Shadowrun
Shadowrun Missions Living Campaign => Living Campaign Discussion => Topic started by: wepv on <09-01-13/1627:13>
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Do quickened spells fall under the "GMs should not witness rolls/always buy hits" rule? If so, that seems like quickening spells is rather weak. If not, how should it be recorded. Also, if quickened spells don't use buying hits in down time, what should GMs do about characters with excessive amounts of quickened spells? From what I've seen of the mods, there just isn't anything in missions that keeps quickened spells in check like in a home game.
And yes, I feel that buying hits is too weak and allowing edged, rolled spells is too good.
(as an example, last mission I played I cast a combat sense spell with edge and reagents. I have 3 edge, 6 magic, 6 spellcastng and a dog spirit for 17 dice. After exploding 6's I had 16 hits. That seems waaaay too good to be quickened.)
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You'll want to check with Bull in his FAQ topic, but I myself would consider them part of buying hits. Yes, it's not a lot of hits but honestly, given how many spells you can quicken and that Missions will likely not often toss mana barriers your way to break them up, nor will a GM go "okay, a cop assenses you, freaks out and calls in backup," it's no more than fair that they don't get too big a boost.
Don't forget that Quickened Spells let you bypass Focus Addiction, after all. And it's rather easy to score 16 dice and thus 4 hits, which means you can boost attributes from 4 to 8 and get +4+2d6 Initiative. As such, Quickening has become a really big thing. Can you imagine a character with 7 Magic, 6 Spellcasting, +2 Specialty, +2 Mentor Spirit, +3 Focus? They can boost attributes from 5 to 9 that way, and all that for 6 karma, 5 for the spell and 1 for the Quicken.
Question: Why would you use both Reagents and Exploding dice? Exploding dice already let you break the limit after all, no need for reagents then. What you want to do is use Reagents, then use Edge to reroll failures when you've rolled a lot of hits.
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I used reagents and edge because I wasn't sure if edge would allow me to break limits for a quickened spell in 5th and I didnt want to take any table time for casting my spell (and reagents are so cheap I dont care, and I had nothing to spend my last couple thousand $ on at creation so I bought A LOT of reagents). Obviously buying hits is great for increase attribute spells but non-minmaxed characters will really suffer from the rule. What if I want to play a mage who doesn't have max magic and spell casting? I now buy hits and only ever get 2 hits? That just seems like it punishes non-minmaxers so harshly and doesn't actually hurt minmaxers at all.
One character I have been considering was a magic 3, spellcasting 5 character. Even with a mentor spirit I need a force 2 focus to get 3 hits on a quickened spell (my build was not going to have any foci due to foci addiction at magic 3 being rough).
My issue is that without buying hits it is obviously too powerful but if buying hits has the biggest impact on the non-minmaxed characters and has almost no impact on the highly minmaxed guys that is obviously not the correct fix.
(as for Bull's FAQ we couldn't find an answer either way as quickening isn't a down time thing, which is what the buying hits is referring to.)
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I didn't mean checking the FAQ topic for an answer, I meant checking with Bull in his FAQ topic. I made a post to doublecheck.
I understand a character who goes low on Magic and Spellcasting would not be able to score 5 hits but only 3 (assuming the same buffs the character I mentioned would need for Force 5). However, that still lets you boost Rating 3 Attributes to 7 while avoiding Focus Addiction and Sustaining penalties, and you can still overcast Force 6 spells and Quicken those when it comes to Detection and Manipulation Spells. If your Reaction and Intuition are low, you can boost them to 7 and have 14 dodge dice and 14 Initiative, a Force 3 Increased Reflexes spell still adds 2+1d6 Initiative, Combat Sense would still add dodge 2 dice at your base 8 dice, Armor would still add 2 armor, Levitation would let you levitate 400kg so yourself +300 kg in carried stuff, and so on. There's still plenty of tricks to be pulled and buffs to be obtained even at a low Force. Plus it's the only way for you to heavily buff yourself with magic spells.
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As for minmaxing without buying hits:
The minmaxer at 20 dice who uses Reagents to set a limit of 12 could take the spell and roll several times, until he manages to score 8+ hits at 1/3 odds. He then rerolls 12 hits and aims for the 60% odds at 4+ hits, has to resist 12P drain in the case of Increase Reflexes and Quickens them for +12+4d6 Initiative. Meanwhile, the 3+5 character only has a 25% at +6+3d6 Initiative with Edge, which means only 60% odds at being able to do that in a Session when they didn't use any Edge on other things. With normal casting, their best bet is 4 hits since any more would take far too many casts.
So the minmaxer scores an easy 12 hits, with odds at more if they use reagents and are willing to risk getting knocked out by the drain. (If they first quicken an increase to their drain dice and increase their body as well, even 15P drain has hardly any chance at knocking them out.) Meanwhile, the weak caster is still limited to just a few hits more. So the minmaxer can score an AWFUL lot of bonus and the weak caster only benefits a bit more.
At that point sorry, but I think that when both the relative and absolute impact are much better for minmaxers and minmaxers would become an absolute disaster, buying hits for Quickening is the only fair way to go. Otherwise methods have to be made to fight off people walking around with +15 Armor, +15 Dodge Dice or +15+4d6 Initiative, which also hurt the weaker spellcasters that want to use Quickening.
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As for not taking Foci: Why not? I can understand not taking Sustaining Foci, but why not take Force 3 Spellcasting Foci? You wouldn't need more than 1 active at the same time anyway, so you wouldn't have any trouble with Focus Addiction.
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I'm not saying the min maxer isn't absurd either way. I think my biggest issue stems from missions not keeping quickening in check. I am playing a character with quickening and I am just unhappy with how unfair he seems if I quicken spells like I "should". I was really hoping to hear an answer that made quickening not completely absurd in any form.
As for Foci, I dislike the idea that it is a tax. Why isn't it a reasonable option to not have foci?
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Oh it's a reasonable option, but I don't see how having low Magic would be a problem with taking Foci.
As for keeping Quickening in check: Wouldn't Buying Hits already be keeping them in check? It still is plenty useful, offers great tactical advantages yet doesn't boost you to an ungodly level.
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Save 7 karma from chargen, work for the people twice and after 2 mods you can have +4 to all of your stats, etc. but since we are buying hits outside of the game there is no risk of hurting yourself or playing the mod with damage on you.
The more we talk about this the more I think there just needs to be more things that punish or counter quickening in Missions. If quickening is a thing that exists in the game world, why are there not more mana barriers? I think there needs to be some kind of resource for GMs to handle Quickened mages, and this is coming from a player of a quickened mage. I am actively doing the least efficient thing and hamstringing myself so that the game is a challenge and I don't steal the limelight from other players. I don't mind spending karma on something that might go away, but as is, there is no chance for it to go away thus there is no real cost. I hate being at tables where one person hogs all the spot light but if one guys has 8s(or more) in all his stats, is invisible, can one-shot spirits (and summon his own that are much more badass), flies, throws fireballs and can read/control minds...why risk other peoples lives when he can do anything that doesn't require a hacker...though with enough money and some skills he can do that really well too....
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Am I missing something, because in fifth it only requires a single karma to quicken a spell. Additional karma only makes it more resistant to dispelling.
For myself, I just quickened a spell I cast in game and noted it on the debrief sheet and on the character sheet.
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You are doing it right* assuming the GM witnessed the roll and marked it off on your log. It only takes 1 karma. If you are referring to the 6 karma/spell mentioned earlier, it's 5 to learn the spell and 1 to quicken it, since knowing all of the increase [ability] spells is pointless unless you are quickening them.
*although if we need to buy hits rather then mark the hits on the debriefing log you are doing it wrong
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Did some math wrong: With 3 Magic and 8 dice you can only get a +2, but with overcasting it can be done on any stat ranging from 1 to 6.
"since we are buying hits outside of the game there is no risk of hurting yourself " The drain of Increase Attribute is F-3. This means that even when rolling inside the game there's no risk of hurting yourself.
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Look, I don't know how many Mana Barriers are going to pop up. If you want to know, you'd really have to ask Bull. If Quickening requires buying hits, the buffs aren't that big but a single mana barrier will still hurt and a GM can easily let an enemy mage dispel. So depending on what Missions supplies the GM, chances are there will be a bit of a counter against Quickening. But Buying Hits seems pretty essential, since otherwise your concern of one super-guy becomes even more a concern. It wouldn't take that much time to get a Force 10 Armor Spell with 15 hits Quickened, meaning the guy would have 18 dice vs dispelling and 20 dice vs mana barriers.
And besides: any balancing of Quickening hits the weaker spellcasters just as much as minmaxers, if not more. After all, the minmaxer can use high Force.
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I'll clarify this for a future FAQ, but I'm going to say that anything that is an effect that will last between game sessions counts as a "Downtime Action", and is thus subject to the Buying Hits rule.
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Thanks for the reply Bull!
I'll post my follow up question to the FAQ thread also.
Chandra: There is always risk when you are rolling the dice. it's unlikely, but it's always at least 2 drain (though pointless since we have an official answer now.)
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By my reading of mana barriers the force and net hits on a spell do nothing to help it from being disrupted. It only lists living creatures, barriers and objects as things covered under astral intersections. After reading it a few more times I am less clear on how a mana barrier even disrupts a spell. Is a spell an object?
You drive a van through a mana barrier with five spells on you,
Do you:
A: roll spell force x 2 vs barrier force x 2 for every spell on you? If so:
What order do you roll in? If the first spell beats the barrier, the barrier drops (forever or until the end of the combat turn, depending on the barrier) do you then not roll for the other spells?
B: Roll for the person (magic + cha) vs barrier force x 2? If so, on a failure to break through are your spells disrupted AND you are unconscious? Are you just unconscious? Are you only unconscious if you were astrally perceiving but your spells are still disrupted?
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True, but a mere few points of stun drain is rather irrelevant when you do so after you scored your payment.
I'm guessing all the opposed tests are rolled at exactly the same time, so the barrier might break 4 while 1 survives. If on the other hand someone is at the front of the car with spell A and you are at the back with spell B... As for Spells, I assumed any Sustained spells that crash into a mana barrier participate as non-living object so at Force x 2, at which point the hits don't matter.
Note that if you realize the barrier is there you can try to press through, and failing doesn't mean the spells get broken. If you're not paying attention to the Astral however...
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I will say that a few times already I've run into situations where having ANYTHING magially active, including quickened spells, would have been a major liability due to astral patrols.
Also, some of the CMPs assume you are arriving via airports.
-k
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In other words, make sure your licenses are in order.
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I will say that a few times already I've run into situations where having ANYTHING magially active, including quickened spells, would have been a major liability due to astral patrols.
Also, some of the CMPs assume you are arriving via airports.
Have you found this to be written into the mods or DMs creating conficts for the players when it comes to astral patrols? For the mods I have run so far, I have not found anything to challenge magically active players except mages on response teams and they are not going to spend their actions assensing and dispeling. They MIGHT remove 1 spell and in exchange they take drain. Or they could drop an aoe or summon a spirit.
The number of buildings that are not warded but supposedly important seems odd but I do like the use of conditional spirits (if the group has an awakened character add a X spirits at force Y).
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I am capable of scoring Force 14 Quickened Spells by the way, so that's 22 dice vs dispelling and mana barriers. And yes, that is using Missions rules where all hits in downtime must be bought. Sure I might only be able to score 4 hits without and 6 hits with Spirit help (costing 1.200 nuyen per service... ;_;), but I can handle the Force.
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I am capable of scoring Force 14 Quickened Spells by the way, so that's 22 dice vs dispelling and mana barriers. And yes, that is using Missions rules where all hits in downtime must be bought. Sure I might only be able to score 4 hits without and 6 hits with Spirit help (costing 1.200 nuyen per service... ;_;), but I can handle the Force.
I'm not following what this is in regards to?
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A minor note on the dispelling, to support your opinion that enemy mages will not likely waste their time dispelling.
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A note on quickened spells: You can't Mask them--Masking metamagic works on your aura and "bonded foci" (which does not include quickened spells).
If you're walking down the street with a Force 14 quickened spell, you're going to draw a lot of astral attention. Even if you can walk right through mana barriers and ignore most dispelling attempts, you will be noticed...and remembered.
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If you're walking down the street with a Force 14 quickened spell, you're going to draw a lot of astral attention. Even if you can walk right through mana barriers and ignore most dispelling attempts, you will be noticed...and remembered.
I wish that mattered in SR Missions. What rules are there for dealing with players who are remembered(by mages and spirits) beyond the mission you are playing in? It's really a matter of a player letting their GM know that they should be disadvantaged in certain situations...and I don't foresee that happening much.
outside of missions quickened spells are a non issue as they do have valid drawbacks. My issue wit them is that IN SR MISSIONS you don't pay a price for you power. Not everything has a price it seems.
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If you're walking down the street with a Force 14 quickened spell, you're going to draw a lot of astral attention. Even if you can walk right through mana barriers and ignore most dispelling attempts, you will be noticed...and remembered.
I wish that mattered in SR Missions. What rules are there for dealing with players who are remembered(by mages and spirits) beyond the mission you are playing in? It's really a matter of a player letting their GM know that they should be disadvantaged in certain situations...and I don't foresee that happening much.
outside of missions quickened spells are a non issue as they do have valid drawbacks. My issue wit them is that IN SR MISSIONS you don't pay a price for you power. Not everything has a price it seems.
If the GM determines that you have quickened spells and that it attracts...attention, it it totally possible for them to give you a point of Notoriety, or maybe public awareness. A good GM will ask at the beginning of the module about your character - and expects you to tell him if you might have issues that cause trouble. I just missed some notoriety in a game Sunday evening after I took a set of 12 clones out for pizza - the GM Rolled some dice, and said that I didn't gain any notoriety that time because the public was too confused seeing the same face 12 times. Yes, this was a missions game.
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A note on quickened spells: You can't Mask them--Masking metamagic works on your aura and "bonded foci" (which does not include quickened spells).
If you're walking down the street with a Force 14 quickened spell, you're going to draw a lot of astral attention. Even if you can walk right through mana barriers and ignore most dispelling attempts, you will be noticed...and remembered.
I tried pointing that out to someone in a debate where he said Quickened spells were overkill, but he heavily disagreed. Saw no reason for Assensers (and they need to Assense a few hits to note it's a high-power spell and to identify the type) to be checking out the crowds. I, on the other hand, considered capturing the character and tossing them through Force 7 Mana Barriers until the spells break a fine approach before the cops wake you up for questioning.
But yes: In SR Missions they are a tad problematic since it's something that takes time and effort to counter. And not everything involves a lot of astral activity.
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Masked Ferret, I don't see the logic behind gaining notoriety for having quickened spells. Notoriety is for dealing with dragons, killing people when you shouldn't etc. nothing on the list of things that gain you notoriety is even close to being related to being seen astrally with quickened spells on.
As far as public awareness goes, I can see more of an argument there. My concern is how would you gain public awareness for being seen astrally unless you are taken into custody? If you aren't, they see you have a bunch of spells on you......and......then what? .how does that translate to every Johnson you talk to knowing who you are? My issue with it is the only way it would gain you public awareness is if you we're doing something that would already be getting you public awareness.
I truly want there to be a price to quickened spells in missions, but I want it to make sense and not be reliant on gms arbitrarily punishing players.
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Keep in mind only 1% of the population is Awakened, of those only Rating 3+ really matter to Authority and of those only a small amount will be walking around with Spells active. So walking around with multiple spells active, Quickened or Sustained, risks drawing a lot of attention.
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Masked Ferret, I don't see the logic behind gaining notoriety for having quickened spells. Notoriety is for dealing with dragons, killing people when you shouldn't etc. nothing on the list of things that gain you notoriety is even close to being related to being seen astrally with quickened spells on.
As far as public awareness goes, I can see more of an argument there. My concern is how would you gain public awareness for being seen astrally unless you are taken into custody? If you aren't, they see you have a bunch of spells on you......and......then what? .how does that translate to every Johnson you talk to knowing who you are? My issue with it is the only way it would gain you public awareness is if you we're doing something that would already be getting you public awareness.
I truly want there to be a price to quickened spells in missions, but I want it to make sense and not be reliant on gms arbitrarily punishing players.
The cost might be that police harass them more. Walking while awakened could be considered a crime on the level of walking while troll. if they resist, well, there's your notoriety.
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So the solution is for GMs to add Mage-cops to randomly pop up and harass the awakened player? That isn't an actual solution or cost as most GMs won't do that. Not only does it require stat blocks that the gm might not have ready but most GMs are not going to take time away from the mod to do what will most likely completely derail the entire mod.
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Doesn't have to be random. If the players already run into a hostile group or cops, being Assensed could risk worse paranoia. But we'll see eventually what the details are. Extended Masking will be really important though. ^_^
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"Hi, I'm Joe Martin, NewsNet Seattle with an important news story developing at SeaTac International Airport. Knight Errant Security is looking for the man pictured in this trideo footage (AR Feed switches to long distance shot of Dangerous Mage(tm)). He was seen leaving the airport after debarking from a privately owned aircraft. He set off the astral wards at the airport but was gone by the time Knight Errant's patrol arrived on the scene. The Knight Errant mage on duty, who declined to be interviewed on camera, told this reporter that the man had a left an astral trace at the scene showing very powerful spell use. Upon doing a more through check of the unknown mage's creditials, he was found to be using a fake identification. Amusingly enough, he was broadcasting the System Identification Number (567-68-0515) of 37th President of the old United States, Richard Milhouse Nixon who died in 1994. Citizens are warned to not approach this man if they see him, but instead to leave the area and then immeadiately call Knight Errant's magical task force to report his location. Do not attempt to apprehend this individual yourself as he is magically active and considered armed and extremely dangerous. Again this is Joe Martin, NewsNet Seattle. And over to Ollie at the sports desk to tell us if the Seadog's playoff hopes are still alive."
And then, as GM, I give you a point of Public Awareness and a point of Noteriety.
Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the shrimp special. Tip your waitress.
Eric
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I love the flavor of that. Unfortunately that wouldn't be how it worked. If there are mana barriers at the airport (not sure how each mod does it, but the last one I played that involved the airport didnt have any) either he is physically stopped for going through or he sneaks past them. Both of those results don't seem to alert the creator of the ward. Only attacking the ward seems to alert anyone. So Mr. President would actually have to be spotted by the mage on duty, who would be looking at a sea of auras as people wander the crowded airport, all of which have vibrant auras, its just his a a bit more vibrant but no more vibrant then any other awakened person. That mage would need to make an assensing test and score 4 hits (very unlikely for a random airport mage) to know how powerful the spells are. It still takes three hits to even know how strong they are in relation to the mage, not to mention that each spell would be it's own test, as would assening the mage. What ranks in assening do you think an airport mage would have? What would his magic be?
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No alarm wards yet in 5th. Right. Have to wait on the Magic Splat Book then.
I was going to suggest Detect Magic, Extended, except it can't detect spells once they're made permanent. I don't believe that was intended to cover quickened spells, but more things like the Heal spell.
So, Detect [Object] the object being Quickened Spells. Extended would only add +2 to the Drain, but would be a custom spell I think.
Or an FAQ clarification for Detect Magic and Detect Magic, Extended that Quickened Spells are still detected as an exception to the rule that permanent spells aren't detected.
Of course, it's still only 2 hits to tell what type of aura something is, and that could include a quickened spell, and then 3 hits to tell if that spell is of a Force higher, the same, or lower than the mage's Magic.
It's Assensing + Intuition, so perhaps the mage could have a Sustaining Focus for an Increase Intuition spell going on him/herself.
Other than that, I'm not seeing a lot that can help with Assensing tests. Hmmm.
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The point is, and I have to say this bluntly so the point gets across. How many people walk around with force 14 - 18 anything ? And you think that won't draw attention. I remember playing harlequin and thinking I was a bad ass with force 11 elementals and then a force 24 showed up, it's a big difference, a different class a whole new level. I understand that as a shadow runner you see the ability to do something but I also know force 12 is not something you ignore and the next time a 'mission' throws a force 12 at you, you go oh that's normal, but I don't think you will.
The buying hits thing works out for everyone looks like
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As for the hits on assessing, you need to make a test for each aura individually. So a security Mage watching a crowd of people will not only have to try and spot the Mage through other people, who all also have auras, but then make a ton of individual assessing tests.
Lynx, the buying hits issues has nothing to do with the force of the spell, it's it doesn't make walking around with +4 to all of your stats and magic wired reflexes 2 any harder, and missions doesnt have a real way to counter it. (Not counting gms just making up stuff to give that player a hard time, which is a separate issue which I'll cover)
I am torn on how much leeway a gm should have to adjust a mod to challenge problem players.
On one hand, if a player has a build that overshadows all the other characters and rotfl stomps the mod, that isn't good for the campaign. If it happens too much, or there is one really bad session, players will not enjoy themselves and play less. They will be less likely to get their friends into the game, missions or otherwise. I've seen it a lot in pathfinder society(the Pathfinder living campaign) at my store. Living campaigns are great gateways for new role players but a bad living campaign experience or 2 will sour them on the game itself, despite how you try to explain the differences. Most of the newer players are not comfortable meeting strangers to play somewhere ad need the living campaign to meet people to game with. So gms need to be able to keep overly powerful builds in check in a fair way.
On the other hand, gms are not all created equal. Some gms are able to do the above with very little effort and not detract from the game. Great! But no all missions gms can handle that. Not all missions gms even think its a problem. Some missions gms look at the street Sam and want to keep them in check while the quickened stat monster mystic adept is allowed to run rampant with his 57 initiative and 8+ for every stat. Not all gms will see the same problems at a table and thus allowing them too much leeway to alter a mod to fix "problems" will not always work. If fact, it will sometimes create a lot of bad feelings when the players are seeing one problem and the gm is seeing a different one.
I don't know which of these is worse. I do know I have had to bad experiences recently with mods, both involving mystic adepts with quicken spells all over themselves. One mod was played with my quickening Mage, the other was played with my street Sam. The street Sam mod was made horrible because the quickened Mage took up all of the game time due to them having 2-3 more passes each combat turn then the fastest other players in a mod that was one giant fight. There were a lot of other issues with this mod as well that all revolved around that Mage that made the mod even worse, but removing all of that, just the combat time was so unfun and boring everyone at the table was just playing games on their DS or talking amongst themselves because we were not involved in the game. The game with my Mage and the other Mage was also unfun, but not because players didnt get to do anything. We were not challenged in any way the entire mod. No one was at risk of being in combat. Nothing was a challenge. The gm didn't want to improvise a way to challenge us and the mod ended in 2 hours, with the last half hour just the filling out of logs and arguing with the one player who tried to "make the mod more interesting" by shooting people for no reason in public. It was a case of the world feeling powerless to stop us which shadowrun should never feel like. Nothing in the mod was able to deal with us and we had multiple pregens at the table, which feels wrong.
Both of these examples lend themselves to having gms add things challenge the players that might not be in the mod. My concern is that not all gms will be willing to or even capable of doing so. I think some kind of tiered challenges in the mods themselves may help the gms who aren't willing to "wing it". Maybe instead of basing it on karma totals like older seasons did, take a page from season 4 mods. They had some encounters that only have spirits if there is an awakened character. Sometimes with a set force, sometimes with a force based on the highest magic stat at the table. That is a great mechanic to keep tables balanced. Can we push that further and include options like that for deckers/riggers/technomancers? What about an option to add more magical security based on initiation grade? Helps keep masked or quickened mages from waltzing anywhere with out at least a chance of being caught. Obviously most of the season five mods are in the works at this point so adding things may not be an option(I'm not clear on what the production schedule for these kinds of mods are, I'm only familiar with how long it took to get living greyhawk mods from concept to the hands of gms), so what about a separate document with rough guidelines for how to adjust mods to challenge players?
Sorry for the wall of txt. :-X
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As hard as it is to say, after careful consideration I don't think there is any real way to balance Quickening without reducing its current effectiveness (nerf it). I think you should only be able to quicken a number of spells equal to your initiate grade.
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That seems like a reasonable solution (coming from a player wit ha quickening mage). Possibly the option to take quickening multiple times to increase the number of spells you can quicken.
1x quickening you get to quicken spells = to initiate grade
each extra quickening selected gets you one extra spell that can be quickened.
Initiate grade 3 with quickening x2 and centering, you can have 4 spells quickened on you.
but it is a total house rule.... womp womp :-\
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Aye, it is hard to balance out. But look at it this way: presume for Missions, 1 Karma (1K) and 2,000 Nuyen are interchangeable.
The cost to initiate, if we are just buying quickening, is 13K. The cost to buy the spell in question, 500 Nuyen, 5K to learn it. Our total karma cost to quicken 1 spell is: 13+5+1, or 19K, or 38500 (500 nuyen for the cost of the health spell). For an Increase Attribute spell, we could increase, say, Agility, by +3 easily (Magic 6, Spellcasting 6). Lets also increase our strength, so that we can compare to used Muscle Replacement (the cheapest available option) and compare. We initiate again, for 16+5+1K, or 44,500 Nuyen plus our original 38,500 or 83000 total nuyen. A rating 3 Muscle Replacement, to give us the same +3 augmentation to Strength and Agility? 56250 nuyen 3.75 essence. I think that is roughly comparable, considering that initiating is giving you other benefits as well and makes up 58000 nuyen of that total cost. If you take Mentor Spirit (Bear), Specialization (Health) for spellcasting, you have 6+6+2+2, or 16, enough to buy 4 hits and get +4 to Agility and Strength for 83,000 Nuyen. Our used muscle replacements would run us 75,000 Nuyen and cost 5 essence. Even if we factor in the cost of the Mentor Spirit (10 karma, buying it after creation, and 7 karma for the specialization, for another 17 karma or 34,000 nuyen equivalent), we're comparing 117000 vs. 75,000 and 5 essence. We don't buy it used? 117,000 vs 100,000 (and 4 essence).
Quickening Improve Attribute spells is still a solid option, but its COMPARABLE to cyberware... not straight up better than it.
As far as quickening in play goes... nothing prevents you from, at the start of a mod, edge-casting an improve reflexes or combat sense spell and spending 1 karma (2,000 nuyen) to quicken the spell. You gain a massive bump, at the cost of 1K/2,000 nuyen, or roughly 10% of your final reward, but in most cases such a spell will be so absurdly powerful that it will provide you with an edge worth 10% of your final reward. You won't get to keep it for the next module, but for the module you play in it is still a valid option and still quite powerful.