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Message no. 1
From: "Casimir Radon (Girardot, David)" <GIRARDOT@********>
Subject: Essence, Magical Libraries, FASA Rules, Etc
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 92 14:52:38 est
ESSENCE SCHMESSENCE

I sort of like the idea of an "essence test." I use a similar mechanic,
Luck. A character's luck is equivalent to their Essence (nearest whole
number) modified by race. (Halved for humans, 1/4 for metahumans -- round
up). This creates a "Luck Pool" of dice that can be added in anywheres.
However, Luck Pool does not refresh until 1 point of Instant Karma is spent
to refresh it. This gives high essence chars a bit more of an edge, and
in partcular gives non-cybered humans a bit more of a fighting chance.

MAGICAL LIBRARIES: WHY ASK WHY?

What are these for, anyway? As far as I understand it, they are useful
only to memorize spells...

FASA RULES OK

Wasn't Tom Dowd, who wrote the 1st edition, on the net at some point? Maybe
someone could drop him a line. I have an old address here on some
errata I got off of a ftp site: 71061.744@*********.com

POWERBALLS VS MANABALLS

I understood that the manaballs used WIS as a resister and caused mental
damage...

W
AUTOFIRE

How do you tell if a weapon is capable or not. No, I do not have the
infamous Rigger Black Book... What about pistols, shotguns? I.E. is
there a "semia-auto" mode. How about (for a quick fudge) that on
semi-auto one is capable of firing one burst (+1 to power/but +1 to
target number)?

DECKING

In an opposed success test, like when a Decker is trying to damage some
IC, does the IC's success cancel out the successes of the decker. I.E.
if Decker gets four, and IC gets 2, decker wins, but only with one extra
success.

Is it me, or are the rules for cyber combat really f**ed up... I mean:
First the decker has to make a resisted success test vs a target of the
constructs security rating, with a threshold. Then he's got to
"modify hsi program to see if it can hit" He rolls dice from his hack
pool against the IC's rating. Each extra success adds to his attack programs
damae potential. Then a resisted test for damage. Each extra succes
causes 1 point of damage to the IC. This makes it *really* hard to damage
even Blue IC. I mean, c'mon! I guess in damage terms, a hackers attack
program does alight damage. I don't like it. Why not do this. Attack
programs have ratings just like any other weapon. The power of the
prog. is equal to the hackers Computer Skill. The damage level depends
upon how many SUCCESSES the hacker got in the "to hit roll" I.E., if
the hacker got 10 successes, and had a skill of 6, the damage of the
attack would be 6Dx. Staging I am not so sure about. Probably should
be a function of the type of IC. White/Grey=SG 1; BLACK=SG 2. My
reasoning is that with black IC it will be difficult to do more damage,
but once you've found its weakness (ie rolled alot of successes) it'll
be wide open. So in the example, if our decker was attacking white IC,
then the damage code is equal to 6D1. Sounds like a lot, right... Well,
TEN SUCCESSES ought to be enuff to take out a measely white IC!!! :)
The IC then gets to resist with its security rating vs the damage of
the attack.

What d'you guys think?

--David

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"For after all, as great scientists have said and as all children
know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception,
and compassion, and hope." --Ursula K. LeGuin

Further Reading

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