretty damn strong.
What I am having a hard time seeing are the limits and drawbacks to them.
The simplest drawback is that it can be countered. But an overcast of the initial spell and then dumping a handful of Karma into it will make dispelling it difficult, if not impossible, while also ensuring that the dispelling mage takes a heap of drain.
Missions limits quickened spells to buying hits and not using edge, but in RAW those are not limits.
Some spells (like armor) will be noticeable. I suppose they would all add to your astral signature...
What else? Am I missing something?
-
First downside is you can not turn it on and off like a switch.
You might not think that is a big thing, but wards like mana barriers will resist the passage of a quickened spell as per page 315 in Core.
The quickened spells are nice shiny lights on the astral, immediately drawing attention.
Remember the phrase 'Geek the Mage'?
Well you now are always highlighting yourself as one 24/7 so you can expect the opposition to focus a bit more love your way.
While a 'handful' of karma may not seem like a lot, it certainly costs more than the potential drain paid by someone breaking it.
Now have those quickened spells broken a few times and you will find replacing them over and over can get spendy.
And if you think someone is NOT going to try breaking said spells, especially if it is making you more effective, you are mistaken.
They can be strong and rightfully so, but like all things they have their time and place.
-
While a 'handful' of karma may not seem like a lot, it certainly costs more than the potential drain paid by someone breaking it.
Now have those quickened spells broken a few times and you will find replacing them over and over can get spendy.
And if you think someone is NOT going to try breaking said spells, especially if it is making you more effective, you are mistaken.
I agree with all your points except this one. Assuming a Human Mage with 7 Edge (because he wants to survive the drain), let's look at some numbers.
Increase Reflexes - Drain = F
Force 12 = 12S or P Drain. Spellcasting 6 + Health Specialization 2 + Mentor Spirit 2 + Magic 6 + Force 6 Bound Spirit (Aid Sorcery) + Health Spellcasting Focus 4 = 26 dice to cast. Averaging about 9 hits. Using Edge to reroll, that's another 6 hits. Capping at the limit of 12, you now have a whopping +12, +4d6 (total of 5d6) to your Initiative. For forever.
Now, what about Drain? Assuming a Drain stat of 6 and a Willpower of 5, that's 11 dice to resist 12P Drain. Using Edge 7 to Push the Limit, you are going to get 6-7 hits on average. That's a mere 5P Drain. Easy enough to soak.
Your argument, then, is that it will be dispelled. Actually, since it's a Force 12 spell, this Human Mage decides to spend 12 Karma to quicken it.
The test to dispel it then becomes Counterspelling + Magic [Astral] vs. Spell's Force (12) + Caster's Magic (6) + Amount of Karma spent to quicken (12). Or, in other words, Counterspelling + Magic [Astral] vs. 30 dice. Assuming those dice roll completely average, that's 10 hits. A Magic 6, Counterspelling 6 Mage is only rolling 12 dice. And that's not the end of it. They are limited by their Astral Limit. A Charisma 9, Willpower 6, Essence 6 Mage only has a Social (and thus Astral) limit of 10. And you won't find that anywhere, really. If we were to take a Magic 10, Counterspelling 13 mage, they still only roll 23 dice. That requires at least 4 Initiations, and 366 Karma (126 to raise Counterspelling from 7 to 13; 70 from 4 Initiations; and 170 to raise Magic from 6 to 10). That's 366 Karma vs 25 Karma from the casting Mage. And no guarantee for the 366 Karma Mage to succeed. In fact, unless they spend Edge, it's nearly impossible to even touch the spell.
To top it all off, whether or not you were successful at counterspelling it, you have to resist 12P Drain. Fun, fun, fun. You don't even get rid of the spell until 12 net hits.
Basically, no. If someone is willing to invest the, quite appropriate, amount of resources into a massive spell, they can quicken it without ever worrying about it being dispelled.
Basically, yes, if used correctly, Quickening is broken as hell. That's why people houserule it all the time, in order to bring it's power down a bit. Hell, Harlequinn, while badass in his own right, is mostly what he is by the fact that he has a billion buffs quickened on himself (and his access to all spells, etc; that's besides the point).
-
That is a good point about trying to break the Force 12, I forgot the OP was overcasting the initial spell up.
-
I agree with all your points except this one. Assuming a Human Mage with 7 Edge (because he wants to survive the drain), let's look at some numbers.
Increase Reflexes - Drain = F
Force 12 = 12S or P Drain. Spellcasting 6 + Health Specialization 2 + Mentor Spirit 2 + Magic 6 + Force 6 Bound Spirit (Aid Sorcery) + Health Spellcasting Focus 4 = 26 dice to cast. Averaging about 9 hits. Using Edge to reroll, that's another 6 hits. Capping at the limit of 12, you now have a whopping +12, +4d6 (total of 5d6) to your Initiative. For forever.
Now, what about Drain? Assuming a Drain stat of 6 and a Willpower of 5, that's 11 dice to resist 12P Drain. Using Edge 7 to Push the Limit, you are going to get 6-7 hits on average. That's a mere 5P Drain. Easy enough to soak.
Your argument, then, is that it will be dispelled. Actually, since it's a Force 12 spell, this Human Mage decides to spend 12 Karma to quicken it.
The test to dispel it then becomes Counterspelling + Magic [Astral] vs. Spell's Force (12) + Caster's Magic (6) + Amount of Karma spent to quicken (12). Or, in other words, Counterspelling + Magic [Astral] vs. 30 dice. Assuming those dice roll completely average, that's 10 hits. A Magic 6, Counterspelling 6 Mage is only rolling 12 dice. And that's not the end of it. They are limited by their Astral Limit. A Charisma 9, Willpower 6, Essence 6 Mage only has a Social (and thus Astral) limit of 10. And you won't find that anywhere, really. If we were to take a Magic 10, Counterspelling 13 mage, they still only roll 23 dice. That requires at least 4 Initiations, and 366 Karma (126 to raise Counterspelling from 7 to 13; 70 from 4 Initiations; and 170 to raise Magic from 6 to 10). That's 366 Karma vs 25 Karma from the casting Mage. And no guarantee for the 366 Karma Mage to succeed. In fact, unless they spend Edge, it's nearly impossible to even touch the spell.
To top it all off, whether or not you were successful at counterspelling it, you have to resist 12P Drain. Fun, fun, fun. You don't even get rid of the spell until 12 net hits.
Basically, no. If someone is willing to invest the, quite appropriate, amount of resources into a massive spell, they can quicken it without ever worrying about it being dispelled.
Basically, yes, if used correctly, Quickening is broken as hell. That's why people houserule it all the time, in order to bring it's power down a bit. Hell, Harlequinn, while badass in his own right, is mostly what he is by the fact that he has a billion buffs quickened on himself (and his access to all spells, etc; that's besides the point).
If your going to count the karma for the initiations the person goes through did you factor in the karma spent to bond the focus in your calculation of karma comparison.
Also you have the mage optimized for casting that one type of spell with every possible bonus but the counterspelling mage doesn't have any focus or help in his actions nor does he use karma in your example. So while yes it is possible the majority of characters won't be able to pull that off. I won't argue that by quickening a spell you can get a great bonus it isn't as lopsided as shown in my opinion.
Another thing to keep in mind as was mentioned earlier is you can't turn it off. This means any astral barrier you run into is an issue. Yes your spell will win most of these, but if it does it crashes the barrier usually only momentarily, but the casting mage knows that there is an intrusion the minute you do.
-
All my Karma calculations in that example were after character creation. That 25 Karma is the cost of Initiation + Quickening (the 12 Karma spent on the spell).
Also, it's really not that much of a focus in casting that spell. That was to make a point. Take away the Mentor Spirit, and the Spellcasting Focus, you're still at 20 dice. That's still 7 hits average. Rerolling failures gets you another 4 hits, on average. That's 11 hits. So, only 11 + 4d6 (5d6 total). Not a big loss.
I'm not saying there aren't drawbacks, I even said I agree with all his other points. What I was pointing out was that the whole "dispelling the quickened spell" doesn't really apply, when put into practice. In theory, sure, people don't use 12 Karma to quicken spells. However, a smart player is going to do the above, because it's safer.
-
Don't forget about lovely plot points that force you to dispel the quickened spells (or do it for you), costing you your hard earned karma. When we played "Dawn of the Artifacts - Dusk" I ended up losing more karma than I earned. >:(
-
I guess one can always create a mage who specialises in dispelling quickened spells and disrupting foci :p
-
Theory and fact are two different things.
I have had a lot of "number cruncherz" try this stunt.
They work out all the variables, stats and probabilities.
And then they roll....
My favorite so far was the mage who Edged everything, and still died of drain :D
-
Theory and fact are two different things.
I have had a lot of "number cruncherz" try this stunt.
They work out all the variables, stats and probabilities.
And then they roll....
My favorite so far was the mage who Edged everything, and still died of drain :D
I've also seen people with such amazing luck with dice, that we've had to test whether they were loaded (hint: they weren't). People roll well above and below averages all the time. When you can safely perform something by rolling average, or even slightly below average; however, those are some pretty damn good odds that it will succeed.
Sure, the mage in your example just died. The point is, I've seen it work many more times than I've seen it fail, and usually when it fails, it's not always lethal.
-
You can also cherry pick the quickened spell, no?
Anyhow, thanks for the input, guys!
-
Theory and fact are two different things.
I have had a lot of "number cruncherz" try this stunt.
They work out all the variables, stats and probabilities.
And then they roll....
My favorite so far was the mage who Edged everything, and still died of drain :D
I don't see the point you're trying to make (beyond trying to put down people who crunch numbers). Bad rolls happen, sometimes they kill a character.
-
I think his point is just that resisting 12P drain is so deadly that even with artificial luck (Edge) it's never something you should risk.
The Mystic Adept player I have who would Quicken a F12 spell is a Dwarf with levels of Supernatural Toughness-- He can take 12P drain. And he actually picked this before he knew about Quickening, he just likes being durable.
Allow me to post Michael Chandra's suggested houserules for Quickening to make it more balanced and less exploitable.
Rule: Quickened Spells cannot be overcast
Dispelling and Astral Intersection have something really important in common: The higher the Force of your spell, the tougher they are to do. Not only does the spell have a higher defensive dicepool, in the case of Dispelling it also raises the drain the dispeller has to resist.
In other words, if you often throw Wards and Dispellers at your player, you're encouraging them to overcast. While during a run this is dangerous, in downtime there's no real problem with casting a Buff spell at Force 12 (or even 14), since it won't kill you. Do so in a Valkyrie Module with a friendly player on standby and you'll be fine even if you screw up so badly (that's what, ~1% chance?) that you go unconscious.
Wards are a popular defense mechanism against Quickened Spells, not only because it means the player has to pay attention and will either have to slip through or set off alarms, but also because if they do not pay attention they may lose the spell and thus the karma they put into it. A Force 4 Ward has roughly 1/3 odds to take down a Force 6 spell, while a Force 6 ward is at ~60%. Note that this kinda is per spell: Each side rolls at the same time, so a single ward can cost you multiple spells even if the first spell disrupts it.
However, a Force 6 Ward versus a Force 12 spell has only 10% odds. Which means that even if a player with 5 Quickened Spells runs into one, without noticing it(!), twice per run, it costs them only 1 karma. And given how players will soon figure out how not to get completely ambushed by high-quality wards, such astral intersections will be extremely rare.
Meanwhile, the dispeller would probably have 12~15 dice versus 19 for the Quickened Spell, which gives them bad odds and the drain soak would then cripple them for the coming fight.
Short version: While Wards + Dispelling may seem like decent balance methods against Quickeners, they risk pushing the Quickener into Overcasting his Quickened Spells, setting off a hostile arms race.
So to prevent that arms race, one can simply disallow Quickening Overcast spells. Leaving potential fluff explanations aside (every GM should be able to come up with some rubbish about astral balance), this means that the GM weapons are still viable tactics. And if your weapons are viable threats, it means you don't have to constantly throw them at the player but can just use them occasionally instead.
Rule: Quickened Spells must buy hits
Aside from overcasting, one other thing unbalances Quickening, namely the amount of hits. We all know that an average roll cannot be counted on to happen all the time. Bad spellcasting rolls happen and usually players will risk the drain to try again. But they also get good rolls, and sometimes even miraculous rolls. For example, 12 hits on Increase Reflexes for +12+4d6 Initiative. This is how a player of mine managed to break 40 on his Initiative. That's 4 IPs even if he Full Defenses, so a guaranteed slaughter of the enemy team.
Since that's only around for a short time, it doesn't matter that much in the long-term, and during a run you won't be able to hunt for high rolls because the drain risks crippling you during the fights. However, a Quickener can easily make that miraculous roll permanent, and they can even afford to hunt for it during their downtime. It doesn't matter much for Increase Attribute spells, but spells such as Combat Sense, Deflection and Increase Reflexes quickly change the balance permanently if the player hunts for the perfect roll.
Let's assume the player has 18 dice due to specializations and what-not. We're not even taking Aid Sorcery in mind here. Their odds at 10+ hits are 1/23. Their odds at 9+ hits are 1/10. So all a player has to do is keep casting his Force 6 spell until he hits 9+ hits, then he Pushes The Limit and rolls a few more exploding dice, and bam. Quite doable in downtime, where a bad Drain roll simply means a 1h break without consequences.
So for a 5-Reaction, 5-Intuition player it's quite doable to quickly hit 20+5d6 Initiative and 30 defensive dice. Even if you limit their Edge use in downtime to 1 point, as some people do, it would still only take them 3 downtimes to get that far.
There's multiple ways of dealing with this, but the best probably is going the Missions way: Buying Hits. The same kind of fluff-explanations would apply here, so let's ignore that and get to the consequences:
Under this rule, Quickened Spells are weaker than normally-cast Sustained Spells. 12 dice would only get you +3+1d6 Initiative, whereas during a run you'd have 60% odds to score at the least +4+2d6. But those Sustained Spells have downsides over Quickened Spells, so that helps balance it out. You get a smaller bonus in return for
It also highly benefits Conjurers and specializers. Using various boosts, including Aid Sorcery, 20 dice is easy and 24 dice is possible but expensive, so 6 hits bought is doable at a price. Hunting a miracle would be easier for such specialized players but the outcome would be the same, a massive bonus. In this case, however, they will always have a significantly better Quickened result than an unbuffed 12-dicer.
So players who try their best expenditure-wise get rewarded for their effort without the reward completely unbalancing the game, plus even their best results are no different from what they can normally hit with recasting during a run. It will also cost them dearly every time they lose a Quickened Spell, rather than it being easy to replace with yet another miraculous result in downtime.
This houserule prevents the search for a massive success that the normal Quickening rules encourage, which once more means the GM has less need to throw their GM-weapons at Quickened Spells to help balance out the game. It grants players permanency and a lack of Addiction and Sustaining penalties, but for a price, making it something other than the only way to go without forcing the GM to get characters arrested and thrown in jail.
Rule: A character may only have their Initiation Grade in spells Quickened
To compensate for the massive boost Quickened Spells can give a player, one way to balance it out is to limit the amount of Quickened Spells a character can have. While their Initiation Grade already is a limitation as far as Extended Masking the spells is concerned, unmasked spells are unlimited and will only increase the average karma-loss and chances the cops arrest you for walking around Downtown with enough quickened spells on you to start a war.
For a GM who is uncomfortable with bringing in law enforcement like that, they may instead explicitly limit the amount of spells a character has Quickened. This makes Quickening less of an instant-massive-boost, making it less likely and less powerful as the first Metamagic a player picks. By the time they can have several active, they already have enough notches in their belt to deserve it.
Let me note my own personal opinion and experiences here.
Disclaimer: My current only Mage player has decided to avoid Quickening for now, because I frequently (0~2 per run) use Wards, so I have not yet implemented any of these rules. I also suspect he'd avoid the cheesy tricks these houserules prevent, as to not set off an arms race. However, all NPCs I design that employ Quickening, are already using the first two rules. I also apply the third rule to them, though more as a rule of thumb for a reasonable maximum. Corpsec with a single Initiation may still have 2~3 Quickened Spells for me, since I will not explicitly limit them like that.
While I heavily encourage using the first two rules, I suspect the third may not be necessary. If a player goes for multiple Quickened Spells from the get-go, they'll still face the astral consequences and have a bigger average karma-loss if they run into a ward by accident. The Extended Masking limitation already serves as a limit regarding astral consequences, and by the time they have both they're already at Initiation Grade 3 so it's not that important anymore.
However, as noted if the GM is uncomfortable with having to frequently assense the player as a consequence, limiting the amount of Quickened spells may be a good call. So I would advise to always use the first two rules, and put some thought into whether the third is needed. And keep in mind that you should apply the same rules to your NPCs.
-
I think his point is just that resisting 12P drain is so deadly that even with artificial luck (Edge) it's never something you should risk.
That's the most extreme option. It's pretty easy to have tamer options.
Force 9 Increase Reflexes (max of +9, +4d6) - 9P drain (won't even kill a 3 Body human, if you soak 0 drain).
Force 8 Increase Charisma (using an Elf, for example) - 5P drain
Force 9 Combat Sense (max of +9 to Surprise and Defense tests) - 9P drain
Force 10 Deflection (max of +10 to Defense tests against ranged attacks) - 9P drain
It's just that the point is really moot. Force 12 is easily accomplishable, but if you really wanted to have enough safety margin to absolutely succeed without killing yourself, you can just lower the Force a little. It's not a big deal, you lose 3~ on numerical values.
As a note, Chandra's rules are really good. They limit it while still keeping it useful.
-
No, not the player resisting 12P drain.
He means the 12P drain you'd take from trying to dispell a quickened F12 Increase Reflexes. Any NPC would be stupid to even try if they knew.
-
No, not the player resisting 12P drain.
He means the 12P drain you'd take from trying to dispell a quickened F12 Increase Reflexes. Any NPC would be stupid to even try if they knew.
Ah. I was under the impression he was talking about the player. My bad.
Yes, the NPC would probably not even attempt to dispel it. One assensing to determine Force, and they'll realize it's more trouble than it's worth. NPCs have survival instincts too.
-
Look if your determined to dispel a quickened spells there are ways to deal with serious amounts of drain. Not the least of which is just having the opposition show up with an effective magic rating equal to the force of the Quickened spell (Power Foci for example), yes that does not effect your drain pool, but going from P to S is biggest safety step. If your prepared to boost your drain stats, you can break into the 20 die range, and with planing there are ways that you could mess with concerning backgrounds.
The issue isn't if you can dispel it, the issue is should you. If you go through the method to make this happen it's going to be clear you made some fairly serious NPC(s) with a very limited focus.
Quicken spells are serious, they represent a serious power advance at the table, and require serious investment on the part of the player. Quickening in moderation, is perfectly reasonable imo. If all your player does with it, is boost init, I'd just let it go.
But if your player start getting out of hand with it, then I'd chat with them about it. If that fails, well there are ways, to achieve it.
-
Look if your determined to dispel a quickened spells there are ways to deal with serious amounts of drain. Not the least of which is just having the opposition show up with an effective magic rating equal to the force of the Quickened spell (Power Foci for example), yes that does not effect your drain pool, but going from P to S is biggest safety step. If your prepared to boost your drain stats, you can break into the 20 die range, and with planing there are ways that you could mess with concerning backgrounds.
Power foci won't effect whether the drain is physical or stun. They literally do nothing except for add dice to any pool that includes MAG-- The benefit is the fact that a huge number of pools benefit from that.
The issue isn't if you can dispel it, the issue is should you. If you go through the method to make this happen it's going to be clear you made some fairly serious NPC(s) with a very limited focus.
Quicken spells are serious, they represent a serious power advance at the table, and require serious investment on the part of the player. Quickening in moderation, is perfectly reasonable imo. If all your player does with it, is boost init, I'd just let it go.
But if your player start getting out of hand with it, then I'd chat with them about it. If that fails, well there are ways, to achieve it.
The issue is that they really don't require a serious investment. They require 1 Karma after spending 13. That is not a lot. It's as much as it'd take someone to bring one skill from 6 to 7. Boosting initiative is a huge deal, I don't know how you can think going from having "solid initiative that requires a sustaining penalty or takes up a focus" to "the highest initiative in the game, hands-down, for 1 Karma" isn't a big deal. Sure, if maybe they only quicken one spell, it's not disruptive but... The question is why? It's a minor investment after an initial relatively low investment. If you're not specifically limiting them to just one spell, or giving them set restrictions, it's going to be really hard to tell what's going too far, and what's just the obviously great choices to improve your character.
I actually had a player tell me, even if he learned every relevant attribute-boosting spell with Karma and got dispelled every two or three runs, he'd still be fine with it because of how incredibly more cost-effective it'd be than the way anyone else could get +4 to the attributes they want (and spells can do attributes nothing else can touch, like Charisma). I really can't blame someone for not taking advantage of the just blatantly beneficial ability that's always a good choice for initiation early on (as it's powerful and doesn't scale with initiate grade). I feel like it's up to the GM to say what limits they're putting on it, or else it's going to get jumbled and the PC will either have to just choose to be less capable and more vulnerable than everyone else just so they don't get left behind. Unless they're specifically going for that "mediocre medium" kind of thing where it's like "don't be so bad you're fired, but don't be so good they ask more of you..."
-
It involve initiation, purchasing all the spells, and then actually putting them up. That's not a small investment. Depending on how many spells that could total to the better part of 100 karma.
As to someone being on with them being dispelled, If someone is ok with killing their progression that's really on them.
Well it depends how you look at It. It is cheap if you look at it from the view of what you would pay to get them another way. But your accept a high level of risk, your not getting that invested karma back. So i guess i'd compare it to a cyberlimb. You can get a lot stats out of it for a relatively low cost, but your taking a chance on losing it.
-
It involve initiation, purchasing all the spells, and then actually putting them up. That's not a small investment. Depending on how many spells that could total to the better part of 100 karma.
It's open ended. Saying it could take 100 Karma means nothing. It doesn't take 100 Karma to be powerful. The fact that you could potentially spend 100 Karma in it is a good thing not a drawback of Quickening. And most players will not have to purchase spells, I've seen many magicians made, and any buff spells they want? They pick them during character creation. Unless your character has anti-foresight and you actively avoid taking useful sustained spells, saying "They need to spend a bunch of karma on spells first!" isn't legitimate. Starting with a Increase Attribute spell, some defensive spell (armor, combat sense, deflection... More than one or all of these) and Increase Reflexes is not a stretch. The mage needs a way to stay alive, and it's not like these spells are only useful after you get Quickening.
As to someone being on with them being dispelled, If someone is ok with killing their progression that's really on them.
Killing their progression? They likely spent 1 Karma to quicken it (in which case, see the point I mentioned above) or 12 Karma, in which case it's just not getting dispelled any time soon unless the GM has just decided they want it gone with no reasoning. That's 30 dice to resist being countered. Someone on the level of the PCs might be able to pull 18, an exceptionally skilled person could probably get up to 24... It's possible, but so is simply dieing. It's an absolutely acceptable risk-- You're a shadowrunner for crying out loud.
So i guess i'd compare it to a cyberlimb. You can get a lot stats out of it for a relatively low cost, but your taking a chance on losing it.
What games you do you play where you have a chance of regularly losing a cyberlimb?
-
What games you do you play where you have a chance of regularly losing a cyberlimb?
Ask Bull sometime. :P
-
Ask Bull sometime. :P
Heh, I just imagine it like... "God damn it! I already lost it once! Let's go get another one from the van..."
-
Looking at this from a different perspective.
Here's a question.
Is the problem here really that Quickened Spells are too powerful....or....would a better fix be to change how dispelling works?
Because honestly, I am starting to feel that the real issue here is that dispelling has way too many negatives attached to it.
I'm also thinking that a negative effect to Quickening that makes some sense to me would be to make a person resist the drain a 2nd time, basically to mirror how Binding requires a 2nd Drain after Summoning.
Thoughts?
Perhaps a combination of changing dispelling AND more drain from quickening?
Actually, now that I think about it, I'd like to see a change in how several of the Meta Magics work.
The benefit is often 1 die at first initiation. I'm honestly thinking that is too little.
What if things like Shielding/Centering were to offer you Grade x2 dice instead?
And in turn have quickened spells be capped at Grade x2 as well?
Comparing...... Current Way...at grade 1.
Initiate-1 + Centering/Shielding = 1 Drain/Defense Die
Initiate-1 + Quickening = Infinite Locked Spells (Admittedly they do invest in karma for spell & quickening.)
This is badly gimped IMHO & it just makes quickening a near default as first choice if only for the not capped by grade issue.
v/s
New Way:
Initiate-3 + Centering/Shielding/Quickening = 6 Dice for Drain, 6 Dice for Defense, 6 Quickened Spells (all w/ the 2nd drain to quicken them)
I know this will boost the power of high level initiates but really, if your investing THAT much karma into advancement, I'm not seeing the issue.
Its several changes but when all totaled it seems like it might be more balanced.
Easier Dispelling + Drain for Quickening + Cap on Quickened Spells + Increase in other Meta Magic Dice = Balanced ??
-
I think something that is not getting enough attention here is the fact that having very high force quickened spells, or multiple such spells, makes you a giant walking 'mage over here" sign in astral. Trying to get someone like this past magical security is like trying to get a full body cyborg past a MAD scanner. It closes off alot of operational options. There aren't enough Con skill dice to explain why the janitor is tricked out like a combat mage.
-
Heh, I just imagine it like... "God damn it! I already lost it once! Let's go get another one from the van..."
I hope that the next augmentation book has rules for modular limbs. Pop my forearm off, and replace it with a giant axe. Oh, no need for an axe? I'll just pop that off and put in the snake fingers so I can pop that lock easily. I can see it now, one of my players will get a cyberlimb and carry around a backpack full of forearms, and nothing else.
-
I hope that the next augmentation book has rules for modular limbs. Pop my forearm off, and replace it with a giant axe. Oh, no need for an axe? I'll just pop that off and put in the snake fingers so I can pop that lock easily. I can see it now, one of my players will get a cyberlimb and carry around a backpack full of forearms, and nothing else.
be even better if the back pack had a quick change feature where you just reach back up over your shoulder like you were drawing a sword hung on your back and the backpack has some unit pop up to decouple and swap out the limb end so you don't have to mess around with digging out the right forearm. :P
Normally a simple action, but with wireless ON it's just a free action. ;)
-
I hope that the next augmentation book has rules for modular limbs. Pop my forearm off, and replace it with a giant axe. Oh, no need for an axe? I'll just pop that off and put in the snake fingers so I can pop that lock easily. I can see it now, one of my players will get a cyberlimb and carry around a backpack full of forearms, and nothing else.
Yeah...... I Love this idea!! ;)
-
If I were looking to dispel a quickened spell on someone, I'd try to get them into a background count that is aligned to me (bonus to dispel limit), but not the quickened spell user. (penalty to spell force)
-
It's open ended. Saying it could take 100 Karma means nothing. It doesn't take 100 Karma to be powerful. The fact that you could potentially spend 100 Karma in it is a good thing not a drawback of Quickening. And most players will not have to purchase spells, I've seen many magicians made, and any buff spells they want? They pick them during character creation. Unless your character has anti-foresight and you actively avoid taking useful sustained spells, saying "They need to spend a bunch of karma on spells first!" isn't legitimate. Starting with a Increase Attribute spell, some defensive spell (armor, combat sense, deflection... More than one or all of these) and Increase Reflexes is not a stretch. The mage needs a way to stay alive, and it's not like these spells are only useful after you get Quickening.
100 Karma is more then full reward of a season of adventures in Missions play. I think character restriction on missions is 200 Karma? Something like that. So 100 karma represents a reasonably high bar, as is.
On the topic of Spells in all my years of playing SR i have never actually seen anyone start with all the Improved Attribute spells. I have seen plenty take 2 or 3. But not once more then 4 of them. So I'm not prepared to agree fully on that.
What games you do you play where you have a chance of regularly losing a cyberlimb?
I both played and run games where this has happened with fair regularity. It got meaningfully easier in 5th. Losing Cyberlimbs is bad, but I was in game where a character lost his wired reflexes. That was just horrible, for so many reasons.
I need to go look up what happens when Quickened spell run into dead magic zones. I think that might be easiest way to do it. But I think it just kills the guy.
The other thing that I have only ever seen taken advantage of once is that in a game where Cash to Karma is active, a player could easily pay a the team's wizard to quicken a spell on him/her. I have only even seen this done once in a game I was involved with. But every time a caster gets quickening I'm interested to see if folks catch on to this. Have you guys seen this?
-
On the topic of Spells in all my years of playing SR i have never actually seen anyone start with all the Improved Attribute spells. I have seen plenty take 2 or 3. But not once more then 4 of them. So I'm not prepared to agree fully on that.
Increase Reflexes
Increase Drain Attribute
Increase Willpower
Combat Sense
Not that strange of a setup. Drop Combat Sense, and you still have a fairly standard setup. Sure, you are going to want all the Increase Attribute spells, but that's a long term plan. Assuming you want to quicken the top 3:
Initiation for Quickening - 13 Karma
Force 12 Increase Reflexes - 12 Karma
Force 6 Increase Drain Attribute - 6 Karma
Force 6 Increase Willpower - 6 Karma
Total: 37 Karma
Let's assume the character saves 7 Karma at chargen. That's only 30 Karma to get. Assuming 6 Karma a run, that's 5 runs. That's not a lot of investment to get a really large return.
The other thing that I have only ever seen taken advantage of once is that in a game where Cash to Karma is active, a player could easily pay a the team's wizard to quicken a spell on him/her. I have only even seen this done once in a game I was involved with. But every time a caster gets quickening I'm interested to see if folks catch on to this. Have you guys seen this?
All the time. It's not a big deal, in my opinion, as long as the player's actually play their characters (aka, don't just give 10,000 nuyen for a 5 Karma quickening; it's going to cost 20-40k for it). It's part of business, and the mage has to be willing to risk their spell being detected and traced back to them, at some point.
Also, totally unrelated, but my favorite use of Quickening is the Shapechange spell. Turn into a cat or something, spend 1 Karma to quicken, say goodbye to the rest of your life as a metahuman.
-
I play semi-regularly with a guy who has quickened a number of spells to his character, enabling him to cast some just crazy spells--a Force 14 Lightning Ball cast in a Background Count of 2 or 3 made an appearance this weekend. To the guy's credit, he completely expects this to kill his character sooner rather than later and he plays his character really well, so no one really worries about spotlight hogging or some of the other problems associated with obscenely powerful PCs. He (both the player and the character) is a fun guy to have at the table, so all the quickening isn't a huge concern. As with just about every potential rules abuse, how it's played matters more than what it looks like on paper.
-
Please remind me, is there a way to mask quickened spells?
-
Please remind me, is there a way to mask quickened spells?
They got a Metamagic Technique for that
EXTENDED MASKING
Extended masking extends your masking to include
anchored, sustained, or quickened spells; imbued or
attuned items; or alchemical preparations that are in
the magician’s possession. The magician may mask a
number of items up to his initiate grade (this is in addition
to bonded foci). Each item masked in this way must
have a Force less than the magician’s Magic attribute.
As per the masking rules, an Opposed Assensing test
is required to view such items. If the observer fails to
gain any net hits, the masked items appear to the observer
as normal fluctuations in the background count.
Prerequisite: Masking
-
The other thing that I have only ever seen taken advantage of once is that in a game where Cash to Karma is active, a player could easily pay a the team's wizard to quicken a spell on him/her. I have only even seen this done once in a game I was involved with. But every time a caster gets quickening I'm interested to see if folks catch on to this. Have you guys seen this?
As much as Quickening is opening its self up to getting regulated by the GM via NPC reactions.......
Quickening another character is going to be SO much worse.
Wherever that guy goes there is a little astral thread leading back to you. No Thanks.
That said, my current fun joy is to get together with the Mage & the 2 of us temporarily buff the Troll-Adept w/ Intuition, Combat Sense, & Invisibility.
Do you have any idea how much carnage a Shotgun/Combat Axe Troll can do when the enemy can't see him & even if they do he's dodgy as all hell & then when they finally manage to hit him the Troll has like 28 Soak dice. Yeah, its a lot ;)
We can just hide outside & let him kick in a door solo. No Mage fireballs, No Mystic Stunballs, Just a Troll running around like a scene from Planet of the Apes crushing those damn dirty humans.
All the time. It's not a big deal, in my opinion, as long as the player's actually play their characters (aka, don't just give 10,000 nuyen for a 5 Karma quickening; it's going to cost 20-40k for it). It's part of business, and the mage has to be willing to risk their spell being detected and traced back to them, at some point.
Also, totally unrelated, but my favorite use of Quickening is the Shapechange spell. Turn into a cat or something, spend 1 Karma to quicken, say goodbye to the rest of your life as a metahuman.
That is a huge risk that I don't see most mages doing honestly.
Say goodbye to running from the law & hello to running from the local Chinese/Mexican restaurant. :o
-
I am not sure it is such a huge risk.
Yes I did quicken that spell few years ago... whats your problem he paid well- this is my profession I am a mage? is it illegal ? I got my magic licence right here. I told him not to break the law - do I need to undo the spell now? Okay okay I remove the spell. Thanks for letting me know mr. X is a criminal.
-
Please remind me, is there a way to mask quickened spells?
They got a Metamagic Technique for that
EXTENDED MASKING
Extended masking extends your masking to include
anchored, sustained, or quickened spells; imbued or
attuned items; or alchemical preparations that are in
the magician’s possession. The magician may mask a
number of items up to his initiate grade (this is in addition
to bonded foci). Each item masked in this way must
have a Force less than the magician’s Magic attribute.
As per the masking rules, an Opposed Assensing test
is required to view such items. If the observer fails to
gain any net hits, the masked items appear to the observer
as normal fluctuations in the background count.
Prerequisite: Masking
Oh right, thanks
So in order to avoid being a moving target in astral you gotta initiate in a specific High Art, which in my table would require serious investment.But if this isn't enough a posdible houserule could dictate that "maximum number of quickened spells cannot exceed initiate grade"
-
Also, totally unrelated, but my favorite use of Quickening is the Shapechange spell. Turn into a cat or something, spend 1 Karma to quicken, say goodbye to the rest of your life as a metahuman.
That is a huge risk that I don't see most mages doing honestly.
Say goodbye to running from the law & hello to running from the local Chinese/Mexican restaurant. :o
SzechuanRun™ : The GrimDark Side of Strays (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/general-gaming/(kickstarting-now!)-'strays-'-a-family-friendly-fuzzy-fate-accelerated-rpg!/)
-
I am not sure it is such a huge risk.
Yes I did quicken that spell few years ago... whats your problem he paid well- this is my profession I am a mage? is it illegal ? I got my magic licence right here. I told him not to break the law - do I need to undo the spell now? Okay okay I remove the spell. Thanks for letting me know mr. X is a criminal.
You sir must have great relations with everyone. Because while a nice police detective might ask you calmly. Its the Corp Strike Team or Mafia Hit Squad that I'm more worried about when they kick in my door & DON'T ask questions first. You did after all buff a guy that probably will be pissing off both those groups at some point.
-
To be fair most competent runners have taken decent precautions against their doors getting kicked in by cops. But I do wish some mafia hit squads were dumb enough to do door kicking, I don't think I have ever seen such a thing. It's always an ambush, or a bomb. /sigh
-
I am not sure it is such a huge risk.
Yes I did quicken that spell few years ago... whats your problem he paid well- this is my profession I am a mage? is it illegal ? I got my magic licence right here. I told him not to break the law - do I need to undo the spell now? Okay okay I remove the spell. Thanks for letting me know mr. X is a criminal.
You sir must have great relations with everyone. Because while a nice police detective might ask you calmly. Its the Corp Strike Team or Mafia Hit Squad that I'm more worried about when they kick in my door & DON'T ask questions first. You did after all buff a guy that probably will be pissing off both those groups at some point.
i admit that i am the recipient of a quickened inc logic spell and i paid handsomly for it. it was however a heck of a lot cheaper than R3 cerebral booster. even considering if it gets dispelled 5x and i have to repurchase it, but as i am a rigger and usually sit in my van away from astral viewing (unless i have my window down or the perceiving mage "flys" through my vehicle) i dont have much to worry about