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From:	Timothy Little <t_little@**********.UTAS.EDU.AU>
Subject:	Extra spell dice (was: questions?)
Date:	Mon, 1 May 1995 07:48:33 +1000

Message no. 1 >U-Gene writes:
>
>> There will be no 8 dice force 1 anything spells cast in my campaign!
>> (I will see if I can post a page reference if you want one.)
>
>I think you'll be pushing it. I'll give you a page reference for the exact
>opposite if you like however, try page 111 of the Grimything, where it says
>"Does this mean a magician with Sorcery/Magic Pool of 6, a Power Focus (3),
>and a +2 Totem Advantage for a spell can cast it with Force 1, and then roll
>11 dice to smack the target? Yes."

There's almost a contradiction between this and the p.119 SR2 rule that
states that Totem Advantage Dice are treated as Magic Pool at the time the
spell is cast.

If the Totem Dice are treated as Magic Pool, then they should be subject to
the restriction that limits the number of dice used in casting to the
magician's Magic Rating.

This opens up the question of whether Foci that add dice (in the same way as
totem bonuses) are limited by Magic Rating. Fetish foci muddy the waters
even further, since unlike the more permanent foci their dice do not go into
magic pool, and so are not limited in this way.

--
Tim Little

From:	Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU>
Subject:	Re: Extra spell dice (was: questions?)
Date:	Tue, 2 May 1995 00:13:20 +1000

Message no. 2 Timothy Little writes:

> >"Does this mean a magician with Sorcery/Magic Pool of 6, a Power Focus (3),
> >and a +2 Totem Advantage for a spell can cast it with Force 1, and then roll
> >11 dice to smack the target? Yes."
>
> There's almost a contradiction between this and the p.119 SR2 rule that
> states that Totem Advantage Dice are treated as Magic Pool at the time the
> spell is cast.

Yeah, I realsied that too. The only way the example above can be justified
is if the casting magician was a level 1 Initiate. Then he'd have an
effective Magic Attribute of 10, and so could add in 10 dice from his Magic
Pool (say 6 from his Sorcery 6, 3 from his power focus 3 and 1 from his 2
totem dice).

> If the Totem Dice are treated as Magic Pool, then they should be subject to
> the restriction that limits the number of dice used in casting to the
> magician's Magic Rating.

They are, yes.

> This opens up the question of whether Foci that add dice (in the same way as
> totem bonuses) are limited by Magic Rating. Fetish foci muddy the waters
> even further, since unlike the more permanent foci their dice do not go into
> magic pool, and so are not limited in this way.

That's about right, yeah. Power foci add directly to the Magic Pool, so the
extra dice they proviode must abide by the Magic Pool rules (they also add to
the users Magic Attribute, which has the overall effect of resulting in the
magician being able to add the extra dice to his success test anyway, but
not to worry). Specific Spell Foci, Spell Category Foci and Fetish Foci
merely add dice to the success test or drain test, so they do not need to
abide by the Magic Pool rules. Makes spell category foci somewhat appealing
over Power foci actually...

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong E-mail: adm82@***.edu.au

(GEEK CODE 2.1) GE -d+@ H s++:-- !g p0 !au a19 w+ v(?) C++ US++>+++ P+ L !3
E? N K- W M@ !V po@ Y+ t+ 5 !j R+(++) G(+)('''') !tv(--@)
b++ D B? e+$ u@ h* f+ !r n----(--)@ !y+

From:	U-Gene <C14101@*******.BITNET>
Subject:	Re: Extra spell dice (was: questions?)
Date:	Mon, 1 May 1995 11:49:18 EDT

Message no. 3 Damion Milliken wrote:
>Specific Spell foci, spell category foci, and Fetish Foci
>Merely add dice to the success test or drain test, so they do not need to
>abide by the Magic Pool rules. Makes spell category foci somewhat appealing
>over Power Foci actually...

Well, I'm not to confident to repling to this after being wrong about the most
Magic Pool useable was the Force of the spell. But, don't you treat spell
category, specific spell foci, ect. as Magic Pool for those types of spells?
I wish I had the book with me right now, but...I don't.
So once again, we'll see if my memory will fail me.

This would make most sense to me anyway. I look it up tonight but someone
will probably already have found it. This way though, there is a reason that
the mage/shamen pays so much for the power foci.

<< U-Gene -- Decker who should probably keep his nose out of mage stuff >>

From:	Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU>
Subject:	Re: Extra spell dice (was: questions?)
Date:	Tue, 9 May 1995 15:52:41 +1000

Message no. 4 U-Gene writes:

> Well, I'm not to confident to repling to this after being wrong about the
> most Magic Pool useable was the Force of the spell. But, don't you treat
> spell category, specific spell foci, ect. as Magic Pool for those types of
> spells?

It says that the dice from the spell foci should be treated "...like Magic
Pool dice for the purposes of when they refresh and so on. They should NOT,
however, simply be added into the Magic Pool, as they have limited, specific
uses." Now, I guess you could go either way really. I read it and assumed
that since it wasn't part of the Magic Pool, then you could still add dice
from your Magic Pool up to the limit (ie your Magic Attribute), as well as
getting the dice from the Spell Foci. But one could, just as easily, take
the "...and so on." to mean that the extra dice given by the foci must be
treated as Magic Pool dice for the determination fo the maximum number of
extra dice that the caster can add to the spell (ie, foci dice plus Magic
Pool dice can't exceed your Magic Attribute). It's kinda a tricky one.

--
Damion Milliken Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: adm82@***.edu.au

(GEEK CODE 2.1) GE -d+@ H s++:-- !g p0 !au a19 w+ v(?) C++ US++>+++ P+ L !3
E? N K- W M@ !V po@ Y+ t+ 5 !j R+(++) G(+)('''') !tv(--@)
b++ D B? e+$ u@ h* f+ !r n----(--)@ !y+

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