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Message no. 1
From: Stuart M. Willis hbiki@****.geocities.com
Subject: Astral Shockwave Rules v0.02b and comments
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 12:45:40 +1100
All,

Thanks to those who have taken the time to reply with suggestions and/or
praise. :-)

Personally, I prefer role-playing to rules, especially tediously
complicated calculations... the ASW rules were designed less for PC to use,
and more for NPCs (just to piss off characters when they finally kill that
8th Grade Initate Mage), though they're open ended enough for both.

I designed them in such a way so that new/younger characters won't be able
to save the world from astral threat, or wipe out that nest of bugs, or
whatever. I felt that that would be stupid - but if you want characters to
be able to do that, that's fine by me (I resigned four years ago from FASAs
rule police). In fact, I've designed the rules in such a way that you can
easily increase the potency of the effect (remove some if not all of the
divisions).

Futhermore, others suggested that it should be a release of a huge
uncontrollable force rather than something controllable... well thats why I
used the point system. It requires *effort* on the dying magician's behalf
to try and control the energy of his Shockwave. It would be very for her to
pump all their Shock Points into the success test, and/or the power level -
and the effect would be devestating.

I think that any 'traumatic' death should qualify the use of the ASW. But
it is up to the individual GM.

Regardless, I did make some modifications. I'm not going to repost the
rules complete (but if you want a copy, e-mail me), so here are the
modifications:

Shock Points are now calculated as follows:
Base 'Shock Points': (Sorcery Skill + Conjuring Skill + Spell Pool + Karma
Pool + Magic Attribute ) / 2 + Good Karma

One shock point now increase the area of effect by *two* meters.

One shock point now buys *two* ASW defense dice.

You automatically recieve dice for the ASW success test equal to half your
willpower.

I've left the damage level increase at 10 points per level, but depending
on the lethality of your game, you may wish to increase or decrease that
cost.

Anyways, here is a quite example of the power of the ASW I typed up:

Let us consider what the average 'experienced' magician in a campaign will
have of importance to the ASW.

An Intelligence of 6; Willpower of 6; Sorcery and Conjuring Skills of 8; a
Force 5 Power Focus; two Sustaining Foci; Unaugmented Magic Rating of 10
(4th level Initatie); a Karma pool of 10; and a Good Karma of 15.

This would make the base damage rating: 7L [(4 + (6/2)L]
Base Area of Effect: 13 meters (radius) [10 + (6/2)]
Base Shock Points: 36 [(8 + 8 + 7 + 10 + 10)/2 + 15]
Bonus Shock points: [assuming all foci are active] 7.
Total Shock Points: 43.

What does he buy?

43 Success Test Die :-) That means she would roll 46 for the success test.
Do you reckon anyone has a hope in hell of achieving more successes?


Or, alternatively:

10 Success die (10 Points); Stages the Damage up 1 Level (10); increase the
power level by 10 (10); expand the area of effect by 10 (5 points); and
allocates the rest to Spell Defense to his two runner friends (8 dice each,
8 points).

That means she causes an astral shockwave of 17M damage (mana based,
remember - most street sams wouldn't have willpowers over like 4), hitting
an area of 26 meters (radius), rolling 13 dice for her success test; with
her two friends each receiving an additional 8 dice to resist the effects
of the ASW.

I consider that quite powerful.

But remember, there is the option of dropping the divisions.

:-)


care,
s.

---------------------------------------------------------
to err is human. to forgive is not company policy.

egoshrine: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/8905/
ICQ: 4340513
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The Net is Not a TV: http://dangermedia.com/nntv/
---------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 2
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: Astral Shockwave Rules v0.02b and comments
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:15:07 -0500 (EST)
"Stuart M. Willis" <hbiki@****.geocities.com> writes:
> Let us consider what the average 'experienced' magician in a campaign will
> have of importance to the ASW.

<cough> That's quite an "average" experienced magician. :)

> An Intelligence of 6; Willpower of 6; Sorcery and Conjuring Skills of 8; a
> Force 5 Power Focus; two Sustaining Foci; Unaugmented Magic Rating of 10
> (4th level Initatie); a Karma pool of 10; and a Good Karma of 15.

> That means she causes an astral shockwave of 17M damage (mana based,
> remember - most street sams wouldn't have willpowers over like 4),
^^^^^^^^^^^

Eh? I had been assuming all this time that this was an
astral-space only sort of thing, kind of like the hole where
Dunkelzahn "died". It seems more appropriate for this to affect the
physical plane much less than the astral plane.

Suggestions:

1) Astral space only
2) Reduced effect on physical plane
2a) 1/2 power, -1 staging on physical?
2b) double power on astral?
3) Rename effect. :)

Mark

PS- I keep having Highlander imagery whenever I visualize this power.
Message no. 3
From: Stuart M. Willis hbiki@****.geocities.com
Subject: Astral Shockwave Rules v0.02b and comments
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 14:12:33 +1100
>"Stuart M. Willis" <hbiki@****.geocities.com> writes:
>> Let us consider what the average 'experienced' magician in a campaign will
>> have of importance to the ASW.
>
> <cough> That's quite an "average" experienced magician. :)

Well, I'm talking about a character whose been played for two or more years.

>
>> That means she causes an astral shockwave of 17M damage (mana based,
>> remember - most street sams wouldn't have willpowers over like 4),
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Eh? I had been assuming all this time that this was an
>astral-space only sort of thing, kind of like the hole where
>Dunkelzahn "died".

"Valid Targets for a magician who died when not projecting include
everything in his/her LOS, spells,wards and spirits - even if they're not
manifesting. Valid Targets for a magician who has died while in projecting
are everything active astrally at the time (Spirits, Spells, other
Magicians, Foci) only. "

Its an astral thing, but if the person is still in their body and they
died, they're able to create an astral effect and bridge it into the
physical world.

> It seems more appropriate for this to affect the
>physical plane much less than the astral plane.

I was considering making it cost 'shock points' to effect the physical
plan, that would probably be the best bet to weaken the power. Like 10
Shock Points or so.

>3) Rename effect. :)

To what?

Thanks for your comments,

S.

---------------------------------------------------------
to err is human. to forgive is not company policy.

egoshrine: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/8905/
ICQ: 4340513
Dangermedia Guild Assassin: http://dangermedia.com
The Net is Not a TV: http://dangermedia.com/nntv/
---------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 4
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: Astral Shockwave Rules v0.02b and comments
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 13:06:06 -0500 (EST)
"Stuart M. Willis" <hbiki@****.geocities.com> writes:
> >"Stuart M. Willis" <hbiki@****.geocities.com> writes:
> >> That means she causes an astral shockwave of 17M damage (mana based,
> >> remember - most street sams wouldn't have willpowers over like 4),
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> > Eh? I had been assuming all this time that this was an
> >astral-space only sort of thing, kind of like the hole where
> >Dunkelzahn "died".
>
> Its an astral thing, but if the person is still in their body and they
> died, they're able to create an astral effect and bridge it into the
> physical world.

Yeah, I was skimming once I got the gist of the power. :) I
don't see anything like this being used in any of the campaigns I'm
in, so I didn't check out the details. (We've had initiates before,
but it's pretty rare for a campaign to last that long. Our tendency
is to restart with a fresh group of PCs.)

> > It seems more appropriate for this to affect the
> >physical plane much less than the astral plane.
>
> I was considering making it cost 'shock points' to effect the physical
> plan, that would probably be the best bet to weaken the power. Like 10
> Shock Points or so.

That sounds workable. I suggested 1/2 power -1 staging, since
it's easy to remember as the modifier for vehicle armor. It seems
that as written, even a relatively inexperienced mage will wipe out
anything nearby that doesn't have spell defense active.

> >3) Rename effect. :)
>
> To what?

I've been trying for the past few minutes to come up with something
that isn't cheesy, but I've watched too much poorly translated anime
and played too many Japanese video games to come up with something
less than six words long that doesn't sound like a battlecry.

Dying Mage(yelling): Combustible Tiger Flying Death Wave Assault!
<fade to white>

I dunno, replace the word "Astral" with "Mana" or something...

Mark

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