Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-07-19/1812:20>
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I'm going simple on this and assuming using gross hits of the mage and then everyone can assume potency is that -1 or -2 depending on the spell(maybe higher with amps). Starting from the steps in order. With my commentary.
1. choose a spell, you can amp and all the bells and whistles to spells you know. I'd of limited it here, assuming amps get limited in standard spell casting I'd make the limit 1/2 that, though if they totally redid the test like I suggest below no need.
2. Choose a Trigger. Personally I think it should not effect drain but be what modifies your die pool, and te whole test thing in step 3 should be irrelevant to the die pool when used.
command, act of will poof spell goes off. Minor action. Simple action in SR5 when only one attack a pass was the rule it worked. Minor if you theoretically get a bunch built I think this would get exploited. It should be major IMO.
Contact/time next person to touch it or a time delay. I'd make these 1 higher than command in how much they cost. But, I'd rephrase them to being inert until a command(see command trigger) is made. Once the command is set the next person to touch them or when the time i up they'd activate. As is they are basically unusable, time can work but barely, contact you spend hours to make the thing and no no one can touch it, where exactly do you have hours to make something where this would work. Even with minutes in SR5 it wasn't usable which is why they invented magic gloves etc. With my suggestion you'd turn some water or whatever into a preparation, pour it into a flask, command it to activate and then the next person to drink it pour it over themselves would activate it, time delay, you make it with a 5 minute trigger take it to the location, command it to activate and in 5 minutes it blows. I'm not sold on only command triggers being able to do health spells but maybe there is something I am missing.
Step 3 create the preparation. some basic dice pool examples below.It takes hours in the drain to make. That really doesn't work unless you expect people to only make 1 or 2. Serious min maxers can make a bunch, but I don't think it should be designed so only they can really use this. And if you do have a bunch see the issues with it being a minor action.
Hours also stops you from making them on location, or changing in the field. some of that might be okay, but minutes already handled most of that. You weren't making preparations while being chased or something. You still needed to be free and clear for a decent length of time. but it did allow a enchanter to function by making a couple after he got past security that would inevitably spot and confiscate any preparations. It really should go back to minutes. Make the limitation on numbers be your magic rating. 1 prep per magic max kept by an alchemist. Maybe qualities or focuses can alter that.
example people making it
1. Basic professional 5 magic+4 enchanting
2. Basic PC alchemist mage 6 enchanting+ 6 magic.
3. Min maxed for this PC starting mage 6 enchanting+specialization alchemy+6 magic+rating 4 focus
1. Gets 3 hits nets 1 or 2 + their 5 magic is a dice pool of 6-7, not terrible from 9, they last 2-6 hours and took 3+hours to make so you can;t really make a second before the first expires.
2. Gets 4 hits, nets 2-3+ their magic 6 8-9 dice on the roll, dropping to 8 dice is pretty harsh for your gig on a PC in SR, they last 6-12 hours, you can make another if its a low drain spell but after that they start degrading as you make them.
3. 6 hits nets 4-5+6 magic 10 or 11 dice, ouch down form 18 dice to 10 or 11, they last fairly long though 20-30 hours. You can probably make 2-3 more depending on drain no problem before they begin degrading.
For me I think this doesn't work as the penalty of using alchemy scales against those who are better at it. A flat penalty is more balanced, easier to use and makes more sense. Basically I'd say make your alchemy test vs a threshold equal to the drain adjusted by trigger type/amps/reagents, this would limit amps pretty well and reagents would allow even low level mages to pull off a fireball here and there.
I'd have command -2/touch/time delay-3.(min threshold of 2 or 1) This would represent both the drop in threshold to successfully make it, but also the penalty dice against it when cast. 2 through 3 is roughly what most mages would get hit by anyways when making most preps based on the current rules. but it would not overly punish a mage for going all in on enchanting.
Net hits on the creating the preparation test would help it resist dispelling or break through wards while it was still in preparation form, once cast it would defend per usual as the spell. This would increase the die pool on amped spells a bit but generally just a die or 2. The current rules a x3 amped damage fireball would take 12 hours to make a so I would not expect many of those, but at that level you'd lose 2 dice compared to my system(which also is quicker as its minutes) though you'd have a threshold of 10 without reagents, 8 with them, so good luck making one under my system.
Resist drain: basically as normal, though I wouldn't bother with bumping it by trigger, its downtime I don't care that much.
The finished prep, currently lasts potencyx2 hours, degrades 1 potency, repeat. I really wouldn't have potency effect this. I'd have them permanent with the limit being the number you can keep on hand. if I really needed a duration I'd go potencyx2 days or weeks. Sold preparations would have a use by date, basically how long the alchemist guarantees he wont refill that slot. Assume a alchemist would know when a preparation is used so they can refill it then.
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Good crunch, thanks ;) Fixing Alchemy is really tough, because not only are the numbers totally off compared to standard spellcasting, but the fluff and flavour as well. F.i., despite a (very small) buff an that part, Alchemy still has by far the least rewarding use for reagents.
I´m about to start my first 6th Edition round soon, and one of my players really wants to play an Alchemist. We agreed to sit down together (he´s a quite experienced RPGer) and cook up some houserules together, because RAW, Alchemy really is just an absolute joke right now.
My goal is to
- Buff alchemy so it´s at least a somewhat reasonable alternative to regular spellcasting.
- Improve the fluff and not just the raw numbers.
- Better support a creative and "tinkery" playstyle, because that´s usually what players have in mind when they decide to play an alchemist
I´m currently thinking about this:
- More uses for Reagents, enabling Alchemists to buff up preparations to be on par with actual spells if you can invest enough of them.
- Additional Triggers, like actual Potions, Preparations that go off when hit by certain Elemental effects or Preparations that are primed to be set of by certain individuals only.
- Many of these will be implemented as "Meta-Formulars" that can be bought and learned like regular "Spell"-Formulars, but instead unlock new Triggers, uses for Reagents and other Modifications to Alchemical spells.
I´ll try to keep you in the loop on what we come up with. I think it may have... potential (*Ba Dum Tss*).
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In 5th, we skipped the initial casting. Instead the enchanter just said what force he would like to create, and then took the drain test.
When the preparation later got triggered it had his alchemy dicepool as if it was cast then and there as a normal spell.
It worked fine in 5th that way, and I think we are gonna keep it that way in 6th too.
As shinobi noted in its current form it doesnt scale very well.
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In 5th, we skipped the initial casting. Instead the enchanter just said what force he would like to create, and then took the drain test.
When the preparation later got triggered it had his alchemy dicepool as if it was cast then and there as a normal spell.
This was how I house ruled it as well. Removing the nested rolls went a long way toward making alchemy viable.
6E also has the double-whammy of the preparation being resisted by the drain value of the spell (!) in an opposed roll (p. 150, step 3). For a lot of spells that means that potency will be about 3, plus or minus. That would only last six hours at full strength, and 12 hours overall.
Speaking of which, I still don't like all the bookkeeping required around Potency, especially diminishing Potency. In 5E I gave each preparation a flat lifespan, which was a bit unrealistic (going from full potency to 0 instantly is obviously a big cliff) but saved a lot of headache around when precisely the preparation was created and when precisely it was used.
I haven't done a lot of thinking around alchemy in 6E yet, but shooting from my hip I'm inclined to 1) get rid of the nested roll, 2) get rid of the opposed roll while determining potency, 3) give the final preparation a flat lifespan of Potency * Magic hours, and 4) remove diminishing potency.
Given the amount of time it takes to create a preparation (hours = drain value) - including the additional drain from triggers - plus the fact that most preparations will only last 24 hours or so, and combined with the need for sleep and/or drain recovery, that means that only a few preparations will be possible leading up to a run.
The time required to create preparations is an interesting limitation. If you allow reagents to subtract from the necessary preparation time (which seems plausible, although the book doesn't explicitly condone this) then that could greatly improve the importance of reagents in the preparation process. Two drams of reagents to lower the drain by 2 and subtract 2 hours off the preparation time would be a good deal.
Some of this comes down to playstyle and personal preferences. I like the idea of an alchemist having 4 or 5 tricks up their sleeve, or each member of the team having a Panic Button to get them out of trouble. I'm less keen on a bag full of multiple instances of each spell an alchemist knows. I personally think the Command requirement for Health spells is very important, so that there isn't an unlimited supply of healing from multiple alchemists who aren't even present, which would radically shift the nature of the game. (Shadowrun, in my experience, has always been about damage avoidance and mitigation. If damage is assumed, and readily available healing is assumed, then it turns Shadowrun into a game of resource management like some other RPGs that we know.) But every table will find its own balance.
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Does anyone see or know the rules about alchemical sustained spells? How long do they last and can they be dropped early? Is there a 'cost' for sustaining an alchemical spell, and if so who is paying that cost?
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They're missing, I submitted it the week after agents received access so I'm sure it's on the future errata list.
My own assumption would be Potency in minutes and while I'm not sure if ending it is possible, I'd allow it with a Command Action myself.
The Preparation should sustain itself.
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The time required to create preparations is an interesting limitation. If you allow reagents to subtract from the necessary preparation time (which seems plausible, although the book doesn't explicitly condone this) then that could greatly improve the importance of reagents in the preparation process. Two drams of reagents to lower the drain by 2 and subtract 2 hours off the preparation time would be a good deal.
Following up on this, the example on p. 151 is explicit that the use of reagents does not reduce the time necessary to create the preparation. Still, that could be an interesting house rule to make alchemy more viable.
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The time required to create preparations is an interesting limitation. If you allow reagents to subtract from the necessary preparation time (which seems plausible, although the book doesn't explicitly condone this) then that could greatly improve the importance of reagents in the preparation process. Two drams of reagents to lower the drain by 2 and subtract 2 hours off the preparation time would be a good deal.
Following up on this, the example on p. 151 is explicit that the use of reagents does not reduce the time necessary to create the preparation. Still, that could be an interesting house rule to make alchemy more viable.
It takes more than that, though. The numbers are just waa too bad compared to regular spellcasting. And even with that change, it would still be the least rewarding use for reagents. IMO, using reagents should be key part of Alchemy. Right now, you can use them at best to safe a little bit of sleep time during downtime.
They're missing, I submitted it the week after agents received access so I'm sure it's on the future errata list.
My own assumption would be Potency in minutes and while I'm not sure if ending it is possible, I'd allow it with a Command Action myself.
The Preparation should sustain itself.
Vexes my how this was left out. Self-sustained spells is one of the few actual merits of Preparations (as long as you don´t think too hard about Focused Concentration ::)). Either another case of change blindness or someone really wants to bury alchemy for good :P
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It takes more than that, though. The numbers are just waa too bad compared to regular spellcasting. And even with that change, it would still be the least rewarding use for reagents. IMO, using reagents should be key part of Alchemy. Right now, you can use them at best to safe a little bit of sleep time during downtime.
Yes and no. To me, the potential time saving is less important for sleeping off Drain (although this is valuable) and more important for maintaining the Potency of the finished preparation, since it has such a limited life span. If a Potency 3 preparation is only going to last 6 hours at full strength, and 12 hours overall, then cutting off a couple hours of preparation time goes a long way toward giving the alchemist an opportunity to create additional preparations before the first one goes kaput.
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True dat, it´s inderectly helping a (very tiny) bit with the borked time management for alchemists. But what good does that do if you still end up with 2-3 spells that suck ass compared to regular spellcasting? ::)
[irony]
Also, RAW there´s a waaaaaaaaay better tool to help with that:
Just get the fixation metamagic, and you can pay Karma to make preparations last longer ;D
[/irony]
(Seriously, who the everloving hell was responsible for Alchemy in this Edition? This is beyond insulting...)
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True dat, it´s inderectly helping a (very tiny) bit with the borked time management for alchemists. But what good does that do if you still end up with 2-3 spells that suck ass compared to regular spellcasting.
[irony]
Also, RAW there´s a waaaaaaaaay better tool to help with that.
Just get the fixation metamagic, and you can pay Karma to make preparations last longer ;D
[/irony]
(Seriously, who the everloving hell was responsible for Alchemy in this Edition? This is beyond insulting...)
Yeah it helps a bit in that you may have 3-4 preparations instead of 1-2 but it’s still a very small pile of preparations and they still have a terrible die pool.
They really need to go back to minutes imo. And fix the die pool. Maybe if the standard was minutes and fixation took hours for the preparation but did not cost karma it would be a decent Metamagic. I’d personally ditch duration of preparations entirely and make the limit the number you can keep. Something kind of cool about bumping into a preparation left there years ago maybe by a dead alchemist.
Main reason I think they need it to be minutes is because you will lose all your preparations once you go thorough security. If it’s minutes they can spin one up in the bathroom so a alchemist has something.
1. Better define what can be a preparation. Small and moveable. Is weird if it’s a liquid and a pour it on a couch is it no longer a preparation. I’d explain that small moveable object and then use liquid examples and what it means. Imo(partly because we have a street painter alchemist in our group) is explain that things like a liquid medium work if the liquid becomes part of a larger object it’s just the medium that is damaged when it is activated though obviously a explosive spell may cause damage on its own.
2. Reduce the time to make back to minutes. It never broke in 5e with this and a alchemist needs to be able to function past a security checkpoint. And should have the ability to change up on a run at some point. Too many runs don’t give you hours from meet to action.
3. Change the die pool penalty to a flat penalty so it is weaker than spell-casting which risks drain on the spot but doesn’t scale so you lose more dice for being better.
4. Change it to a major action. The new initiative mechanic you can have too many minors for this to work if someone finds a way too load up.
5. Sustained spells needs to be potency minutes. Personally that’s all potency would really cover, that and maybe how it pushes past wards.
6. I’d make them permanent and make the limit you can keep magic potency items. But if you are degrading them on time I’d double the duration at each level. They should pretty much cover the day at the default.
7. Change fixation so it bumps the creation time up to a hours but has some other perk. If they normally degrade in hours it’s now days. If they are permanent fixation like I’d prefer and limited to magic make that some background count resistance equal to potency.
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@ Killfist
I agree with most of your reasoning.
I wonder what triggered all the nerfs to preparations, if its simply some unlucky typos, or if someone really didnt like alchemists.
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Ok, I'm utterly confused.
Where in the rules is this penalty that gets bigger the better you are?
Reading the PDF (but I don't see any errata in the errata document, so it should be the same as the book) on p150 I see that a preparation is created by rolling Enchanting + Magic vs Drain Value, Potency is the net hits on this roll.
The Drain Value is: spell Drain Value + effects + trigger Drain Value - reagents used
The time taken to create is: Drain Value hours (hey look reagents do reduce the time taken?)
Am I missing something?
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It's not so much a penalty as diminishing returns.
As it stands, the more you invest, the less you gain. The ratio of base dice pool to final result is not constant. I don't entirely agree with SK's assessment, but i do agree this doesn't pass the smell test. The current idea on preparations is that you trade raw power and flexibility for drain mitigation and utility(cheaper action economy and self-sustaining(?, 6e isn't clear and it's built into manipulation spells)).
I'm noodling on an idea that the final potency should be a fixed penalty based on trigger.
Something like alchemy(focus) - trigger penalty.
Probably tweak the trigger penalties to something like:
Touch: -1
Timed: -2
Command: -3
"Potion": -4
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Minor pedantry, but I think potions are just liquids with a touch trigger.
It's not the drinking, it's the touch to the lips. Which happens to answer the question, "how can you give an unconscious person a healing potion?"
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Hence the quotes.
I meant that to represent "command trigger that didn't require the alchemist to activate it". "Potions" seemed like a reasonable shorthand. You're not wrong, but I was just trying to come up with a balanced distinction between traps and one-off buffs.
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It's not so much a penalty as diminishing returns.
As it stands, the more you invest, the less you gain. The ratio of base dice pool to final result is not constant. I don't entirely agree with SK's assessment, but i do agree this doesn't pass the smell test. The current idea on preparations is that you trade raw power and flexibility for drain mitigation and utility(cheaper action economy and self-sustaining(?, 6e isn't clear and it's built into manipulation spells)).
I'm noodling on an idea that the final potency should be a fixed penalty based on trigger.
Something like alchemy(focus) - trigger penalty.
Probably tweak the trigger penalties to something like:
Touch: -1
Timed: -2
Command: -3
"Potion": -4
Ah that does sound nice, I think that kind of penalty would work well with the lengthy creation process. Would need to math it out later.
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The current idea on preparations is that you trade raw power and flexibility for drain mitigation and utility(cheaper action economy and self-sustaining(?, 6e isn't clear and it's built into manipulation spells)).
And apart from the current RAW totally failing to convey this, maybe we should have a look at the whole premise as well. The dwindling few that still try to defend 6th Edition´s Alchemy (usually as some kind of devil´s advocate - seriously, who actually thinks that Alchemy/Enchanting is even remotely playable right now?), you often hear this "tradoff" rationalisation.
So, compared to Spellcasting, it´s supposed to be a tradeoff between
- Raw power (which is a nice way of saying "Your spells have piss-poor dicepools")
- Flexibility (which is a nice way of saying "You only have a handfull of spells to throw around compared to a spellcaster, who can do so at will unless he/she passes out. Which he won´t, because Focused Concentration and Incease Attribute über alles ;D)
And
- Drain Mitigation (You basically suffer the drain in you downtime and sleep it off. It´s more like a kind of worker´s fatigue.)
- Utility (With Errata, we´ll probably get at least the Auto-Sustain back, and the contact trigger and timer trigger theoratically allow for some shenanigans like traps, portable spells for mundane team members and timed spell bombs.)
The fact that there are two buzzwords/bullet-points on each scale might imply that there is some kind of balance here. On a closer look, this idea falls apart very quick:
- The loss in "raw power" means that many spells will likely not be able to work at all or only have a very small effect.
- Flexibility and Utility are correlated, because being able to cast spells whenever you want without prep time is a huge utility factor. This doesn´t scale well against the the options to build contact trigger traps, trinkets and time bombs, which are also quite prone to unexpected events and complications.
- In fact, "Raw power" and "Utility" is correlated as well. A spell that doesn´t hit has no utility ::)
- The self-sustain (which isn´t even RAW yet...) is easily outclassed by Focused Concentration and Sustaining Foci.
- A lot of spells don´t even make sense as alchemical preparations, unless you take the Command trigger (a.k.a. the "I just cast it like a regular spellcaster, but with less dice"-trigger): Levitation, Fling, Mind Control...
- And let´s not forget the elephant in the room: Edge! True, Alchemist can use Edge when making the preparation (I mean... I suppose they can ? ???), but that Edge falls victim to the nested dice pools and offers a diminishing return compared to the Edge a spellcaster uses to enhance the dice pool directly. When the preparation goes off, you can´t earn or use edge on that roll. The opposition can, though! (Fun fact: The word "Edge" is completely absent from the Alchemy section. It´s as if this was written/compiled by someone who was completely out of the loop :P)
- Drain Mitigation could be somewhat of a selling point if it weren´t for the fact that spellcasters need only one spell and focused Concentration 2 to make drain almost nonexistent. Hell, Alchemists might be the only type of magic user that sometimes may actually risk physical drain if they are not carefull, due to the increased Drain from the triggers.
It´s an understatement that this doesn´t scale at all. Apart from few "gimmicky" options, which are also gutted at every oppurtunity ("Health Potions?! Not on my watch!" >:(), alchemy is strictly worse than spellcasting in every single regard, and its hardly functional on its own, even without that comparison. So, what to do (assuming that you fine and able people haven´t given up already (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1cYgG0bQw&feature=youtu.be))?
- IMO, the very first thing that should get dropped from that scale is that "loss of raw power". Seriously, this should have happened back in 5th Edition already, and I´m shocked that the devs stuck with that in 6th Edition. Weak dice pools will always be a deal-breaker.
- Second: Reagents. These should be a key part of the work of an alchemists, and could prove a good tool to help balance a general increase of Power for Alchemists. Consider additional uses of Reagents that increase the dice pools of Preparation to spellcaster-level (and even beyond!)
- More creative triggers! These bring the utility that´s supposed to makes up for all that prep time. Right now, they often just add more hoops to jump through to make the magic happen when it´s supposed to happen. How about Contact Triggers that are primed to a specific person? Triggers that go off when coming in contact with blood, or fire, or an Astral being? And ffs, add actual Potions!
Something I´d be hesitant about, though: Going back to minutes in prep time. It´s tempting to just "undo the nerf" from 5th to 6th Edition and call it a day. But that would mean that Alchemists will once again spend their downtime with annoying solo dice pool battles (Make Preparation, Soak Drain, Sleep, rinse and repeat) to cook up their dozen of shitty preparations. I´d rather keep the longer prep time, but with vastly better results.
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seriously, who actually thinks that Alchemy/Enchanting is even remotely playable right now?
I would limit this specifically to Alchemy. Enchanting includes Artificing, which I think is playable right now, and maybe even on the generous side. But that's a separate topic.
("Health Potions?! Not on my watch!" >:()
This is my position, yes, but first let's clarify our definitions. For me, a "potion" is a basically a Touch-triggered preparation of a Health spell, which is to say that it isn't a Command trigger that requires the caster to be present. My position is still that this would alter the nature of the game too radically. That said, Finstersang, you say intelligent things so I'm interested in your thoughts on the matter. Do you want potions just to make Alchemy more useful/interesting, or do you think that the game world needs them to fulfill a specific role?
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Ok, I'm utterly confused.
Where in the rules is this penalty that gets bigger the better you are?
Reading the PDF (but I don't see any errata in the errata document, so it should be the same as the book) on p150 I see that a preparation is created by rolling Enchanting + Magic vs Drain Value, Potency is the net hits on this roll.
The Drain Value is: spell Drain Value + effects + trigger Drain Value - reagents used
The time taken to create is: Drain Value hours (hey look reagents do reduce the time taken?)
Am I missing something?
It’s a math based scaling loss of dice. Since effectively 1 in 3 dice creates 1/2 your pool you lose a scaling 2 dice per your pool size.
If I roll 12 dice I get 4 hits+my magic of 6 for a die pool of 10-hits receive from drain die pool probably 2 so 8 I total. My die pool is effectively my pool-4. Now if I rolled 18 dice because specialization, mentor spirit etc I get 6 hits+6-2 total 10 dice or now a 8 die drop from my pool.
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I don’t mind a small hit in power. But I think the loss of flexibly of going to hours makes them useless no matter how powerful they are in far too many runs and campaigns. Basically they won’t get past any security check point and you can’t adapt unless you are given large amounts of time to prep. So they’d work in a planned raid or on the random times you happen to have the right thing for the job when someone jumps you. But that’s about it.
I actually think the test to make them should largely be dropped. It’s downtime. I assume you made it. Drain tests is all I’d do which even in a hits long test I assume you have to deal with. If there is a test make it a easy threshold that can be bought with hits unless you amp it up.
Personally I’d limit how far they can be amped more than spell casting probably will be after errata because I do think it should be a bit weaker.
For touch and time delay I think the main change should be they are a two stage trigger, command to activate the next trigger touch or time. That way they can you know actually be functional. You make it. It’s then basically inert. You send the command and the countdown begins or the next person to touch it triggers it. I mean seriously even when it was minutes was a touch trigger or time trigger ever used pre magic gloves etc. With hours the few hypothetical options of touch with setting a trap or something go out the window except in the most manufactured of scenarios.
I’m okay with health spells only going through command triggers if healing potions are too big of a swing from the setting. Though I think UMT was a far bigger swing from the setting.
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seriously, who actually thinks that Alchemy/Enchanting is even remotely playable right now?
I would limit this specifically to Alchemy. Enchanting includes Artificing, which I think is playable right now, and maybe even on the generous side. But that's a separate topic.
True that, although I´m really baffled on why they even put the Artificing part into the core rules in the first place. For me, that´s obviously advanced stuff that should have been explained in detail in a supplement, just like the shitty 4 pages wasted on the ritual spellcasting copypasta...
("Health Potions?! Not on my watch!" >:()
This is my position, yes, but first let's clarify our definitions. For me, a "potion" is a basically a Touch-triggered preparation of a Health spell, which is to say that it isn't a Command trigger that requires the caster to be present. My position is still that this would alter the nature of the game too radically. That said, Finstersang, you say intelligent things so I'm interested in your thoughts on the matter. Do you want potions just to make Alchemy more useful/interesting, or do you think that the game world needs them to fulfill a specific role?
For me, it´s a little more concrete than that. It´s a liquid that has to be actually ingested by a living being to trigger the magical effect. Possibly not right away, but at the end of the combat round, similar to a poison or drug. No cheesy workarounds like "Yeah, it´s actually the bottle that´s enchanted and not the liquid, because you can´t enchant liquids", no special gloves or pockets needed to handle it without accidentaly setting it off, no "just splash it in your face, it works just the same as if you drink it", no rule-lawyering discussions on how big "the next living material" (p.150) has to be to trigger the preparation.
Why should these be a thing? First and foremost: Flavour. It´s one of the first things that players expect when they hear that there´s an alchemy option as an alternative to regular spellcasting. I´ve encountered quite a flew players who were interested in picking up an alchemist, and some of them already lost their appetite - without having any further look at the flawed numbers - just because this is not an option. The workarounds mentioned above are just not as satisfying as making a "real" potion that you have to drink to trigger the effect. And health spells - the most obvious choice for potions - are even explicitly forbidden for contact triggers. Because, unlike spirit armies with hardened Armor and Drain Soak pools of 20 right out of chargen, this would be just too much Magicrun ::)
Second: It adds another layer of utility. It´s not the same as a contact trigger, since it´s safer to handle and more reliable to employ on yourself. It takes some trickery to use it on an unwilling target, tho. Which can also be part of the fun. Spiking drinks with Laes or Chloral Hydrate is sooo mundane...
In the same vein (no pun intended), I´d also suggest a trigger that goes off when coming into contact with blood. Mechanically, this allows for the spell to be "delivered" like an injection vector toxin, but you could also use it for some kind of theatralic black-magic-ritual-style appliances. And fluff-wise, you could add a little pinch of "Whaitaminit that sounds like B-b-b-blood magic?" discussions to spice it up :P
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Enchanting includes Artificing, which I think is playable right now, and maybe even on the generous side. But that's a separate topic.
1.I would like to ask if you agree with the rule on Artificing, which says that if you roll a critical glitch, you loose a point of Essence (p.152) :o , cuz Artificing is not for weak characters. I understand that with strong large dice pool (expected of an advanced and skilled Alchemyst) the chance to roll a critical glitch is low, but isn't that a little bit too much of a punishment for bad luck ? Wouldn't loosing a point of Magic be enough?
2.Most of utility (non-combat) spells have a drain value of 3 or 4, spending reagents with Contact trigger gets the player to 2 (3) hour prep time and 2 (3) drain, essentially reducing the initial drain value, thus reducing the number of opposed dice for Potency test, which is very good in my opinion. Manipulate plastic is 2 drain, you can pretty much do this on the spot and tear down a roof made out of composite material, if you use edge and get a good number of net hits - 3 cubic meters is a lot. Yes you can do this anyway with casting the spell, but Aspected magicans focusing solely on Enchanting or Mystic Adepts/Enchanters are just cool to play 8)
3.I am curious though, about the action economy. Using a preparation SR6, page 203 says that a preparation is almost the same as casting a spell. In that case, do I need to spend the Cast spell action in the moment when the preparation is triggered? What happens if I planted a trap to cover my back in combat, or to start chaos at a banquette and someone triggers it via Contact or the Time trigger goes off. Will I be than "taxed" a major action to start the encounter with? Pick up/put down object is a Major action. I have a Contact preparation in my pocket, do I have to spend 2 Major actions - one to touch the preparation, second to Cast spell?
I don't hate on the rules, nor on the developers, I am just curious of your opinions.
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12 dice gives you a rounded chance of 0.011% chance at a critical glitch, that's about 1/9000. And that's excluding the ability to use Edge to compensate.
As for contact/time, they simply go off. You don't need to actually cast it, the preparation 'casts' the spell.
And I'd allow a touch as a minor, since you're not manipulating the object, just touching it.
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The trick with contact triggers is to control who touches them where and when. They are best to be used as charms for your teammates (put them into some kind of wrapper or in a little bag so they don´t go off prematurely) and to build traps by enchanting things that are likely to be touched. It´s a bit risky, though: Nosy civilians and even pets might trigger them as well.
Speaking of pets: RAW, the best workaround to build a remotely triggered "alchemical bomb" involves a Touch trigger, a little bit of workshoping to build a special cage with a wirelessly triggered trapdoor and a trip to the local zoo store. Which is a bit silly, but so damn funny that I´d definitely allow it ;D
(I recommend mice or rats, pet hamsters are quite fragile)
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I just had a flashback to the 5e thread about whether Watchers could set off contact triggers. Hrm. I'm bored... sounds like something to go look at in the new CRB...
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.I am curious though, about the action economy. Using a preparation SR6, page 203 says that a preparation is almost the same as casting a spell. In that case, do I need to spend the Cast spell action in the moment when the preparation is triggered?
Per command trigger, p150. Triggering a command preparation is a minor action. As, MC said, the other two types are incidental to other actions.
Some interesting thoughts all around
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12 dice gives you a rounded chance of 0.011% chance at a critical glitch, that's about 1/9000. And that's excluding the ability to use Edge to compensate.
As for contact/time, they simply go off. You don't need to actually cast it, the preparation 'casts' the spell.
And I'd allow a touch as a minor, since you're not manipulating the object, just touching it.
Thanks for the answer Michael, I really appreciate it :)
I am new to the system and I am asking question to get things right, as I will be running the game with friends which are also completely new to the setting. I know it might seem like an obvious reasoning that it doesn't cost an action (or it costs a minor one), but rather safe than sorry.
I do have a correction though, the section Craft the focus page 152 specifically says that you can't spend an Edge on that test. That's why I was a bit surprised with the Essence loss threat.
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Right! Forgot about that. You definitely want to have an even dicepool for less glitch chances, but the odds aren't bad.
It's annoying to calculate btw. I had to multiply the chance of no hits with the chance at 7+ '4' on 12 d4s (12d{0:3, 1:1} on anydice.com). Still not as bad as combining summoning and drain which requires emulation software.
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The trick with contact triggers is to control who touches them where and when. They are best to be used as charms for your teammates (put them into some kind of wrapper or in a little bag so they don´t go off prematurely) and to build traps by enchanting things that are likely to be touched. It´s a bit risky, though: Nosy civilians and even pets might trigger them as well.
Speaking of pets: RAW, the best workaround to build a remotely triggered "alchemical bomb" involves a Touch trigger, a little bit of workshoping to build a special cage with a wirelessly triggered trapdoor and a trip to the local zoo store. Which is a bit silly, but so damn funny that I´d definitely allow it ;D
(I recommend mice or rats, pet hamsters are quite fragile)
That’s sort of why I think raw needs to change. If you have to jump through bizarre hoops to get it to work maybe the rule should change to get the hoops to go away. Touch and time need to actually be triggers that function. That’s why they made those stupid gloves in supplement x. Because touch just didn’t work.
By RAW a flexible enough GM can work things like you suggest. Though touch is finicky based on how far it will extend and activate by auras. So yeah boxes that suspend the item so no matter where you pick up the box it’s a inch or two away is kind of needed. Wrapping it up in parchment paper probably wont cut it. Even if you are Enki the butcher.