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SRUN: MAges, what to do? (Was Cyberware &...)

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Cosmo Of The Cosmos

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Apr 28, 1992, 11:25:00 PM4/28/92

Before I start, I replied twice to the same post 'cause I was having problems
with my server. I thought the computer ate my first post so I sent another.
Please ignore the later one.

All Right, let's get to the point.

What I believe:
MAGES ARE TOO POWERFUL IN SHADOWRUN.

There are so many rules and such that it's easy to make invulnerable mage.

Ways to fix this,

1. Ignore the problem.

A noble idea! The problem may never come up if you play with people who
know what they are doing. But all can succumb to the dark side...

2. Change the rules.

What I think is best, because, it sets out from the begining, what's good and
what's bad and the mage cannot complain about the GM being hostile.
This includes stopping people from locking every health, detect, and useful
manipulation spell that exists, the first bonding glitch, fixing drain so that
it truely reflects what the spell does, and a whole slew of other house rules.

3. Let the mage do what he wants, but screw him over if you don't like it.

I used to like this approch my self, did it quite a few times, and paid the
price. When ever a GM has to digress to this tactic, he is doing something
wrong. When a GM has to flex God Hood in the name of game ballence, it does
bad things. The player thinks he's being singled out for abuse. This creates
a GM vrs PC situation that results in resentment. Further more, it also
causes people to come back to "its just a game" instead of suspending
disbelief. Players have to watch their step or else they know the GM will
send a hoard of force 6 spirits to punish him. Gee. What fun.

The Mistress

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Apr 29, 1992, 7:14:24 AM4/29/92

In article <1992Apr29.0...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Cosmo Of The Cosmos) writes:
>What I believe:
>MAGES ARE TOO POWERFUL IN SHADOWRUN.

Quite right....

>2. Change the rules.
>
>What I think is best, because, it sets out from the begining, what's good and
>what's bad and the mage cannot complain about the GM being hostile.
>This includes stopping people from locking every health, detect, and useful
>manipulation spell that exists, the first bonding glitch, fixing drain so that
>it truely reflects what the spell does, and a whole slew of other house rules.

Remember, spell locks can be traced....so just hit the mage with ritual
magic, which is pretty powerful. My GM hasn't carried the threat out _yet_

>3. Let the mage do what he wants, but screw him over if you don't like it.
>
>I used to like this approch my self, did it quite a few times, and paid the
>price. When ever a GM has to digress to this tactic, he is doing something
>wrong. When a GM has to flex God Hood in the name of game ballence, it does
>bad things. The player thinks he's being singled out for abuse. This creates
>a GM vrs PC situation that results in resentment. Further more, it also
>causes people to come back to "its just a game" instead of suspending
>disbelief. Players have to watch their step or else they know the GM will
>send a hoard of force 6 spirits to punish him. Gee. What fun.

Just send the mage/PC's up against just as powerful mages. The other
PC's will get butchered and probably discourage the player playing the mage
not to have any more mages as PC's.

>Other problem:
>
>MUNDOS ARE WAY TOO LIMITED.
>
>There isn't a problem that mages have, that I have heard, that cannot be
>overcome with the use of magic. Mundos, however, are stuck with the equipment
>that have and find it hard to up grade because of a lack of serious money
>that can be found in the way of loot. I have many moduals that were put
>out and the money to be made was in the form of magical items found on the
>bodies of the enemy. Only the mages can make use of this. You never find
>designs for super weapons or beta cyberware lying around. Mundos get
>screwed in many ways compaired to mages.
>
>which brings me back to my original point.
>
>Mundos need help!

If you limit the mages at the beginning, why not limit the mundos as well,
for example, give them less money, random essence costs for cyberware,
essence valuess only known by GM and also perhaps introduce cyber-pshyco
rules into your system.

>I'm sorry, I know too many examples of what happens to SR groups when they
>get to high level, the mages dominate everything. Except for the decker,
>mages don't need anybody else.

The more powerful the mage gets, the more of a threat he/she may seem to
corps or Mafia/Yak, perhaps a contract issued for the death of the
character?

>Somethings I've seen happen.
>
> We need to get information? I read his mind.
> We need to find somebody? I use my extented find Somebody spell
> and scan Seattle for him.
> We need to infiltrate the ork underground? I turn into an ork.
> Picture a wolf sham casting stun ball into a group of protesters
> who said, "Breeder, go home." to him.

Hmmm...perhaps magical limitation is in order here...spells that just
don't go off etc...

>I say that the GM should make sure, in the begining,that mages don't get out of
>hand. Your players will perfer to know that they can count on a fair,
>predicable GM instead of an unfair, arbitrary GM who gives and takes power away
>at will saying it's in the name of "Game Ballence".

The GM should veto characters at the beginning of the campaign and decide
if they are just _too_ good and suggest alterations. If the player disagrees
then obviously that player is not a good enough roleplayer to be able to
deal with that. The roleplaying must shape itself around the character and
not the stats, when the player wants to do something dubious, ask him/her
would their character actually do that?

>I also put forth some ideas, a while ago, for the use of B/R skills. These
>ideas allowed players to make nifty stuff that they get to play with and allows
>the mundos to do some of the "Yawn, I'll take care of this." instead of the
>mages.

But you have to be careful that the mundos don't produce anything _too_
powerful and that the item must be balanced, it has advantages/disadvantages..

>Why track a guy via astral where you can be spoted when you can use a
> radioactive dye?
>Who needs fireball when I'm using fulminated mercury? Not only does it blow
> up, but it poisons the guy as well.
>Hollow point rounds full of nerve agents.
>Improved reactive trigger
>Higher concealablity.
>Personal stealth technology like inverse phasing sound bafflers.
>New and interesting chemicals that allow you to ignore pain and allow the
> user to preform super human feets.
>
>B/R skills, magic for the masses.
>(Shameless Plug)

Hmm...some interesting ideas(evil grin)

>Some people said, "Hey, if that stuff was around don't you think the corps
> would have it already?"
>
>Who says they don't? But it gives Mundo PCs a way to catch up with the mages
>instead of tagging along.

The question is, would the corps have a _need_ for the items built by the
PC's? They tend to be highly specialised for specific jobs, too much
R&D when sheer muscle and excisting technology will do!!!

>My final point,
>
>Mages vrs mundos. Mage wins.
>
>One mundo? Toast.
>A group of mundos in a wave assault? Mob Mind Control. "Kill each other"
>A group of mundos in ambush? I know they're there about 5000m away.
>
>Without magic, there are very few ways for a mundo to get a mage.
>Don't reply to this post to tell me, I know them all.
>I'm a GM, I'm supposed to know these things.

Change the firearms rules so the armor isn't auto successes and give
the mage something to think about while the attack is going on. Unless
the mage has specifically said he/she is going to look for ambushes, then
carry out the ambush in the usual way. Our group had one combat mage that
got taken down and killed by a 9M4 shotgun(a big shotgun, I might add), he
was very unlucky in his dice rolls. Also, perhaps roll the PC's dodge pool
yourself.......(evil grin)

>P.S. If you don't agree with mages being unballenced, fine.
> feel free to argue with me. I'm not the end all be all of
> ShadowRun knowledge.
> However, if your going to look through my post and point out
> my errors, don't. I'm trying to get a point across and everything
> said here is from memory, so I'm sure I've got plenty.
> Also, if your going to out rules lawyer, munchkin, powergame, minmax
> or in general find a way to out smart some of the things I've
> said, then feel free to send to me personaly. We'll have a duel.
> We'll see who can make the most powerful Cybered Munchkin Mage.
> You send me such a charater, and I will promptly ignore it.
>
>My goals were to show the person, who hasn't played the game for years,
>the things that can go wrong in order to stop people from making some of the
>mistakes that I have seen.

Hmm, there we are...some suggestions from me, I am posting this because
I would like a third opinion on my suggestions, please...no flames

Ho-Hum

The Jester

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Apr 29, 1992, 10:56:02 AM4/29/92

In article <1992Apr29.0...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Cosmo Of The Cosmos) writes:
>

>What I believe:
>MAGES ARE TOO POWERFUL IN SHADOWRUN.
>

Well, at least we know now that you haven't read the rulebook. See, there's
a passage somewhere that says, "mages are the most powerful archetype." There
is no balance in Shadowrun between archetypes. That's the reason that all
the munchkins love the system so much. But there are still a lot of mature
gamers out here who can cope with the imbalances and not bitch about them.

>There are so many rules and such that it's easy to make invulnerable mage.

Sure it's easy to make an invulnerable mage. Magic is power. But making an
invulnerable mage without ignoring the spirit of the rules? Not.

>1. Ignore the problem.

Ignore the "problem"? I don't see your rationale for stating that there IS
a problem. See, when you argue, you have to state premise, fact upon which
premise is based, and then solutions, in that order. But, since you're ob-
viously a novice at this, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and contin-
ue my reply to this.

>2. Change the rules.

I'd be doing myself a disservice if I said that you shouldn't play with house
rules. But, looking at the rules from an objective point of view, magic is
a) expensive in terms of both money and karma, and b) time-consuming. Within
those restraints, magic becomes less of the dag-nasty force you would have us
believe that it is.

>3. Let the mage do what he wants, but screw him over if you don't like it.

Here's a winner proposal.

>Other problem:
>MUNDOS ARE WAY TOO LIMITED.

Sheesh, you've got all the deductive power of a bowling ball. Of course
mundanes are limited. That's why they're mundanes!

>There isn't a problem that mages have, that I have heard, that cannot be
>overcome with the use of magic. Mundos, however, are stuck with the equipment
>that have and find it hard to up grade because of a lack of serious money
>that can be found in the way of loot. I have many moduals that were put
>out and the money to be made was in the form of magical items found on the
>bodies of the enemy. Only the mages can make use of this. You never find
>designs for super weapons or beta cyberware lying around. Mundos get
>screwed in many ways compaired to mages.

There are PLENTY of problems that mages have that cannot be overcome with the
use of magic. How about cash flow? Karma shortages? Time restrictions? Tar-
get number modifiers? Drain?

Your average samurai can have moderate wounds and fatigue and still have a
reasonable target number with his gun (like, 6, at close range and 7 at med-
ium range). He's got five or six dice to roll, plus Karma if he REALLY needs
to make this shot. Now, his buddy, the mage, with the same moderate wound and
the same moderate fatigue, casts a Force 4 sleep spell. He's going to need
three 8's to resist Drain altogether. He'll probably roll eight dice to
resist (Willpower 5 + 3 Magic Pool Dice), but odds are he is NOT going to
get three 8's. Furthermore, he doesn't have the luxury of spending Karma
on the spell (I've never seen a mage burn Instant Karma except in Conjuring),
and, even if he does partially resist Drain, his target number modifiers
either increase or come closer to increasing. Point being, the mage is in
a lot deeper shit than the samurai. The samurai doesn't beat himself up
when he attacks. The mage does.

Furthermore, in any Shadowrun game that's run correctly, cash flow is enough
of a problem that doing all the big-league stuff is a pain in the ass anyway.
By this, I mean that you WON'T have the cash to summon up hordes of elementals.
You WON'T have the cash to pay the dues of the magical group. You WON'T have
the cash to buy those huge Hermetic libraries you need for Conjuring big
elementals. This means one of two things: either you've got to do it on your
own (stuff like Initiation) which takes Karma, or you can't do it at all (stuff
like Conjuring), so you make due.

Given, in published Shadowrun adventures there is a great deal of magical loot
floating around. But think for a moment: it takes Karma to bid that stuff.
How many mages have the Karma to spare to bind a Rating 2 Power Focus? Per-
sonally, I'd throw the 10-15 Karma that it takes to bind a decent magic item
into Initiation. It's a much better payoff for your Karma. The Power Focus
might give you an extra 2 Magic Pool dice, but the Initiation gives you skills
like Centering and Masking.

Are our mundanes still outclassed? Sure they are. But remember: it doesn't
take any Karma to buy a bigger gun or better equipment for a mundane. All
the magicians I've seen or run have used Karma hand-to-mouth, and never seem
to find the cash for that next Conjuring. All the mundanes I've seen or run
seem to be able to slowly upgrade their equipment and sock some cash and
Karma away for a rainy day.

> We need to get information? I read his mind.

Who were you getting information from? The doorknob? How high was his Will-
power? If I were the one employing people with knowlege of important infor-
mation, I'd make damn sure they weren't going to give that information away,
hence the high Willpower.

In any case, though, this is as good a use of magic as any. I've done it
quite often myself, but never with the ease you imply.

> We need to find somebody? I use my extented find Somebody spell
> and scan Seattle for him.

Extended Find Somebody? What's the Drain code for that? Do you know who
this person is? What his/her Astral aura looks like? You have to know
what you're looking for before you go hunting for it. I'd send a Watcher,
not cast a spell, assuming I knew what I was looking for.

> We need to infiltrate the ork underground? I turn into an ork.

Great. Now your target numbers are increased by +2 for as long as you're
an ork. Did you cast the spell on your buddies too? How many of them
were there? Even if there was only one other guy, target humbers are now
+4 FOR EVERYTHING (including resisting Drain and other damage).

> Picture a wolf sham casting stun ball into a group of protesters
> who said, "Breeder, go home." to him.

Picture Lone Star arriving with Neuro-Stun gas grenades and beatsticks,
arresting said Wolf Shaman, locking him up and throwing away the key.

>This is in a campain where karma is somewhere in the 100+
>It kind of makes sense for the mages to be able to do this, I wouldn't
>call any of the players munchkin in any way.

Nor would I. All of the above are perfectly legal (albeit somewhat stupid)
uses of magic.

>So what happens to the PCs who are mundos?
> They sit around and do nothing. They basicly are people who
> simply can't do things as well as the mages. I don't know
> about you, but I don't want to sit around while one player
> gets to play god.

If the mundane PCs sit around and do nothing, its the GM's problem, not
the mage archetype's. The biggest time-hog in our game is not me, the
mage, but the decker. In any case, though, mundanes can do things just
as well as a mage. Does the mage have the Karma to buy a kicking Computer
skill and a white-hot Cyberdeck? No. Is he chromed out and a deadly
menace in Armed or Unarmed Combat? No. Does he have multiple actions?
Not unless a) he's invested the money into buying a spell lock (a poor
return for your nuyen) or b) he's traded away some of his magical
ability for Cyberware. He CAN cast spells. He CAN Conjure elementals
or spirits. He CAN work in Astral space. But he is NOT omnipotent.

>The only reason a mage needs a mundo for is because he can't be in two places
>at once. Mages have very few weaknesses at this level. This can be a problem

>for his oh-so-mortal mundo street sam porters.If its something the street sams

>can handle, the mages will mop up. If its something like a force 12 toxic
>spirit, then the mundos run away, cause they can't do jack. The difference
>in power becomes HUGE is short order.

Great. What happens to their reps when the street finds out that the big bad
razorboy RAN AWAY from something? At the very least, in a situation like this,
the mundanes can create a distraction so that the mage can Banish the spirit.
And by the time he gets done, he's not going to be good for much else.

Now, a physical battle is a different story. Our samurai plug ammunition into
the enemy, and our mage decides to start dropping spells too. I wouldn't call
that mopup. I'd call it a firefight. And, in any case, the guy throwing the
fireballs is going to be MY first target if I'm one of the bad guys. Oh, he's
got spell locks and good stuff like that? I'll catch him in an ambush. Its
fairly obvious who's the samurai and who isn't. I can count on the samurai
to fight me on my own terms, so I take out the non-samurai first.

>I also put forth some ideas, a while ago, for the use of B/R skills. These
>ideas allowed players to make nifty stuff that they get to play with and allow

>the mundos to do some of the "Yawn, I'll take care of this." instead of the
>mages.

If it took you this long to figure out good uses for B/R skills, you're a
pretty hopeless case.

>Why track a guy via astral where you can be spoted when you can use a
> radioactive dye?

We've used this trick...put radioactive trace elements into someone's chow,
and then track them with a Geiger counter.

>Who needs fireball when I'm using fulminated mercury? Not only does it blow
> up, but it poisons the guy as well.

Not bad. But standard hand grenades work wonders too, without bothering with
the B/R skills.

>Hollow point rounds full of nerve agents.

Not a brilliant plan. "Let's use nerve gas in the city!" That's a shoot-on-
sight offense: nerve gas is a MILITARY weapon, and not something that you can
whip up in fifteen minutes in the kitchen.

>Improved reactive trigger

What, so you can fire six or seven bullets out or a pistol in one action?
Talk about munchkinism.

>Higher concealablity.

If you can't hide it, don't bring it. Don't bother messing with it to
make it "hideable". I don't care how good a tinker you are: you don't
bring a big gun downtown.

>Personal stealth technology like inverse phasing sound bafflers.

What, stealth suits? Good idea, but don't try making one in your tool
shop.

>New and interesting chemicals that allow you to ignore pain and allow the
> user to preform super human feets.

We created some chemicals that could be used to ward off pain for a certain
amount of time (i.e. eliminate target numbers), but they cost too much and
were highly addictive. Not every cloud has a silver lining.

>Wrong, its the game, its built to favor mages in a big way. He's added all
>the rules that people have suggested, plus! He's stalled mages from getting
>power as much as he can. In the long run, the gap just gets wider and wider.
>This also causes the problem of mundos that want magic items because mundos
>can't use magic. The best they can get is a spell locked on 'em, and we know
>how long that's gonna last.

You are the one who is wrong. If there is a problem with game balance, it is
not the fault of the system, which was never intended to create balanced char-
acters. It is the fault of the GM, who can't balance the game himself. The
players of the mundane characters, if they have two brain cells to bang togeth-
er, are going to rise in skill a lot quicker than the mages. They're also
going to be a lot more effective in what they do that the mages. Reason?
Mundane characters are a lot more specialized than mages. A street samurai
fights, so he gets better at fighting. A decker decks, so he gets better
with computers and writes better software. A mage uses magic, so what does
he get better at? Does he learn more spells? Take Initiations? Conjure
nasty elementals? Bind magic items? Increase his magical skills?

Furthermore, I'd rather wipe the mage with the spell lock than the mundane
with the spell lock. Sure, the mundane isn't going to fight me. But the
mage is going to be more of an immediate threat with the stupid thing.

>The game that is closest to Shadowrun is AD&D. It has people with magical
>powers and normals. Unlike shadowrun, normals can pick up things like
>magic swords and armor. SR mundos have cyberware instead, but Street Sams
>start out at nearly maxed out power to start with. There is no upward
>movement.

AD&D is NOT anything LIKE Shadowrun. If you believe this, you're more of a
munchkin than I thought. There is a great deal of upward movement for any
character in Shadowrun. You just have to be smart enough to know where to
climb.

>Mages vrs mundos. Mage wins.

Maybe. It depends a great deal on the situation. Wanna elaborate?

>One mundo? Toast.

So the sniper who shot your mage for 6D2 from three blocks away is toast?
That was his FIRST action. He's got two more.

>A group of mundos in a wave assault? Mob Mind Control. "Kill each other"

Great. Can't wait for Lone Star to show up and figure out what happened.
maybe the'd even put a little Astral tail on you to see if you did anything
ELSE wrong.

I'm also pretty sure that self-destructive orders are at a substantial bonus
to resist.

>A group of mundos in ambush? I know they're there about 5000m away.

I can toast an entire Shadowrunner group with a well-timed ambush, regard-
less of how far away they are.

>Without magic, there are very few ways for a mundo to get a mage.
>Don't reply to this post to tell me, I know them all.
>I'm a GM, I'm supposed to know these things.

Well, apparently, you don't. There are PLENTY of ways for a mundane to
geek a mage. Maybe if I feel compelled, I'll write a list.

>No one player should be so powerful as to overshadow everybody else.
>At high levels this happens a lot.
>There are steps that can be taken to fix this.

If one player gets so powerful as to overshadow everyone else, it's the GM's
problem, not the system's.

>Also,
>Mages are not INDIRECTLY powerful.
>Mages are VERY powerful!
>Mages KICK ASS, even with limits put on them!

I have yet to see, in three years of Shadowrunning, a mage "kick ass" next to
a determined samurai. Mages are certainly powerful. But power comes in many
shapes and sizes, and you have blatantly ignored the power belonging to other
types of characters in order to back your own argument. Yes, I have seen a
mage turn a samurai into sushi in one action. But I have also seen ordin-
ary mundanes take down a mage who considered himself dag-nasty. The door
swings both ways.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett Cashman (The Jester) rcas...@cs.ulowell.edu

"There's a place I like to hide,
A doorway that I run through in the night." - Geoff Tate
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosmo Of The Cosmos

unread,

Apr 29, 1992, 2:50:00 PM4/29/92

>There are PLENTY of problems that mages have that cannot be overcome with the
>use of magic. How about cash flow? Karma shortages? Time restrictions? Tar-
>get number modifiers? Drain?

If your solution is to single out one person for abuse, then you are a poor GM.
IT DOESN'T WORK. It just pisses people off! It becomes you vrs the player.

>Your average samurai can have moderate wounds and fatigue and still have a
>reasonable target number with his gun (like, 6, at close range and 7 at med-
>ium range). He's got five or six dice to roll, plus Karma if he REALLY needs
>to make this shot. Now, his buddy, the mage, with the same moderate wound and
>the same moderate fatigue, casts a Force 4 sleep spell. He's going to need
>three 8's to resist Drain altogether. He'll probably roll eight dice to
>resist (Willpower 5 + 3 Magic Pool Dice), but odds are he is NOT going to
>get three 8's. Furthermore, he doesn't have the luxury of spending Karma
>on the spell (I've never seen a mage burn Instant Karma except in Conjuring),
>and, even if he does partially resist Drain, his target number modifiers
>either increase or come closer to increasing. Point being, the mage is in
>a lot deeper shit than the samurai. The samurai doesn't beat himself up
>when he attacks. The mage does.

one, If the mage is smart, he never will take drain.
Two, the stuff a gm will have to do to even scare an ok mage will KILL other
players. I hope you don't mind people walking out on you.

>Furthermore, in any Shadowrun game that's run correctly, cash flow is enough
>of a problem that doing all the big-league stuff is a pain in the ass anyway.
>By this, I mean that you WON'T have the cash to summon up hordes of elementals.
>You WON'T have the cash to pay the dues of the magical group. You WON'T have
>the cash to buy those huge Hermetic libraries you need for Conjuring big
>elementals. This means one of two things: either you've got to do it on your
>own (stuff like Initiation) which takes Karma, or you can't do it at all (stuff
>like Conjuring), so you make due.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! OH, MY! That's rich! Cash Flow Problems, FOR MAGES!
I'm sorry... Ok, yep, I agree with you... (snicker sinker) Suuure, you bet'cha!
Mages can make money hand over fist in ways that normals CAN'T.
But then again, you'll just screw him over if you don't like what he's doing
right?

>Given, in published Shadowrun adventures there is a great deal of magical loot
>floating around. But think for a moment: it takes Karma to bid that stuff.
>How many mages have the Karma to spare to bind a Rating 2 Power Focus? Per-
>sonally, I'd throw the 10-15 Karma that it takes to bind a decent magic item
>into Initiation. It's a much better payoff for your Karma. The Power Focus
>might give you an extra 2 Magic Pool dice, but the Initiation gives you skills
>like Centering and Masking.

BIND?!?! Nope, sell! Even at reduced cost, they make out like bandits
oh yea, the mundos want a share of the loot, eh?

Mundo: Cool, a magic sword!
Mage: No, it not.
Mundo: Yes it is! look what he did with it!
Mage: It was a spell.
Mundo: It glowed! He used it like a pro! I know Its magical!
Mage: Realy? Watch!

He picks up a stick, casts Analyse device, get 12 successes.
Does amazing things with it.

Mage: Spell. But, I can still sell it for something. I'll see what i can get.
Mundo: Ok.

Now the players know what's going on, but the charaters don't.

But why do something so complacated.
Mage: I want to bind it.
(Then he sells it behind their back.)

>> We need to get information? I read his mind.
>
>Who were you getting information from? The doorknob? How high was his Will-
>power? If I were the one employing people with knowlege of important infor-
>mation, I'd make damn sure they weren't going to give that information away,
>hence the high Willpower.

*YAWN*
Reduce will power spell.

>> We need to find somebody? I use my extented find Somebody spell
>> and scan Seattle for him.
>Extended Find Somebody? What's the Drain code for that? Do you know who
>this person is? What his/her Astral aura looks like? You have to know
>what you're looking for before you go hunting for it. I'd send a Watcher,
>not cast a spell, assuming I knew what I was looking for.

Have you read the spell locate person (or some such)?
I name the person, I locate him.
I get every person that has the same name.
At traveling at 6000km an hour (in the astral) its easy to check them all out.
Give me a day or two.

>Great. Now your target numbers are increased by +2 for as long as you're
>an ork. Did you cast the spell on your buddies too? How many of them
>were there? Even if there was only one other guy, target humbers are now
>+4 FOR EVERYTHING (including resisting Drain and other damage).

Fashion and facelift, works on anybody.

>Picture Lone Star arriving with Neuro-Stun gas grenades and beatsticks,
>arresting said Wolf Shaman, locking him up and throwing away the key.

Picture said sham flying into the sky protected by a mist spirit.
Oh, he got a descrition, eh? Too bad, I'm never gonna be able to use that
face again.

>Nor would I. All of the above are perfectly legal (albeit somewhat stupid)
>uses of magic.

And what can the mundos do? Sit back and watch?

>Great. What happens to their reps when the street finds out that the big bad
>razorboy RAN AWAY from something? At the very least, in a situation like this,
>the mundanes can create a distraction so that the mage can Banish the spirit.
>And by the time he gets done, he's not going to be good for much else.

What happens to his rep when he's dead?

>Now, a physical battle is a different story. Our samurai plug ammunition into
>the enemy, and our mage decides to start dropping spells too. I wouldn't call
>that mopup. I'd call it a firefight. And, in any case, the guy throwing the
>fireballs is going to be MY first target if I'm one of the bad guys. Oh, he's
>got spell locks and good stuff like that? I'll catch him in an ambush. Its
>fairly obvious who's the samurai and who isn't. I can count on the samurai
>to fight me on my own terms, so I take out the non-samurai first.

Force 12 spirits (the ones nessisary to take down 100+ karma mages)
don't give a damm about the street sam. I was a rigger, I shot it with
a PAC with reactice trigger. It then ate me. What fun!

>If it took you this long to figure out good uses for B/R skills, you're a
>pretty hopeless case.

Tell me, when was the last time somebody posted some ideas for B/R on the net?
I'd like to read them if they haven't been deleted.

>Not bad. But standard hand grenades work wonders too, without bothering with
>the B/R skills.

Where's the style?

>Not a brilliant plan. "Let's use nerve gas in the city!" That's a shoot-on-
>sight offense: nerve gas is a MILITARY weapon, and not something that you can
>whip up in fifteen minutes in the kitchen.

Wrong, I can. It'll take longer than 15 minutes though.

>>Improved reactive trigger
>What, so you can fire six or seven bullets out or a pistol in one action?

>talk about munchkin.

Read your street samurai catolog. They have machine pistols. Take the
design and use it to build Heavy MPs and Semi-auto Sniper rifles, and...

>If you can't hide it, don't bring it. Don't bother messing with it to
>make it "hideable". I don't care how good a tinker you are: you don't
>bring a big gun downtown.

How about a light pistol disguised to look like a wrist mounted Pocket
Secretary? It carries hollow point rounds filled with mercury.
Can I take that downtown?

>>Personal stealth technology like inverse phasing sound bafflers.
>
>
>What, stealth suits? Good idea, but don't try making one in your tool
>shop.

100,000 nuyen for a shop, DOY!

>>New and interesting chemicals that allow you to ignore pain and allow the
>> user to preform super human feets.

>We created some chemicals that could be used to ward off pain for a certain
>amount of time (i.e. eliminate target numbers), but they cost too much and
>were highly addictive. Not every cloud has a silver lining.

Read my other post.

>>The game that is closest to Shadowrun is AD&D.

>AD&D is NOT anything LIKE Shadowrun. If you believe this, you're more of a
>munchkin than I thought. There is a great deal of upward movement for any
>character in Shadowrun. You just have to be smart enough to know where to
>climb.

Closest is the key word here, Mun-Flamer-Ton.

>So the sniper who shot your mage for 6D2 from three blocks away is toast?
>That was his FIRST action. He's got two more.

Is he more than 6km away? If yes, he can't shoot me. If no, then I know
he's there. He's spending time aiming, I turn, I mana ball.
That was my first action, I get 3 more.

>>A group of mundos in a wave assault? Mob Mind Control. "Kill each other"
>Great. Can't wait for Lone Star to show up and figure out what happened.
>maybe the'd even put a little Astral tail on you to see if you did anything
>ELSE wrong.

Like I'm going to be there for them to find.

>I'm also pretty sure that self-destructive orders are at a substantial bonus
>to resist.

ok, mob control actions, then.

>>A group of mundos in ambush? I know they're there about 5000m away.
>
>
>I can toast an entire Shadowrunner group with a well-timed ambush, regard-
>less of how far away they are.

Detect life, detect enemy, detect astraly active beings.
Try and ambush me.

>>No one player should be so powerful as to overshadow everybody else.
>>At high levels this happens a lot.
>>There are steps that can be taken to fix this.
>If one player gets so powerful as to overshadow everyone else, it's the GM's
>problem, not the system's.

I'm saying the GM should fix it! I'm saying ways that it can be fixed!
And I'm saying ways that I think, from personal experance, that are best!

>I have yet to see, in three years of Shadowrunning, a mage "kick ass" next to
>a determined samurai. Mages are certainly powerful. But power comes in many
>shapes and sizes, and you have blatantly ignored the power belonging to other
>types of characters in order to back your own argument. Yes, I have seen a
>mage turn a samurai into sushi in one action. But I have also seen ordin-
>ary mundanes take down a mage who considered himself dag-nasty. The door
>swings both ways.

No I haven't.
I've looked at what mages can do, and what mundos can do.
in physical combat, mages win.
Mundos' ranged attacks can be off set.
Mundos' HTH attacks can be off set.

If the mundo can't hurt me, and I can hurt him, who wins?

You realy wanna have this out don't cha?
ok, you have 1,000,000 nuyen and 20 karma
So do I.
make your mundo.
I'll make my mage.

I'm asleep in my house.

you know where I live, my name, and what I do.

How do you kill me?

You have as much time as you want.
You cannot have any magic.
You can have any weapon you can afford.
You can have anything you can buy.

Feel free to mail me, or keep this on the net if you think you'll win.

-Robert "heh heh" Goodfellow

Ron Levy (Armchair)

unread,

Apr 29, 1992, 4:03:52 PM4/29/92

>Detect life, detect enemy, detect astraly active beings.
>Try and ambush me.

>You realy wanna have this out don't cha?
>ok, you have 1,000,000 nuyen and 20 karma
>So do I.
>make your mundo.
>I'll make my mage.

Take your basic street sam, give him basic ware, reflex, strength,
dextrous. Get him down to 0.0 essence. Cyberpsychotic.

He hands 100,000 nuyen off to a decker to keep tabs on you via
security systems and police cameras, so he knows when you're in
your home and when you're asleep, so you can't actually personally
use spells or react to things.

He uses his 6 Etiquette skill and 8 karma for 4 autosuccesses to
convince whoever hired him that he needs a pocket nuke for the job.
Not tough considering who he's going after. He's got enough strength
to carry it, and enough money to defray expenses.

He has no essence left. According to the rules of magic, he's not alive.
Detect life gets you jack.

He sure ain't astrally active.

He's cyberpsychotic. Your detect enemies spell takes a look at him and
finds out that he's just here to bring you a gift. He's not an enemy.
The gift is of course, oblivion, which our cyberpsychotic friend thinks
is a very fine gift indeed.

He uses his 6 Stealth skill and 8 karma for 4 autosuccesses to get him
past your elementals and security devices and anything else, until he's
close enough to have you in the kill radius of his pocket nuke.

He uses his 6 Demolitions skill and 4 karma for 2 autosuccesses, and
you and he go up in a burst of nuclear fire, flash-fried beyond ash.

This mundo is just as stupid as your mage.

--
Snake Owner's Safety Tip #3:
Never, EVER say, "Do da wittle snakie-wakies wanna come out to pway?"
anywhere near their cage.

The Jester

unread,

Apr 29, 1992, 5:13:54 PM4/29/92

In article <1992Apr29....@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Cosmo Of The Cosmos) writes:

>If your solution is to single out one person for abuse,then you are a poor GM.

>IT DOESN'T WORK. It just pisses people off! It becomes you vrs the player.

I wasn't the one who suggested that method. And no, nobody in my game's been
singled out for abuse. Cash flow should ALWAYS be a problem. Its integral to
the genre, and its a motivation to keep Shadowrunning.

>one, If the mage is smart, he never will take drain.

Please, enlighten me as to how the I.Q. of the mage has ANYTHING to do with
his capacity to take drain. What are you casting spells at low Force? Or
are you kicking huge numbers of dice into your rolls (i.e. Magic Pool, magic
items, etc.)? Regardless of your method, 8 is a fairly tough target to get
multiple successes on without using Karma.

>Two, the stuff a gm will have to do to even scare an ok mage will KILL other
> players. I hope you don't mind people walking out on you.

At the end of the module "Bottled Demon," there's a particularly nasty critter.
We went up against him. He scared the drek out of EVERYBODY, mundanes and
mages alike.

We got into a scrape with this critter. He grabbed my buddy Mike, a mage,
and disemboweled him before Mike got an action. Then, on the next combat
turn, he grabbed the next nearest character. Turned out to be my other
buddy, Ed. Ed was playing a samurai. In the time it took the critter to
bring Ed to moderate wounds, we'd killed it. At that time, there were no
other magically-inclined characters in the group.

>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! OH, MY! That's rich! Cash Flow Problems, FOR MAGES!

>I'm sorry...Ok, yep, I agree with you... (snicker sinker) Suuure, you bet'cha!

>Mages can make money hand over fist in ways that normals CAN'T.
>But then again, you'll just screw him over if you don't like what he's doing
>right?

Dig yourself deeper. Tell me: how can Joe Mage make more cash than, say, Joe
Decker? Keep dreaming.

Furthermore, as I said above, if your group DOESN'T have cash flow, problems,
you're not being true to the genre. Much of the mechanics of the game rest
upon the scarcity of money.

>BIND?!?! Nope, sell! Even at reduced cost, they make out like bandits
>oh yea, the mundos want a share of the loot, eh?

Who are you gonna sell it to? The local talismonger is going to pay you a
poor percentage (perhaps 10 - 15%). Gonna sell it yourself? The local
fixer is going to be none too happy about that.

So, going by costs in "The Grimoire," if I sell a Force 2 Power Focus at
10% of actual value to my favorite talismonger, I make 21K nuyen. Peachy.
That oughtta about cover my costs for the run. All this assuming my
favorite talismonger WANTS the item: you never know who might come popping
out of Astral Space looking for revenge one day.

[Cute little improbably story deleted.]

>But why do something so complacated.
>Mage: I want to bind it.
>(Then he sells it behind their back.)

First, see my above dissertation. Second, wonderful. Now the mage has
21K nuyen. If he starts throwing it around, his buddies are going to know
something's up, and probably get pissed. But lets say (for the sake of
argument) he's smart. He buys himself a Computer Media Library of some
sort (we'll say Conjuring). Oughtta be enough cash to just about get him
a Rating 4 or 5 library. I mean, who wants to lug around all those books?

Now we can Conjure Force 4 or 5 elementals. Peachy. We still need cash
to buy the summoning materials. Okay. We spend 4 or 5K out of the cash that
we made from our last run (making the generous assumption that its not
already spent and I already covered my costs for the run) for EACH ele-
mental that we Conjure. See how this is starting to add up? Throw in cost
of living (you have to put that Hermetic Circle someplace...), and you begin
to run into a lot of money.

>*YAWN*
>Reduce will power spell.

You spend one action casting that spell. I use my next action to perfor-
ate you with my trusty monofilament whip. Who knows? I might even spend
a few Karma to geek a pesky mage who's trying to read my mind.

On the other hand, as I said, Mind Probe is a perfectly good use of magic.
Its not munchkinizing. But its never as easy to pull off as you seem to
believe.

>Have you read the spell locate person (or some such)?
>I name the person, I locate him.
>I get every person that has the same name.
>At traveling at 6000km an hour (in the astral) its easy to check them all out.
>Give me a day or two.

I'll check out my copy of "The Grimoire," but I'm fairly certain that the
spell you speak of does not work that way. I'm also fairly certain that
the range of the spell is a hell of a lot more limited than you think.

But, assuming it does, as you race around the Astral Plane (remember, you
can only stay in Astral form for your Magic Rating in hours), the person
you are looking for could be dead, crippled, brainwashed, or whatever.
Much better to use a team approach. You check out some, the guys on the
ground check out some. You still might not get there in time, but you'll
do a shitload better. And the mage might actually be good for something
other than a doorstop when you're done.

>Picture said sham flying into the sky protected by a mist spirit.
>Oh, he got a descrition, eh? Too bad, I'm never gonna be able to use that
>face again.

Tell me how he summoned a Mist Spirit while he was standing on the ground?
You can only summon a Nature Spirit in that Spirit's Domain. Your Mist
Spirit wouldn't show up. You'd get a City Spirit, or one that was appropo
to the Domain. To Conjure a Mist Spirit, you have to be in/on clouds or
fog, not standing on a street corner.

>>Nor would I. All of the above are perfectly legal (albeit somewhat stupid)
>>uses of magic.
>
>And what can the mundos do? Sit back and watch?

If the players of the mundanes are stupid enough to sit around and jerk
off, that's their privilege. But don't confuse unwillingness to do anything
to inability to do anything.

>What happens to his rep when he's dead?

In the cyberpunk genre, if you don't have a rep, you might as well be dead.
If word gets out on the street that you ran away, you're never going to get
any work ever again.

>Force 12 spirits (the ones nessisary to take down 100+ karma mages)
>don't give a damm about the street sam. I was a rigger, I shot it with
>a PAC with reactice trigger. It then ate me. What fun!

Spirits are not intelligent. The guy who is hurting it the most (i.e. the
fellow who's Banishing it) is going to be its target. Everybody else is
going to have to prevent the Spirit from eating the mage. And if you
need to throw shit like this up against a group in order to hurt them,
its time to get a grip on reality.

>Tell me, when was the last time somebody posted some ideas for B/R on the net?
>I'd like to read them if they haven't been deleted.

I wasn't aware that everybody wasn't using something so obvious.

>>Not bad. But standard hand grenades work wonders too, without bothering with
>>the B/R skills.
>
>Where's the style?

Style? Grenades are cheaper. I'm on a budget. There's also less to worry
about with grenades: you pull the pin, and throw. No need to worry about
transporting them, or how you're going to replace them.

>>Not a brilliant plan. "Let's use nerve gas in the city!" That's a shoot-on-
>>sight offense: nerve gas is a MILITARY weapon, and not something that you can
>>whip up in fifteen minutes in the kitchen.
>
>Wrong, I can. It'll take longer than 15 minutes though.

I'd like to see you invent hollow point nerve gas projectiles in a kitchen.

>Read your street samurai catolog. They have machine pistols. Take the
>design and use it to build Heavy MPs and Semi-auto Sniper rifles, and...

Nice. You really ARE a munchkin.

>100,000 nuyen for a shop, DOY!

Too bad you missed the sarcasm. I meant "tool shop" in the sense of hammer
and nails, not microtronics.

>>AD&D is NOT anything LIKE Shadowrun. If you believe this, you're more of a
>>munchkin than I thought. There is a great deal of upward movement for any
>>character in Shadowrun. You just have to be smart enough to know where to
>>climb.
>
>Closest is the key word here, Mun-Flamer-Ton.

Keep it up, shithead. Shadowrun is a SKILL BASED system. AD&D is an ITEM
based system. There is NO similarity between the systems. You just keep
on showing your ignorance of this.

>>So the sniper who shot your mage for 6D2 from three blocks away is toast?
>>That was his FIRST action. He's got two more.
>
>Is he more than 6km away? If yes, he can't shoot me. If no, then I know
>he's there. He's spending time aiming, I turn, I mana ball.
>That was my first action, I get 3 more.

How do you know he's there? Got a spell lock with Extended Detect Enemies?
Might take you a while to find me, considering, if I was hired to take down
a mage, I'd invest in some magical protection.

>>I'm also pretty sure that self-destructive orders are at a substantial bonus
>>to resist.
>
>ok, mob control actions, then.

Same deal.

>>I can toast an entire Shadowrunner group with a well-timed ambush, regard-
>>less of how far away they are.
>
>Detect life, detect enemy, detect astraly active beings.
>Try and ambush me.

Okay. I leave a bomb in your apartment. It's under your bed, and it explodes
when you lie down. Maybe five or so kilos of plastique: quite enough to take
out most of the apartment, your possessions, and, incidentally, you.

>I'm saying the GM should fix it! I'm saying ways that it can be fixed!
>And I'm saying ways that I think, from personal experance, that are best!

No. You said that the system was at fault. You're so ready to blame everyone
but the guilty party: yourself.

>No I haven't.
>I've looked at what mages can do, and what mundos can do.
>in physical combat, mages win.
>Mundos' ranged attacks can be off set.
>Mundos' HTH attacks can be off set.

Ah, the uninitiated. How about my decker putting you at the top of the FBI's
"Ten Most Wanted" list? Can that be offset? Or having the banks reposses
all of your property. Can that be offset? Or how about my fixer putting you
on Don Caranetti's hit list? Can that be offset? Or my assassin wiring your
apartment with explosives? Your car?

Trust me. If I want you dead, I can see to it that you are. I don't even
have to be in the general vicinity to insure it.

>You realy wanna have this out don't cha?

No. I don't. You were the one who started the one-upsmanship war. I was
trying to point out your logic flaw. You jumped all over me.

[Babble deleted.]

I'll E-Mail you over your little "challenge." Suffice it to say I'm not
worried.

Aaron Wigley

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Apr 30, 1992, 3:52:02 AM4/30/92

rcas...@cs.ulowell.edu (The Jester) writes:
: >Detect life, detect enemy, detect astraly active beings.

: >Try and ambush me.
:
:
: Okay. I leave a bomb in your apartment. It's under your bed, and it explodes
: when you lie down. Maybe five or so kilos of plastique: quite enough to take
: out most of the apartment, your possessions, and, incidentally, you.

Nah chum, I like the light-sensitive detonator and several kilos of plastique
hidden in the fridge idea. Just when the guy relaxs, and goes to get a fizzer,
Boom. I might even help myself to his leftover pizza as I arm the bomb.

Scythe.
wi...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au

Jim W Lai

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Apr 30, 1992, 5:34:56 AM4/30/92

Aw, I deleted the attributions by accident. But does it matter anymore?

Remember that you have to sight the person visually in order to hit him.
AIming on the astral won't work. Better carry around optical binoculars
wherever you go.

>Detect life, detect enemy, detect astraly active beings.
>Try and ambush me.

Detect life? Isn't that going a bit far? It's be a mess in the city. If a
signal goes off all the time, it's going to be ignored.

>>>No one player should be so powerful as to overshadow everybody else.
>>>At high levels this happens a lot.
>>>There are steps that can be taken to fix this.
>>If one player gets so powerful as to overshadow everyone else, it's the GM's
>>problem, not the system's.
>
>I'm saying the GM should fix it! I'm saying ways that it can be fixed!
>And I'm saying ways that I think, from personal experance, that are best!

Well allow me to respectfully disagree. I have my own set of fixes I prefer.

>I've looked at what mages can do, and what mundos can do.
>in physical combat, mages win.
>Mundos' ranged attacks can be off set.
>Mundos' HTH attacks can be off set.
>
>If the mundo can't hurt me, and I can hurt him, who wins?

Easy. The mundane then tries to target everyone you rely on in order to get
the next job. If you're not actively bodyguarding all of them, your social
net is vulnerable. Subtlety, see?

[given a hyped up mage...]

>I'm asleep in my house.
>you know where I live, my name, and what I do.
>How do you kill me?
>You have as much time as you want.
>You cannot have any magic.
>You can have any weapon you can afford.
>You can have anything you can buy.

Try food poisoning, for starters. Perhaps asphyxiation by carbon monoxide
poisoning? Death by smoke inhalation? Hack onto a system and get your name
put up on a wanted list of some major corporations? Or I could simply
hire someone to blow up the block or floor you live in. Nothing astral or
magical. The intent isn't personal, so your Detect Enemies spell won't spot
him. And since you're asleep, the hired help could simply rent out the place
for a month and then blow you up at some random point during his or her stay.

Ron

unread,

Apr 30, 1992, 7:32:41 AM4/30/92

I've found that 1-kiloton tactical nukes are a good way to get rid of pesky
mages.

- Ron

Dragons, on the other hand ...

Ben Goodwin

unread,

Apr 30, 1992, 10:18:43 AM4/30/92

> -Robert "heh heh" Goodfellow

Robert you are living in a fantasy world. Um, I mean a fantasy fantasy
world. I've enjoyed this thread because I'm new to Srun and I've gotten
some good ideas.

What you seem to be missing is that almost everybody has agreed that mages
are the most powerful archetypes. (period) The problem with all your
arguments is that you assume you are playing with a stupid GM that can't
manage game balance. All these examples you've provided are possible
but highly unlikely.

Your examples of you walking in a crowd and manabolting groups of people,
knocking down a UB chapter house and getting away are the products
of your underactive imagination. There's no way you can seriously
expect that in the world of 2050 they can't deal with a power hungry
megomaniacal mage. Sure they may need to use other mages to get
you, but they will use those other mages.

Some of the rules you've cited have helped me and I appreciate it. But
if you ever came to my game and tried some of those stunts you say you
can easily pull, you would be found out in short order and cremated.
Your charcter resembles a serial murderer more than a player character.
The Cops (LoneStar) would come after you. They would use ritual sorcery,
meta planar quests etc... to find you and then they would politely
toast your gonads. :)

you are in a fantasy fantasy world. Though there are holes in the SRun
rules, and in the AD&D rules, and in the Gurps rules they are easily
handled by a competent GM. The GM you are envisioning is a buffoon.
Oh well, keep arguing. I'm saving all this stuff and learning new
and interesting rules that have til now confused me.
--
============================================================================
| uunet!orionsci!goodwin | you with your hair that's always combed,
| Ben Goodwin | your suit is always white, your car is
| Washington DC (703) 524-0504 | always clean. You I hate!!! -Great Race
============================================================================

Gregory C. Wilhelm

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Apr 30, 1992, 1:15:38 PM4/30/92

In article <ghdj...@cck.coventry.ac.uk> cbj...@cch.coventry.ac.uk (The Mistress) writes:
>In article <1992Apr29.0...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Cosmo Of The Cosmos) writes:
>>What I believe:
>>MAGES ARE TOO POWERFUL IN SHADOWRUN.
>
>Quite right....
>
>>2. Change the rules.
>>
>>What I think is best, because, it sets out from the begining, what's good and
>>what's bad and the mage cannot complain about the GM being hostile.
>>This includes stopping people from locking every health, detect, and useful
>>manipulation spell that exists, the first bonding glitch, fixing drain so that
>>it truely reflects what the spell does, and a whole slew of other house rules.
>
>Remember, spell locks can be traced....so just hit the mage with ritual
>magic, which is pretty powerful. My GM hasn't carried the threat out _yet_

Something that I've found to work reasonably well is that when any given
mage locks a spell onto himself (be it through a spell lock or quickening)
that increases any of his attributes beyond their normal limits give him
a partial disadvantage to it. For example, an increase Willpower +4
locked onto a mage is going to make him extremely stubborn (use the rules
for the Wyrm shaman in the London Sourcebook) if the player doesn't play
the character as if this were in effect then it must mean he is resisting
the magic and it has no effect. For most increase attribute spells this
is easy to do. Increased Reaction or Quickness? The character becomes
hyperactive, which could possibly lead to heart palpitations, severe
stress etc. Increased Strength? The character begins to lose fine motor
control, which makes it a real bitch to enchanting properly. Increased
Charisma? The character becomes easily recognizable, people tend to
remember him even after one meeting. Not good for someone living in
the shadows.

>>3. Let the mage do what he wants, but screw him over if you don't like it.
>>
>>I used to like this approch my self, did it quite a few times, and paid the
>>price. When ever a GM has to digress to this tactic, he is doing something
>>wrong. When a GM has to flex God Hood in the name of game ballence, it does
>>bad things. The player thinks he's being singled out for abuse. This creates
>>a GM vrs PC situation that results in resentment. Further more, it also
>>causes people to come back to "its just a game" instead of suspending
>>disbelief. Players have to watch their step or else they know the GM will
>>send a hoard of force 6 spirits to punish him. Gee. What fun.
>
>Just send the mage/PC's up against just as powerful mages. The other
>PC's will get butchered and probably discourage the player playing the mage
>not to have any more mages as PC's.

I'm still kinda iffy about this one. I don't like punishing the other
players for something that really isn't their fault. But until some other
reasonable solution comes along I might be stuck with it.

Good call! I've turned down characters at the beginning a number of times
for just this reason. I have also presented limits after the character has
been running for a while just to make sure that there is some balance left
to preserve. BUT, all of the adjustments I have made I have presented to
the group first. Just to make sure that they understand why I'm imposing
limits on them. I've found if you can justify your reasoning to them most
players don't mind so much.

[Tech B/R stuff deleted]

[Mage vs. Mundane stuff deleted]

More possible suggestions to maintain balance:

Limit the number of locked spells a mage can have. This is above and beyond
the normal limit of one lock per Magic point. I limit the number of increase
attribute spells to a total of "plusses" equal to the mage's Magic attribute
also. For example, a starting mage could have a Inc. Will +3 and an Inc. Body
+3 no problem. More plusses than that and it begins to drain his Magic
attribute. If he were to add an Inc. Reaction +2 then his Magic attribute
would decrease by 2. Unreasonable? Maybe, but, again, the players understand
the need for it and go along with it.

Ditto for Power/Spell Focuses that can be bonded.

Finally, let the players know that as much as they can improve their characters
there are always NPC's who can do the same thing. In fact, there might even
be people that can do better. And if they really want to start an arms race
then chances are good that the GM is going to be able to beat them. This,
IMHO, should only be used as a last resort.

What it all comes down to is getting the player to realize that a character
that is more powerful than all the other characters in the group put together
isn't going to be a whole lot of fun to play. He's eventually going to start
breeding resentment from the other players, start getting bored, and generally
make a mess of the game for everyone else. Provided that they are reasonably
intelligent they'll realize this and agree to the limits you set upon them.

Just my thoughts on the matter

Later...

Lester Ward

unread,

Apr 30, 1992, 1:18:55 PM4/30/92

Something that just occured to me: people have been rejecting alpha and
beta cyberware as an option for improving samurai due to its limited
availability. Yet some of these same people sight Initiation as one
of the ways mages are so powerfull.

Seems to me that the knowledge of how a magician would go about Initiating
would be a LOT less available than access to betaware installation would
be.

Wordman

Andrew Pearlman

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Apr 30, 1992, 2:21:53 PM4/30/92

There's another thing people are forgetting. How hard is it for a samurai
to become a skilled decker? .2 essence, 500000 nuyen, and a 5-8 computer
skill. To be a skilled rigger? Rip out those wired reflexes and replace
them with Vehicle Control Rig of the same level.

Try this character for growth potential:
Attributes 4, putting 5s in all stats.

Tech 3: Wired Reflexes2, Vehicle Control Rig1, Datajack, Smartgun link,
cybereyes with Thermo, Flare, and ImageEnhancer3. That's about 200000
nuyen. You've got 200000 and .1 essence left to spend on anything else.
Buy several contacts and a gang.

Skills2: Firearms, Etiquette, Computer(matrix programming), Stealth(urban),
Unarmed Combat, Bike. Probably a 6 Firearms, a 3 Etiquette, a 4 computer,
a 4 stealth, a 5 unarmed combat, and a 2 bike.

You can now do the following: Get 6s in all stats with karma. You have
a base 11 reaction + 3d6 for normal actions. Get a Fuchi4 with 2 levels
Increased React. You now have a 21 hacking pool(2/4/6 computer skill) and
a 15 + 3d6 Reaction on the matrix. Buy some nice vehicles and drones. Find
a shadow clinic and get betaware Vehicle Control Rig, Datajack, Smartgun link,
and cybereyes. This gives you about 1.3 Essence to play with.

The character starts out as a competent sammi, a poor rigger, and a pathetic
decker. He ends up being a competent sammi, an okay rigger, and a hot decker
with time.

In short, he has his 'spells', his 'spirits', and his 'astral space', and
he doesn't even take drain. And no, I've never played this character.

Andy Pearlman

ni...@rs733.gsfc.nasa.gov

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Apr 30, 1992, 7:01:58 PM4/30/92

In article <1992Apr30....@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> apea...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew Pearlman) writes:

[decker career path deleted...IMHO buying a deck is a tad expensive
but you might steal one. You'd still have to sink a year or two into
writing your MPCP...I recall deck generation time being abusively long
and I do NOT buy the theory that every decker must be a hot spit EE
as well...]

skill. To be a skilled rigger? Rip out those wired reflexes and replace
them with Vehicle Control Rig of the same level.

Ummm..then you aren't a samurai anymore...if youwanted to be a rigger
why didn't you start that way?

Try this character for growth potential:
Attributes 4, putting 5s in all stats.

Sorry...Wired Reflex and VCR are incompatible...a bogus rule to some
degree but thems the rules.

[skill list deleted]

>You can now do the following: Get 6s in all stats with karma. You have
>a base 11 reaction + 3d6 for normal actions. Get a Fuchi4 with 2 levels
>Increased React. You now have a 21 hacking pool(2/4/6 computer skill) and
>a 15 + 3d6 Reaction on the matrix.

According to the Virtual Reality sourcebook Vehicle Control Rig, Wired
Reflex and Boosted Reflex never apply. But I don't play with those
rules so there's no reason youshould either ;-).

>The character starts out as a competent sammi, a poor rigger, and a pathetic
>decker. He ends up being a competent sammi, an okay rigger, and a hot decker
>with time.

Decker I can see. Rigger and Sammi are incompatible career paths...
simply because increased reaction is required for a sammi and vcr is
required for rigger. I've been considering changing these rules where
they work inside the same body but dont add together.

>Andy Pearlman

Nigel

--
Nigel Tzeng
.sig under construction

Ron

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Apr 30, 1992, 8:23:03 PM4/30/92

apea...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew Pearlman) writes:

>Andy Pearlman

I HAVE. He kicks ass. Name: Miyamato Musashi.

Not very original, but I had to have a heroic name for such a character.
We also had a troll, and a few mages. A well balanced party; NO, we
weren't the most powerful ones around.

There are always NPCs who have just as much power and more information.

- Ron

Andrew Pearlman

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May 1, 1992, 12:27:42 AM5/1/92

In article <NIGEL.92A...@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov> ni...@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov writes:
>In article <1992Apr30....@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> apea...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew Pearlman) writes:
> skill. To be a skilled rigger? Rip out those wired reflexes and replace
> them with Vehicle Control Rig of the same level.
>
>Ummm..then you aren't a samurai anymore...if youwanted to be a rigger
>why didn't you start that way?

You are equivalent in most aspects with normal sammis. You are also a rigger.

> Try this character for growth potential:
> Attributes 4, putting 5s in all stats.
>
> Tech 3: Wired Reflexes2, Vehicle Control Rig1, Datajack, Smartgun link,
> cybereyes with Thermo, Flare, and ImageEnhancer3. That's about 200000
> nuyen. You've got 200000 and .1 essence left to spend on anything else.
> Buy several contacts and a gang.
>
>Sorry...Wired Reflex and VCR are incompatible...a bogus rule to some
>degree but thems the rules.

No they're not. Boosted is incompatible with the other two, but not with
each other.

>>You can now do the following: Get 6s in all stats with karma. You have
>>a base 11 reaction + 3d6 for normal actions. Get a Fuchi4 with 2 levels
>>Increased React. You now have a 21 hacking pool(2/4/6 computer skill) and
>>a 15 + 3d6 Reaction on the matrix.
>
>According to the Virtual Reality sourcebook Vehicle Control Rig, Wired
>Reflex and Boosted Reflex never apply. But I don't play with those
>rules so there's no reason youshould either ;-).

You still have the reaction in VR, don't you? i.e. the +6 due to cyberware.

Andy Pearlman

David MacKinnon

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May 1, 1992, 7:11:04 PM5/1/92

In article <1992Apr29.0...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes:

> P.S. If you don't agree with mages being unballenced, fine.
> feel free to argue with me. I'm not the end all be all of
> ShadowRun knowledge.

Ok.. :) I always run a magic user whenever possible (just my favourite
character class). If players create their mages sensibly, and like in
all the games I play, your character has to meet GM approval, then
there is no problem. My Shamans have a place in the group, I'm their
magical support that saves their asses from other magic users, and
nasty things like Toxic Spirits :) I'm not overly powerful, but a
figure enough to intimidate our Sam who was getting a bit cocky (I'm
just dying to find out how long he'd last as a goldfish out of water
<grin>). I see how mages could be powerful if there were no
restraining forces, but if you use your common sense, and the GM tell
the player when he/she's reached the limit, then there is no problem
:)

You think SR is bad?

My mage in Torg, fire specilist, has one spell that will kill almost
any human (Atlacks Instant Immolation), and a few other things
aswell.. <grin> No limit to how many times he can cast it a day.
Starting character :)

David MacKinnon Telephone: 61-9-300-1381
da...@realm.DIALix.oz.au Address:2 Green Close
Connolly, Western Australia
6027

David MacKinnon

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May 1, 1992, 9:20:55 PM5/1/92

In article <1992Apr29....@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes:

> >There are PLENTY of problems that mages have that cannot be overcome with the
> >use of magic. How about cash flow? Karma shortages? Time restrictions? > Tar-
> >get number modifiers? Drain?
>
> If your solution is to single out one person for abuse, then you are a poor GM.
> IT DOESN'T WORK. It just pisses people off! It becomes you vrs the player.

It shouldn't, in a gaming situation GM=God, a smart player won't
argue.

> one, If the mage is smart, he never will take drain.
> Two, the stuff a gm will have to do to even scare an ok mage will KILL other
> players. I hope you don't mind people walking out on you.

Like what? I can think of things that would scare a Sam but kill a
mage <snigger>

> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! OH, MY! That's rich! Cash Flow Problems, FOR MAGES!
> I'm sorry... Ok, yep, I agree with you... (snicker sinker) Suuure, you bet'cha!
> Mages can make money hand over fist in ways that normals CAN'T.
> But then again, you'll just screw him over if you don't like what he's doing
> right?

Basically yes. The players usually don't mind (I know, I've been in
that position as a player) If the GM doesn't like, it isn't.

What were you thinking of in the way of mages making money "like
mundo's can't" Quickening spells on objects? Making Foci, now that's
a time consuming practice, hell, if you go along that line why doesn't
every SR Mage just go into busines.

> >Given, in published Shadowrun adventures there is a great deal of magical loot > >floating around. But think for a moment: it takes Karma to bid that stuff.
> >How many mages have the Karma to spare to bind a Rating 2 Power Focus? Per-
> >sonally, I'd throw the 10-15 Karma that it takes to bind a decent magic item
> >into Initiation. It's a much better payoff for your Karma. The Power Focus
> >might give you an extra 2 Magic Pool dice, but the Initiation gives you skills > >like Centering and Masking.
>
> BIND?!?! Nope, sell! Even at reduced cost, they make out like bandits
> oh yea, the mundos want a share of the loot, eh?

Really? I've never known a mage that will sell such a valuable item,
rather keep it and bind it at a later date.

> >> We need to get information? I read his mind.
> >
> >Who were you getting information from? The doorknob? How high was his Will-
> >power? If I were the one employing people with knowlege of important infor-
> >mation, I'd make damn sure they weren't going to give that information away,
> >hence the high Willpower.
>
> *YAWN*
> Reduce will power spell.

With your target number being twice the victims willpower attribute, and
if it's high you'll be looking at 8-12.

>
> >> We need to find somebody? I use my extented find Somebody spell
> >> and scan Seattle for him.
> >Extended Find Somebody? What's the Drain code for that? Do you know who
> >this person is? What his/her Astral aura looks like? You have to know
> >what you're looking for before you go hunting for it. I'd send a Watcher,
> >not cast a spell, assuming I knew what I was looking for.
>
> Have you read the spell locate person (or some such)?
> I name the person, I locate him.

Detect Individual, by the sound of the description you need to know
what the person looks like and his/her name. The range being normal
(Your magic attribute I believe)

> I get every person that has the same name.

No. The specific Person.

> >Great. Now your target numbers are increased by +2 for as long as you're
> >an ork. Did you cast the spell on your buddies too? How many of them
> >were there? Even if there was only one other guy, target humbers are now
> >+4 FOR EVERYTHING (including resisting Drain and other damage).
>
> Fashion and facelift, works on anybody.

Yes, but won't make you appear as an ork, you'd require another spell
for that, that would be sustained.

> >Picture Lone Star arriving with Neuro-Stun gas grenades and beatsticks,
> >arresting said Wolf Shaman, locking him up and throwing away the key.
>
> Picture said sham flying into the sky protected by a mist spirit.
> Oh, he got a descrition, eh? Too bad, I'm never gonna be able to use that
> face again.

Flying into the sky? I think not, the nature spirit can't do that, nor
would it's protection mean anything, since it wouldn't be a NATURAL
hazard of the mist, the spirit could attack the lone star guys, or
make them have accidents, but that's about it.

> >Now, a physical battle is a different story. Our samurai plug ammunition into > >the enemy, and our mage decides to start dropping spells too. I wouldn't call > >that mopup. I'd call it a firefight. And, in any case, the guy throwing the
> >fireballs is going to be MY first target if I'm one of the bad guys. Oh, he's > >got spell locks and good stuff like that? I'll catch him in an ambush. Its
> >fairly obvious who's the samurai and who isn't. I can count on the samurai
> >to fight me on my own terms, so I take out the non-samurai first.
>
> Force 12 spirits (the ones nessisary to take down 100+ karma mages)
> don't give a damm about the street sam. I was a rigger, I shot it with
> a PAC with reactice trigger. It then ate me. What fun!

That's because you were silly, melee attacks are the only way for
mundos to disrupt a spirit.

> >>The game that is closest to Shadowrun is AD&D.
> >AD&D is NOT anything LIKE Shadowrun. If you believe this, you're more of a
> >munchkin than I thought. There is a great deal of upward movement for any
> >character in Shadowrun. You just have to be smart enough to know where to
> >climb.
>
> Closest is the key word here, Mun-Flamer-Ton.

Shadowrun isn't even CLOSE to AD&D, completely different, SR is skill
based, set in the future, EVERYTHING is done differently.

> >So the sniper who shot your mage for 6D2 from three blocks away is toast?
> >That was his FIRST action. He's got two more.
>
> Is he more than 6km away? If yes, he can't shoot me. If no, then I know
> he's there.

You can't detect enemies that far away, even the extended range one is
only good for magic rating x 10.. Not 1000!

> He's spending time aiming, I turn, I mana ball.
> That was my first action, I get 3 more.

You also have to be able to see him, and how long will it take you to
locate him with binoculars?

> >Great. Can't wait for Lone Star to show up and figure out what happened.
> >maybe the'd even put a little Astral tail on you to see if you did anything
> >ELSE wrong.
>
> Like I'm going to be there for them to find.

Lone Star has a quick turn around rate, we shot a guy in a hotel (big
mistake), 5 mins later Lone Star was there.

> >I'm also pretty sure that self-destructive orders are at a substantial bonus
> >to resist.
>
> ok, mob control actions, then.

No such spell, and if there was one, it's drain would be like D1.

> >>A group of mundos in ambush? I know they're there about 5000m away.
> >
> >I can toast an entire Shadowrunner group with a well-timed ambush, regard-
> >less of how far away they are.
>
> Detect life, detect enemy, detect astraly active beings.

Sure, you won't notice a THING until we're within 60 metres of you
<smile> Unless you've come up with an ULTRA-MUNCHKIN-Extended Detect
[whatever].

> >I have yet to see, in three years of Shadowrunning, a mage "kick ass" next to
> >a determined samurai. Mages are certainly powerful. But power comes in many
> >shapes and sizes, and you have blatantly ignored the power belonging to other
> >types of characters in order to back your own argument. Yes, I have seen a
> >mage turn a samurai into sushi in one action. But I have also seen ordin-
> >ary mundanes take down a mage who considered himself dag-nasty. The door
> >swings both ways.
>
> No I haven't.
> I've looked at what mages can do, and what mundos can do.
> in physical combat, mages win.
> Mundos' ranged attacks can be off set.
> Mundos' HTH attacks can be off set.
>
> If the mundo can't hurt me, and I can hurt him, who wins?

Who says you can necesarily hurt him? A physical spell, the Sams have
high bodies, mana-willpower, prolly high as well. He can hurt you all
right, he has a better chance of hurting you than vise versa.

> You have as much time as you want.
> You cannot have any magic.
> You can have any weapon you can afford.
> You can have anything you can buy.

He goes up and slits your bloody throat. He goes on initiative, since
you're dazed (your still waking up, IF you wake up).

Jim W Lai

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May 2, 1992, 3:11:50 AM5/2/92

In article <1992May1.0...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> apea...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew Pearlman) writes:
>In article <NIGEL.92A...@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov> ni...@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov writes:
>>Sorry...Wired Reflex and VCR are incompatible...a bogus rule to some
>>degree but thems the rules.
>
>No they're not. Boosted is incompatible with the other two, but not with
>each other.

Personally I'd not have the Reaction increases not stack. Other than that
I don't see a problem. I can't find any other rules applying, offhand.
(Then again, my SR rulebook is 1st printing. Heh.) I'm personally tempted
to have the VCR only apply while rigging, since you're supposed to be ignoring
your body when rigging, not boosting it.

>>According to the Virtual Reality sourcebook Vehicle Control Rig, Wired
>>Reflex and Boosted Reflex never apply. But I don't play with those
>>rules so there's no reason youshould either ;-).
>
>You still have the reaction in VR, don't you? i.e. the +6 due to cyberware.

Not according to the Virtual Realities supplement. Magical or cyberware
reflex and reaction enhancements do not add to Reaction or initiative while
the character is in the Matrix.

David MacKinnon

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May 3, 1992, 6:00:58 PM5/3/92

Not so much the information, but if you want to cut down on the karma
cost (which is relitively big, esp. at higher levels), it can be VERY
VERY difficult to find a group that a) Will let you join and b) you
don't mind joining! Not to mention each time the mage does an
initiation with an Ordeal it usually limits him in some way, ie a
Gaesa, Rigorous Physical Activity (PERMANENTLY reduce all Physical
attributes by one). Etc..

If the group is easy to find, it's the GM's fault.. Hell! A group may
even want to character to do a 'job' for them as a test!

David.

Steerpike

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May 4, 1992, 6:07:26 PM5/4/92

In article <foo> da...@realm.DIALix.oz.au (David MacKinnon) writes:
>In article <ward1.704654335@husc8> wa...@husc8.harvard.edu writes:

> Not to mention each time the mage does an
> initiation with an Ordeal it usually limits him in some way, ie a

> Geasa, Rigorous Physical Activity (PERMANENTLY reduce all Physical
> attributes by one). Etc..

Well, first of all, if you re-read the Grimoire I think you will
find that Rigorous Physical Activity (by which I assume you mean
asceticism) only reduces ONE attribute by 1.

However, why take an ordeal of asceticism or geas when you can take
a trial or perform a Deed? The later is also good from a
roleplaying standpoint, and presents no long-term penalties.

> If the group is easy to find, it's the GM's fault.. Hell! A group may
> even want to character to do a 'job' for them as a test!

Well, first of all, not all groups have the "secrecy" restriction.
Those who don't are presumably known among magicians. In any event
-- even if they won't let you join, who cares? Start your own group.
If you have two mages, it costs a total of 8 karma (three from one,
five from the other) to form your OWN group. Three apiece to attempt
the link; two more to buy a success and automatically establish the
link. Why bother finding another group when you can start your own?

stee...@ucsd.edu

Bronis Vidugiris

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May 4, 1992, 6:50:33 PM5/4/92

In article <704761...@realm.DIALix.oz.au> da...@realm.DIALix.oz.au (David MacKinnon) writes:
)
)In article <1992Apr29.0...@acsu.buffalo.edu> v076...@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes:
)
) My mage in Torg, fire specilist, has one spell that will kill almost
) any human (Atlacks Instant Immolation), and a few other things
) aswell.. <grin> No limit to how many times he can cast it a day.
) Starting character :)

There's a definite problem with the TORG magic system, and Pixaud's doesn't
help matters any. Though it states right in the manual that 'No beginning
character should have any of the spells in this grimmore'. There's a lack
of spells that a beginning character CAN have, IMO.

However, there are worse abuses than Atlack's possible with the TORG
system. My 'favorite' is the 40 pt lightining bolt. (Previously posted
to alt.games.torg). To give some idea of scale - Atlack's is 30 pts worth
of damage base, and will do as the poster described. With the logarithmic
scale TORG uses, 40 pts is 100 times more powerful. And you get to shoot
it at will for 40 rounds! It does take a day to cast - but you can have
a couple (as many as your state knowledge plus conjuration adds) of them
impressed (in your memory) to release at will - they're 'pre-cast'. And you
can disbelieve Atlack's (though it's tough) - no such luck with the lightning
bolt.

---

In a previous post, I talked about the infamous '40 pt lightning bolt'.
Here's some basic stats I just worked up.

Alteration/inanimate forces [about 18-19] Difficulty 14 backlash 20

Spell description. This spell is impressed over the course of a day. When
it is released at the will of the caster, the player may cast 40 pt (base)
lightning bolts once per round until everything within 40 meters has been
slagged (or 40 rounds/ 6 minutes, whichever comes first) have passed. Oh
yeah - it shoots around corners too, if the mage has a way to aim it (see
'sense surrondings'). Bonus number goes to damage. As with all impressed
spells, backlash is taken when the spell is cast but the bonus number here is
not used - the bonus number for effect is rolled when the spell is released.

(almost) needless to say, I don't think this really belongs in the game
as written. Mechanisms for coping with rule abuse like this such as upping
the toughness of the creatures seem unsatisfying and unbalancing to other
more reasonable characters, and mechanisms such as having electricity immune
creatures do not address the similar problems of the 40 pt bullet spell
(though at least the 40pt bullet spell doesn't last 40 rounds!).

Here's the more detailed description of how this is possible.

State path: Inanimate forces/magic/inanimate (impressed) 23
Effect: 40
Control: 15
Speed 8 Range 8 (40 M) 16
Duration (6 min) 13

With base of 18 skills + inanimate forces in everything, the average spell
sum would be 17. With three attempts at observing the pattern and 2
possibilities on the third set of rolls (3 weeks) I got the following:

State path: +6 (-1 to spell sum)
Effect: +0 (+22 to spell sum)
Control: +2 (-5 to spell sum)
Speed & Range: +7 (-5 to spell sum - could've made the spell longer range
some of this roll was wasted)
Duration: +2 (-7 to spell sum)

Total spell sum: +4 to casting difficulty

With a day casting time (25)

Difficutly = 22 (magic type) + 40 (process max) + 4 (spell sum) - 25
(casting time) = 41

Thereoms: control skill (+2) + 1.5 weeks (+1) bonus +4 = -7 (My first
attempt yielded a +9 bonus. I threw it out cause I didn't want such a
high number in this description.)

Total difficulty: 34 -> difficulty 14 backlash 20

David MacKinnon

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May 6, 1992, 1:20:57 PM5/6/92

In article <32...@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> cg10...@icogsci1.ucsd.edu writes:

>
> In article <foo> da...@realm.DIALix.oz.au (David MacKinnon) writes:
> >In article <ward1.704654335@husc8> wa...@husc8.harvard.edu writes:
>
> > Not to mention each time the mage does an
> > initiation with an Ordeal it usually limits him in some way, ie a
> > Geasa, Rigorous Physical Activity (PERMANENTLY reduce all Physical
> > attributes by one). Etc..
>
> Well, first of all, if you re-read the Grimoire I think you will
> find that Rigorous Physical Activity (by which I assume you mean
> asceticism) only reduces ONE attribute by 1.

OOps.. :) Sorry, at that point the Grimoire was still in my bag
<smile>

> However, why take an ordeal of asceticism or geas when you can take
> a trial or perform a Deed? The later is also good from a
> roleplaying standpoint, and presents no long-term penalties.

Trial??? Yes, Deeds are good, if you have the time.. :( One thing that
%$^@% me off, with our campaign, a part of it was for a deed for one
party member, but he still got karma for it <sigh> Oh well.. Even a
deed I guess isn't the greatest, missing out on a magicians greatest
asset, karma.

>
> > If the group is easy to find, it's the GM's fault.. Hell! A group may
> > even want to character to do a 'job' for them as a test!
>
> Well, first of all, not all groups have the "secrecy" restriction.

Yes, they still aren't that easy to find. The Grimoire makes no
differential if the group has secrecy or not. Base time 60 days,
target number 12 - magic attribute.. -1 since most MU's will have the
Talismonger as a contact.. Still!

> Those who don't are presumably known among magicians. In any event

No. Not necessarily, and even then, they may not accept you,
remembering the test to see if you'll 'fit' in (best magical skill,
target number the groups membership).

> -- even if they won't let you join, who cares? Start your own group.
> If you have two mages, it costs a total of 8 karma (three from one,

No, it takes 3 mages minimum, 3 karma each. Target number's still
pretty high.

> link. Why bother finding another group when you can start your own?

IF you have 3 MU's (which you probably won't in a group), or can find
some willing to join.

- David

David MacKinnon

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May 6, 1992, 1:27:05 PM5/6/92

In article <1992May4.2...@lmpsbbs.mot.com> b...@areaplg2.corp.mot.com writes:

> ) My mage in Torg, fire specilist, has one spell that will kill almost
> ) any human (Atlacks Instant Immolation), and a few other things
> ) aswell.. <grin> No limit to how many times he can cast it a day.
> ) Starting character :)
>
> There's a definite problem with the TORG magic system, and Pixaud's doesn't
> help matters any. Though it states right in the manual that 'No beginning
> character should have any of the spells in this grimmore'. There's a lack
> of spells that a beginning character CAN have, IMO.

Yeah, I didn't see much else that was any good :( Oh well..

> However, there are worse abuses than Atlack's possible with the TORG
> system. My 'favorite' is the 40 pt lightining bolt. (Previously posted
> to alt.games.torg). To give some idea of scale - Atlack's is 30 pts worth
> of damage base, and will do as the poster described. With the logarithmic
> scale TORG uses, 40 pts is 100 times more powerful. And you get to shoot
> it at will for 40 rounds! It does take a day to cast - but you can have
> a couple (as many as your state knowledge plus conjuration adds) of them
> impressed (in your memory) to release at will - they're 'pre-cast'. And you
> can disbelieve Atlack's (though it's tough) - no such luck with the lightning
> bolt.

Arg! Ouch.. That was one thing about Atlacks Immol., the stupid monster
disbelieved it twice, but I got it on the third shot :) Oh, one thing, our
group's in a "reality" with an Axiom of 12 I think it was, well, JUST
enough to cast AII, but not enough to impress my fireball :( Oh well.

- David.

Steerpike

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May 7, 1992, 4:50:16 AM5/7/92

In article <foo> da...@realm.DIALix.oz.au (David MacKinnon) writes:

>In article <32...@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> cg10...@icogsci1.ucsd.edu writes:

>> -- even if they won't let you join, who cares? Start your own group.
>> If you have two mages, it costs a total of 8 karma (three from one,

> No, it takes 3 mages minimum, 3 karma each. Target number's still
> pretty high.

Like I said, spend two karma for an auto-success. In any event,
where is it written that there must be three mages? I haven't found
any such referrence, and the example given for group creation
specifically has TWO magic-types forming a group (tho a third one
joins in later).

stee...@ucsd.edu

Donald A Bachman

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May 7, 1992, 6:53:46 PM5/7/92

da...@realm.DIALix.oz.au (David MacKinnon) writes:

>In article <1992May4.2...@lmpsbbs.mot.com> b...@areaplg2.corp.mot.com writes:

> > There's a definite problem with the TORG magic system, and Pixaud's doesn't
> > help matters any. Though it states right in the manual that 'No beginning
> > character should have any of the spells in this grimmore'. There's a lack
> > of spells that a beginning character CAN have, IMO.

> Yeah, I didn't see much else that was any good :( Oh well..

I may only disagree only slightly with this one. It does seem that over
time the base damage a starting characted can do has inflated, but a good GM
can usual put an end to the munchkin power creep. A starting character, limited
to the spells in the book, will be hard pressed to do damage value 20, let
alone 30 or 40.

> > However, there are worse abuses than Atlack's possible with the TORG
> > system. My 'favorite' is the 40 pt lightining bolt. (Previously posted
> > to alt.games.torg). To give some idea of scale - Atlack's is 30 pts worth
> > of damage base, and will do as the poster described. With the logarithmic
> > scale TORG uses, 40 pts is 100 times more powerful. And you get to shoot
> > it at will for 40 rounds! It does take a day to cast - but you can have
> > a couple (as many as your state knowledge plus conjuration adds) of them
> > impressed (in your memory) to release at will - they're 'pre-cast'. And you
> > can disbelieve Atlack's (though it's tough) - no such luck with the lightning
> > bolt.

How, might I ask, does one handle the associated backlash? Even if you
have created your own spell (GM controllable) and upped the cast time to
offset the value to be divided into difficulty/backlash, you still have the
minor problem of finding time enough to cast (and usually with attack spells
it will involve violent casting motions, for Aysle anyway, and a day of
casting will probably leave you too tired to do much else), hitting the target
(which is NOT automatic as in SR) and duration, if you make it a more than
a one-shot spell.

I will admit that there are spells that are powerful (re: Laser Armor,
anything from Pixaud's), but generally it is supposed to be hard to get these
beasties (I will admit to having Laser Armor, but as primary cyberdecking type
who casts a few spells on the side, I had the oppurtunity to do a grid run
for it, and got lucky in the action cards). Generally, the power players in
the group I am in go for weapons, not spells (Akashan gravitic ray).

Another thing, it is true that the average torg character can
vaporize a normal character. But that is true in nearly every fantasy/hi-tech
game system. The question is how they fare against the npc (and sometimes
other pcs. . . .but that is another thread--as this should be).

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|Donald A. Bachman|don...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu|daba...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu|
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