Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Achille Autran)
Subject: Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages
Date: Sat Apr 27 06:10:00 2002
This has probably already showed up but I can't find anything, either in
the BBB, MitS or the erratas, about wether shamanists benefit from totem
advantages.

I'd say no, given that elementalists are similarly reduced in their sorcery
and summoning abilities and don't get bonuses at all, but I'd like to get a
few opinions about this, maybe with experience with shamanist PCs. This is
a question that arose on the French Shadowrun mailing-list, and left people
(well, two of them actually) there puzzled.

Molloy
Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Valeu John EMFA)
Subject: Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages
Date: Sat Apr 27 11:35:01 2002
>This has probably already showed up but I can't find anything, either in
>the BBB, MitS or the erratas, about wether shamanists benefit from totem
>advantages.

>I'd say no, given that elementalists are similarly reduced in their sorcery

>and summoning abilities and don't get bonuses at all, but I'd like to get a

>few opinions about this, maybe with experience with shamanist PCs. This is
>a question that arose on the French Shadowrun mailing-list, and left people

>(well, two of them actually) there puzzled.

Shamanists... you mean Shamanic Adepts? Hmmm... IIRC a Shamanists can only
cast spells or summon spirits for which his/her totem gives bonuses too. I
don't think they get the bonuses. I believe just casting the spells are a
bonus.

(The only mage in my group realizes that being Awakened is very special
since only 1% of the world's population is Awakened in some form or another,
and roleplays as such.)

EMFN John Valeu
-AKA- TimeKeeper
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages
Date: Sat Apr 27 13:55:01 2002
According to Achille Autran, on Sat, 27 Apr 2002 the word on the street was...

> This has probably already showed up but I can't find anything, either in
> the BBB, MitS or the erratas, about wether shamanists benefit from totem
> advantages.

Check page 160 of SR3 (English version), under Shamanist.

> I'd say no, given that elementalists are similarly reduced in their
> sorcery and summoning abilities and don't get bonuses at all, but I'd
> like to get a few opinions about this, maybe with experience with
> shamanist PCs. This is a question that arose on the French Shadowrun
> mailing-list, and left people (well, two of them actually) there puzzled.

SR3 is quite clear: the last sentence of the above-mentioned paragraph reads
"Shamanists have normal use of Sorcery and Conjuring for all purposes (...),
affected by their totem modifiers as normal." Thus, they get the modifiers
even though they can't actually do any magic for which they don't get
modifiers.

This is a change from SRII, which explicitly states that shamanic adepts
(renamed to shamanists in SR3) do _not_ get totem modifiers.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Begint eer ge bezint.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++@ UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--) O
V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Michael Paff)
Subject: Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages
Date: Sat Apr 27 14:15:01 2002
At 07:17 PM 4/27/02 +0200, Gurth wrote:

>Check page 160 of SR3 (English version), under Shamanist.
>
>SR3 is quite clear: the last sentence of the above-mentioned paragraph reads
>"Shamanists have normal use of Sorcery and Conjuring for all purposes (...),
>affected by their totem modifiers as normal." Thus, they get the modifiers
>even though they can't actually do any magic for which they don't get
>modifiers.
>
>This is a change from SRII, which explicitly states that shamanic adepts
>(renamed to shamanists in SR3) do _not_ get totem modifiers.

Actually, you left out a word in your quote. My copy of SR3 states:
"Shamanists have normal use of Sorcery and Conjuring for all _other_
purposes, like spell defense and banishing, affected by their totem
modifiers as normal." With that extra word, it could be argued that
the totem modifiers only apply to non-spellcasting and non-conjuring
uses of the Sorcery and Conjuring skills.

Mike
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages
Date: Sun Apr 28 06:25:01 2002
According to Michael Paff, on Sat, 27 Apr 2002 the word on the street was...

> Actually, you left out a word in your quote. My copy of SR3 states:
> "Shamanists have normal use of Sorcery and Conjuring for all _other_
> purposes, like spell defense and banishing, affected by their totem
> modifiers as normal." With that extra word, it could be argued that
> the totem modifiers only apply to non-spellcasting and non-conjuring
> uses of the Sorcery and Conjuring skills.

*checks* Yes, you're right, I did miss that word. It does suddenly make the
whole sentence open to interpretation a lot more than without it, but IMHO
it still means that shamanists get totem modifiers -- IOW, that the
sentence means they can't use Sorcery or Conjuring to cast spells or
conjure spirits for which they don't get modifiers.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Begint eer ge bezint.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++@ UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--) O
V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gak The Great)
Subject: Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages
Date: Mon Apr 29 11:25:01 2002
Sometime, somwhere down the timeline, Gurth whispered:
> According to Michael Paff, on Sat, 27 Apr 2002 the word on the street
was...
>
> > Actually, you left out a word in your quote. My copy of SR3 states:
> > "Shamanists have normal use of Sorcery and Conjuring for all _other_
> > purposes, like spell defense and banishing, affected by their totem
> > modifiers as normal." With that extra word, it could be argued that
>> the totem modifiers only apply to non-spellcasting and non-conjuring
>> uses of the Sorcery and Conjuring skills.

> *checks* Yes, you're right, I did miss that word. It does suddenly make
the
> whole sentence open to interpretation a lot more than without it, but IMHO
> it still means that shamanists get totem modifiers -- IOW, that the
> sentence means they can't use Sorcery or Conjuring to cast spells or
> conjure spirits for which they don't get modifiers.

hmm.. in the German version, it sounds like that sentence only refers to the
there mentioned abilities, and I cannot find anything that says something
about casting spells with/out totem modifiers for shamanists. I'd reason
that, since they become all the drawbacks (which apply), they get the
bonuses, too.

-- GAK THE GREAT

I don't suffer from insanity,
I enjoy every moment of it!

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Shamans, shamanists and totem advantages, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.