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Message no. 1
From: Mach mach@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 19:55:06 -0800 (PST)
I have a few future story ideas swimming about in my head, some of which
involve some magic and technology that isn't explicitly canon, so I
figure since plotD was a little dead as of late, I should air out a few
ideas here and see what people think.

Guess I'll get the inside info question out of the way right off the
bat:

1) Has anyone heard more about the release of _Magic in the Shadows_?

On the official FASA site, they say March/April (I'd bet on April/May).
This may have the canon answers to some of the things I was thinking
about, but it isn't out yet. So I guess any of our debating will have
to be couched with "unless MitS says differently...."

They made several significant changes to the magic system, and I am
interested to see if any of the changes will be as fundamental,
especially in terms of metamagic and allied spirits. (I was kinda
surprised to note that spirits are allowed Karma pool, which I don't
remember being in SR2, so I would think allies will get something
similar.) Also, e.g. the elimination of elemental effects from combat
spells, the elimination of spell locks in favor of sustaining Foci (you
only pay the karma cost once equal to the level of the spell you want it
to be able to hold. On the former note, I could be wrong, but it seems
that if one were to learn a combat or elemental effect attack spells,
one learns the spell at a force, but not at a damage level, which
appears to be chosen at the time of casting.

In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.
This both makes combat spells more versitile and useful than they used
to be. Frankly, I would approve, since earlier combat-related spells
were totally fixed compared to the variety that could be found in other
types of spells.


Next:

2) In the SR3, they specifically say that Illusion spells can neither
create nor disguise one's aura. And that on the astral, even mana based
illusions can be seen to be illusions (especially when Assenced). So,
especially for people that have characters that change shape or
appearance and would want to alter their aura to match (so they won't be
recognized by other mages) how would they go about doing that?

My first guess is that it would require some sort of Transformation
Manipulation (Mana of course) that would be an astral variation on one
of the shapechanging spells. Such a manipulation would by necessity be
more difficult than a simple illusion, but then if one used a
manipulation, it wouldn't be something one could easily "see through"
either, because now, one's aura was actually reshaped to look that way.
Just like, no matter how much one stares at a mage shapeshifted into an
animal, they wouldn't be able to tell what the mage looked like without
shapeshifting unless they actually disrupted the spell and forced them
to shapeshift back. On the other hand, I don't see how why wouldn't
convey the other information that an aura normally conveys (emotions,
etc.) which, while part of the aura, are not necessarily connected with
it's look, just as a mages mental characteristics are unchanged no
matter what shape they have transformed themselves into. Also, one
should be able to assense that the aura is being effected by a spell,
and therefore surmise that it is false. What do you think?

And now onto tech:

(Guess you already know were this one is going to go...)

3) Has there been any word on when the cybernetics/bioware SR3
supplement is due/what changes may be made? Anything fundamental or
just new whatzits?

Especially with Cybertechnology, they dangled a few pieces of cyber,
specifically Move by Wire, and Cybermancy in front of everyone, and then
said, "Tsk tsk tsk...now don't you be using it, 'cause it's gonna kill
you." (As if power-gamers ever gave a second thought to that sort of
thing. =P) One would think in the intervening years some of that would
have been improved some, and that new things would be coming out. I
guess part of this is opening up Alphaware to starting characters. But
then, with SR3, they might retcon some of those things right out of
existance.


Hmmm...in retrospect, the next question and my speculation on it should
probably deserve its own post, since it will probably attract a
different group of respondants, and I'd like to keep the discussions
separate. (And because it will take me a lot longer to get my thoughts
on it straight.) So for now....

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 2
From: Mark L. Neidengard mneideng@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:29:16 -0800 (PST)
According to Mach:
>1) Has anyone heard more about the release of _Magic in the Shadows_?

No.

>They made several significant changes to the magic system, and I am
>interested to see if any of the changes will be as fundamental,
>especially in terms of metamagic and allied spirits. (I was kinda
>surprised to note that spirits are allowed Karma pool, which I don't
>remember being in SR2, so I would think allies will get something
>similar.) Also, e.g. the elimination of elemental effects from combat
>spells, the elimination of spell locks in favor of sustaining Foci (you
>only pay the karma cost once equal to the level of the spell you want it
>to be able to hold. On the former note, I could be wrong, but it seems
>that if one were to learn a combat or elemental effect attack spells,
>one learns the spell at a force, but not at a damage level, which
>appears to be chosen at the time of casting.
>
>In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
>then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
>at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
>damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.

That's weird. The old way was you learned the spell at a level and could
at casting time choose to cast it at a level lower than learned....but never
higher.

>This both makes combat spells more versitile and useful than they used
>to be. Frankly, I would approve, since earlier combat-related spells
>were totally fixed compared to the variety that could be found in other
>types of spells.

Combat spells were plenty powerful as they were. Remember that they've got
all that neato LOS stuff and all. I'd be worried about making things that
can kill silently, and with a glance, even more powerful without a lot of
very careful consideration.

>appearance and would want to alter their aura to match (so they won't be
>recognized by other mages) how would they go about doing that?
>My first guess is that it would require some sort of Transformation
>Manipulation (Mana of course) that would be an astral variation on one
>of the shapechanging spells. Such a manipulation would by necessity be
>more difficult than a simple illusion, but then if one used a
>manipulation, it wouldn't be something one could easily "see through"
>either, because now, one's aura was actually reshaped to look that way.

I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura. The Aura
is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing it
implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

>Just like, no matter how much one stares at a mage shapeshifted into an
>animal, they wouldn't be able to tell what the mage looked like without
>shapeshifting unless they actually disrupted the spell and forced them
>to shapeshift back. On the other hand, I don't see how why wouldn't
>convey the other information that an aura normally conveys (emotions,
>etc.) which, while part of the aura, are not necessarily connected with
>it's look, just as a mages mental characteristics are unchanged no
>matter what shape they have transformed themselves into. Also, one
>should be able to assense that the aura is being effected by a spell,
>and therefore surmise that it is false. What do you think?

I think it's too powerful. Masking already exists for changing the perception
of Auras - I see no reason to disseminate the effect further...

>Especially with Cybertechnology, they dangled a few pieces of cyber,
>specifically Move by Wire, and Cybermancy in front of everyone, and then
>said, "Tsk tsk tsk...now don't you be using it, 'cause it's gonna kill
>you." (As if power-gamers ever gave a second thought to that sort of
>thing. =P) One would think in the intervening years some of that would
>have been improved some, and that new things would be coming out. I
>guess part of this is opening up Alphaware to starting characters. But
>then, with SR3, they might retcon some of those things right out of
>existance.

I say, heck yeah things like MBW and all have gotten safer. I don't know what
the sourcebooks have to say, but if you wanna use the devices, go for it.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI. http://psy-s.cjas.org/~mneideng/
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Maigo no Daigakuinsei, Cornell U.
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 3
From: the Dark Stranger darkstranger@*******.net
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 15:42:42 -0500
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:29:16 -0800 (PST) "Mark L. Neidengard"
<mneideng@****.caltech.edu> wrote:
>According to Mach:
>>1) Has anyone heard more about the release of _Magic in the Shadows_?
>
>No.

Actually, I asked Mike M. the other day and while I've been so stressed recently that it
might be affecting my memory, I seem to recall he said March. They are reportedly
wrapping up some finishing touches on it. It should be off to the printers in as soon as
a couple of weeks. I expect end of March, beginning of April.

>>In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
>>then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
>>at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
>>damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.
>
>That's weird. The old way was you learned the spell at a level and could
>at casting time choose to cast it at a level lower than learned....but never
>higher.

It may be weird, but it's true. Think of it as learning the spell at Deadly (the old
way). It allows combat spells to be more versatile and actually reduces the drain on
Karma for magicians. No need to spend Karma on learning the various damage levels of a
single spell. Considering magicians are still Karma-hogs, this break only slightly helps.
But it does help.

>Combat spells were plenty powerful as they were. Remember that they've got
>all that neato LOS stuff and all. I'd be worried about making things that
>can kill silently, and with a glance, even more powerful without a lot of
>very careful consideration.

But that's the way combat spells always were. An SR1 ManaBolt/PowerBolt was always a
silent, LOS, armor-ignoring killer. That hasn't changed in SR3. FASA finally wised up
and shifted elemental effect combat spells to where they belonged, as elemental
manipulations.

>I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura. The
Aura
>is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing it
>implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

By and large, true. The closest that FASA (and I) allow is the changing of spell
signatures with an initiation (that DOESN'T also grant that extra Magic Point that normall
comes with initiation).

In theory, this same sort of procedure might change an aura, but the potential
side-affects of that (such as perhaps losing the "bond" to magical items) in all
but the most extreme cases would far outweigh the benefit of changing the aura.

>I think it's too powerful. Masking already exists for changing the perception
>of Auras - I see no reason to disseminate the effect further...

Agreed.

Erik J.
Message no. 4
From: Mach mach@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 16:43:32 -0800 (PST)
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Mark L. Neidengard wrote:

> >In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
> >then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
> >at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
> >damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.
>
> That's weird. The old way was you learned the spell at a level and could
> at casting time choose to cast it at a level lower than learned....but never
> higher.

Are you talking damage level or Force? I don't remember (although I
will admit to not having the sourcebooks at the moment to check) one
every being able to reduce the damage level of a combat spell. You
could reduce (but not increase) Force, but say a Deathtouch is a
Deathtouch, and would _always_ do D damage, no matter how low you
reduced the force (mind you it would be much nicer to be hit with a
Force 1 Deathtouch than a Force 6 in terms of staging down the damage).
Similarly, the Drain level of those spells was always fixed.

> Combat spells were plenty powerful as they were. Remember that they've got
> all that neato LOS stuff and all. I'd be worried about making things that
> can kill silently, and with a glance, even more powerful without a lot of
> very careful consideration.

Well, nearly all spells had "neato LOS stuff and all." And I think that
the fact that Drain scales with Damage serves as a powerful enough
incentive to keep one's self in check. Note that to increase the Force
of such a spell, it must be relearned. However not having to learn
separate Damage level spells (PowerBolt vs. PowerDart as one obvious
example) so that one could more effectively pull their punches can mean
a significant savings in Karma for mages which can be put to other uses.

> I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura. The
Aura
> is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing it
> implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

Herm.... Yet, when one does a bodily transformation manipulation, one's
aura is not similarly changed, so I think your coincident argument is on
rather shaky ground.

> I think it's too powerful. Masking already exists for changing the
> perception of Auras - I see no reason to disseminate the effect
> further...

I know that Masking can alter the perception of an aura as to the
"information" it contains (Magic level, Initiate Grade, presence of
foci, etc.). But can it actually alter its _apearance_? Also, does the
capacity exist for someone to Mask someone _else's_ aura? (Metamagic
not being covered in SR3, the question is up in the air.)

Let me state the problem a bit more clearly, so you all can see where I
am coming from here:

As is, if one's opposition has any astrally active security personnel,
illusion spells, especially for use in infiltration (i.e. becoming a
security guard, or even a cat to sneak into somewhere) is more or less
pointless since it is very obvious that the aura will not match the
new appearance. Is there any way of getting around this problem? It
seems that current thought is: no.

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 5
From: Mach mach@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 16:53:24 -0800 (PST)
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, the Dark Stranger wrote:

Thanks for the date confirmation.

> >I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura.
The Aura
> >is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing
it
> >implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

> In theory, this same sort of procedure might change an aura, but the
> potential side-affects of that (such as perhaps losing the "bond" to
> magical items) in all but the most extreme cases would far outweigh
> the benefit of changing the aura.

*Grumble* I think you misread my intent greatly here. I was specificaly
stating that the only change would be to the appearance of the aura on
the astral, and not even to the information that could be derived from
that. I especially don't see it as so fundamental so as to force one to
lose their bond with foci. Why then does a physical transformation
_not_ carry such drastic repercussions?

I do have to grant Mark some weight on his "aura as 'true'
representation of oneself" here, in that it would effectively be one way
to "lie" via one's aura.

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 6
From: Mach mach@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 19:55:06 -0800 (PST)
I have a few future story ideas swimming about in my head, some of which
involve some magic and technology that isn't explicitly canon, so I
figure since plotD was a little dead as of late, I should air out a few
ideas here and see what people think.

Guess I'll get the inside info question out of the way right off the
bat:

1) Has anyone heard more about the release of _Magic in the Shadows_?

On the official FASA site, they say March/April (I'd bet on April/May).
This may have the canon answers to some of the things I was thinking
about, but it isn't out yet. So I guess any of our debating will have
to be couched with "unless MitS says differently...."

They made several significant changes to the magic system, and I am
interested to see if any of the changes will be as fundamental,
especially in terms of metamagic and allied spirits. (I was kinda
surprised to note that spirits are allowed Karma pool, which I don't
remember being in SR2, so I would think allies will get something
similar.) Also, e.g. the elimination of elemental effects from combat
spells, the elimination of spell locks in favor of sustaining Foci (you
only pay the karma cost once equal to the level of the spell you want it
to be able to hold. On the former note, I could be wrong, but it seems
that if one were to learn a combat or elemental effect attack spells,
one learns the spell at a force, but not at a damage level, which
appears to be chosen at the time of casting.

In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.
This both makes combat spells more versitile and useful than they used
to be. Frankly, I would approve, since earlier combat-related spells
were totally fixed compared to the variety that could be found in other
types of spells.


Next:

2) In the SR3, they specifically say that Illusion spells can neither
create nor disguise one's aura. And that on the astral, even mana based
illusions can be seen to be illusions (especially when Assenced). So,
especially for people that have characters that change shape or
appearance and would want to alter their aura to match (so they won't be
recognized by other mages) how would they go about doing that?

My first guess is that it would require some sort of Transformation
Manipulation (Mana of course) that would be an astral variation on one
of the shapechanging spells. Such a manipulation would by necessity be
more difficult than a simple illusion, but then if one used a
manipulation, it wouldn't be something one could easily "see through"
either, because now, one's aura was actually reshaped to look that way.
Just like, no matter how much one stares at a mage shapeshifted into an
animal, they wouldn't be able to tell what the mage looked like without
shapeshifting unless they actually disrupted the spell and forced them
to shapeshift back. On the other hand, I don't see how why wouldn't
convey the other information that an aura normally conveys (emotions,
etc.) which, while part of the aura, are not necessarily connected with
it's look, just as a mages mental characteristics are unchanged no
matter what shape they have transformed themselves into. Also, one
should be able to assense that the aura is being effected by a spell,
and therefore surmise that it is false. What do you think?

And now onto tech:

(Guess you already know were this one is going to go...)

3) Has there been any word on when the cybernetics/bioware SR3
supplement is due/what changes may be made? Anything fundamental or
just new whatzits?

Especially with Cybertechnology, they dangled a few pieces of cyber,
specifically Move by Wire, and Cybermancy in front of everyone, and then
said, "Tsk tsk tsk...now don't you be using it, 'cause it's gonna kill
you." (As if power-gamers ever gave a second thought to that sort of
thing. =P) One would think in the intervening years some of that would
have been improved some, and that new things would be coming out. I
guess part of this is opening up Alphaware to starting characters. But
then, with SR3, they might retcon some of those things right out of
existance.


Hmmm...in retrospect, the next question and my speculation on it should
probably deserve its own post, since it will probably attract a
different group of respondants, and I'd like to keep the discussions
separate. (And because it will take me a lot longer to get my thoughts
on it straight.) So for now....

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 7
From: Mark L. Neidengard mneideng@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:29:16 -0800 (PST)
According to Mach:
>1) Has anyone heard more about the release of _Magic in the Shadows_?

No.

>They made several significant changes to the magic system, and I am
>interested to see if any of the changes will be as fundamental,
>especially in terms of metamagic and allied spirits. (I was kinda
>surprised to note that spirits are allowed Karma pool, which I don't
>remember being in SR2, so I would think allies will get something
>similar.) Also, e.g. the elimination of elemental effects from combat
>spells, the elimination of spell locks in favor of sustaining Foci (you
>only pay the karma cost once equal to the level of the spell you want it
>to be able to hold. On the former note, I could be wrong, but it seems
>that if one were to learn a combat or elemental effect attack spells,
>one learns the spell at a force, but not at a damage level, which
>appears to be chosen at the time of casting.
>
>In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
>then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
>at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
>damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.

That's weird. The old way was you learned the spell at a level and could
at casting time choose to cast it at a level lower than learned....but never
higher.

>This both makes combat spells more versitile and useful than they used
>to be. Frankly, I would approve, since earlier combat-related spells
>were totally fixed compared to the variety that could be found in other
>types of spells.

Combat spells were plenty powerful as they were. Remember that they've got
all that neato LOS stuff and all. I'd be worried about making things that
can kill silently, and with a glance, even more powerful without a lot of
very careful consideration.

>appearance and would want to alter their aura to match (so they won't be
>recognized by other mages) how would they go about doing that?
>My first guess is that it would require some sort of Transformation
>Manipulation (Mana of course) that would be an astral variation on one
>of the shapechanging spells. Such a manipulation would by necessity be
>more difficult than a simple illusion, but then if one used a
>manipulation, it wouldn't be something one could easily "see through"
>either, because now, one's aura was actually reshaped to look that way.

I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura. The Aura
is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing it
implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

>Just like, no matter how much one stares at a mage shapeshifted into an
>animal, they wouldn't be able to tell what the mage looked like without
>shapeshifting unless they actually disrupted the spell and forced them
>to shapeshift back. On the other hand, I don't see how why wouldn't
>convey the other information that an aura normally conveys (emotions,
>etc.) which, while part of the aura, are not necessarily connected with
>it's look, just as a mages mental characteristics are unchanged no
>matter what shape they have transformed themselves into. Also, one
>should be able to assense that the aura is being effected by a spell,
>and therefore surmise that it is false. What do you think?

I think it's too powerful. Masking already exists for changing the perception
of Auras - I see no reason to disseminate the effect further...

>Especially with Cybertechnology, they dangled a few pieces of cyber,
>specifically Move by Wire, and Cybermancy in front of everyone, and then
>said, "Tsk tsk tsk...now don't you be using it, 'cause it's gonna kill
>you." (As if power-gamers ever gave a second thought to that sort of
>thing. =P) One would think in the intervening years some of that would
>have been improved some, and that new things would be coming out. I
>guess part of this is opening up Alphaware to starting characters. But
>then, with SR3, they might retcon some of those things right out of
>existance.

I say, heck yeah things like MBW and all have gotten safer. I don't know what
the sourcebooks have to say, but if you wanna use the devices, go for it.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI. http://psy-s.cjas.org/~mneideng/
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Maigo no Daigakuinsei, Cornell U.
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 8
From: the Dark Stranger darkstranger@*******.net
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 15:42:42 -0500
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:29:16 -0800 (PST) "Mark L. Neidengard"
<mneideng@****.caltech.edu> wrote:
>According to Mach:
>>1) Has anyone heard more about the release of _Magic in the Shadows_?
>
>No.

Actually, I asked Mike M. the other day and while I've been so stressed recently that it
might be affecting my memory, I seem to recall he said March. They are reportedly
wrapping up some finishing touches on it. It should be off to the printers in as soon as
a couple of weeks. I expect end of March, beginning of April.

>>In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
>>then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
>>at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
>>damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.
>
>That's weird. The old way was you learned the spell at a level and could
>at casting time choose to cast it at a level lower than learned....but never
>higher.

It may be weird, but it's true. Think of it as learning the spell at Deadly (the old
way). It allows combat spells to be more versatile and actually reduces the drain on
Karma for magicians. No need to spend Karma on learning the various damage levels of a
single spell. Considering magicians are still Karma-hogs, this break only slightly helps.
But it does help.

>Combat spells were plenty powerful as they were. Remember that they've got
>all that neato LOS stuff and all. I'd be worried about making things that
>can kill silently, and with a glance, even more powerful without a lot of
>very careful consideration.

But that's the way combat spells always were. An SR1 ManaBolt/PowerBolt was always a
silent, LOS, armor-ignoring killer. That hasn't changed in SR3. FASA finally wised up
and shifted elemental effect combat spells to where they belonged, as elemental
manipulations.

>I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura. The
Aura
>is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing it
>implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

By and large, true. The closest that FASA (and I) allow is the changing of spell
signatures with an initiation (that DOESN'T also grant that extra Magic Point that normall
comes with initiation).

In theory, this same sort of procedure might change an aura, but the potential
side-affects of that (such as perhaps losing the "bond" to magical items) in all
but the most extreme cases would far outweigh the benefit of changing the aura.

>I think it's too powerful. Masking already exists for changing the perception
>of Auras - I see no reason to disseminate the effect further...

Agreed.

Erik J.
Message no. 9
From: Mach mach@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 16:43:32 -0800 (PST)
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Mark L. Neidengard wrote:

> >In other words, it looks like one can learn Fireball at Force 4, but
> >then, when one goes to cast it, one can decide that they want to cast it
> >at Light, Medium, Serious, or Deadly intensity, depending on how much
> >damage they want to do and how much drain they are willing to take.
>
> That's weird. The old way was you learned the spell at a level and could
> at casting time choose to cast it at a level lower than learned....but never
> higher.

Are you talking damage level or Force? I don't remember (although I
will admit to not having the sourcebooks at the moment to check) one
every being able to reduce the damage level of a combat spell. You
could reduce (but not increase) Force, but say a Deathtouch is a
Deathtouch, and would _always_ do D damage, no matter how low you
reduced the force (mind you it would be much nicer to be hit with a
Force 1 Deathtouch than a Force 6 in terms of staging down the damage).
Similarly, the Drain level of those spells was always fixed.

> Combat spells were plenty powerful as they were. Remember that they've got
> all that neato LOS stuff and all. I'd be worried about making things that
> can kill silently, and with a glance, even more powerful without a lot of
> very careful consideration.

Well, nearly all spells had "neato LOS stuff and all." And I think that
the fact that Drain scales with Damage serves as a powerful enough
incentive to keep one's self in check. Note that to increase the Force
of such a spell, it must be relearned. However not having to learn
separate Damage level spells (PowerBolt vs. PowerDart as one obvious
example) so that one could more effectively pull their punches can mean
a significant savings in Karma for mages which can be put to other uses.

> I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura. The
Aura
> is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing it
> implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

Herm.... Yet, when one does a bodily transformation manipulation, one's
aura is not similarly changed, so I think your coincident argument is on
rather shaky ground.

> I think it's too powerful. Masking already exists for changing the
> perception of Auras - I see no reason to disseminate the effect
> further...

I know that Masking can alter the perception of an aura as to the
"information" it contains (Magic level, Initiate Grade, presence of
foci, etc.). But can it actually alter its _apearance_? Also, does the
capacity exist for someone to Mask someone _else's_ aura? (Metamagic
not being covered in SR3, the question is up in the air.)

Let me state the problem a bit more clearly, so you all can see where I
am coming from here:

As is, if one's opposition has any astrally active security personnel,
illusion spells, especially for use in infiltration (i.e. becoming a
security guard, or even a cat to sneak into somewhere) is more or less
pointless since it is very obvious that the aura will not match the
new appearance. Is there any way of getting around this problem? It
seems that current thought is: no.

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 10
From: Mach mach@****.caltech.edu
Subject: Questions on Magic/Tech
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 16:53:24 -0800 (PST)
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, the Dark Stranger wrote:

Thanks for the date confirmation.

> >I don't know that I like the idea of "transforming" one's own Aura.
The Aura
> >is supposed to be the "true" spiritual portion of a being, and changing
it
> >implies coincident changes to the rest of the being itself.

> In theory, this same sort of procedure might change an aura, but the
> potential side-affects of that (such as perhaps losing the "bond" to
> magical items) in all but the most extreme cases would far outweigh
> the benefit of changing the aura.

*Grumble* I think you misread my intent greatly here. I was specificaly
stating that the only change would be to the appearance of the aura on
the astral, and not even to the information that could be derived from
that. I especially don't see it as so fundamental so as to force one to
lose their bond with foci. Why then does a physical transformation
_not_ carry such drastic repercussions?

I do have to grant Mark some weight on his "aura as 'true'
representation of oneself" here, in that it would effectively be one way
to "lie" via one's aura.

--My two yen

Jeff

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