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From:	"Chad S. Mawson" <csm2747@************.EDU>
Subject:	Ideas
Date:	Mon, 22 Feb 93 00:39:41 CST

Message no. 1 I'm looking for some good ideas for some runs. I have been GM'ing for two
and 1/2 years and...well...I'm fresh out of ideas. Any GM's or players with
good plots from past runs? Or how about ideas being considered for new runs?

At this point any ideas would be a big help.

Edge
aka csm2747@******.nebrwesleyan.edu

From:	King of Pain <mcgowan@*****.BUCKNELL.EDU>
Subject:	ideas...
Date:	Sun, 2 Oct 1994 12:09:29 -0400

Message no. 2 Well its been sort of slow lately, so i'll try to start something up here.

Two questions...
1) I have a person who's interested in playing a free spirit(and due to
some, umm, bloody circumstances now has the opportunity to play one).
AAny ideas on how to set up abilities etc. I figure i could allow it,
but it would definately have to be a REALLY weak spirit. Beyond that, i
haven't had time to look into it. Any ideas would be wonderful

2)Is it possible to destroy or corrupt a totem??

Ok, that oughta do it hopefully. Go at em'

RDM

From:	"Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@*******.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU>
Subject:	Re: ideas...
Date:	Sun, 2 Oct 1994 12:16:24 -0500

Message no. 3 On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, King of Pain wrote:

> 2)Is it possible to destroy or corrupt a totem??

It depends. Does a totem exist? Or is a totem nothimg more than a
psychological icon that the shamen grabs on to as a focus for his
powers? If a totem really exists, I summose that a totem could be hurt,
but probably by only something as powerful as another totem.

____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden@*******.mankato.msus.edu
\ /__ -=-=-=-=- <=> -=-=-=-=-
\/ / Finger for Geek Code Info <=> I do not necessarily speak for the
\/ Finger for PGP Public Key <=> City of Mankato or anyone else
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j R+++$ G- tv+ b+ D+ B--- e+>++(*) u** h* f r-->+++ !n y++**

From:	Stephane Lafrance <Stephane.Lafrance@***.ULAVAL.CA>
Subject:	Re: ideas...
Date:	Sun, 2 Oct 1994 14:45:12 EDT

Message no. 4 ----------------------[Reply - Original Message]----------------------

Sent by:King of Pain <mcgowan@*****.BUCKNELL.EDU>
Well its been sort of slow lately, so i'll try to start something up here.

2)Is it possible to destroy or corrupt a totem??

=====================================================================
My understanding of Totems is that they are the embodiment of
[meta]human imagination. They exist because we always assumed
they existed. They manifest because of magic. They exist because
they are entities of objects of the real world. If you want to
destroy DOG, you will have to kill all the dogs of the world and all
beliefs that DOG exist. You will also have to kill the entity itself,
and the magic that surrounds it. Can you do that??? Only if you're a
god. And nobody can be that. I suppose that the entity could be
destroyed temporarely, only to be reborn some time later. BTW, if
you do that, beware of revenge. You know how shamans work so well
together! 2nd BTW, the Great Ghost Dance is the only way to have
enough power to hurt a Totem. But even with that kind of power,
it may not be enough to kill it. Remember Sam, he had a hell of a bad
time with Spider!

The same applies for corrupting a Totem. But I think it would be
harder. You would have to weaken it and try to corrupt it after that.

Only my 2 cents,

Stephan

From:	King of Pain <mcgowan@*****.BUCKNELL.EDU>
Subject:	Re: ideas...
Date:	Sun, 2 Oct 1994 16:13:59 -0400

Message no. 5 On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Robert A. Hayden wrote:

>
> It depends. Does a totem exist? Or is a totem nothimg more than a
> psychological icon that the shamen grabs on to as a focus for his
> powers? If a totem really exists, I summose that a totem could be hurt,
> but probably by only something as powerful as another totem.

Well here's my interpretaion of what a totem is. It has to be a
combination of collective ideal of a physical object in conjunction with
the actual existence of the physical object itself. I would restrict it
to just living beings, however you have sun totems and moon totems for
druids, o the definition has to be expanded. Now why both ideal and
physical existence?? You need physical existence otherwise for every
ideal that went around a totem would pop up, and as the ideal changed,
the powers of the totem would change. As i understand it the powers of
the totem a pretty solid(ie DON'T CHANGE). Also, without physical
existence, there would be a toetem for EVERYTHING that became
idealized(aka Elvis Totems, JFK totems, that cool ferrari totem).
Now as for the "ideal" condition for existence. I suppose that has to
revolve around the question of how totems came into existence. Were they
free spirits?? or spirits of animals?? or were they just created by the
ideals of hundreds of thousands of men and women when the mana levels
began to slowly increase, which then shifted their base of power to a
physical entity(thus becoming a "totem"). Guess which one i favor:)
Anyway, under these conditions it WOULD be possible to destroy a toem by
1)Destroying its physical link to the world(ie all the owls for an owl
shaman, sharks for a shark shaman, the moon for a moon shaman, etc.) and
then 2)then demolish or change(because changing the ideals of a totem
would destroy that totem and give rise to new, totally different one) the
ideals that give that totem existence. Dead totem. Also through that
reasoning it would be possible to "corrupt" the totem by changing the
ideals resposible for existence towards darker, more evil ones:). Of
course, this is all true IF my reasoning is correct(and i admit, there
are ALOT of stretches in here) but its an interesting plot device to use
if your mage gets too powerful or if you want to mess with em a
bit(imagine what would happen to a shaman that no longer had a totem
anymore...)

anyway, food for thought

RDM

From:	Stephane Lafrance <Stephane.Lafrance@***.ULAVAL.CA>
Subject:	Re: ideas...
Date:	Sun, 2 Oct 1994 16:27:30 EDT

Message no. 6 It seems we agree on some principles!

Stephan

----------------------[Reply - Original Message]----------------------
Sent by:King of Pain <mcgowan@*****.bucknell.edu>
On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Robert A. Hayden wrote:

>
> It depends. Does a totem exist? Or is a totem nothimg more than a
> psychological icon that the shamen grabs on to as a focus for his
> powers? If a totem really exists, I summose that a totem could be hurt,
> but probably by only something as powerful as another totem.

Well here's my interpretaion of what a totem is. It has to be a
combination of collective ideal of a physical object in conjunction with
the actual existence of the physical object itself. I would restrict it
to just living beings, however you have sun totems and moon totems for
druids, o the definition has to be expanded. Now why both ideal and
physical existence?? You need physical existence otherwise for every
ideal that went around a totem would pop up, and as the ideal changed,
the powers of the totem would change. As i understand it the powers of
the totem a pretty solid(ie DON'T CHANGE). Also, without physical
existence, there would be a toetem for EVERYTHING that became
idealized(aka Elvis Totems, JFK totems, that cool ferrari totem).
Now as for the "ideal" condition for existence. I suppose that has to
revolve around the question of how totems came into existence. Were they
free spirits?? or spirits of animals?? or were they just created by the
ideals of hundreds of thousands of men and women when the mana levels
began to slowly increase, which then shifted their base of power to a
physical entity(thus becoming a "totem"). Guess which one i favor:)
Anyway, under these conditions it WOULD be possible to destroy a toem by
1)Destroying its physical link to the world(ie all the owls for an owl
shaman, sharks for a shark shaman, the moon for a moon shaman, etc.) and
then 2)then demolish or change(because changing the ideals of a totem
would destroy that totem and give rise to new, totally different one) the
ideals that give that totem existence. Dead totem. Also through that
reasoning it would be possible to "corrupt" the totem by changing the
ideals resposible for existence towards darker, more evil ones:). Of
course, this is all true IF my reasoning is correct(and i admit, there
are ALOT of stretches in here) but its an interesting plot device to use
if your mage gets too powerful or if you want to mess with em a
bit(imagine what would happen to a shaman that no longer had a totem
anymore...)

anyway, food for thought

RDM

From:	Brett Ryan Brown <calvinoi@*******.SCRI.FSU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: ideas...
Date:	Sun, 2 Oct 1994 16:40:53 EDT

Message no. 7 > Well its been sort of slow lately, so i'll try to start something up here.
Good for you.

> 1) I have a person who's interested in playing a free spirit(and due to
> some, umm, bloody circumstances now has the opportunity to play one).
> AAny ideas on how to set up abilities etc. I figure i could allow it,
> but it would definately have to be a REALLY weak spirit. Beyond that, i
> haven't had time to look into it. Any ideas would be wonderful

Well, y'know how the beginning horror (the Wraith) in Paranormals of
Europe gains a Spirit Point every time it gets someone to harm someone
else? Well, you COULD make it so that the character LOSES a point
every time he/she did that. Try THAT for some genuine role-playing. That
way, the Spirit could subtlely influence things, but couldn't (or at
least, shouldn't readily) use its near-omnipotence as a weapon. Just a
thought!

-L8TR,
-Calvinoi MindFlyer

--
_/_/_/_/ _ calvinoi@*******.scri.fsu.edu
_/ | | _ _ NOTE: All of the above
_/ __ _ | | __ __ (_) _ _ ___ (_) text put there by me
_/ / _` | | | \ V / | | | ' \ / _ \ | | is SOLELY my _own_
_/_/_/_/ \__,_| |_| \_/ |_| |_||_\ \___/ |_| worthless blather.
=============================================== ----------------------
(Geek Code 2.0) d+ h- s !g !au a-- w++ v+(-) c++(++++) US>US++ P? !L 3
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| v+ b++ D+ b--- e u**(---) h! f !r>r n-@ y? |-----------
----------------------------------------------

From:	shadow@**.kensco.net (The Shadowdancer)
Subject:	Ideas
Date:	Sun, 31 Dec 1995 09:25:52 GMT

Message no. 8 I have some ideas and a question to throw at you. Let me know what
you think.

First, the question. It has no real import except that it was never
mentioned before.

During a game tonight, one of the runners shot a Barrett into the
nostral of a dragon. Of course the dragon was bleeding like crazy
from the snout. Here is the question. Does/can a dragon breathe
through its mouth? We thought prolly so, but even when using the
flame projection, a dragon first inhales deeply, through its nostrils,
and then exhales through it mouth. Just wondering.

Now an Idea.

GMs ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, here it is. Smartlinks, targeting computers, and even wired
reflexes use some sort of software, either to control or to buffer
info. That software can be corrupted via virus. The question is, how
is the software installed? Obviously during implantation, but what of
upgrades? Well, if you did not know, there has been a lot of work on
flash programming. Like the new watches that work with your computer.
You set a schedule with your PC, then hold your watch up to the
monitor and hit download. The screne flashes in a sequenced pattern
to imprint the data into the watch.

Same concept for cyber. Your software becomes obsolete. You to the
doc to get an upgrade. The computer flashes the sequence and your
prog is upgraded. This would work even with normal eyes and only
wired reflexes, since the reflexes use software to buffer input so
total overload or overtaxation does not occur. Now write a virus,
either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.

Oh, in the case of Flare Comp., simple solution. Run the sequence in
ultra-violet. Only low light will pick it up, and if a sammie is
running low light when hit with a flash, his comp is not going to help
much. Also, set it up in a hall way as a low power wide beam laser.
Even if it used infra or ultra, the prog would imprint. The only
difference is that it is undecteable unless using thermo or low light.

Just a nasty idea...

The Shadowdancer
-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

From:	"A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Sun, 31 Dec 1995 12:04:05 +0000 (GMT)

Message no. 9 |Now an Idea.
|
|GMs ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|Ok, here it is. Smartlinks, targeting computers, and even wired
|reflexes use some sort of software, either to control or to buffer
|info. That software can be corrupted via virus. The question is, how
|is the software installed? Obviously during implantation, but what of
|upgrades? Well, if you did not know, there has been a lot of work on
|flash programming. Like the new watches that work with your computer.
|You set a schedule with your PC, then hold your watch up to the
|monitor and hit download. The screne flashes in a sequenced pattern
|to imprint the data into the watch.
|Same concept for cyber. Your software becomes obsolete. You to the
|doc to get an upgrade. The computer flashes the sequence and your
|prog is upgraded. This would work even with normal eyes and only
|wired reflexes, since the reflexes use software to buffer input so
|total overload or overtaxation does not occur. Now write a virus,
|either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
|crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
|virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
|into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
|their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.

Hmmmm. Interesting idea, but if the software was downloaded that way, the
corps would have been using it for years.
I personally think the program is in ROM, and minor surgery is required to
change it. Any other form of data storage would be too prone to corruption,
as you have pointed out.
|Just a nasty idea...

Very nasty, but have you seen the Virus in Lone Star? It infects your
datajack and puts you into an infinite loop of standing in a room with 4
doors. You open a door and walk through and your standing in a room with 4
doors, you open one.... etc,etc,etc...

The only way to get rid of the virus (if you survived the car crash that
happened when you were in the middle of a chase when it activated) is to
remove the entire datajack assembly and replace it with a new one.

Now that's NASTY!

|The Shadowdancer
|-------------------------------------------------------------
|Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
|follow will smile upon them.
|I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
|-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)
|

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From:	h_laws@**********.utas.edu.au (Mad Hamish)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Mon, 1 Jan 1996 10:05:49 +1100

Message no. 10 The Shadowdancer writes

>GMs ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Ok, here it is. Smartlinks, targeting computers, and even wired
>reflexes use some sort of software, either to control or to buffer
>info. That software can be corrupted via virus. The question is, how
>is the software installed?

Frankly if I was designing it I'd have it burned into chips driving a
microprocessor or several with cross redundancies and backup checks to
prevent that sort of thing.

> Obviously during implantation, but what of
>upgrades?

I'd say the ROM chip is physically replaced with the newer model.
Mind you if you prefer your method of stuffing around with people do it. (As
if you need my permission!)

****************************************************************************
The Politician's Slogan
'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all
of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Fortunately only a simple majority is required.'
****************************************************************************

Mad Hamish

Hamish Laws
h_laws@**********.sandybay.utas.edu.au

From:	Paul@********.demon.co.uk (Paul Jonathan Adam)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Sun, 31 Dec 1995 22:44:13 GMT

Message no. 11 The original sender of this put in a spoiler space. So, out of respect,
I've left it in.

Personally I think spoiler spaces are pointless.

I mean, you're all just reading this anyway, to find out what twisted ploy
your GM is going to use on you next.

So don't read any further unless you're a GM.

I mean it.

I *really* mean it.

Oh, well, what the hell...

> Ok, here it is. Smartlinks, targeting computers, and even wired
> reflexes use some sort of software, either to control or to buffer
> info. That software can be corrupted via virus. The question is, how
> is the software installed? Obviously during implantation, but what of
> upgrades? Well, if you did not know, there has been a lot of work on
> flash programming. Like the new watches that work with your computer.
> You set a schedule with your PC, then hold your watch up to the
> monitor and hit download. The screne flashes in a sequenced pattern
> to imprint the data into the watch.

> Same concept for cyber. Your software becomes obsolete. You to the
> doc to get an upgrade. The computer flashes the sequence and your
> prog is upgraded. This would work even with normal eyes and only
> wired reflexes, since the reflexes use software to buffer input so
> total overload or overtaxation does not occur. Now write a virus,
> either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
> crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
> virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
> into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
> their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.

No way does my character use anything that leaves you open to this!

If it needs an upgrade, go in through his datajack, use minor surgery to
change the chipset, or (for smartgun links) use the induction pad to
transmit it. But visual transmission is *way* too open to abuse.

And, realistically, why would smartgun software need updating on a regular
basis? The laws of ballistics aren't subject to unpredictable change, and
at Shadowrun ranges aiming errors account for most of your miss distance
anyway, not weapon dispersion or range-related effects.

Realistically, nobody would have mission-critical software this vulnerable.
Tactical computers and skillwires are very open to corruption, though, as
is anyone using a smartgun link and claiming it as an IFF system. I can
easily imagine a PC finding a black-market Firearms-6 chip at a rather low
price... wonderful until you try to shoot at (fill in the blanks)'s
employees. Aim and fire at a Knight-Errant uniform, and the chip points
the gun at your head and pulls the trigger. (With saving throw for the PC,
of course, but it should scare them badly...)

Again, *someone* makes skillchips. They wouldn't want those chips to be
useful against them. Deckers have the same problem: buying a commercial
Attack-9 program usually involves big-time checking to see who made it,
and to see whether the 'insurance clause' can be deactivated. I have a PC
who learned decking: he can't try to hack into Israeli Military Industries,
because they made most of his software. So far that hasn't been a problem.

Of course, if someone finds the 'key' that IMI use to identify themselves to
their own software, Lynch is in real trouble against them as well... but
so far that hasn't been a problem.

And given the amount of decision-making you hand over to a tactical
computer, not one PC in my campaign uses them. In some ways, we have a
very powergamed campaign... lots of deltaware (two PCs are toting over
ten million's worth each!) yet the only items from Cybermancy we use for
PCs are the Eye Lights (basic only), hand blades, optic datajacks,
and similar items. Nobody has even *asked* me about cybermancy. They know
me too well }:) No tactical computers, the only guy who had a cyberlimb
had it removed and an organic replacement fitted... technology has big
drawbacks. (So does magic, but that's another story.)

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

From:	TopCat <topcat@******.net>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Mon, 1 Jan 1996 14:58:14 -0600

Message no. 12 >During a game tonight, one of the runners shot a Barrett into the
>nostral of a dragon. Of course the dragon was bleeding like crazy
>from the snout. Here is the question. Does/can a dragon breathe
>through its mouth? We thought prolly so, but even when using the
>flame projection, a dragon first inhales deeply, through its nostrils,
>and then exhales through it mouth. Just wondering.

Depends on lots of things, first of all that you disregard the ruling on
aimed fire and allow a character to hit the dragon in the nose to
incapacitate him in said manner. Aimed fire only adds +1DC. That's it. No
miracle extra effects. Nothing. Rules in SR suck pretty bad on that
subject, but what're we gonna do about it? Next, it depends on how you
define dragon's breath. Do they need to breathe? Is the breath a magical
or physical power? Finally, per most of the movies I've seen (always a
great place to learn facts, heheheh) dragon's inhale through their mouths.

-- TopCat

From:	shadow@**.kensco.net (The Shadowdancer)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 03 Jan 1996 04:30:50 GMT

Message no. 13 >From out of the Shadows, "A Halliwell" wispered:

>Hmmmm. Interesting idea, but if the software was downloaded that way, the
>corps would have been using it for years.
>I personally think the program is in ROM, and minor surgery is required to
>change it. Any other form of data storage would be too prone to corruption,
>as you have pointed out.

That is the idea. The corps have been using it for years, just not as
a weapon.

While the ROM idea is relevent, it would take more then minor surgery
to replace it. The main databanks are placed in the control nodes of
the cyber. Those are buried deep to avoid being damaged by outside
forces. And I believe FOF had a story about a control node being
hit...

>
>Very nasty, but have you seen the Virus in Lone Star? It infects your
>datajack and puts you into an infinite loop of standing in a room with 4
>doors. You open a door and walk through and your standing in a room with 4
>doors, you open one.... etc,etc,etc...

Yes, I made sure I got the LS handbook as soon as it came out. Made
my runners REALLY CRANKY. But I was going for ways to deliver without
that much contact. Plus this is mainly for sammies, who so far have
not been taken down much due to rule changes.

----------------------------------------------------
Many people fear Death, saying it is the bitter end.
I say Death is just lonely, crying out for friend.
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

From:	shadow@**.kensco.net (The Shadowdancer)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 03 Jan 1996 04:30:55 GMT

Message no. 14 >From out of the Shadows, Mad Hamish wispered:

>Frankly if I was designing it I'd have it burned into chips driving a
>microprocessor or several with cross redundancies and backup checks to
>prevent that sort of thing.
>
Normally, cyber does. But a virus delivered in this manner could be
written to override or bypass those checks.

>> Obviously during implantation, but what of
>>upgrades?
>
>I'd say the ROM chip is physically replaced with the newer model.
>Mind you if you prefer your method of stuffing around with people do it. (As
>if you need my permission!)

Not upgrading the whole cyber inplant, just the software. And I am
attempting to put a little fear into those sammies that have been
known to shrug off panther shells and hellblasts.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

From:	shadow@**.kensco.net (The Shadowdancer)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 03 Jan 1996 04:30:58 GMT

Message no. 15 >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:

>The original sender of this put in a spoiler space. So, out of respect,
>I've left it in.
>
Respect is not necessary.
>
>Personally I think spoiler spaces are pointless.
>
Your opinion.
>
>
>I mean, you're all just reading this anyway, to find out what twisted ploy
>your GM is going to use on you next.
>
Exactly.
>
>
>
>So don't read any further unless you're a GM.
>
No. Read on to have nightmares.
>
>
>
>
>I mean it.
>
Really?
>
>
>
>
>I *really* mean it.
>
Certain?
>
>
>
>Oh, well, what the hell...
>
Which Hell are you refering to?
>
>No way does my character use anything that leaves you open to this!
>
>If it needs an upgrade, go in through his datajack, use minor surgery to
>change the chipset, or (for smartgun links) use the induction pad to
>transmit it. But visual transmission is *way* too open to abuse.
>
Already been thought about. How does your character know that the
cyber that is implanted does not have a "time release" virus installed
by the corps? Or that the person doing the maintanence on your
weapons has not implemented the above scheme? Or that the new
"prototype" gun you just "acquired" is trapped?

Plus, I have addressed the minor surgery in a previous letter.

>And, realistically, why would smartgun software need updating on a regular
>basis? The laws of ballistics aren't subject to unpredictable change, and
>at Shadowrun ranges aiming errors account for most of your miss distance
>anyway, not weapon dispersion or range-related effects.
>
Realistically, since when has the ballistics of one type of weapon
ever really mattered to another type? If you get a
drek-hot-new-fangaled gun that has different options (say, a Lawgiver
II), its ballistics would be vastly different the ones in your
program. Need to get that upgrade to use the new weapon effectively.

And another thing. Since when did a company ever get a program right
the first time? There will be bugs, or new options to implement.
SmartProg vr 6.2.2.1.0.3 for example.

>Realistically, nobody would have mission-critical software this vulnerable.
>Tactical computers and skillwires are very open to corruption, though, as
>is anyone using a smartgun link and claiming it as an IFF system. I can

Yes they do. Think about your local Armed Forces. Those poor schmos
are given new and interesting equipment and software to "field test".
And even if you are a smart Shadowrunner, everything has a
vulnerablity.

>easily imagine a PC finding a black-market Firearms-6 chip at a rather low
>price... wonderful until you try to shoot at (fill in the blanks)'s
>employees. Aim and fire at a Knight-Errant uniform, and the chip points
>the gun at your head and pulls the trigger. (With saving throw for the PC,
>of course, but it should scare them badly...)
>
I am attempting to put a little fear into sammies. I mean, with
awakenings, magic has gotten a little more exact. And mages are the
most down-trodden of the bunch, given their numerous drawbacks.
Deckers have just gotten slammed, since the IC in VR 2.0 will almost
allways fry chips, and the matrix has just gotten nastier. Riggers
will have their day, but even now they really are not that useful in
most adventures, besides the getaway car and survaillence. The only
thing sammies have to hold them back is essance, and that is
diminishing with beta and delta grade cyber. Hell, even paranormals
usually do not phase a well played and well thought out sammie. But
haveing to have chips replaced, or to carry around a virus detector,
or having the cyber degrade suddenly, that puts some fear in the
sammies heart, especially considering money and healing time.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

From:	Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 3 Jan 1996 18:49:44 +1100 (EST)

Message no. 16 >>Hmmmm. Interesting idea, but if the software was downloaded that way, the
>>corps would have been using it for years.
>>I personally think the program is in ROM, and minor surgery is required to
>>change it. Any other form of data storage would be too prone to corruption,
>>as you have pointed out.

>That is the idea. The corps have been using it for years, just not as
>a weapon.

>While the ROM idea is relevent, it would take more then minor surgery
>to replace it. The main databanks are placed in the control nodes of
>the cyber. Those are buried deep to avoid being damaged by outside
>forces. And I believe FOF had a story about a control node being
>hit...

The relevant story is in "Shadowtech", and while the control interfaces
are well protected, they are designed to be got at via surgery...

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

From:	westec@******.COM
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 3 Jan 1996 23:40:44 -0600

Message no. 17 Now write a virus,
>|either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
>|crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
>|virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
>|into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
>|their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.
>

who you gonna get to hold still long enough for that much code to flash???

>

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From:	westec@******.COM
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 3 Jan 1996 23:40:48 -0600

Message no. 18 >>During a game tonight, one of the runners shot a Barrett into the
>>nostral of a dragon. Of course the dragon was bleeding like crazy
>>from the snout. Here is the question. Does/can a dragon breathe
>>through its mouth? We thought prolly so, but even when using the
>>flame projection, a dragon first inhales deeply, through its nostrils,
>>and then exhales through it mouth. Just wondering.

just how much damage did this guy do?!?! it would probably piss off the
dragon to no end, but I hardly think it would interfere with his breathing
beyond the penalties from receiving damage.

>Next, it depends on how you
>define dragon's breath. Do they need to breathe? Is the breath a magical
>or physical power? Finally, per most of the movies I've seen (always a
>great place to learn facts, heheheh) dragon's inhale through their mouths.
>-- TopCat
>

maybe it was one of the karate kid dragons... in thru nose, out thru mouth,
wax on, wax off....

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From:	westec@******.COM
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 3 Jan 1996 23:40:46 -0600

Message no. 19 >|Now an Idea.
>|
>|GMs ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|
>|Ok, here it is. Smartlinks, targeting computers, and even wired
>|reflexes use some sort of software, either to control or to buffer
>|info. That software can be corrupted via virus. The question is, how
>|is the software installed? Obviously during implantation, but what of
>|upgrades? Well, if you did not know, there has been a lot of work on
>|flash programming. Like the new watches that work with your computer.
>|You set a schedule with your PC, then hold your watch up to the
>|monitor and hit download. The screne flashes in a sequenced pattern
>|to imprint the data into the watch.
>|Same concept for cyber. Your software becomes obsolete. You to the
>|doc to get an upgrade. The computer flashes the sequence and your
>|prog is upgraded. This would work even with normal eyes and only
>|wired reflexes, since the reflexes use software to buffer input so
>|total overload or overtaxation does not occur. Now write a virus,
>|either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
>|crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
>|virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
>|into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
>|their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.
>
>Hmmmm. Interesting idea, but if the software was downloaded that way, the
>corps would have been using it for years.
>I personally think the program is in ROM, and minor surgery is required to
>change it. Any other form of data storage would be too prone to corruption,
>as you have pointed out.
>|Just a nasty idea...
>
>Very nasty, but have you seen the Virus in Lone Star? It infects your
>datajack and puts you into an infinite loop of standing in a room with 4
>doors. You open a door and walk through and your standing in a room with 4
>doors, you open one.... etc,etc,etc...
>
>The only way to get rid of the virus (if you survived the car crash that
>happened when you were in the middle of a chase when it activated) is to
>remove the entire datajack assembly and replace it with a new one.
>
>Now that's NASTY!
>
>|The Shadowdancer
>|-------------------------------------------------------------
>|Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
>|follow will smile upon them.
>|I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
>|-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)
>|
>
>
>--
>______________________________________________________________________________
>| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
>|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
>| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
>|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
>|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
>|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

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From:	Adrian Mink <psu01071@****.cc.pdx.edu>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 3 Jan 1996 21:26:13 -0800 (PST)

Message no. 20 On Wed, 3 Jan 1996 westec@******.COM wrote:

> Now write a virus,
> >|either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
> >|crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
> >|virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
> >|into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
> >|their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.
> >
>
>
> who you gonna get to hold still long enough for that much code to flash???
>
How about this. It says in shadowtech (I think) that to install cyber
they use nanobots to start the process, lay microscopic amounts of
circuitry, ect. Modify those nanobots to wreck cyber, or do other
interesting things to it, place them in darts like knockout drugs, and
have at it.
You could expose characters to it without their even knowing anything
had been done to them via aerosol sprays, placing the 'bots on their
silverware, the possibilities are endless. Oh, the paranoia you could
generate.

-adrian

From:	westec@******.COM (Neon Sihn)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 4 Jan 1996 01:46:59 -0600

Message no. 21 >
> How about this. It says in shadowtech (I think) that to install cyber
>they use nanobots to start the process, lay microscopic amounts of
>circuitry, ect. Modify those nanobots to wreck cyber, or do other
>interesting things to it, place them in darts like knockout drugs, and
>have at it.
> You could expose characters to it without their even knowing anything
>had been done to them via aerosol sprays, placing the 'bots on their
>silverware, the possibilities are endless. Oh, the paranoia you could
>generate.
>
> -adrian
>

done it.... trick is to let it work oh so slowly... in a combat where characters
are hit, it would be easy to infect them in a number of ways, but don't get in
a rush... be subtle with the effects until they've accumulated enough that the
character is suspicious; I lead one particular player along for almost 4weeks
in this manner, and when he sprung the thought and got himself checked out and
repaired the REAL paranoia arose and you should have seen all the other players
freaking out... you'd think an epidemic had broken out!

---------construction in progress-------------------
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From:	Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 4 Jan 1996 20:22:40 +1100 (EST)

Message no. 22 > You could expose characters to it without their even knowing anything
>had been done to them via aerosol sprays, placing the 'bots on their
>silverware, the possibilities are endless. Oh, the paranoia you could
>generate.

No they aren't... nanabots are rather small and stupid machines. Well,
they have to be... think of how small they are.

Nanites would have to be placed in the vicinity of where they are meant
to work. They couldn't swarm out and seek given areas (well, maybe
certain chemical concentrations).

You want to do this stuff? Use a nice biotoxin.

--
*************************************************************************
* .--_ # "My opinions may have changed, but not the fact *
* _-0(#)) # that I'm right." -- Old Fortune Saying *
* @__ )/ # *
* )=(===__==,= # Robert Watkins <---> robertdw@*******.com.au *
* {}== \--==--`= # *
* ,_) \ # "A friend is someone who watches the same *
* L_===__)=, # TV programs as you" *
*************************************************************************

From:	Lady Jestyr <nholmes@***.edu.au>
Subject:	Re: ideas
Date:	Thu, 04 Jan 96 11:30:00 -1000

Message no. 23 >>Realistically, nobody would have mission-critical software this vulnerable.
>>Tactical computers and skillwires are very open to corruption, though, as
>>is anyone using a smartgun link and claiming it as an IFF system. I can

>Yes they do. Think about your local Armed Forces. Those poor schmos
>are given new and interesting equipment and software to "field test".
>And even if you are a smart Shadowrunner, everything has a
>vulnerablity.

Why am I suddenly reminded of the Paranoia (what a WONDEFUL game!) concept of R&D?!
Players get to test ALL the latest flash-bang to=
ys - and flash-bang is usually what the toys to, to vulnerable parts of the user's
anatomy. >:)

Lady J

From:	"A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: ideas
Date:	Thu, 4 Jan 1996 10:40:30 +0000 (GMT)

Message no. 24 |
|Why am I suddenly reminded of the Paranoia (what a WONDEFUL game!) concept of R&D?!
Players get to test ALL the latest flash-bang to=
|ys - and flash-bang is usually what the toys to, to vulnerable parts of the user's
anatomy. >:)
|
Now stop getting evil ideas....
This is Shadowrun, not Paranoia....

Mind, you.....
If the party just happened to break in and STEAL one of the toys.....

OK. Lets start having EVIL ideas then.....
--
______________________________________________________________________________
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From:	"Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 4 Jan 1996 12:33:57 +0100

Message no. 25 Adrian Mink said on 4 Jan 96...

> Modify those nanobots to wreck cyber, or do other
> interesting things to it, place them in darts like knockout drugs, and
> have at it.
> You could expose characters to it without their even knowing anything
> had been done to them via aerosol sprays, placing the 'bots on their
> silverware, the possibilities are endless.

How about a toxin exhaler? That's already a very nasty piece of bioware
for your NPCs, if one of the players has one... Player is being held by an
NPC, and he goes "I'll breathe in his face." That leaves the NPC with two
lungs full of Hyper and the associated staggering around the room...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand?
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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From:	Paul@********.demon.co.uk (Paul Jonathan Adam)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 03 Jan 1996 22:51:07 GMT

Message no. 26 > >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:
> >No way does my character use anything that leaves you open to this!
> >If it needs an upgrade, go in through his datajack, use minor surgery to
> >change the chipset, or (for smartgun links) use the induction pad to
> >transmit it. But visual transmission is *way* too open to abuse.
> >
> Already been thought about. How does your character know that the
> cyber that is implanted does not have a "time release" virus installed
> by the corps? Or that the person doing the maintanence on your
> weapons has not implemented the above scheme? Or that the new
> "prototype" gun you just "acquired" is trapped?

First off, you check it. If this sort of thing is known to exist (and
it would have been tried a while ago if it can be made to work) then
there would be a large market for 'de-clawed' software. But the main
thing is, being vulnerable to something that can get you killed because
you *looked* at it, when the alternative is to use surgery, program
through induction pads, or other methods, is unlikely to appeal to
most people who have more than a passing interest in their personal
survival.

> Plus, I have addressed the minor surgery in a previous letter.

> >And, realistically, why would smartgun software need updating on a regular
> >basis? The laws of ballistics aren't subject to unpredictable change, and
> >at Shadowrun ranges aiming errors account for most of your miss distance
> >anyway, not weapon dispersion or range-related effects.
> >
> Realistically, since when has the ballistics of one type of weapon
> ever really mattered to another type? If you get a
> drek-hot-new-fangaled gun that has different options (say, a Lawgiver
> II), its ballistics would be vastly different the ones in your
> program. Need to get that upgrade to use the new weapon effectively.

I think you overstate the differences between weapons. There's more
difference between my Glock 21 when I switch from 230-grain to 180-grain
bullets, than when I move from that to a .44 Magnum. Ballistics are
pretty well understood and rather constant: at Shadowrun ranges, all
your smartlink needs is the muzzle velocity and projectile weight. To
be honest it doesn't even need that: at 250 metres, an assault rifle is
still shooting to point-of-aim. British Army 'battlesight' range is 300.

> And another thing. Since when did a company ever get a program right
> the first time? There will be bugs, or new options to implement.
> SmartProg vr 6.2.2.1.0.3 for example.

There is also the negative effect... it wouldn't take long to notice
everyone with a Wiremasters firearms chip who got the upgrade suddenly
couldn't hit anything in Knight-Errant uniform. The customers just switch
to Renraku, and Wiremasters suddenly can't sell skillchips. Meanwhile,
the Knight-Errant troops using that software are wiped out by a team in
stolen uniforms.

> >Realistically, nobody would have mission-critical software this vulnerable.
> >Tactical computers and skillwires are very open to corruption, though, as
> >is anyone using a smartgun link and claiming it as an IFF system. I can
>
> Yes they do. Think about your local Armed Forces. Those poor schmos
> are given new and interesting equipment and software to "field test".
> And even if you are a smart Shadowrunner, everything has a
> vulnerablity.

Uh, no we weren't, and I speak both as an end-user and as a developer.

> >easily imagine a PC finding a black-market Firearms-6 chip at a rather low
> >price... wonderful until you try to shoot at (fill in the blanks)'s
> >employees. Aim and fire at a Knight-Errant uniform, and the chip points
> >the gun at your head and pulls the trigger. (With saving throw for the PC,
> >of course, but it should scare them badly...)
> >
> I am attempting to put a little fear into sammies. I mean, with
> awakenings, magic has gotten a little more exact. And mages are the
> most down-trodden of the bunch, given their numerous drawbacks.
> Deckers have just gotten slammed, since the IC in VR 2.0 will almost
> allways fry chips, and the matrix has just gotten nastier. Riggers
> will have their day, but even now they really are not that useful in
> most adventures, besides the getaway car and survaillence. The only
> thing sammies have to hold them back is essance, and that is
> diminishing with beta and delta grade cyber. Hell, even paranormals
> usually do not phase a well played and well thought out sammie. But
> haveing to have chips replaced, or to carry around a virus detector,
> or having the cyber degrade suddenly, that puts some fear in the
> sammies heart, especially considering money and healing time.

"Mages the most down-trodden"? "Drawbacks"? Please. Magicians have
vulnerabilities, but I'd hardly call a class of characters with as
much power as the mages 'downtrodden'. If you don't think riggers are
useful, you need to play a rigger PC and think carefully about the
potential of a lot of that equipment.

Cybered characters have more than enough problems as it is without
making their equipment suddenly fall apart on them. Unless, of course,
magicians find their Sorcery skill degrades over time, in which case
the situation is even, but most 'downtrodden' magicians in my experience
are complaining about having had a Rating-8 power focus - that they
carried, active, everywhere - stolen. Show me a samurai who does something
similar and I'll show you a dead PC.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

From:	seb@***.ripco.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 4 Jan 1996 12:29:06 -0600 (CST)

Message no. 27 > How about this. It says in shadowtech (I think) that to install cyber
> they use nanobots to start the process, lay microscopic amounts of
> circuitry, ect. Modify those nanobots to wreck cyber, or do other
> interesting things to it, place them in darts like knockout drugs, and
> have at it.
> You could expose characters to it without their even knowing anything
> had been done to them via aerosol sprays, placing the 'bots on their
> silverware, the possibilities are endless. Oh, the paranoia you could
> generate.
>
> -adrian
The legal repercusians, even in the Gun totin lawers world of shadowrun, of
releasing nanites into the public wihtout some very strong safety measures,
would probably put the kiabosh on such activity. Else, why restrich these
Ninite/poisons to damaging cyber? They could frag up natural nuerons just
fine. Oh, but cyber is "illegal" you say, so security measures against it are
OK, right? Well, tell that to the corp whose computer core just got infected.
In cyber surgery, I believe the nanites are controlled by injections of
materials they ned to function into the area that is bieng worked on. Also,
they are less nanites, and more modified bacteria that aglomerate and build
gold deposits/pathways on a substrate, and other such things. I don't think
they do any programing.
Seb

From:	Nathan Walker <NTWALKER@******.SUNYGENESEE.CC.NY.US>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Fri, 5 Jan 1996 03:10:28 -0500 (EST)

Message no. 28 Klingon Name: Captain K'vort, Commander, DSF C7 "Victory"
MIME: We shoot them here.

Just in case anyone was curious, this is a quote from TopCat:
>>During a game tonight, one of the runners shot a Barrett into the
>>nostral of a dragon. Of course the dragon was bleeding like crazy
>>from the snout. Here is the question. Does/can a dragon breathe
>>through its mouth? We thought prolly so, but even when using the
>>flame projection, a dragon first inhales deeply, through its nostrils,
>>and then exhales through it mouth. Just wondering.
>
>Depends on lots of things, first of all that you disregard the ruling on
>aimed fire and allow a character to hit the dragon in the nose to
>incapacitate him in said manner. Aimed fire only adds +1DC. That's it. No
>miracle extra effects. Nothing. Rules in SR suck pretty bad on that
>subject, but what're we gonna do about it? Next, it depends on how you
>define dragon's breath. Do they need to breathe? Is the breath a magical
>or physical power? Finally, per most of the movies I've seen (always a
>great place to learn facts, heheheh) dragon's inhale through their mouths.

Everything I once knew I learned from BATMAN...

Actually, by researching dragons for the past five years, I have found
that they tend to change their breathing habits depending on whatever
suits them, just like human beings. For instance, before exhaling fire
from their mouth, they tend to inhale through their mouth, allowing them
to get the deeper breath they need for exhaling fire, quicker.

This message is brought to you courtesy of the Relevant Facts Association.

>>>>>>> Nate, who is a charter member of the Relevant Facts
Association.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
| NTWalker@******.SUNYGENESEE.CC.NY.US |
| |
| I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. |
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From:	pbailey@***.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au (Peter Bailey)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Fri, 5 Jan 96 22:22:08

Message no. 29 Hi,

> >From out of the Shadows, Mad Hamish wispered:
>
>
> >Frankly if I was designing it I'd have it burned into chips driving a
> >microprocessor or several with cross redundancies and backup checks to
> >prevent that sort of thing.
> >
> Normally, cyber does. But a virus delivered in this manner could be
> written to override or bypass those checks.
>
> >> Obviously during implantation, but what of
> >>upgrades?
> >
> >I'd say the ROM chip is physically replaced with the newer model.
> >Mind you if you prefer your method of stuffing around with people do it. (As
> >if you need my permission!)
>
> Not upgrading the whole cyber inplant, just the software. And I am
> attempting to put a little fear into those sammies that have been
> known to shrug off panther shells and hellblasts.

Try the sonic blast that shatters the crystals in the sammie's c/ware.
Imagine walking into a room where the sammy suddenly falls to the ground
but the unmoded walk over to him asking why he can't move. ;)

Really puts the fear of tech in em.

From:	sedahdro@*****.com (Victor Rodriguez, Jr)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Fri, 5 Jan 96 13:44 EST

Message no. 30 >> Not upgrading the whole cyber inplant, just the software. And I am
>> attempting to put a little fear into those sammies that have been
>> known to shrug off panther shells and hellblasts.
>
>Try the sonic blast that shatters the crystals in the sammie's c/ware.
>Imagine walking into a room where the sammy suddenly falls to the ground
>but the unmoded walk over to him asking why he can't move. ;)
>
>Really puts the fear of tech in em.
Good luck in finding the resonating frequency of the crystals if they use
them for cyberware. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't the fluids in
the body distort the sound wave some so you would also have to compensate
for that distortion.
--
Home page: Better Homes and Gardens page 36 volume 3 March 1995:)(sorry
couln't resist)
---
ATTN: Due to lack of interest, tomorrow has been canceled.
---
GC3.1
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From:	Alys Llewellyn <ST5F2@******.UH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Fri, 05 Jan 1996 15:01:03 -0600 (CST)

Message no. 31 sedahdro@*****.com (Victor Rodriguez, Jr) dodged a salvo of mini-missiles,
screaming his head off about Re: Ideas

>>Try the sonic blast that shatters the crystals in the sammie's c/ware.
>>Imagine walking into a room where the sammy suddenly falls to the ground
>>but the unmoded walk over to him asking why he can't move. ;)
>>
>>Really puts the fear of tech in em.
>Good luck in finding the resonating frequency of the crystals if they use
>them for cyberware. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't the fluids in
>the body distort the sound wave some so you would also have to compensate
>for that distortion.

Hence, you use an adjustable oscillator. If you're the kind of techno-geek who
would try something like that in the first place (hey, I am...), you'd install
a motion detector/heat sensor that would trigger the blast to start, then have
the oscillator sweep through a set range of frequencies over a certain period
of time, season to taste. Since a setup like that isn't something you're really
going to build over the course of about five minutes--even if you're MacGyver--
it pays off to build it as an adaptable unit. If you're worried about what
range of frequencies you're going to have to scan (this is for all you players
who're thinking "Hmm, new security system"), talk to your friendly neighborhood
chop-shop doc and see if he's got any busted bodyware he'd be willing to sell
cheap so you can do some tests in advance, in order to determine the setting...

Regards,
Meredith L. Patterson (aka Dryad)

From:	Paul Jonathan Adam <Paul@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Sat, 06 Jan 1996 09:20:08 GMT

Message no. 32 >Hence, you use an adjustable oscillator. If you're the kind of techno-geek who
>would try something like that in the first place (hey, I am...), you'd install
>a motion detector/heat sensor that would trigger the blast to start, then have
>the oscillator sweep through a set range of frequencies over a certain period
>of time, season to taste. Since a setup like that isn't something you're really
>going to build over the course of about five minutes--even if you're MacGyver--
>it pays off to build it as an adaptable unit.
> Regards,
> Meredith L. Patterson (aka Dryad)

If you're using ultrasound to shatter the optic chips in someone's cyberware,
at the signal levels you'd need to get through flesh, your range against
external equipment is lots longer... and almost everything runs on those
optical chips. So, your oscillator has just wiped out every electronic
system within, say, a hundred metres.

I wouldn't set one of these to defend the corporate mainframe, for instance.

And imagine the effect if (when) the PCs get hold of it. Point and bleep,
and suddenly whammo! Every wired security guard is out of commission,
all the electronic-based security systems are off-line... This is a little
dangerous to have flying around in the game. It even works on vehicles...
knock out the engine-management system and the motor don't run no more.
Take out the electronics and the rigger suddenly needs to rediscover the
idea of 'steering wheel'. And the effects of a weapon like this on, for
instance, a GMC Banshee flying NOE in bad weather... or an airliner on
final in fog...

This is a seriously unbalancing weapon if it works. Anyone who wants to
introduce it, be prepared for unexpected and probably severe side-effects.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

From:	h_laws@**********.utas.edu.au (Mad Hamish)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 10 Jan 1996 10:37:05 +1100

Message no. 33 >>Hence, you use an adjustable oscillator. If you're the kind of techno-geek who
>>would try something like that in the first place (hey, I am...), you'd install
>>a motion detector/heat sensor that would trigger the blast to start, then have
>>the oscillator sweep through a set range of frequencies over a certain period
>>of time, season to taste. Since a setup like that isn't something you're
really
>>going to build over the course of about five minutes--even if you're
MacGyver--
>>it pays off to build it as an adaptable unit.
>> Regards,
>> Meredith L. Patterson (aka Dryad)
>
>If you're using ultrasound to shatter the optic chips in someone's cyberware,
>at the signal levels you'd need to get through flesh, your range against
>external equipment is lots longer... and almost everything runs on those
>optical chips. So, your oscillator has just wiped out every electronic
>system within, say, a hundred metres.
>

Only if they haven't been designed to be outside the range of oscillation.
Just design them so that they are and have your device rigged to self
destruct if tampered with.

****************************************************************************
The Politician's Slogan
'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all
of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Fortunately only a simple majority is required.'
****************************************************************************

Mad Hamish

Hamish Laws
h_laws@**********.sandybay.utas.edu.au

From:	Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 10 Jan 1996 15:08:26 +1100 (EST)

Message no. 34 >Only if they haven't been designed to be outside the range of oscillation.
>Just design them so that they are and have your device rigged to self
>destruct if tampered with.

GM: "Oh no, it's got a self destruct device."

HP (Hardened Player): "So what? I've got every single B/R skill on Earth,
all at level 10!"

GM: <looking worried> "Okay, make an Electronics B/R test at TN 10, a
demolitions test at TN 15, and a New-Funky-Skill test at TN 20!"

HP: "Okay. What does the New-Funky-Skill test default to?

GM: <looking at HP's character sheet for the LOWEST stat> "Essence."

<twenty rerolls using Karma later>

HP: "Okay, that's the 20 I needed on the New-Funky-Skill test! Look out,
Renraku!"

Moral of the story: If you put it in, they WILL get it.

--
*************************************************************************
* .--_ # "My opinions may have changed, but not the fact *
* _-0(#)) # that I'm right." -- Old Fortune Saying *
* @__ )/ # *
* )=(===__==,= # Robert Watkins <---> robertdw@*******.com.au *
* {}== \--==--`= # *
* ,_) \ # "A friend is someone who watches the same *
* L_===__)=, # TV programs as you" *
*************************************************************************

From:	westec@******.COM (Neon Sihn)
Subject:	Re: ideas
Date:	Tue, 9 Jan 1996 23:57:09 -0600

Message no. 35 >Now stop getting evil ideas....
>This is Shadowrun, not Paranoia....
>
>Mind, you.....
>If the party just happened to break in and STEAL one of the toys.....
>
>OK. Lets start having EVIL ideas then.....

or that contact or street mechanic that the player has been pushing
around finally has the new super-duper system ready for testing.......

---------construction in progress-------------------
westec@******.com
TIP #1323
IPPA #A-0117
Lively #F188
---------construction in progress-------------------

From:	Paul@********.demon.co.uk (Paul Jonathan Adam)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 10 Jan 1996 22:06:36 GMT

Message no. 36 > >If you're using ultrasound to shatter the optic chips in someone's cyberware,
> >at the signal levels you'd need to get through flesh, your range against
> >external equipment is lots longer... and almost everything runs on those
> >optical chips. So, your oscillator has just wiped out every electronic
> >system within, say, a hundred metres.
>
> Only if they haven't been designed to be outside the range of oscillation.
> Just design them so that they are and have your device rigged to self
> destruct if tampered with.

Swings and roundabouts. Firstly, if chips which are immune to this
gizmo are widely used, then there's a fair chance that the PC's gear
is also immune. Secondly, if you use it on them they'll build it from
scratch. It's an oscillator and speaker, right? Electronics B/R and
Karma, and the PCs can build it, or just defuse the booby-trap.

And, again, using this in the open... if it works on 'all chips but
ours' then it's only useful where the sound can't get to anyone
else's equipment.

Give this to the NPCs and the players *will* get it. And if it's totally
deadly against them, when they get their hands on one your game will
fall apart quickly... it's like one GM who had a corporate "this
will cut anything" icebreaker and made the mistake of assigning it
numbers, to trash a PC's deck with. The PC stayed alive long enough
for his teammates to find the enemy decker... and steal the software.
(It was an Attack-20 or something equally stupid). We now had a PC
decker with an Attack-20 utility. Not good.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

From:	h_laws@**********.utas.edu.au (Mad Hamish)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:16:31 +1100

Message no. 37 >>Only if they haven't been designed to be outside the range of oscillation.
>>Just design them so that they are and have your device rigged to self
>>destruct if tampered with.
>
>GM: "Oh no, it's got a self destruct device."

Are they really that likely to check it? Or notice that it's gas cooled with
a rather nasty little gas?
How do you get to the self destruct bit when it's in the centre and the rest
of the device is built around it?
Have a nice little access panel which causes it to go *boom* in a _big_ way
and access from the other side using something only available at the corp's
main japanese location.

****************************************************************************
The Politician's Slogan
'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all
of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Fortunately only a simple majority is required.'
****************************************************************************

Mad Hamish

Hamish Laws
h_laws@**********.sandybay.utas.edu.au

From:	gt6877c@*****.gatech.edu (S.F. Eley)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 11 Jan 1996 01:26:29 -0500 (EST)

Message no. 38 Robert Watkins writes:

> HP: "Okay. What does the New-Funky-Skill test default to?
> GM: <looking at HP's character sheet for the LOWEST stat> "Essence."
> <twenty rerolls using Karma later>
> HP: "Okay, that's the 20 I needed on the New-Funky-Skill test! Look out,
> Renraku!"
>
> Moral of the story: If you put it in, they WILL get it.

Revised Moral: Don't let them get away with it.

In the case above, they CAN'T use Karma to perpetually reroll.. If you look
closely at the rules, it says you need at least one success before you can
burn any Karma.

This technicality is exactly what keeps Karma from being the absolute
munchkin force it could be.. Karma can make you MORE successful, but it
can't pull success out of nowhere.

Blessings,

_TNX._

--
Stephen F. Eley (-) gt6877c@*****.gatech.edu )-( Student Pagan Community
http://wc62.residence.gatech.edu|"Much of the economic decay of south-east
My opinions are my opinions. | Asia...is undoubtedly due to a heedless and
Please don't blame anyone else. | shameful neglect of trees."-E.F. Schumacher

From:	Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 11 Jan 1996 19:16:57 +1100 (EST)

Message no. 39 >In the case above, they CAN'T use Karma to perpetually reroll.. If you look
>closely at the rules, it says you need at least one success before you can
>burn any Karma.

That's for BUYING successes... This is not a condition for any other use
of Karma, such as re-rolling failures.

--
* *
/_\ "A friend is someone who likes the same TV programs you do" /_\
{~._.~} "Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen {~._.~}
( Y ) to be dressed for it." -- Woody Allen ( Y )
()~*~() Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au ()~*~()
(_)-(_) (_)-(_)

From:	Paul@********.demon.co.uk (Paul Jonathan Adam)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Thu, 11 Jan 1996 00:17:44 GMT

Message no. 40 > Are they really that likely to check it? Or notice that it's gas cooled with
> a rather nasty little gas?

You are obviously too kind to your players :) Try the double-skinned
containment vehicle one time: the PCs were trapped in the back of a
van being taken in for interrogation. No problem, they thought, the side
of the vehicle is just plastic, kick through it. (Never mind the big red
sign telling them that damaging the vehicle would be bad for their health).

They did. The *inner skin* was plastic. The outer was metal. In between?
Lewisite. A rather nasty version of 'mustard gas'. Not even lethal (they
had enough fresh air coming in to survive) but extremely incapacitating.

After that, the players are very cautious: persistent chemical agents
are a great way to deter unauthorised tampering, sometimes fatally, but
there are ways around it.

> How do you get to the self destruct bit when it's in the centre and the rest
> of the device is built around it?

Something needs to set that gizmo off: it must be possible to get into the
case, if only to change the batteries. Make it too secure, and your own
troops can't use it.

> Have a nice little access panel which causes it to go *boom* in a _big_ way
> and access from the other side using something only available at the corp's
> main japanese location.

And a PC with skillwires slots Demolitions-6 and burns Karma? End of
booby trap. Again, if NPCs can build "you die, no saving throw"
tricks like this into field equipment, the players will begin to get a
little annoyed.

Or, if the booby trap is this good, leave it out... but with a little gizmo
that levers open the side hatch by remote control. When the bad guys come
to retrieve it, *boom*, and in a big way too...

Never introduce anything you aren't willing to see in a PC's hands.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

From:	t_little@**********.utas.edu.au (Timothy Little)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Tue, 16 Jan 1996 08:35:20 +1100

Message no. 41 >>From out of the Shadows, Mad Hamish wispered:

[... Snow Crash viruses ...]
>attempting to put a little fear into those sammies that have been
>known to shrug off panther shells and hellblasts.

Well, Hellblasts are probably the worst possible spells to throw at a sam.
Target number is Body, which is generally very good, and the Drain is really
awful. A far better combat spell to use would be either Stunball (if you
want to stick with published spells) or a D damage version of Manaball.
A sam's Willpower tends to be somewhat lower than their Body, and the Drain
is a *lot* easier to handle.

If the opposition has an initiate magician or two shielding their teammates,
damaging manipulations tend to be the way to go. The drain code is a bit
higher, but the target number base is 4, rather than (Attribute)+(Shielding)
which could be 12 or more. (They also work wonders against those nasty
paranormal critters).

--
Tim Little

From:	t_little@**********.utas.edu.au (Timothy Little)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Tue, 16 Jan 1996 08:36:04 +1100

Message no. 42 >>I'd say the ROM chip is physically replaced with the newer model.
>>Mind you if you prefer your method of stuffing around with people do it. (As
>>if you need my permission!)
>
>Not upgrading the whole cyber inplant, just the software. And I am
>attempting to put a little fear into those sammies that have been
>known to shrug off panther shells and hellblasts.

One interesting thing that I have noticed about SR is the difference in
magnitude between personal Body ratings and vehicular Body ratings.
To see what I mean, try comparing the effect of a heavy pistol shot against
a Chrysler Nissan Patrol (A typical security vehicle) with the same shot
against the Bodyguard archetype wearing heavy armour.

The shot: Skill 4 shot with sufficient aiming & extras, +4 combat pool
against TN# 2 gives average 6.7 successes.

The resistance:
The Chrysler has a body of 3 and armour 6, giving 6 dice (Body + armour/2)
to roll. The target number is of course 2 (9-armour-body, minimum 2). The
vehicle armour is insufficent to completely stop the shot, but it reduces
the level to L.
On average, it will score 5 successes, for a net of 1.7 in the attacker's
favour and a final damage of about Moderate level.
(A civilian vehicle such as the Americar has Body 2 and no armour, giving
a 7L attack with an average of 0.3 successes, average damage level is D).

The Bodyguard has 9 dice to roll (assuming a stationary target like the
parked vehicle) against a target number of 2, getting 7.5 on average.
That's an average net of 0.8 in the bodyguard's favour, not eneough to stage
down from Moderate.

In short, a well-aimed shot that will render a civilian vehicle completely
inoperable, will do no more damage to a person than it will to an armoured
security vehicle.

Just for fun, I'll compare an armoured troll to a boosted GMC Riverine (a
security patrol boat). Shooting with Skill 7, vision mag 3, smartlink and
aiming to cancel movement and/or visibility modifiers, the firer shoots a
Defiance T-250 slug round. 14 dice, TN#2, 11.7 successes average.
The Riverine has had 3 points extra armour added and its Body boosted by 2,
for a total of 10 dice to roll against TN#2, for around 8.3 average. 3.4
extra attack successes usually stage it up to Serious damage.

The troll has Body 11, +1 for dermal armour, and 7 combat pool to roll.
Wearing heavy armour the TN# is 2, and 19 dice give about 15.8 successes.
The 4.1 net resistance successes will stage the damage to nothing.

Trolls are meant to be tough, but this is ridiculous.

--
Tim Little

From:	seb@***.ripco.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:40:04 -0600 (CST)

Message no. 43 >
> If the opposition has an initiate magician or two shielding their teammates,
> damaging manipulations tend to be the way to go. The drain code is a bit
> higher, but the target number base is 4, rather than (Attribute)+(Shielding)
> which could be 12 or more. (They also work wonders against those nasty
> paranormal critters).
>
> --
> Tim Little
>
An interesting note on DM spells- sams can defend with combat pool. Also,
regardindg paranormals, I hope you did NOT mean insect spirits or anything
with imunity to normal weapons (read last line of description in European
paranormals). Imunity to normal weapons gives AUTOMATIC succeses vs elemental
types of damage. YEACH. Mana spells are good vs sams, at least stock npc's,
but Iv'e seen player sams with will beyond racail max, and with arenal boosts,
higher than body. Paranormals and mages are common opposition in our
campaign, though.

--
() _
/\ /) //
/ ) o _, // o // _
/__/__<_(_) o //__<_</_</_
/| />
|/ </

From:	TopCat <topcat@******.net>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:16:08 -0600

Message no. 44 At 04:32 PM 1/15/96 -0500, Tim Little wrote:
>[snipped about Hellblast being bad against samurai]

Hellblasts are also usually cast at such a low force (so that drain doesn't
kill the caster) that anyone can resist them easily. Samurai don't get so
much as a suntan from any hellblast I've ever seen cast.

I have, however, watched a magician knock himself out several times and once
he even managed to record dozens of kills when he wiped out a horde of devil
rats with a single spell (he passed out then too). So I guess the spell has
it's uses. (Due to "friends in melee" a horde of devil rats is scarier than
a gang of trolls).

My suggestion for those would-be 'blasters out there is get your spell
exclusive and fetish dependant. Bigger dice, easier drain, and if you rely
on that spell as anything other than an emergency device you'll need every
bit of help you can get.

------------------------------------------------------------
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// /// /// /// //// //// //
//// ///// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// ////// /////
/// ///// /// /// /// /////// ////// //////
// ///// /// /// //////// /// /// /// ////// ///////
/ ///// /// //////// /// /// ////// ////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
------------------------------------------------------------
Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
------------------------------------------------------------
"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------

From:	"A Halliwell" <u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:24:01 +0000 (GMT)

Message no. 45 |
|At 04:32 PM 1/15/96 -0500, Tim Little wrote:
|>[snipped about Hellblast being bad against samurai]
|
|Hellblasts are also usually cast at such a low force (so that drain doesn't
|kill the caster) that anyone can resist them easily. Samurai don't get so
|much as a suntan from any hellblast I've ever seen cast.
|
|I have, however, watched a magician knock himself out several times and once
|he even managed to record dozens of kills when he wiped out a horde of devil
|rats with a single spell (he passed out then too). So I guess the spell has
|it's uses. (Due to "friends in melee" a horde of devil rats is scarier than
|a gang of trolls).
|
|My suggestion for those would-be 'blasters out there is get your spell
|exclusive and fetish dependant. Bigger dice, easier drain, and if you rely
|on that spell as anything other than an emergency device you'll need every
|bit of help you can get.

Get youself a fetish focus to resist the drain!!!!
--
______________________________________________________________________________
| | Zaphod Beeblebroxs' last meal was taken at the |
| u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk | Restaraunt at the end of the universe, since when |
| | he has been catapulted through time in a Hagunenon |
| | Spaceship, eaten by a carbon copy of the ravenous |
| | bugblatter beast of traal, received strange and |
| |unedifying instructions from himself (in his sleep!)|
| Andrew Halliwell | and in consequence made his way to the office |
| | building of the Hitch-Hikers guide to the Galaxy, |
| Foundation Year |which was then unaccountably attacked by a squadron |
| | of Frog Star fighters, Hauled in it's entirety off |
| Leading to | the surface of the planet and is now making it's |
| Principal Subjects in |way (with Zaphods' mysterious new friend Roosta) to |
| Visual Arts | the even more mysterious Frog Star. |
| & | He is therefore, not unnaturally, feeling a little |
| Computer Science | peckish........ - Douglas Adams |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From:	Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Tue, 16 Jan 1996 19:03:10 +1100 (EST)

Message no. 46 >If the opposition has an initiate magician or two shielding their teammates,
>damaging manipulations tend to be the way to go. The drain code is a bit
>higher, but the target number base is 4, rather than (Attribute)+(Shielding)
>which could be 12 or more. (They also work wonders against those nasty
>paranormal critters).

And they get stopped by armour... :)

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

From:	Robert Watkins <robertdw@*******.com.au>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Tue, 16 Jan 1996 19:24:27 +1100 (EST)

Message no. 47 >|My suggestion for those would-be 'blasters out there is get your spell
>|exclusive and fetish dependant. Bigger dice, easier drain, and if you rely
>|on that spell as anything other than an emergency device you'll need every
>|bit of help you can get.
>
>Get youself a fetish focus to resist the drain!!!!

Tsk, tsk, tsk... fetish foci are FOCI, afterall... so you could get focus
addiction from them too. Wouldn't want too many of them lying around. :)

Also, would you please cut your replies back? You don't need to include
the ENTIRE message you're replying to.

--
*************************************************************************
* .--_ # "My opinions may have changed, but not the fact *
* _-0(#)) # that I'm right." -- Old Fortune Saying *
* @__ )/ # *
* )=(===__==,= # Robert Watkins <---> robertdw@*******.com.au *
* {}== \--==--`= # *
* ,_) \ # "A friend is someone who watches the same *
* L_===__)=, # TV programs as you" *
*************************************************************************

From:	"Mark Steedman" <M.J.Steedman@***.rgu.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Tue, 16 Jan 1996 11:50:43 GMT

Message no. 48 Sebastian Wiers writes

> An interesting note on DM spells- sams can defend with combat pool.
you also typically get half armour, though you can get immunity under
the right conditions, they work well at force 7 or 8 vs folks in
armour jackets and so on but security armour or even moderate critter
armour slows them like mad.

> Also,
> regardindg paranormals, I hope you did NOT mean insect spirits or anything
> with imunity to normal weapons (read last line of description in European
> paranormals). Imunity to normal weapons gives AUTOMATIC succeses vs elemental
> types of damage. YEACH.
Vs spells?? well the bugs get armour as well in 2nd ed, that was a
nasty suprise the first time i met it, on thier body scores its
laughable.

> Mana spells are good vs sams, at least stock npc's,
> but Iv'e seen player sams with will beyond racail max, and with arenal boosts,
> higher than body. Paranormals and mages are common opposition in our
> campaign, though.
>
Yeah, two methods seem to work, combat spell and 6D damage codes, i
play spells have to be staged down all the way exactly because you
cannot hurt shielded targets without force 12 spells otherwise.
Or get you big damaging manipulation and rolls lots and lots of dice,
if the target has low armour its slag otherwise run it out of dice
even elementals vs guns fall for that fairly well as they have very
limited dice available though getting enough dice rolling willpower
gets tricky, Lmgs are quite good for this simply becasue burst fire
does base D and you have a large clip, if the critter has 12 plus
armour (force 6 spirit) power level is really irrelevant.

Mark

From:	"Mark Steedman" <M.J.Steedman@***.rgu.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Tue, 16 Jan 1996 11:55:42 GMT

Message no. 49 TopCat writes

>
> My suggestion for those would-be 'blasters out there is get your spell
> exclusive and fetish dependant. Bigger dice, easier drain, and if you rely
> on that spell as anything other than an emergency device you'll need every
> bit of help you can get.
>
Thats why i like stun spells (F/2) - 1 gives 2's for drain at force
6, the 2+2+2 exclusive fetish fireball does fairly well as an
emergency 'that vicinity has to blow up now' spell. Hellblast is in
my opinion only worth it at 8+2+2, game sensible limit for 12D damage
at 10D drain, sure you will fall over (well come on karma) but if you
get that success BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM. Never seen it done though, its
just not worth 8 karma for something you hope never to need.

Fetish foci are ok, you can make several rating 4 - 5 ones for 1
karma point, tes ouch for one shot but 3000 yen per dice is very
expensive to buy, but then you are effectively buting the
talismongers karma time and skill.

Mark

From:	shadow@**.kensco.net (The Shadowdancer)
Subject:	Re: Ideas
Date:	Wed, 17 Jan 1996 06:24:32 GMT

Message no. 50 >From out of the Shadows, westec@******.COM wispered:

> Now write a virus,
>>|either to slow down or speed up a piece of cyber, or to frag up number
>>|crunching. Modify a flash pack or something similar to hold this
>>|virus, then send it via sequenced flashes. Bingo, prog downloaded
>>|into the unsuspecting sammie. We are working on different viruses and
>>|their effects, and I will post them as soon as they are ready.
>>
>
>
> who you gonna get to hold still long enough for that much code to flash???
>
>
Well first off, the code does not have to be that big. I have been
playing with a few real virii that do everything from fragmenting
files to crashing hard drives, and they are very small (about
100-300Kb). Plus, have you seen Johnny Mneumonic? They downloaded
320 gigs of info inside of 30 secs. What makes you think that .3-.5
Mp could not get transferred in less then one second?

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 51 >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:

>First off, you check it. If this sort of thing is known to exist (and
>it would have been tried a while ago if it can be made to work) then
>there would be a large market for 'de-clawed' software. But the main

There prolly is, but since it is not written in either the rules or
the source books, it officially has not happened yet. Then it becomes
the GM's call.

>thing is, being vulnerable to something that can get you killed because
>you *looked* at it, when the alternative is to use surgery, program
>through induction pads, or other methods, is unlikely to appeal to
>most people who have more than a passing interest in their personal
>survival.
>
These too have been thought of. Why not set up a system of wires
barely below the surface of the walls and such, and have the virus
code running through them. Sammie touches the wall or whatever and
ZAP! instant transferal. Or use a modified taser dart and aim for
the head. Harder to hit, but results are the same. The reason we
went with the flash transferal is first it is easier, second it is
cheaper, and third most sammurai would not think of protecting them.

>I think you overstate the differences between weapons. There's more
>difference between my Glock 21 when I switch from 230-grain to 180-grain
>bullets, than when I move from that to a .44 Magnum. Ballistics are
>pretty well understood and rather constant: at Shadowrun ranges, all
>your smartlink needs is the muzzle velocity and projectile weight. To
>be honest it doesn't even need that: at 250 metres, an assault rifle is
>still shooting to point-of-aim. British Army 'battlesight' range is 300.
>
When comparing weapons of the same type, the differances would not
matter. But when something completly new comes on the scene, even
minute differences in weight, recoil, muzzle velocity, and such could
seriously throw the aim totally off. Especially at long range, one
degree of difference could cause you to miss by meters. Plus, even if
smartlinks are available to the general public (with permit), the
software provided would be for legalally possessable weapons, not mil
spec. And that software would need to be gotten later.

>
>There is also the negative effect... it wouldn't take long to notice
>everyone with a Wiremasters firearms chip who got the upgrade suddenly
>couldn't hit anything in Knight-Errant uniform. The customers just switch
>to Renraku, and Wiremasters suddenly can't sell skillchips. Meanwhile,
>the Knight-Errant troops using that software are wiped out by a team in
>stolen uniforms.
>
I was not reffering to the prog or chips to avoid KE personnel. I was
reffering to the Microsoft syndrome.

>> Yes they do. Think about your local Armed Forces. Those poor schmos
>> are given new and interesting equipment and software to "field test".
>> And even if you are a smart Shadowrunner, everything has a
>> vulnerablity.
>
>Uh, no we weren't, and I speak both as an end-user and as a developer.

And I am speaking from the experiances of both an Army comm officer
and a Navel Elec. War. specialist.

>
>"Mages the most down-trodden"? "Drawbacks"? Please. Magicians have
>vulnerabilities, but I'd hardly call a class of characters with as
>much power as the mages 'downtrodden'.
>
HMMM.... let us think about this one.

First. Magicians are Karmic black holes. Everything that gives them
any power costs great amounts of karma. And given that by book rules,
the average karma award is 2-4 points...

Second. Wether using foci or not, projecting or not, percieving or
not, Magicians are the easiest to search out and destroy. Especially
since most Magicians keep there essance high to avoid that nasty
physical drain.

Third. Relating to second, lets look at getting hurt. Take a deadly
wound, possible magic loss. Use a stim patch, possible magic loss.
Get an arm blown off, deffenent magic loss (from the replacement, be
it natural or cybernetic).

Fourth. High costs (both monetary and time wise) to acquire bonuses
given to characters that can get cyber. Spell locks cost quite a bit,
wether buying them or creating them, as do other locks, plus the
astral beacon complex, plus the foci addiction rules. Why not initiate
you say? See point one.

>Cybered characters have more than enough problems as it is without
>making their equipment suddenly fall apart on them. Unless, of course,
>magicians find their Sorcery skill degrades over time, in which case

See foci addiction in "Awakenings". Otherwise, we are speaking about
a skill compared to a piece of equipment.

>the situation is even, but most 'downtrodden' magicians in my experience
>are complaining about having had a Rating-8 power focus - that they
>carried, active, everywhere - stolen. Show me a samurai who does something
>similar and I'll show you a dead PC.
>
They must have been very long played mages to get a rating 8 power
focus. Plus the GM missed a very potent device to destroy that player
by having it stolen, not subject to a grounded spell. A rating 8 PF
would light up the astral like a lighthouse.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 52 >From out of the Shadows, Timothy Little wispered:

>Well, Hellblasts are probably the worst possible spells to throw at a sam.
>Target number is Body, which is generally very good, and the Drain is really
>awful. A far better combat spell to use would be either Stunball (if you
>want to stick with published spells) or a D damage version of Manaball.
>A sam's Willpower tends to be somewhat lower than their Body, and the Drain
>is a *lot* easier to handle.
>
Been there, done that. Sorry, but when you drop a particular troll
about 5 times with a mana spell, they learn. Now, everyone either
maxes willpower or gets close.

>If the opposition has an initiate magician or two shielding their teammates,
>damaging manipulations tend to be the way to go. The drain code is a bit
>higher, but the target number base is 4, rather than (Attribute)+(Shielding)
>which could be 12 or more. (They also work wonders against those nasty
>paranormal critters).
>
But when the sammies in question regularly get between 27 and 35 for
initiative, mages go down quick.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 53 Regarding Chucking Hellblasts at Street Samurai, I don't think it's such a
horrible idea to use hellblast on just about anything... Sure... the Samurai
may resist most or all of the spell's damage with his body, BUT, can he survive
all of the additional damage that occurs when the spell's elemental effect of
fire cooks off all of the rounds in his gun, and the extra ammo which he keeps
in a pocket, or worse yet, wrapped around his body... this gets especially
nasty if the Sammie in question uses explosive ammo. The high drain may knock
out your mage, but isn't the satisfaction that you just hit everyone in the
area of effect with a (Force)D attack worth it? My shaman used this trick once
to eliminate about half of a corpsec strike team who all got caught in the AOE.
Sure, he passed out, but the other characters were singing his praises while
dragging him out of the burning building...

Just My Two Pence.
The Kumquat.

Support Whirled Peas.

Message no. 54 >But when the sammies in question regularly get between 27 and 35 for
>initiative, mages go down quick.

The trick is in identifying the magician... they don't have a great big
neon sign saying: shoot me, I'm a mage... Well, if they do, it's probably
really a Bullet Barrier, stacked up with an Armour spell.

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

Message no. 55 Robert Watkins writes

> >But when the sammies in question regularly get between 27 and 35 for
> >initiative, mages go down quick.
>
> The trick is in identifying the magician... they don't have a great big
> neon sign saying: shoot me, I'm a mage... Well, if they do, it's probably
> really a Bullet Barrier, stacked up with an Armour spell.
>
Very true.

but take your magician say 4+1D6 initative even +3D6 reflexes adds up
to an average of 18 (4+4D6) and you can add +4 quick, int and reac
locked, only equivalent to the wired 3 and reac enhancer needed to
make the sams average 30 odd.
result mage with 12+4D6, thats an average of 26 for initiative, ok
improved invis so they waste all their actions looking for you
followed by welcome to force 6 sleep spell can work just as well and
is better magical style.

You can GM dependant wind characters up to initative averages well
into the 30's or even over 40 but the specialistion and munchkinism
required generally does not generate pc's that are any good at
anything but up front combat, generally uninteresting. The fastest PC
i have seen had wired 3 and holds my system PC record at 35 (physical),
once and only once!

Mark

Message no. 56 > >But when the sammies in question regularly get between 27 and 35 for
> >initiative, mages go down quick.

Well, that is if the mages haven't figured out that they can go just as
fast, if not faster.

> The trick is in identifying the magician... they don't have a great big
> neon sign saying: shoot me, I'm a mage... Well, if they do, it's probably
> really a Bullet Barrier, stacked up with an Armour spell.

Mages in games that I run learn pretty quickly. The one time we had a new
player show up and want to be a mage, the rest of the group went out and bought him
a battle rifle and a set of standard-party-issue armor. When he complained that
his character couldn't shoot, they said "Carry it, or *we'll* shoot you."
Protective coloration is your friend, as much as a spell-locked Armor or
Personal Combat Sense is. If you dress like the rest of the group, the enemy can't
tell that you're the one with the pitiful physical stats. Granted, that Hellblast
may give it away, but by that time it's really too late.

Mark.

--
TURING@******.COM | TURING@**.COM |Finger TURING@******.COM for PGP Key
"Oh, wait! No! What if we want | 1024/AA575951 1994/07/17
to use a plan that works?" | 4A 57 CD 4E A0 90 F6 E0
-Brain | 9E 5E 37 68 1D 3C FC 8E
The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the views of normal,
non-drooling people.

Message no. 57 In message <30f0aeeb.1279258@***.98.20.10> shadowrn@********.itribe.net writes:
> >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:
> >I think you overstate the differences between weapons. There's more
> >difference between my Glock 21 when I switch from 230-grain to 180-grain
> >bullets, than when I move from that to a .44 Magnum. Ballistics are
> >pretty well understood and rather constant: at Shadowrun ranges, all
> >your smartlink needs is the muzzle velocity and projectile weight. To
> >be honest it doesn't even need that: at 250 metres, an assault rifle is
> >still shooting to point-of-aim. British Army 'battlesight' range is 300.
> >
> When comparing weapons of the same type, the differances would not
> matter. But when something completly new comes on the scene, even
> minute differences in weight, recoil, muzzle velocity, and such could
> seriously throw the aim totally off. Especially at long range, one
> degree of difference could cause you to miss by meters.

And this gets us back into the "I can hit a Figure 11 every time at 500
yards with a SA80, so why can't I hit a man-size target in Shadowrun at
that range?" argument. By the time you get to the realms of serious
ballistic computing, you're (a) talking about a Smartlink-II (the only
system, other than air-timed grenades, which even interfaces with a
rangefinder) and (b) outside Shadowrun maximum range. For an assault rifle
at 300 metres, difference between point of aim and point of impact
assuming you zeroed at 100 is about four inches.

Just zero it in and shoot it. Why would it be any harder than setting up
any other sighting system? The Smartlink II I can see needing more ballistic
data, since it actually takes range into account, but not a basic type.

> Plus, even if
> smartlinks are available to the general public (with permit), the
> software provided would be for legalally possessable weapons, not mil
> spec. And that software would need to be gotten later.

If I buy an Aimpoint sight, how does the sight 'know' whether the pistol
it's mounted on is a legal Glock 17 or an illegal Glock 18?

> >Uh, no we weren't, and I speak both as an end-user and as a developer.
>
> And I am speaking from the experiances of both an Army comm officer
> and a Navel Elec. War. specialist.

Different countries, different practices, obviously.

> >"Mages the most down-trodden"? "Drawbacks"? Please. Magicians
have
> >vulnerabilities, but I'd hardly call a class of characters with as
> >much power as the mages 'downtrodden'.
> >
> HMMM.... let us think about this one.
>
> First. Magicians are Karmic black holes. Everything that gives them
> any power costs great amounts of karma. And given that by book rules,
> the average karma award is 2-4 points...

Try a few published adventures, then: those throw lots more at you.

> Second. Wether using foci or not, projecting or not, percieving or
> not, Magicians are the easiest to search out and destroy. Especially
> since most Magicians keep there essance high to avoid that nasty
> physical drain.

One peek in astral and a low-essence character can be clearly seen: no
matter how much you advance, a samurai never gets to mask his cyber.
An initiate magician gets to mask both their own aura, and as they go
on they get to hide more and more foci too.

And a samurai can be reduced to arms-length dangerous by disarming them.
The only way to disarm a magician is to kill him, or blind him.

> Third. Relating to second, lets look at getting hurt. Take a deadly
> wound, possible magic loss. Use a stim patch, possible magic loss.
> Get an arm blown off, deffenent magic loss (from the replacement, be
> it natural or cybernetic).

Ditto the same for cybered characters losing cyberware when wounded. And
remember, if you clone your own tissue for a replacement then you can
regain the Essence lost to the limb loss. And a magician who loses
Magic Attribute can initiate to get more: a samurai can't do the same.

> Fourth. High costs (both monetary and time wise) to acquire bonuses
> given to characters that can get cyber. Spell locks cost quite a bit,
> wether buying them or creating them, as do other locks, plus the
> astral beacon complex, plus the foci addiction rules. Why not initiate
> you say? See point one.

And cyberware isn't cheap? You can need four or five runs just to cover
the surgery, before you even think about the cyberware itself.

The balance between magicians and cybered types was badly out in
First Edition: 2nd Ed SR makes it much more balanced. I play both
magicians and samurai, and don't feel either is much more powerful than
the other. If you try to fight by the other guy's rules you lose. Make
him fight your battle and you win.

> >the situation is even, but most 'downtrodden' magicians in my experience
> >are complaining about having had a Rating-8 power focus - that they
> >carried, active, everywhere - stolen. Show me a samurai who does something
> >similar and I'll show you a dead PC.
> >
> They must have been very long played mages to get a rating 8 power
> focus. Plus the GM missed a very potent device to destroy that player
> by having it stolen, not subject to a grounded spell. A rating 8 PF
> would light up the astral like a lighthouse.

...but it's still bonded and can be grounded through at any time. That
confused things nicely. And no, it wasn't a particularly long-played
magician, it was one who learned Enchanting under First Edition rules.
Eight points of karma (and a few more for rerolls) and wham, a bonded
Rating-8 power focus.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 58 The Kumquat posted...

>Regarding Chucking Hellblasts at Street Samurai, I don't think it's such a
>horrible idea to use hellblast on just about anything... Sure... the Samurai
>may resist most or all of the spell's damage with his body, BUT, can he survive
>all of the additional damage that occurs when the spell's elemental effect of
>fire cooks off all of the rounds in his gun, and the extra ammo which he keeps
>in a pocket, or worse yet, wrapped around his body...

Page 113, Grimoire...

"GAMEMASTER NOTE: Terms such as 'blast' or 'fire' sometimes appear as part
of the description of spells that may or may not actually involve an
elemental effect. Check the description of the spell if the use of such
terms is unclear."

OK, as we all know... Hellblast just doesn't add up when it's reverse
engineered. It works as long as there is no elemental effect, though.

In the spell's description, it doesn't state that it uses the elemental
effects of fire or blast. It does, however, make the extremely vague
(FASA-standard) statement: "The hellblast spell can ignite combustible
materials in its blast area. Gamemaster discretion."

So what's this mean? Is it as good as an area ignite spell + a (force)D
area-effect spell? Does it get the elemental effect of fire for free?
Blast for free? Nope, it means GM discretion. So if your GM is
soft-hearted or needs a battle ended quick, then it's a good deal. If he's
cruel and nasty or has all night to play, then you may find yourself out of
luck.

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------------------------------------------------------------
Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
------------------------------------------------------------
"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 59 >But when the sammies in question regularly get between 27 and 35 for
>initiative, mages go down quick.

Our samurai aren't all that quick. Most of that due to the fact that
they're both trolls, the rest due to the low power level of the game.
Wired-2 is a standard in each, and they average 17-18 for initiative.

Magic-wise, we have one fast mage and one slow shaman. The fast mage is a
bleeder/sleeper. Point a gun at him and he starts to hemmorhage, make him
cast a spell and he's out cold. The shaman holds his own fairly well
because he usually doesn't end up in the line of fire at the start of combat.

Don't know why I did those examples, but here's what I would do if I were a
mage...

1) Have heaping hordes of elementals. As many as possible, as many types as
possible.
2) Wear as much armor as possible.
3) Use personal barriers.
4) Let the elementals sustain spells and handle physical combat.
5) Hide in some deep dark corner while going astral to handle the opposition
there.
6) Never show my face til the fight was over.

Simple and effective. Elementals make REAL quick work of most people,
forcing them to go into hand-to-hand combat instead of doing the really
damaging stuff like spellcasting or shooting. In the meantime, your team
can move up to help the spirits (friends in melee!) or maybe just pick and
choose their targets from a distance.

How do most of you mage players go about this stuff? I'm curious...

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------------------------------------------------------------
Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
------------------------------------------------------------
"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 60 >From out of the Shadows, Robert Watkins wispered:

>>But when the sammies in question regularly get between 27 and 35 for
>>initiative, mages go down quick.
>
>The trick is in identifying the magician... they don't have a great big
>neon sign saying: shoot me, I'm a mage... Well, if they do, it's probably
>really a Bullet Barrier, stacked up with an Armour spell.

But in a gun fight, when the sammies in question get at least two
turns before anyone else, they tend to fill the air with large amounts
of lead, and hitting anything they aim at. Plus, they usually have
the teams mages spotting...

Also, how many sammies do you know have fetishes and foci pinned to
their leathers...
-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 61 >From out of the Shadows, "Mark Steedman" wispered:

>You can GM dependant wind characters up to initative averages well
>into the 30's or even over 40 but the specialistion and munchkinism
>required generally does not generate pc's that are any good at
>anything but up front combat, generally uninteresting. The fastest PC
>i have seen had wired 3 and holds my system PC record at 35 (physical),
>once and only once!
>
The highest we have ever had was 42. The sams average is 37. But our
players tend to enchant their dice...

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 62 On Thu, 18 Jan 1996, The Shadowdancer wrote:

> But in a gun fight, when the sammies in question get at least two
> turns before anyone else, they tend to fill the air with large amounts
> of lead, and hitting anything they aim at. Plus, they usually have
> the teams mages spotting...

I'm sorry, but in my experience, sammies who go first *do* fill
the air with a lot of lead, but by *no* means do they hit everything they
aim at. Generally, the result of high initiative is lots of spent
casings, lots of stray rounds, and lots of collateral damage. Which is
typical of modern fire combat.
By the way, did anyone else appreciate the gunfight in "Heat" as
much as I did? How often do you see people actually having to change
clips and using principles as useful as bounding overwatch and
suppressive fire in popular cinema? A refreshing change from your
typical shoot-'em-up.

Marc

Message no. 63 Marc Renouf:
>By the way, did anyone else appreciate the gunfight in "Heat" as much
>as I did? How often do you see people actually having to change clips
>and using principles as useful as bounding overwatch and suppresion
>fire in popular cinema? A refreshing change from your typical
>shoot-'em-up.

I agree whole-hardedly. As a matter of fact, I pick this as the best movie
of 95. They actually created interesting characters with realistic lives
as both the criminals and the police. DeNiro and Pacino gave excellent
performances as you would expect from such fine actors. I also enjoyed
the interesting parrellels between the cops and the robbers. The scene
between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in the coffee shop was excellent.
And as Mark mentioned, the scene where they have that firefight with
cops was extremely exhilirating and had me on the edge of my seat.
This movie is a definite must see.

U-Gene << somewhat of a movie maniac >>

Message no. 64 Marc A Renouf wrote:
> By the way, did anyone else appreciate the gunfight in "Heat" as
> much as I did? How often do you see people actually having to change

While it was a good (perhaps great) film, I couldn't believe, that out of
so many cops, all of them were trained at the Imperial Stormtrooper
Marksman School. Pacino and Kilmer should have been dog food.

--
Rick Jones Usenet is a way of being annoyed by people you
rick@******.com otherwise never would have met.
Meyrick@***.com -- John J. Kinyon
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~rickj/

Message no. 65 On Thu, 18 Jan 1996, Rick Jones wrote:

> > By the way, did anyone else appreciate the gunfight in "Heat" as
> > much as I did? How often do you see people actually having to change
>
> While it was a good (perhaps great) film, I couldn't believe, that out of
> so many cops, all of them were trained at the Imperial Stormtrooper
> Marksman School. Pacino and Kilmer should have been dog food.

Have you ever tried to fire a 9mm at ranges over 50-60 feet? I
have, and against a stationary target, my shot grouping is not all that
wonderful. Now imagine shooting at moving targets who have cover and are
returning fire. Automatic weapons fire, that is. You'll note that most
of the time the cops' heads were down and they were cowering behind their
cars as the crew laced the area with suppressive fire. That's the way it
*should* work. Sure, the cops had a few shotguns, but they didn't get
much chance to fire them. Cops are also not known for carrying a plethora
of ammunition. Had the crew tangled with the SWAT team from the earlier
scene, they would have been toast. The black-and-whites, however, were
ill-equipped and ill-prepared for the kind of brutality that they were on
the receiving end of.
The scene was also realistic in that in all of the volumes of
fire put out by the criminals, they only downed (note: downed, not
killed) like three people.

Marc

Message no. 66 >But in a gun fight, when the sammies in question get at least two
>turns before anyone else, they tend to fill the air with large amounts
>of lead, and hitting anything they aim at. Plus, they usually have
>the teams mages spotting...

But the team mages are just as slow. You have to hop into Astral Space to
do that, you know. Besides, identifying initiated magicians can be
awkward.
>Also, how many sammies do you know have fetishes and foci pinned to
>their leathers...

Well, there's the Indian in my party... Also, the physad likes his
fetishes. Curiosly enough, the mage doesn't actually use fetishes, and
his foci looks a lot like the katanas the two sams carry around (oh, and
his ring, which you don't see through the gloves anyway).

Mages do NOT have to be obvious.

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

Message no. 67 |Well, there's the Indian in my party... Also, the physad likes his
|fetishes. Curiosly enough, the mage doesn't actually use fetishes, and
|his foci looks a lot like the katanas the two sams carry around (oh, and
|his ring, which you don't see through the gloves anyway).
|
|Mages do NOT have to be obvious.
|
|
When a focus is bonded, it vanishes, becoming invisible/intangible to all
but other mages (using astral sight). This means that it doesn't matter what
focusses you have, cos they can't be seen anyway. (Unless you mean weapon
focusses which would have to be visible)..

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| | Zaphod Beeblebroxs' last meal was taken at the |
| u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk | Restaraunt at the end of the universe, since when |
| | he has been catapulted through time in a Hagunenon |
| | Spaceship, eaten by a carbon copy of the ravenous |
| | bugblatter beast of traal, received strange and |
| |unedifying instructions from himself (in his sleep!)|
| Andrew Halliwell | and in consequence made his way to the office |
| | building of the Hitch-Hikers guide to the Galaxy, |
| Foundation Year |which was then unaccountably attacked by a squadron |
| | of Frog Star fighters, Hauled in it's entirety off |
| Leading to | the surface of the planet and is now making it's |
| Principal Subjects in |way (with Zaphods' mysterious new friend Roosta) to |
| Visual Arts | the even more mysterious Frog Star. |
| & | He is therefore, not unnaturally, feeling a little |
| Computer Science | peckish........ - Douglas Adams |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 68 TopCat said on 18 Jan 96...

> OK, as we all know... Hellblast just doesn't add up when it's reverse
> engineered. It works as long as there is no elemental effect, though.

It works as long as there's 1.5 elemental effects, not 1 or 2... +1 Drain
Target should do the trick to make it fit the spell design rules.

> In the spell's description, it doesn't state that it uses the elemental
> effects of fire or blast. It does, however, make the extremely vague
> (FASA-standard) statement: "The hellblast spell can ignite combustible
> materials in its blast area. Gamemaster discretion."

IMHO this is because the SR2 rulebook does not include definitions of the
elemental effects -- those are in the Grimoire -- and FASA does a very
good job of not cross-referencing to other books that haven't been brought
out yet (unlike, say, Leading Edge Games...).

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
So wasteful. So foolish.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 69 Gurth writes

> TopCat said on 18 Jan 96...
>
> > OK, as we all know... Hellblast just doesn't add up when it's reverse
> > engineered. It works as long as there is no elemental effect, though.
>
> It works as long as there's 1.5 elemental effects, not 1 or 2... +1 Drain
> Target should do the trick to make it fit the spell design rules.
>
Well yet again FASA cannot use thier own charts, or have a typo.
Hellblast does cause elemental effects, but at the combat spell rate.
By the Grimoire the correct drain code is ((F/2)+5)D.
So Gurths right.
I leave the spell as it is simply because D damage and area effect is
very powerful, 1 success and they all fall down! (net by the book but
unless you want shielding to be 'combat spells don't hurt me!' rule
that you have to stage spells down, initiates have enough fun as it
is, willpower target numbers of 24 have been seen in game, though
that did use two folks on one person).

Mark

Message no. 70 On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, A Halliwell wrote:

> When a focus is bonded, it vanishes, becoming invisible/intangible to all
> but other mages (using astral sight). This means that it doesn't matter what
> focusses you have, cos they can't be seen anyway. (Unless you mean weapon
> focusses which would have to be visible)..

Er, what? I don't remember this. Spell locks disappear, yes, but normal
foci? 'Course, last time I read the Grimoire was during the Great
Grounding Argument, and I sort of skipped the disappearing foci rules.

--Craig

Message no. 71 |
|
|
|On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, A Halliwell wrote:
|
|> When a focus is bonded, it vanishes, becoming invisible/intangible to all
|> but other mages (using astral sight). This means that it doesn't matter what
|> focusses you have, cos they can't be seen anyway. (Unless you mean weapon
|> focusses which would have to be visible)..
|
|Er, what? I don't remember this. Spell locks disappear, yes, but normal
|foci? 'Course, last time I read the Grimoire was during the Great
|Grounding Argument, and I sort of skipped the disappearing foci rules.
|
I may have got it wrong then. The way I see it, spell locks are just a
specialised focus. Whe other foci should vanish when bonded as well...
If I'm wrong..... Sorry.
|

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| | Zaphod Beeblebroxs' last meal was taken at the |
| u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk | Restaraunt at the end of the universe, since when |
| | he has been catapulted through time in a Hagunenon |
| | Spaceship, eaten by a carbon copy of the ravenous |
| | bugblatter beast of traal, received strange and |
| |unedifying instructions from himself (in his sleep!)|
| Andrew Halliwell | and in consequence made his way to the office |
| | building of the Hitch-Hikers guide to the Galaxy, |
| Foundation Year |which was then unaccountably attacked by a squadron |
| | of Frog Star fighters, Hauled in it's entirety off |
| Leading to | the surface of the planet and is now making it's |
| Principal Subjects in |way (with Zaphods' mysterious new friend Roosta) to |
| Visual Arts | the even more mysterious Frog Star. |
| & | He is therefore, not unnaturally, feeling a little |
| Computer Science | peckish........ - Douglas Adams |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 72 Robert Watkins writes
>
> Well, there's the Indian in my party... Also, the physad likes his
> fetishes. Curiosly enough, the mage doesn't actually use fetishes, and
> his foci looks a lot like the katanas the two sams carry around (oh, and
> his ring, which you don't see through the gloves anyway).
>
> Mages do NOT have to be obvious.
>
Which is what makes masking so powerful. You can easily carry a gun
to blend in, in fact even if you cannot 'use' it guns make great
threaten the bad guy with items (bit difficult with a manabolt
without using it) and wonderful stubborn lock removal devices that
don't cause drain (even with really lousy dice).

The best of this trick is the ability to wander into places unarmed
and masked mundane, real pain for the cyber enhanced though there are
solutions that don't require high grade initiates on every door.

Mark

Message no. 73 >And a samurai can be reduced to arms-length dangerous by disarming them.
>The only way to disarm a magician is to kill him, or blind him.

I'd rather take my chances trying to blind a mage than grab the SPAS-22 from
the troll sam. There are other ways though. Stim patches (as high a rating
as possible) do wonders. Hallucinogens would work wonderfully. There are a
whole range of effects that can cripple a mage and most can be done easily
and most without legal repercussions:

"He was looking at me like he was gonna do some mojo or something! So I
stuck my spurs through his eyes. He'll be ok after the doc fixes him up
with some good cybereyes, though."

"I had to kill him, he tried to cast a spell on me, I could feel it."

>> Fourth. High costs (both monetary and time wise) to acquire bonuses
>> given to characters that can get cyber. Spell locks cost quite a bit,
>> wether buying them or creating them, as do other locks, plus the
>> astral beacon complex, plus the foci addiction rules. Why not initiate
>> you say? See point one.
>
>And cyberware isn't cheap? You can need four or five runs just to cover
>the surgery, before you even think about the cyberware itself.

Amen to that. Cyberware is far and away more costly than spell locks,
especially with hospital time and any upgrading of 'ware. If you're dumb
enough to have spell locks, then you deserve to pay for new ones every few
runs when those get aced.

The point of all this is that mages can get as good as samurai stat-wise and
STILL be able to cast spells. Also, it's a waste to try to make a mage a
samurai. Make him a mage and he'll do wonders.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 74 >I leave the spell as it is simply because D damage and area effect is
>very powerful, 1 success and they all fall down!

Ummm...if the target gets more than your one success on body dice (it is a
resisted spell) then nothing happens at all. No D damage to stage down.
Just a killer headache for the caster and a tingly sensation for the guy
resisting.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 75 >I may have got it wrong then. The way I see it, spell locks are just a
>specialised focus. Whe other foci should vanish when bonded as well...
>If I'm wrong..... Sorry.

Got it wrong, but that's ok. It happens :)

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 76 >
> >I leave the spell as it is simply because D damage and area effect is
> >very powerful, 1 success and they all fall down!
>
> Ummm...if the target gets more than your one success on body dice (it is a
> resisted spell) then nothing happens at all. No D damage to stage down.
> Just a killer headache for the caster and a tingly sensation for the guy
> resisting.

Actually, This exact thing happened to my caracter- I got three succeses, the
mage got two. But a lot of my eqipment still went boom, because the mage
rolled one real high roll, beating the object resistance (or maybe it was just
GM hissy fit at having a force 8 hell blast bounce off an elven samurai
holding a sniper rifle..)
SEB

and no, at 2400 baud I will not trim that sig post.
>
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> Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> "Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
> the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
> -- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

--
() _
/\ /) //
/ ) o _, // o // _
/__/__<_(_) o //__<_</_</_
/| />
|/ </

Message no. 77 >From out of the Shadows, Marc A Renouf wispered:

>
>

> I'm sorry, but in my experience, sammies who go first *do* fill
>the air with a lot of lead, but by *no* means do they hit everything they
>aim at. Generally, the result of high initiative is lots of spent
>casings, lots of stray rounds, and lots of collateral damage. Which is
>typical of modern fire combat.
>
No offense, but your sammies suck. My sammies almost always hit what
they aim for. And usually kill it.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 78 >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:

>> First. Magicians are Karmic black holes. Everything that gives them
>> any power costs great amounts of karma. And given that by book rules,
>> the average karma award is 2-4 points...
>
>Try a few published adventures, then: those throw lots more at you.
>
I have only played two: Total Eclipse and Silver Angel. In both the
average Karma was two. I have read through DNA/DOA and Mercurial.
Average Karma was three. Now if you were playing H or HB, then the
awards would be higher. Those are campaigns with lots of seperate
adventures, for all intents and porposes. Plus I like to keep my
runners on the short lease. Makes playing the same characters more
fun if you have to spend a couple of months/years building them.

>> Second. Wether using foci or not, projecting or not, percieving or
>> not, Magicians are the easiest to search out and destroy. Especially
>> since most Magicians keep there essance high to avoid that nasty
>> physical drain.
>
>One peek in astral and a low-essence character can be clearly seen: no
>matter how much you advance, a samurai never gets to mask his cyber.
>An initiate magician gets to mask both their own aura, and as they go
>on they get to hide more and more foci too.
>
True. But remember reason one. It takes about 17 karma to initiate
ot grade 0 without groups. Then the initiation gets really nasty.

>And a samurai can be reduced to arms-length dangerous by disarming them.
>The only way to disarm a magician is to kill him, or blind him.
>
You obiviously have not played with the mind set my sammies have. But
you are correct in that assumption. Still, mages are easier to disarm
then sammies, either through spells, capture, or the ubiquitous
narco-ject.

>> Third. Relating to second, lets look at getting hurt. Take a deadly
>> wound, possible magic loss. Use a stim patch, possible magic loss.
>> Get an arm blown off, deffenent magic loss (from the replacement, be
>> it natural or cybernetic).
>
>Ditto the same for cybered characters losing cyberware when wounded. And
>remember, if you clone your own tissue for a replacement then you can
>regain the Essence lost to the limb loss. And a magician who loses
>Magic Attribute can initiate to get more: a samurai can't do the same.
>
Most sammies do not lose cyber when wounded. If they did, then they
just have an essance hole to fill with that part again. They do not
lose any addition essance unless they get a larger (essance wise)
piece of cyber. And while it _maybe_ possible to gain essance through
own tissue replacement, first it is not proven. Second, it take about
ten years to vat grow an arm, 12 for a leg, etc. (DLOH, Gen-Con 95,
Shadowrunning 101). Third, mages still have a chance of losing
essance on the operating table, while a normal person does not, unless
getting major body mods. AND, mages lose essance from bio, while
sammies do not.

>> Fourth. High costs (both monetary and time wise) to acquire bonuses
>> given to characters that can get cyber. Spell locks cost quite a bit,
>> wether buying them or creating them, as do other locks, plus the
>> astral beacon complex, plus the foci addiction rules. Why not initiate
>> you say? See point one.
>
>And cyberware isn't cheap? You can need four or five runs just to cover
>the surgery, before you even think about the cyberware itself.
>
Still true. But look at the costs in Character Generation. Most of
the sammies I deal with ALWAYS take priority A for money. And since
there is not street index figured for equipment, and guns and ammo is
inexpensive compared to cyber...

>The balance between magicians and cybered types was badly out in
>First Edition: 2nd Ed SR makes it much more balanced. I play both
>magicians and samurai, and don't feel either is much more powerful than
>the other. If you try to fight by the other guy's rules you lose. Make
>him fight your battle and you win.
>
You are correct. My point is that sammies get the goods quicker, but
burn out faster, while mages tend to get power slower, but burn
longer. Just depends on whether you want one moment of glory this
week or one week of glory this year.

>> They must have been very long played mages to get a rating 8 power
>> focus. Plus the GM missed a very potent device to destroy that player
>> by having it stolen, not subject to a grounded spell. A rating 8 PF
>> would light up the astral like a lighthouse.
>
>...but it's still bonded and can be grounded through at any time. That
>confused things nicely. And no, it wasn't a particularly long-played
>magician, it was one who learned Enchanting under First Edition rules.
>Eight points of karma (and a few more for rerolls) and wham, a bonded
>Rating-8 power focus.
>
I had ment not only being subject to a grounded spell. And I play
Second Edition, where even with enchanting, power focuses tend to run
about 40 Karma for bonding.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 79 >From out of the Shadows, Robert Watkins wispered:

>
>But the team mages are just as slow. You have to hop into Astral Space to
>do that, you know. Besides, identifying initiated magicians can be

They usually have a mage in astral at all times during any point in
which a major battle is to erupt. And I as a rule do not use
initiates all that often, both for game balance towards the runners
and to reflect the fact that while mages are rare, initiates are even
rarer.

>Mages do NOT have to be obvious.
>
No, but most are...

NPC mages, that is.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 80 >From out of the Shadows, Craig S Dohmen wispered:

>Er, what? I don't remember this. Spell locks disappear, yes, but normal
>foci? 'Course, last time I read the Grimoire was during the Great
>Grounding Argument, and I sort of skipped the disappearing foci rules.
>
Foci do dissappear, but if you go by some of the novels, they do not.
But then there is that artistic license again...

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 81 >>
>>But the team mages are just as slow. You have to hop into Astral Space to
>>do that, you know. Besides, identifying initiated magicians can be
>
>They usually have a mage in astral at all times during any point in
>which a major battle is to erupt. And I as a rule do not use
>initiates all that often, both for game balance towards the runners
>and to reflect the fact that while mages are rare, initiates are even
>rarer.

That +2 mod to nearly everything makes life rather hard for mages
perceiving Astrally... And even when they do have the enemy mages
identified, they have to communicate that to the sams doing the killing.
They don't get Free Actions until their first action, you know.

>
>>Mages do NOT have to be obvious.
>>
>No, but most are...
>
>NPC mages, that is.

They're played wrong. Most NPC mages want little more out of life than
lots of it. So they are NOT going to stick out like a sore thumb.

--
* *
/_\ "A friend is someone who likes the same TV programs you do" /_\
{~._.~} "Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen {~._.~}
( Y ) to be dressed for it." -- Woody Allen ( Y )
()~*~() Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au ()~*~()
(_)-(_) (_)-(_)

Message no. 82 >You are correct. My point is that sammies get the goods quicker, but
>burn out faster, while mages tend to get power slower, but burn
>longer. Just depends on whether you want one moment of glory this
>week or one week of glory this year.

What are "the goods" you refer to?

The only thing that gives samurai better stats/skills than mages at the
start is that mages have to spend A priority on magic, thereby lowering the
points that they will be getting for their stats/skills.

Magic gives characters a HUGE bonus in combat and out. Big enough that it's
worth the assignment of an A priority and is definately worth a B priority
for adepts. The gains brought about by either more than compensate for the
minute loss in skill points or stats.

If you're upset about not being as fast, then quicken or lock increased
initiative and increased reaction. No problems. If you need an assault
cannon, then carry one. If you want cyberware, then get it. It'll cost you
magic rating, but it's worth it in many cases. You want more skills, then
add skillwires plus and a softlink to the cyberware bill. I promise you'll
like the results.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 83 > >One peek in astral and a low-essence character can be clearly seen: no
> >matter how much you advance, a samurai never gets to mask his cyber.
> >An initiate magician gets to mask both their own aura, and as they go
> >on they get to hide more and more foci too.
> >
> True. But remember reason one. It takes about 17 karma to initiate
> ot grade 0 without groups. Then the initiation gets really nasty.

And much less if you join a group and do an ordeal. It takes a samurai
14 Karma to go from Firearms-6 to Firearms-7... the benefits aren't
exactly comparable, are they?

> >And a samurai can be reduced to arms-length dangerous by disarming them.
> >The only way to disarm a magician is to kill him, or blind him.
> >
> You obiviously have not played with the mind set my sammies have. But
> you are correct in that assumption. Still, mages are easier to disarm
> then sammies, either through spells, capture, or the ubiquitous
> narco-ject.

Not really... magic fingers to snatch guns, barrier spells to confine...
magicians can play tricks like Prophylaxis and Antidote on drugs, which
samurai can't. Again, you can restrain a samurai's cyberware and take away
his weapons on an airline flight. Mages don't get the same sort of treatment.

> >Ditto the same for cybered characters losing cyberware when wounded. And
> >remember, if you clone your own tissue for a replacement then you can
> >regain the Essence lost to the limb loss. And a magician who loses
> >Magic Attribute can initiate to get more: a samurai can't do the same.
> >
> Most sammies do not lose cyber when wounded. If they did, then they
> just have an essance hole to fill with that part again. They do not
> lose any addition essance unless they get a larger (essance wise)
> piece of cyber. And while it _maybe_ possible to gain essance through
> own tissue replacement, first it is not proven. Second, it take about
> ten years to vat grow an arm, 12 for a leg, etc. (DLOH, Gen-Con 95,
> Shadowrunning 101).

Try SRII, page 114, the "Time to Grow" table: eight weeks for a limb, six
for a hand or foot, et cetera. That's for clonal material grown for your
own DNA. I get slightly irritated by DLoH comments at conventions, which
are then never reflected in the rulebooks.

Also, check page 115 under "Magicians and Damage": "If a magician requires
a replacement limb or organ, it must be cloned from the original tissue.
Any other DNA pattern, even that of another character, will reduce the
magician's Power-handling capability and automatically reduce the
character's Magic rating by 1. This can be temporary, in that a non-cyber
substitute can be replaced later with a limb or organ cloned from the
magician's tissue. This restores the lost points of Magic Rating..."

> Third, mages still have a chance of losing
> essance on the operating table, while a normal person does not, unless
> getting major body mods. AND, mages lose essance from bio, while
> sammies do not.

You can lose Magic Rating, not essence, from *major* surgery: and yes,
bioware costs you essence. Otherwise, magicians become seriously
unstoppable.

> >And cyberware isn't cheap? You can need four or five runs just to cover
> >the surgery, before you even think about the cyberware itself.
> >
> Still true. But look at the costs in Character Generation. Most of
> the sammies I deal with ALWAYS take priority A for money. And since
> there is not street index figured for equipment, and guns and ammo is
> inexpensive compared to cyber...

A lot depends on what your GM allows at generation: typically, no
custom cyber, and very little from Shadowtech or Cybertechnology
(yes, there are some useful items buried in there - the basic Eye
Lights, for instance). When you have to find a quarter-million for
the surgery, before you even start on the cost for the cyberware itself,
suddenly the nine points of Karma for an initiation seem very reasonable
(ordeal plus group). Even fifteen for self-initiation pales by comparison.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 84 > >And a samurai can be reduced to arms-length dangerous by disarming them.
> >The only way to disarm a magician is to kill him, or blind him.
>
> I'd rather take my chances trying to blind a mage than grab the SPAS-22 from
> the troll sam.

I was thinking scenarios like airports, where the GM makes sure the
weapon detectors run perfectly and the sams all get their cyber restrained.
Doing the same to a mage tends to involve one of those 'magemask' things
and neither of the magicians had to wear one. So, when the fight began,
the samurai and mercenary were weaponless with shaped charges on their
wired reflexes and razors, while the magicians kicked in their Increase
Reactions and started flinging spells.

> There are other ways though. Stim patches (as high a rating
> as possible) do wonders. Hallucinogens would work wonderfully. There are a
> whole range of effects that can cripple a mage and most can be done easily
> and most without legal repercussions:
>
> "He was looking at me like he was gonna do some mojo or something! So I
> stuck my spurs through his eyes. He'll be ok after the doc fixes him up
> with some good cybereyes, though."
>
> "I had to kill him, he tried to cast a spell on me, I could feel it."

Yep: that is the *big* downside to being a mage. 'A funny look' can become
attempted murder in an instant: self defence is so easy to claim, provided
you had reasonable knowledge that the person you shot was magically
active.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 85 >
> I was thinking scenarios like airports, where the GM makes sure the
> weapon detectors run perfectly and the sams all get their cyber restrained.
> Doing the same to a mage tends to involve one of those 'magemask' things
> and neither of the magicians had to wear one. So, when the fight began,
> the samurai and mercenary were weaponless with shaped charges on their
> wired reflexes and razors, while the magicians kicked in their Increase
> Reactions and started flinging spells.
>
How does this work? the razors I could see (if they were the retactable
part), but wired reflexes are always active- you can't rig a bomb to go when
they are "triggered", unless they have a trigger. And those things have to be
custom made to match the cyber, or at least the type or something.
Now, if it just mesures medular exitation, it wopuld work on non wired people
also..
Also, if the security is willing to throw a thou or two worht of restaint on a
samuri, why not an elemental "chaperone" for the mage, or even better, a
linked detect magic/death touch anchoring locked to his body? Common, Magic
vs magic- Samuria are not the only ones who could get sleak, passive, leathal
restaints.
é]
SEB

> > There are other ways though. Stim patches (as high a rating
> > as possible) do wonders. Hallucinogens would work wonderfully. There are a
> > whole range of effects that can cripple a mage and most can be done easily
> > and most without legal repercussions:
> >
> > "He was looking at me like he was gonna do some mojo or something! So I
> > stuck my spurs through his eyes. He'll be ok after the doc fixes him up
> > with some good cybereyes, though."
> >
> > "I had to kill him, he tried to cast a spell on me, I could feel it."
>
> Yep: that is the *big* downside to being a mage. 'A funny look' can become
> attempted murder in an instant: self defence is so easy to claim, provided
> you had reasonable knowledge that the person you shot was magically
> active.
>
> --
> "When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
> him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
> or for worse, you have acted decisively.
> In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A.
Lafferty>
>
> Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
>

--
() _
/\ /) //
/ ) o _, // o // _
/__/__<_(_) o //__<_</_</_
/| />
|/ </

Message no. 86 >From out of the Shadows, Robert Watkins wispered:

>
>That +2 mod to nearly everything makes life rather hard for mages
>perceiving Astrally... And even when they do have the enemy mages
>identified, they have to communicate that to the sams doing the killing.
>They don't get Free Actions until their first action, you know.
>
Yes the +2 mod is hard on the mages, but they usually take comfort in
the fact that someone else is there to protect them.

And in a first contact situation, initiative is not rolled right away.
But when it is, then then fact that mages do not get that action
usually allows me to pitch a spell or two before the mages get blown
away.

>>
>>>Mages do NOT have to be obvious.
>>>
>>No, but most are...
>>
>>NPC mages, that is.
>
>They're played wrong. Most NPC mages want little more out of life than
>lots of it. So they are NOT going to stick out like a sore thumb.
>
For a quick bad guy, I just get the wage-mages or combat mages out of
the Main book. The ones that I think up usually do major damage then
fade. Makes the runner go crazy! Plus that just ups the paranoia,
when something familiar suddenly becomes unfamiliar.

----------------------------------------------------
Many people fear Death, saying it is the bitter end.
I say Death is just lonely, crying out for friend.
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 87 >From out of the Shadows, TopCat wispered:

>>You are correct. My point is that sammies get the goods quicker, but
>>burn out faster, while mages tend to get power slower, but burn
>>longer. Just depends on whether you want one moment of glory this
>>week or one week of glory this year.
>
>What are "the goods" you refer to?
>
Since they do not have to spend Karma for everything else, sammies can
increase their stats and skills alot faster then mages. True the
mages can increase those stats and skills at the same rate, but at the
loss of spells, foci, initiation, allies, etc.

>The only thing that gives samurai better stats/skills than mages at the
>start is that mages have to spend A priority on magic, thereby lowering the
>points that they will be getting for their stats/skills.
>
At the start. I was refering to the whole career.

>Magic gives characters a HUGE bonus in combat and out. Big enough that it's
>worth the assignment of an A priority and is definately worth a B priority
>for adepts. The gains brought about by either more than compensate for the
>minute loss in skill points or stats.
>
Still at the start. And yes, magic gives a very big bonus. But when
a sammie has a firearms of 11, and the mages equivilant career skill
of sorcery is only a six, then the ability of using karma only for
skills really gets a sam up there. I will not even mention the
equivilant stats. And the mage has not even initiated yet. Been too
busy bonding a new power focus and getting spells.

>If you're upset about not being as fast, then quicken or lock increased
>initiative and increased reaction. No problems. If you need an assault

And risk groundings.

>cannon, then carry one. If you want cyberware, then get it. It'll cost you
>magic rating, but it's worth it in many cases. You want more skills, then

While most mages will opt for cyber, most of my players only play
shamans, with the attitude of cyber polluting the body. I know, that
really is not good RP when all of the shamans so far do it, but thats
them. And if you want to be equivilant to our usual sammie, then the
mage in question will spend ¥500,000 and 5 essence for wired-3, then
have to spend ¥525,000 and 25 karma/force points to up the magic
again. You could go alpha, beta, or delta, but then the cost sky
rockets for the cyber, plus a beginning character does not have access
to these items.

>add skillwires plus and a softlink to the cyberware bill. I promise you'll
>like the results.
>
Everyone in my games likes natural skills. If they do not earn them,
then they do not use them. And the sams usually do not have enough
essence to support those items.

----------------------------------------------------
Many people fear Death, saying it is the bitter end.
I say Death is just lonely, crying out for friend.
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 88 Hello!
I've just joined the list, so please bear with my inocence :)

> >
> > I was thinking scenarios like airports, where the GM makes sure the
> > weapon detectors... ...started flinging spells.

> Also, if the security is willing to throw a thou or two worht of restaint on a
> samuri, why not an elemental "chaperone" for the mage, or even better, a
> linked detect magic/death touch anchoring locked to his body? Common, Magic
> vs magic- Samuria are not the only ones who could get sleak, passive, leathal
> restaints.
> i]
>SEB

Hmm, arn't a large number of flights semi-ballistic (my memmory fails
me again, I assume thats temporarly means leaving the gia-sphere), so
what would happen to an elemental chaperone? Disperse, as the spirits
esence expanded to fill the void, or balk at the job? Hmm and for
that matter since spell locked spells etc draw there energy from the
astral plane, drawring it through the link, if theres no gaia-sphere,
the spell would fail?

> > > There are other ways though. Stim patches (as high a rating
> > > as possible) do wonders.

Hmm dont they run the risk of destroying a mages magical talent, I
can hear/(rember something from a sourcebook) the the court cases now
sueing for assualt and loss of livelyhood :)

Piers "Never a clue, no idea even what one looks like, and as for
this looking biz... " Meynell :)

Message no. 89 >[snipped "Samurai can raise their stats and skills with karma while mages
can't because they need to initiate, bond foci, learn new spells, etc..."]

Costs tons to increase any skill. Stats are easier (by the book) but most
people use a system to keep that from going out of hand. Also, I would
never use foci for my mages. I prefer to spend that karma on sorcery skill,
the return is much greater.

>>The only thing that gives samurai better stats/skills than mages at the
>>start is that mages have to spend A priority on magic, thereby lowering=
the
>>points that they will be getting for their stats/skills.

>At the start. I was refering to the whole career.

Mages are able to increase their skills and stats just as easily over their
careers (in fact it's cheaper for them to increase their stats because they
are generally lower than a sam's). It's not like a mage gets NOTHING when
he drops another chunk of karma (about the same to raise a skill, actually a
hair less) for that next initiate level.

>a sammie has a firearms of 11, and the mages equivilant career skill
>of sorcery is only a six, then the ability of using karma only for
>skills really gets a sam up there. I will not even mention the
>equivilant stats. And the mage has not even initiated yet. Been too
>busy bonding a new power focus and getting spells.

A samurai (to go from a 6 firearms to an 11) will spend 14+16+18+20+22=90=
karma!

With 90 karma and an initiate group (not even counting ordeals) a mage can
become a 4th level initiate and still have 10 karma left.

My spellcaster work leads me to want 2nd level intiation, an 8 sorcery, and
a few spells for fun. And in no way would I ever be found bonding a focus.
They're worthless when you compare the cost to training your sorcery skill
or intiating.

>>[snipped where I say "Get a lock or quickened spell if you want speed".]

>And risk groundings.

With all the talk of needing to bond foci up above, that doesn't seem to be
a concern.

>And if you want to be equivilant to our usual sammie, then the
>mage in question will spend ¥500,000 and 5 essence for wired-3, then
>have to spend ¥525,000 and 25 karma/force points to up the magic
>again. You could go alpha, beta, or delta, but then the cost sky
>rockets for the cyber, plus a beginning character does not have access
>to these items.

Beginning characters don't have access to basic Wired-3 either (availability
12), so I don't see how your sams managed to get a hold of it so easily.
Besides, with Wired-3 they'd be spellcasters moving at samurai speeds
(actually beyond the average sam) and that makes them twice as deadly as
mundanes moving at those speeds.

>Everyone in my games likes natural skills. If they do not earn them,
>then they do not use them. And the sams usually do not have enough
>essence to support those items.

Skillwires are a must-have for samurai. My namesake character lived by his
'wires. No wired reflexes either. Just a healthy dose of bioware and stats
from hell. Over half of his cyber was devoted to skillwires and headware
that optimized them. There was nothing (mundane) he couldn't do. And more
importantly, he did it all with fair skill (rating 6).

All in all about intiation, it should be taken gradually along with
increases in skills and spells. If you dump all your karma into intiation,
you'll go nowhere. If you dump it all into spells, then you'll have a very
broad selection of fair-good spells. If you dump it all into skills,
you'll have a magic pool from hell and enough services from
spirits/elementals to last you til the 7th world. Only initiation has a
limited gain for the cost. If you mix skills and spells, then you start to
achieve perfection. Put some karma aside, grab a level of intiation when
you can, and watch as your spellcaster becomes a balanced force.

------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------
Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
------------------------------------------------------------
"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 90 Me!> There are other ways though. Stim patches (as high a rating
Me!> as possible) do wonders.

>Hmm dont they run the risk of destroying a mages magical talent, I
>can hear(remember something from a sourcebook) the the court cases now
>sueing for assault and loss of livelyhood :)

Of course they do, but if I had a spellcaster without a legal ID on my hands
I'd be more than happy to slap one on him. He's probably a criminal anyway.
And how could he prove that he lost magic? He might've been less powerful
to start, or even mundane. Courts'll believe Joe SecGuard over the SINless
"Mage" any day.

It's not pretty, but that's shadowlife.

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/ ///// /// //////// /// /// ////// ////////
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------------------------------------------------------------
Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
------------------------------------------------------------
"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 91 >magicians can play tricks like Prophylaxis and Antidote on drugs, which
>samurai can't. Again, you can restrain a samurai's cyberware and take away
>his weapons on an airline flight. Mages don't get the same sort of treatment.

Mages have a little problem with Sub Orbital flights though :) :) At least
they do if they want to use there powers...

Owl
Shane Courtrille
hardware@*****.com
http://www.oanet.com/homepage/hardware/index.htm (Check it out...)
___ ___ ___ ___ ___
<*,*> <*,*> <x,x> <*,*> (o,o)
[`-'] [`S'] >>>>>>> =^`-'^= {`"'}
-"-"- -"-"- <<<<<<< "
" -"-"-
Owl Super Owl RoadKill Owl Flying Owl ME!!!

Message no. 92 On Sat, 20 Jan 1996, The Shadowdancer wrote:

> > I'm sorry, but in my experience, sammies who go first *do* fill
> >the air with a lot of lead, but by *no* means do they hit everything they
> >aim at. Generally, the result of high initiative is lots of spent
> >casings, lots of stray rounds, and lots of collateral damage. Which is
> >typical of modern fire combat.

> No offense, but your sammies suck. My sammies almost always hit what
> they aim for. And usually kill it.

Then your sammies are either amazingly careful planners of
excellent, spotlessly executed schemes, your GM is amazingly nice to you,
or you're forgetting every modifier but the -2 for a smartgunlink.
The average target number for a firearms roll in my campaign is
generally in excess of 10. Movement, visibility, recoil, shooter's
cover, target's cover, you name it. It all applies. Even with only a
10, you still need to roll (statistically speaking) 12 dice to get a
single success. A target number of 11 brings that to 18 dice for a
single success. Then your target generally gets to dodge. Whoops, you
missed. Spent casings, stray rounds, and collateral damage.
Granted, good planning can put you in a position where you can
rock all over your opponent, but the point remains that in a pitched
gunfight, it's not as easy to waste the goons as people seem to make it
out to be, especially if the GM plays them as though they had half a brain.

Marc

Message no. 93 >
> > > I'm sorry, but in my experience, sammies who go first *do* fill
> > >the air with a lot of lead, but by *no* means do they hit everything they
> > >aim at. Generally, the result of high initiative is lots of spent
> > >casings, lots of stray rounds, and lots of collateral damage. Which is
> > >typical of modern fire combat.
>
As the cause for this is your cosistant aplication of targeting mods, I
suppose the exact same would apply to your mages- lots of spells chucked and
vaping into nothingness? That would change the nature of combat a great deal.

> > No offense, but your sammies suck. My sammies almost always hit what
> > they aim for. And usually kill it.
>

> Then your sammies are either amazingly careful planners of
> excellent, spotlessly executed schemes, your GM is amazingly nice to you,
> or you're forgetting every modifier but the -2 for a smartgunlink.
In my expirience, most samurai players are careful to keep targets down by
having the right vision system (or even using lights), setting up ambuses and
overwalk situations, etc. Bieng fast is little benifit if your offense is
muched up by the fog of battle. Again, same goes for mages.
> The average target number for a firearms roll in my campaign is
> generally in excess of 10. Movement, visibility, recoil, shooter's
> cover, target's cover, you name it. It all applies.
Shooters cover? what/where is the mod for that? And recoil? what are you
shooting with? TN 3 is not uncommon, and if tn goes over 8, it is usually
time to change position of vision systems, not to shoot. Why is TN3 common?
Because we sit in well lit areas and let people attack us, capping them when
we winn initiative.
Even with only a
> 10, you still need to roll (statistically speaking) 12 dice to get a
> single success. A target number of 11 brings that to 18 dice for a
> single success. Then your target generally gets to dodge. Whoops, you
> missed. Spent casings, stray rounds, and collateral damage.
> Granted, good planning can put you in a position where you can
> rock all over your opponent, but the point remains that in a pitched
> gunfight, it's not as easy to waste the goons as people seem to make it
> out to be, especially if the GM plays them as though they had half a brain.
>
> Marc
>

I guess the above applies in planned combat situations, but when people don't
expect violent resistance, they get casual- concealed weapons come out and who
ever wins inititive just wastes all over. Not that we are not careful, mind
you. we get those hard shots, we just prefer not to waste ammo.>

--
() _
/\ /) //
/ ) o _, // o // _
/__/__<_(_) o //__<_</_</_
/| />
|/ </

Message no. 94 TopCat writes

> >I leave the spell as it is simply because D damage and area effect is
> >very powerful, 1 success and they all fall down!
>
> Ummm...if the target gets more than your one success on body dice (it is a
> resisted spell) then nothing happens at all. No D damage to stage down.
> Just a killer headache for the caster and a tingly sensation for the guy
> resisting.
>
Well that assumes two things,
1) the target actually gets a success, at say target 6's at least.
2) You play the rule that magic requires net success. I know thats
official but as i said before contemplate that rule and 2nd ed
shielding, and well you either require magic to be staged down all
the way not bounced for 0 net or accept initiates are immune to
combat magic, plus friends if they have some more spare dice. All
this does is to encourage force 12 spells, ie takes the war to an
even higher munchkin level.

My suggesion for Hellblasts is at force 8+2+2 = 12, they are plain
not worth the drain till then.

Mark

Message no. 95 The Shadowdancer said on 21 Jan 96...

> You could go alpha, beta, or delta, but then the cost sky
> rockets for the cyber, plus a beginning character does not have access
> to these items.

I can't recall reading that anywhere. I do remember Shadowtech saying that
the items in that book are not recommended for starting PCs, but nothing
about alpha or higher grade cyber. The only limitation I see is in the
money department. Want beta-grade level 3 wired refs? Sure, if you can
legally get 3.5 million starting cash, no problem.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Don't we all think we're the exception?
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 96 Sebastian Wiers said on 21 Jan 96...

> > So, when the fight began,
> > the samurai and mercenary were weaponless with shaped charges on their
> > wired reflexes and razors, while the magicians kicked in their Increase
> > Reactions and started flinging spells.
> >
> How does this work? the razors I could see (if they were the retactable
> part), but wired reflexes are always active- you can't rig a bomb to go when
> they are "triggered", unless they have a trigger. And those things have to
be
> custom made to match the cyber, or at least the type or something.
> Now, if it just mesures medular exitation, it wopuld work on non wired people
> also..

It's not made clear how it's done, but in Harlequin (belated spoiler
warning! :) the cybered PCs are restrained using shaped charge "bracelets"
and have to make a Willpower test vs. the level of the system to avoid
having their wired reflexes activating. They get to do this every time
just before rolling for initiative. Fail the test and you will get your
normal +XD6, succeed and you will not (and you'll also not get fried by
the explosives :)

> Also, if the security is willing to throw a thou or two worht of restaint on a
> samuri, why not an elemental "chaperone" for the mage, or even better, a
> linked detect magic/death touch anchoring locked to his body? Common, Magic
> vs magic- Samuria are not the only ones who could get sleak, passive, leathal
> restaints.

Now you get to the problem of leaving the biosphere. Do that and the
link/elemental/etc. won't work anymore. On a normal flight, this would be
a possibility, but not with a sub-orbital or semi-ballistic.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Don't we all think we're the exception?
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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Message no. 97 >How does this work? the razors I could see (if they were the retactable
>part), but wired reflexes are always active- you can't rig a bomb to go when
>they are "triggered", unless they have a trigger. And those things have
>to be
>custom made to match the cyber, or at least the type or something.

Well... in SR I (where these rules came from), Wires and stuff could be
turned off. Now, I'd say they monitor the interface points.

As for doing the same for mages: sure, these things might cost a few
thou... but they are reusable. Try that with your elemental chaperone.

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

Message no. 98 >Of course they do, but if I had a spellcaster without a legal ID on my hands
>I'd be more than happy to slap one on him. He's probably a criminal anyway.
>And how could he prove that he lost magic? He might've been less powerful
>to start, or even mundane. Courts'll believe Joe SecGuard over the SINless
>"Mage" any day.

I think you'd have to have a REASON to want the person concious... around
here, at least, if a suspect is unconcious at the time of arrest (wether
from overdoing the booze or from overdoing the baton), they just put him
in the cells until he wakes up (provided he doesn't need medical care, of
course).

Otherwise Joe SecGuard might be up for a case of malicious intent at
least.

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

Message no. 99 > Since they do not have to spend Karma for everything else, sammies can
> increase their stats and skills alot faster then mages. True the
> mages can increase those stats and skills at the same rate, but at the
> loss of spells, foci, initiation, allies, etc.

Uh, no. Compare the Karma needed for a samurai to gain 4 points of any
attribute, or the costs involved in getting cyber or bioware to do that
(assuming it's even possible), to the cost of a spell-locked Increase
Attribute spell.

> Still at the start. And yes, magic gives a very big bonus. But when
> a sammie has a firearms of 11, and the mages equivilant career skill
> of sorcery is only a six, then the ability of using karma only for
> skills really gets a sam up there. I will not even mention the
> equivilant stats. And the mage has not even initiated yet. Been too
> busy bonding a new power focus and getting spells.

Then the magician has made his/her choices - that the power focus and
new spells mattered more than a high Sorcery skill. I have a mercenary
character who diverted a lot of Karma into becoming a decker, at the
expense of improving his combat skills. Your character makes a choice and
lives with it.

> >If you're upset about not being as fast, then quicken or lock increased
> >initiative and increased reaction. No problems. If you need an assault
>
> And risk groundings.

Too bad: a risk you take. On the other hand, try explosive restraints
hooked to your cybereyes and hearing mods. Not nice either. Both character
types have advantages and weaknesses: that's why it's interesting to play
both.

> >cannon, then carry one. If you want cyberware, then get it. It'll cost you
> >magic rating, but it's worth it in many cases. You want more skills, then
>
> While most mages will opt for cyber, most of my players only play
> shamans, with the attitude of cyber polluting the body. I know, that
> really is not good RP when all of the shamans so far do it, but thats
> them. And if you want to be equivilant to our usual sammie, then the
> mage in question will spend 500,000 and 5 essence for wired-3, then
> have to spend 525,000 and 25 karma/force points to up the magic
> again. You could go alpha, beta, or delta, but then the cost sky
> rockets for the cyber, plus a beginning character does not have access
> to these items.

Any more than a starting samurai does. And it sounds to me like you want a
magician to be as good in a stand-up gunfight as a samurai *as well* as
all the other magic stuff. What next, mage deckers? You have to accept that
some character classes fulfil roles better than others.

Just off the top of my head try the following for magicians annoyed at the
samurai getting all the fun. Use Clairvoyance and Magic Fingers as a scout
technique plus grenade transportation method, or to set off boobytraps.
Make use of all those stealth-type skills to get the first shot (they can't
shoot you if they can't see you) and then use something like Chaotic World
to shove their target numbers sky-high. Try Physical Mask, or a modified
involuntary Fashion, to change the clothing and appearance of enemies
a little way apart from the group. Use Control Actions on the troll with
the machinegun and have him shoot at his comrades.

With all the above options for creativity, why are you complaining that
you can't have as much cyberware as a samurai?

> Everyone in my games likes natural skills. If they do not earn them,
> then they do not use them. And the sams usually do not have enough
> essence to support those items.

Then that's their problem: again, they made their choices and now they live
with them. Many skills are absolutely invaluable on chip - languages and
the entire Knowledge branch of the skill tree are the best example. Slot
a chip, become a professor. It sounds like you need to make proper use
of what you already have.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 100 > Shooters cover? what/where is the mod for that?

Fields of Fire, page 78: you take a penalty to your outgoing equal
to half the penalty applied to your incoming, basically, so if you're
in cover that gives you a +4 to be shot at, anyone you fire at is at
+2 because you're in an awkward position et cetera.

To be useful you need to apply it with flexibility: I certainly wouldn't
say firing from a two-man trench imposed any sort of penalty on my
marksmanship, in fact the bracing helped me, but in improvised cover
you can find yourself quite contorted.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 101 Topcat wrote:
>>I leave the spell as it is simply because D damage and area effect is
>>very powerful, 1 success and they all fall down!
>
>Ummm...if the target gets more than your one success on body dice (it is a
>resisted spell) then nothing happens at all. No D damage to stage down.

????

Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success _AFTER_ the
target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the target
has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down not to
take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
This would seriously change the power level of magic in my campaign.

U-Gene << just when I thought I knew the system... >>

Message no. 102 On Mon, 22 Jan 1996, Gurth wrote:

> The Shadowdancer said on 21 Jan 96...
>
> > You could go alpha, beta, or delta, but then the cost sky
> > rockets for the cyber, plus a beginning character does not have access
> > to these items.
That's not true. It all depends on your GM and how they interpret some of
the information given in Cybertechnology that says Normal and Alpha are
off-the-shelf(for cyberware anyway), and except for some custom pieces,
Betaware is somewhat harder to get(I think tyhey meant to drop the
availablility to Alpha level according to SSC. Of course, Deltaware is
still nearly impossible to get and should be strictly enforced.
>
> I can't recall reading that anywhere. I do remember Shadowtech saying that
> the items in that book are not recommended for starting PCs, but nothing
> about alpha or higher grade cyber. The only limitation I see is in the
> money department. Want beta-grade level 3 wired refs? Sure, if you can
> legally get 3.5 million starting cash, no problem.
I think it mentioned it it SSC while talking about having to make
availablilty roles and role-play their search for them. Of course, the
second you start the PC goes looking for Betware, that is legal, although
the GM might be a bit unhappy.
>
> --
> Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
> Don't we all think we're the exception?
> -> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
> -> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-
>
> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
> Version 3.1:
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> Y PGP- t(+) 5+ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b+@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(----) y?
> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
>

Message no. 103 >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:

>And much less if you join a group and do an ordeal. It takes a samurai
>14 Karma to go from Firearms-6 to Firearms-7... the benefits aren't
>exactly comparable, are they?
>
Groups are few and far between, plus they have a very strict selection
for members. The grimmy states at least 3 people are needed to start
a group, and the number of mages around do not support quick or easy
formation. Plus, while initiation offers some new skills, that does
not reflect the fact that a mage also needs 14 Karma to raise
Sorcery-6 to Sorcery-7. And while this would allow the mage to add an
extra die to his/her pool, the sammie just added and extra die to
his/her initial roll.

>> You obiviously have not played with the mind set my sammies have. But
>> you are correct in that assumption. Still, mages are easier to disarm
>> then sammies, either through spells, capture, or the ubiquitous
>> narco-ject.
>
>Not really... magic fingers to snatch guns, barrier spells to confine...
>magicians can play tricks like Prophylaxis and Antidote on drugs, which
>samurai can't. Again, you can restrain a samurai's cyberware and take away
>his weapons on an airline flight. Mages don't get the same sort of treatment.
>
MF verses the sammies strength(enhanced by muscle replacement or
augmentation), Bar verses the sammies strength, sammies have higher
body to resist drugs, while a mage needs to stay awake first to cast
the spells. And while you can restrain weapons and cyber, most
sammies learn MA to counter those efforts. And then you are back to
speed. Plus most (not all, but most) flights are suborbital or
ballistic. Out of the atmosphere, magic does not do drek.

>Try SRII, page 114, the "Time to Grow" table: eight weeks for a limb, six
>for a hand or foot, et cetera. That's for clonal material grown for your
>own DNA. I get slightly irritated by DLoH comments at conventions, which
>are then never reflected in the rulebooks.
>
Well, he could be spouting house rules for all I know. Plus, I was
getting the info second hand, and that source is beginning to get real
unreliable.

>Also, check page 115 under "Magicians and Damage": "If a magician
requires
>a replacement limb or organ, it must be cloned from the original tissue.
>Any other DNA pattern, even that of another character, will reduce the
>magician's Power-handling capability and automatically reduce the
>character's Magic rating by 1. This can be temporary, in that a non-cyber
>substitute can be replaced later with a limb or organ cloned from the
>magician's tissue. This restores the lost points of Magic Rating..."
>
Unless something drastic happens. Replaceing a limb is major surgery.
And that falls under possible, irrevocable, magic loss.

>
>You can lose Magic Rating, not essence, from *major* surgery: and yes,
>bioware costs you essence. Otherwise, magicians become seriously
>unstoppable.
>
I had ment Magic. Sorry for the typo.

>A lot depends on what your GM allows at generation: typically, no
>custom cyber, and very little from Shadowtech or Cybertechnology

>
I allow basic book stuff. If it is in the main rulebook, by the main
rulebook, then you can get it. Nothing from any of the others, no
using force to initiate, etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 104 How do I quit this listserver?

Message no. 105 >From out of the Shadows, "Gurth" wispered:

>I can't recall reading that anywhere. I do remember Shadowtech saying that
>the items in that book are not recommended for starting PCs, but nothing
>about alpha or higher grade cyber. The only limitation I see is in the
>money department. Want beta-grade level 3 wired refs? Sure, if you can
>legally get 3.5 million starting cash, no problem.
>
I was refering to money wise. And even though it is not in the rules,
I usually do not allow certain items.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 106 >From out of the Shadows, Marc A Renouf wispered:

> Then your sammies are either amazingly careful planners of
>excellent, spotlessly executed schemes, your GM is amazingly nice to you,
>or you're forgetting every modifier but the -2 for a smartgunlink.
I am NOT nice to my runners. One, they do plan very carefully, Two,
most of our firefights end up at close range in suprise situations.
Third, I do not forget the mods, just in most of the fights, they do
not apply. Fourth, as I have said before, my runners enchant their
dice. Even with TNs of 8+, it is not uncommon for at least one of
them to roll 5+ successess. And the head sammie has not spent any
Karma on anything except for firearms. He has a firearms of 11 and a
combat pool of 12. 22 dice tend to bring sucssesses.

> Granted, good planning can put you in a position where you can
>rock all over your opponent, but the point remains that in a pitched
>gunfight, it's not as easy to waste the goons as people seem to make it
>out to be, especially if the GM plays them as though they had half a brain.
>
Still, in a suprise sitch, when generic goons do not have cyber ( the
norm ), even in an unplanned fight, the sammies will splatter anyone.
And while I do plan stiff opposition, the damn mages, grenade
launchers, and riggers with trash-can-lids sporting SMGs help to take
them out. I have given them a stiff dose of their own medicene, but
these types of goups are fairly few, and the runners know enough about
the background info to know that standard groups do not have 3+ mages
and 10+ metahumans. And I could take out the sammies fairly easily
(Barrett to the head, called shot, tac computer, no armor in the
head), but it is not conducive to a good story line.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 107 >From out of the Shadows, James Meiers wispered:

>> > You could go alpha, beta, or delta, but then the cost sky
>> > rockets for the cyber, plus a beginning character does not have access
>> > to these items.

>That's not true. It all depends on your GM and how they interpret some of
>the information given in Cybertechnology that says Normal and Alpha are
A beginning character in this sense being created or newly created.
If you can afford 1.5 million for alpha wired-3 during creation or
just after, I would like to know how.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 108 I believe it was TopCat who said this, but someone said that beginning
characters could not get wired-3. How so? In the creation rules, it
states that a character cannot have equipment with a rating higher
then six. But wired-3 count as rating 3 equipment, not 12, wherever
that came from. If you were speaking of availability, the
availability of wired-3 is eight. Plus during CharGen, the rules say
that availability and street index is not used.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 109 >.Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success
>_AFTER_ the
>target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
>because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the
>target
>has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down
>not to
>take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
>This would seriously change the power level of magic in my
>campaign.

>U-Gene << just when I thought I knew the system... >>

That's what I'm screaming too, man. I'm pretty sure that if a mage
get's a success then the spell is cast--boom. Then the resistance test
is used to see just how fried the target actually is (considering
dodging[combat pool], armor, and toughness).
But hey, I'm a newbie.
ryan

Message no. 110 U-Gene said on 22 Jan 96...

> Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success _AFTER_ the
> target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
> because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the target
> has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down not to
> take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
> This would seriously change the power level of magic in my campaign.

The way damage from a spell works is like this:

COMBAT SPELLS: if the target rolls *more* successes than the caster,
he/she/it takes no damage from the spell. With an equal number of
successes, base damage is taken.

Example: Mage casts Mana Bolt (S damage) at Sam, Mage having 4
successes. If Sam rolls 2 successes, he takes D damage. If Sam
rolls 4 successes, he takes S damage. If Sam rolls 5 or more successes,
he takes NO damage.

MANIPULATION SPELLS: these are staged up and down like a non-magical
attack.

Example: Mage now casts a manipulation spell with S damage and 4
successes. If Sam rolls 2 successes, he takes D damage. If Sam
rolls 4 successes, he takes S damage. If Sam rolls 6 successes, he takes
M damage. If Sam rolls 8 successes, he takes L damage. If Sam rolls 10 or
more successes, he takes NO damage.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Don't we all think we're the exception?
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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Message no. 111 Hey U-gene I think the way you explained it was right. If a mage
throws a hellblast at a sammie and achieves one success then he does
need 9 success to stage it down to 0 damage. I think that the other
guy (no offence!) has mis read the rules the only way that you can
achieve one success and aviod they spell it to dodge it using magic
pool, And funnily enough sammies don't get a magic pool. magic pool
is they same as combat pool if more net success are achieved with a
combat pool roll than achieved by the attacker then the blow is
avoided completely if not its resulting damage against bod time

J...

Message no. 112 >That's what I'm screaming too, man. I'm pretty sure that if a mage
>get's a success then the spell is cast--boom. Then the resistance test
>is used to see just how fried the target actually is (considering
>dodging[combat pool], armor, and toughness).

Hmm... there's two types of damaging spells... Combat spells, and
damaging manipulations...
Combat spells work like this: Mage rolls dice, TN Willpower or Body, as
appropriate. Target rolls dice, TN Force. If the mage gets at least one
net success, the spell works. Extra success stage the damage up. NOTHING
stages it back down. This is why Mana Bolt is so lethal... it'll either
do nothing, or a Serious or Deadly. Armour doesn't count.

Damaging manipulations work differently, but they work like normal
attacks... damage gets staged up and down normally, TN is 4, plus
environmental mods, and appropriate armour can stop it. Body is always
used to resist.

>But hey, I'm a newbie.
*shrug* Gotta start sometime.

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

Message no. 113 U-Gene writes

> Topcat wrote:
> >
> >Ummm...if the target gets more than your one success on body dice (it is a
> >resisted spell) then nothing happens at all. No D damage to stage down.
>
> ????
>
> Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success _AFTER_ the
> target gets to roll his resistance?!?
Thats the correct official rule but as i said before it makes
shielding FAR too powerful. I have seen an NPC set a target number of
no less than 22 for a manabolt and a PC 24! in game. Have a look at
learning spells and you get a learn target of 2*force and little
solution, which effectively limits spell force at about 8 (16's to
learn), plus maybe 4 for fetish exclusive, or 11 if you can roll 22's
to order on a role you are not going to get to karma!

The above situations.
Target is PC shaman willpower 6 ( not initiated) bad guy just took a
moderate, friendly mage throws in sorcery 6 + focus 2 + grade 2 = 10
points shielding (was busy a watching the astral with percept), and
we add the counter the shamans behind for +4 partial cover. is a
wopping 22!! and thats before smoke, movement, flash paks etc. which
are all too common if there is time, needless to say if the attacker
needs net success at this sort of number pushing for that 11+4 spell
is required, but still not likely to help as 15's are over 6 times
easier to roll than 22's and the attacker won't get a dice advantage
above *2 or so at best.

The NPC that reached 24 was in the middle of a street, that was pure
shielding, ok both him and friend were moderately reasonable grade
but!

> I better go check that at home,
> because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the target
> has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down not to
> take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
> This would seriously change the power level of magic in my campaign.
>
Just slightly. Thats why i force folks to stage down, it also helps
moderate the arms race at force 6 spells. This rule would be one way
to seriously depower magic but you would have to really stand on the
all willpower 6 PC's like bad them!! its not realistic but happens
all the time in most games.

> U-Gene << just when I thought I knew the system... >> >

Mark

Message no. 114 Robert Watkins writes

[trim lots officially corrcet]
>
> Damaging manipulations work differently, but they work like normal
> attacks... damage gets staged up and down normally, TN is 4, plus
> environmental mods, and appropriate armour can stop it. Body is always
> used to resist.
>
Also you are allowed to use combat pool in this case. I say you can
get full dodge (with pool) but not sure if thats actually correct. I
don't think you can use both magic and combat pool yourself to defend
(other fooks are a different matter), you dodge (combat pool) or
block (magic pool).

> >But hey, I'm a newbie.
> *shrug* Gotta start sometime.
>
Mark

Message no. 115 On Mon, 22 Jan 1996, Paul Jonathan Adam wrote:

> Fields of Fire, page 78: you take a penalty to your outgoing equal
> to half the penalty applied to your incoming, basically, so if you're
> in cover that gives you a +4 to be shot at, anyone you fire at is at
> +2 because you're in an awkward position et cetera.
>
I personally don't use this, if the character only has his head and gun
arm exposed I don't see why there should be any SIGNIFICANT reduction in
his chance to hit.

ANd if they're totally behind cover, they have to move slightly out of
cover to shoot (getting teh movement mod) and then move back behind cover.

The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk
"Life is a choice, Death....an obligation."-Me
Shadowrun WWW site at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mn3rge/Shadowrun

Message no. 116 On Mon, 22 Jan 1996, U-Gene wrote:

> Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success _AFTER_ the
> target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
> because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the target
> has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down not to
> take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
> This would seriously change the power level of magic in my campaign.
>
I played it wrong as well, until I too noticed taht rule -and its a good
one. the problem I had was that mages kept getting Stun Bolt (the best
combat spell in my opinion drain for Force 6 is 2S!) and using them on
initiate mages. Those initiate mages would allocate all to shielding
final TN of about 12! and the mage only had to get 1 success and then teh
initiate would have to get 7 to take no damage, even with 12 dice,
against a Force 6 spell this isn't likely.

The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk
"Life is a choice, Death....an obligation."-Me
Shadowrun WWW site at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mn3rge/Shadowrun

Message no. 117 On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Ryan Wallis wrote:

> >.Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success
> >_AFTER_ the
> >target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
>
> That's what I'm screaming too, man. I'm pretty sure that if a mage
> get's a success then the spell is cast--boom. Then the resistance test
> is used to see just how fried the target actually is (considering
> dodging[combat pool], armor, and toughness).
Well, it depend on how you see it, if teh spell does not beat the
resistance it doesn;t get into teh aura in the first place to do damage,
but if it does then it does full damage and even more if the mage is
skilled enough. I.e. it may not be conducive to thinking this rule
logical if you equate the Willpower resistance or Body resistance tests
with a Bdy resistance test for bullets and swords (although that IS teh
case for damaging manipulation spells).

Thats why Damaging manipulations are so wonderful, the base TN is 4, no
matter what teh target's attributes, and the target DOES have to stage
damage all the way down; but then armour does count and the targets can
attempt a dodge -which can't be done for combat spells. But then I also
see it that spell defense dice can only affect combat spells and not
manipulations (as for manips. the spell is cast and then directed so when
it reaches the target and the spell defence would kick in the spell has
already been cast. To use spell defence against a manip. the mage would
have to aim the spell defence at the casting mage as thats where teh
spell is cast. IMHO anyway)

The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk
"Life is a choice, Death....an obligation."-Me
Shadowrun WWW site at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mn3rge/Shadowrun

Message no. 118 >On Mon, 22 Jan 1996, Paul Jonathan Adam wrote:
>
>> Fields of Fire, page 78: you take a penalty to your outgoing equal
>> to half the penalty applied to your incoming, basically, so if you're
>> in cover that gives you a +4 to be shot at, anyone you fire at is at
>> +2 because you're in an awkward position et cetera.
>>
>I personally don't use this, if the character only has his head and gun
>arm exposed I don't see why there should be any SIGNIFICANT reduction in
>his chance to hit.
>
> The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk

If you just have your hand and part of your head out, it's going to be
harder to shoot because you usually don't go down to the firing range and
practise shooting one handed, with that hand somewhere in the vicinity of
your ear. If you move to allow a more "normal" firing position, you open
yourself up more. The penalty makes sense. Its not that you can't see the
target as well, it's because to keep cover, you can't fire correctly.

Mike Broadwater
http://www.olemiss.edu/~neon
"You only need two things in this world. WD40 to make things go, and
duct tape to make them stop."

Message no. 119 [Re: Damaging manipulations. ]
>Also you are allowed to use combat pool in this case. I say you can
>get full dodge (with pool) but not sure if thats actually correct. I
>don't think you can use both magic and combat pool yourself to defend
>(other fooks are a different matter), you dodge (combat pool) or
>block (magic pool).

Damaging manipulations are no longer spells by the time they hit the
target. Heck, they are no longer spells by the time they leave the
caster. That's why DMs can't be bounced off mirrors ('cause they'd try to
go through the wall, or through the mirror).

Because they are entirely physical by the time the caster is concerned,
magic pool and shielding go out the window.

--
* *
/_\ "A friend is someone who likes the same TV programs you do" /_\
{~._.~} "Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen {~._.~}
( Y ) to be dressed for it." -- Woody Allen ( Y )
()~*~() Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au ()~*~()
(_)-(_) (_)-(_)

Message no. 120 |
|>.Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success
|>_AFTER_ the
|>target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
|>because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the
|>target
|>has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down
|>not to
|>take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
|>This would seriously change the power level of magic in my
|>campaign.
|
|>U-Gene << just when I thought I knew the system... >>
|
|That's what I'm screaming too, man. I'm pretty sure that if a mage
|get's a success then the spell is cast--boom. Then the resistance test
|is used to see just how fried the target actually is (considering
|dodging[combat pool], armor, and toughness).
|But hey, I'm a newbie.

As far as I'm concerned, you're right.
The only dice roll that can remove that one success is Dodge (for Damaging
Manipulations) and/or Magic for all damaging spells.
If there's no mage present to assign magic pool protection vs a death touch
then the body roll is to Resist the full damage of the attack.....

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
| |move, with no hope of rescue. |
|Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
|Principal in:- |to you so far... |
|Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Message no. 121 In message <31034154.33455147@**.kensco.net> shadowrn@********.itribe.net writes:
> >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:
> >And much less if you join a group and do an ordeal. It takes a samurai
> >14 Karma to go from Firearms-6 to Firearms-7... the benefits aren't
> >exactly comparable, are they?
> >
> Groups are few and far between, plus they have a very strict selection
> for members.

And shadow clinics dealing in betaware advertise in the Yellow Pages? :)

> >Not really... magic fingers to snatch guns, barrier spells to confine...
> >magicians can play tricks like Prophylaxis and Antidote on drugs, which
> >samurai can't. Again, you can restrain a samurai's cyberware and take away
> >his weapons on an airline flight. Mages don't get the same sort of treatment.
> >
> MF verses the sammies strength(enhanced by muscle replacement or
> augmentation)

Try pressing the magazine release catch, or moving the safety catch. Or
pulling weapons out of holsters Return of the Jedi-style. Or pulling the
pins on other peoples' grenades. Or... Magic is better at subtlety than
brute force, and that's a fact of the game.

> Bar verses the sammies strength, sammies have higher
> body to resist drugs, while a mage needs to stay awake first to cast
> the spells. And while you can restrain weapons and cyber, most
> sammies learn MA to counter those efforts. And then you are back to
> speed.

Barrier spells at least slow you down: you have to fight through the
barrier, losing Actions in the process. Unarmed samurai at distance vs.
magician? Samurai needs to reach magician to attack: magician needs to look at
samurai and think "drop dead".

Combine a few of the above. Magic Fingers to bring a grenade up to Joe
Samurai and pull the pin, then a Barrier to trap him inside with it.
Extreme quantities of chunky salsa effect. What *is* the damage rating
for being trapped inside a Force 6 Personal Barrier with an exploding
grenade?

> Plus most (not all, but most) flights are suborbital or
> ballistic. Out of the atmosphere, magic does not do drek.

Suborbitals are still fine for magic, it's only semiballistics that
take you out of the manasphere. And who says all flights are SB? According
to NAGRL, it's cheaper to go atmospheric, and for a flight from - say -
Seattle to Detroit the time saving wouldn't be much (you'd spend longer
checking in and out than in the air anyway).

> >Also, check page 115 under "Magicians and Damage":
> >
> Unless something drastic happens. Replaceing a limb is major surgery.
> And that falls under possible, irrevocable, magic loss.

Them's the breaks of being a magician. Get caught with Wired III and
you're looking at a long prison term, with the illegal cyberware and
bioware ripped out (probably none too carefully). I haven't heard that
magicians get their abilities burned out of them by the police just
for possession, but I could be wrong.

Just what is your complaint here? You're coming across as saying it's
unfair that samurai are better in a stand-up face-to-face fight than
magicians, which can be true (but not always: a little subtlety and
lateral thinking does wonders).

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 122 >Because they[Damaging Manipulation spells] are entirely physical
>by the time the caster is concerned,
>magic pool and shielding go out the window.

>Robert Watkins

Maybe you could clear this up. I would have thought the same thing,
but in mana barrier's description, it says it stops Manipulation spells.
Seems to contradict itself to me.
ryan

Message no. 123 On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Paul Jonathan Adam wrote:

> Combine a few of the above. Magic Fingers to bring a grenade up to Joe
> Samurai and pull the pin, then a Barrier to trap him inside with it.
> Extreme quantities of chunky salsa effect. What *is* the damage rating
> for being trapped inside a Force 6 Personal Barrier with an exploding
> grenade?

Generally not much considering that in order to keep it small
enough to be able to bounce back effectively, you sacrifice dice, which
means you sacrifice successes, which means the barrier rating isn't
likely to be above 6, which means that the blast will go right through
the barrier, which means that there will be no chunk salsa effect at all.
Whew.

Marc

Message no. 124 To all you who think a mundanes resistance test can not result in a "clean
miss", check the procedure for spell casting- It most definately can. Combat
spell or DM.
>
> |
> |>.Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success
> |>_AFTER_ the
> |>target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
> |>because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the
> |>target
> |>has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down
> |>not to
> |>take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
> |>This would seriously change the power level of magic in my
> |>campaign.
> |
> |>U-Gene << just when I thought I knew the system... >>
> |
> |That's what I'm screaming too, man. I'm pretty sure that if a mage
> |get's a success then the spell is cast--boom. Then the resistance test
> |is used to see just how fried the target actually is (considering
> |dodging[combat pool], armor, and toughness).
> |But hey, I'm a newbie.
>
> As far as I'm concerned, you're right.
> The only dice roll that can remove that one success is Dodge (for Damaging
> Manipulations) and/or Magic for all damaging spells.
> If there's no mage present to assign magic pool protection vs a death touch
> then the body roll is to Resist the full damage of the attack.....
>
>
> --
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> | |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crackin |
> |u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk |the ground beneath a giant bolder, which you can't |
> | |move, with no hope of rescue. |
> |Andrew Halliwell |Consider how lucky you are that life has been good |
> |Principal in:- |to you so far... |
> |Comp Sci & Visual Arts | -The BOOK, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. |
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

--
() _
/\ /) //
/ ) o _, // o // _
/__/__<_(_) o //__<_</_</_
/| />
|/ </

Message no. 125 >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:

>In message <31034154.33455147@**.kensco.net> shadowrn@********.itribe.net
writes:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ What
the.......?

<lost o' stuff>
>Just what is your complaint here? You're coming across as saying it's
>unfair that samurai are better in a stand-up face-to-face fight than
>magicians, which can be true (but not always: a little subtlety and
>lateral thinking does wonders).
>
There was not complaint. I just mentioned "poor, down-trodden mages"
and the fit hit the shan. I have no idea why I continued this
arguement, prolly because it is fun. The original idea I was trying
to get across was that while both "archetypes" are fairly even in many
respects, those that play sammies tend to get their characters maxed
out in archetype related skills then those who play magicians.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Many people run the shadows, praying that whatever God they
follow will smile upon them.
I waltz through the Shadows with my Gods, and I lead!!
-The Shadowdancer (shadow@**.kensco.net)

Message no. 126 At 06:37 PM 1/23/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Paul Jonathan Adam wrote:
>
>> Combine a few of the above. Magic Fingers to bring a grenade up to Joe
>> Samurai and pull the pin, then a Barrier to trap him inside with it.
>> Extreme quantities of chunky salsa effect. What *is* the damage rating
>> for being trapped inside a Force 6 Personal Barrier with an exploding
>> grenade?
>
> Generally not much considering that in order to keep it small
>enough to be able to bounce back effectively, you sacrifice dice, which
>means you sacrifice successes, which means the barrier rating isn't
>likely to be above 6, which means that the blast will go right through
>the barrier, which means that there will be no chunk salsa effect at all.
> Whew.

Thats too bad, would be an interesting visual..kinda like a tomato in a blender?
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/_/ Paul J. Carmen _/_/
_/_/ odin@*******************.k12.ct.us _/_/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Message no. 127 > Generally not much considering that in order to keep it small
>enough to be able to bounce back effectively, you sacrifice dice, which
>means you sacrifice successes, which means the barrier rating isn't
>likely to be above 6, which means that the blast will go right through
>the barrier, which means that there will be no chunk salsa effect at all.
> Whew.

But since you only need 1 success to create a Barrier rating equal to the
force, it could be ugly. It seems reasonable to buy this at force 8 or as
high as possible, since regardless of the force the target number is still
6 and what's a little drain compared to a lot of salsa?

<evil grin>

>Marc

=================================================================
Adam Getchell
acgetchell@*******.edu
http://www.engr.ucdavis.edu/~acgetche/
=================================================================

"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability in the opponent."
-- Sun Tzu

Message no. 128 > 2) You play the rule that magic requires net success. I know thats
>official but as i said before contemplate that rule and 2nd ed
>shielding, and well you either require magic to be staged down all
>the way not bounced for 0 net or accept initiates are immune to
>combat magic, plus friends if they have some more spare dice. All
>this does is to encourage force 12 spells, ie takes the war to an
>even higher munchkin level.

You really have to use "the net successes" rule because it's the way the
game works. If you don't, then you're making combat spells into better
versions of damaging manipulations with a lot less drain.

As for using force 12 spells, you'd have to bond some hefty foci or initiate
to level 5 before you could handle anywhere near that drain without causing
bigtime physical damage to yourself.

Message no. 129 At 04:54 PM 1/22/96 -0500, U-Gene wrote:
>Topcat wrote:
>>>I leave the spell as it is simply because D damage and area effect is
>>>very powerful, 1 success and they all fall down!
>>
>>Ummm...if the target gets more than your one success on body dice (it is a
>>resisted spell) then nothing happens at all. No D damage to stage down.
>
>????
>
>Are you telling me that a mage has to get at least one success _AFTER_ the
>target gets to roll his resistance?!? I better go check that at home,
>because I've been using it as once the mage gets one success, the target
>has to get enough successes to stage the damage all the way down not to
>take any damage. (9 successes in the above example).
>This would seriously change the power level of magic in my campaign.

Yup, that's the way it works. Page 129 in SRII has the full scoop.
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
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-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 130 >Groups are few and far between, plus they have a very strict selection
>for members. The grimmy states at least 3 people are needed to start
>a group, and the number of mages around do not support quick or easy
>formation.

How many mages/shaman/physads are there in your playing group. If it's 3 or
more you got the makings of your own initiatory group.

>Plus, while initiation offers some new skills, that does
>not reflect the fact that a mage also needs 14 Karma to raise
>Sorcery-6 to Sorcery-7. And while this would allow the mage to add an
>extra die to his/her pool, the sammie just added and extra die to
>his/her initial roll.

It also makes it easier for the mage to learn new spells, makes him better
at astral fighting, and gives him another die which he can use to shield
himself or another (or spell defense if not initiated. Not a bad 14 karma
spent by my figures.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 131 At 12:28 AM 1/23/96 -0500, The Shadowdancer wrote:
>I believe it was TopCat who said this, but someone said that beginning
>characters could not get wired-3. How so? In the creation rules, it
>states that a character cannot have equipment with a rating higher
>then six. But wired-3 count as rating 3 equipment, not 12, wherever
>that came from. If you were speaking of availability, the
>availability of wired-3 is eight. Plus during CharGen, the rules say
>that availability and street index is not used.

The ratings they speak of for CharGen apply to ratings on things like
spells, programs, maglocks, etc. Wired Reflexes is referred to as "level 3"
not "rating 3" like Skillwires or Hardwires. It is true, though, that
availability and street index are not used in CharGen per standard rules.

My group had a bad experience (mainly due to my super-priced samurai and
newbie mages) that resulted in us switching to a system where nothing above
availability 6 was allowed at the start. In one of our groups, we even have
a 4 limit set (with a couple exceptions). Also, we keep resources to B at
max. This has greatly enhanced the fun of the game. Some pieces of
cyberware/bioware are only heard of in whispers. Characters have to rely
more on roleplay than dice.

But that's the way we do things, which is different than most. Sorry for
the confusion.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 132 At 06:02 AM 1/23/96 -0500, Ryan wrote:
>That's what I'm screaming too, man. I'm pretty sure that if a mage
>get's a success then the spell is cast--boom. Then the resistance test
>is used to see just how fried the target actually is (considering
>dodging[combat pool], armor, and toughness).
>But hey, I'm a newbie.

That's truth for manipulation spells anyway. For combat spells, the caster
must have more successes than the target or the spell doesn't affect him.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 133 At 07:18 AM 1/23/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Hey U-gene I think the way you explained it was right. If a mage
>throws a hellblast at a sammie and achieves one success then he does
>need 9 success to stage it down to 0 damage. I think that the other
>guy (no offence!) has mis read the rules the only way that you can
>achieve one success and aviod they spell it to dodge it using magic
>pool, And funnily enough sammies don't get a magic pool. magic pool
>is they same as combat pool if more net success are achieved with a
>combat pool roll than achieved by the attacker then the blow is
>avoided completely if not its resulting damage against bod time

Nope, didn't misread the rules. Check 'em out yourself, pg. 129 SRII. Or
just look at Gurth's post on teh subject, he's got it right.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 134 >>[snipped about unfairness of using combat spells by the rules]

>Just slightly. Thats why i force folks to stage down, it also helps
>moderate the arms race at force 6 spells. This rule would be one way
>to seriously depower magic but you would have to really stand on the
>all willpower 6 PC's like bad them!! its not realistic but happens
>all the time in most games.

If you do that, then you're making combat spells into more effective, less
costly (drain wise) manipulation spells that don't have to contend with
armor. Yes, it does make mages more powerful (MUCH!). But playing it by
the rules doesn't depower magic, it just plays it by the rules. Which from
what I gather, a lot of people haven't been doing.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 135 At 04:36 PM 1/23/96 -0500, A Halliwell wrote:
>>[snipped complaints on how magic really works]

>As far as I'm concerned, you're right.
>The only dice roll that can remove that one success is Dodge (for Damaging
>Manipulations) and/or Magic for all damaging spells.
>If there's no mage present to assign magic pool protection vs a death touch
>then the body roll is to Resist the full damage of the attack.....

Check the rules, pg. 129 SRII. As far as they're concerned, you're wrong
about combat spells.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 136 >...the head sammie has not spent any
>Karma on anything except for firearms. He has a firearms of 11 and a
>combat pool of 12. 22 dice tend to bring sucssesses.

Sure does, but 2 guys with shotguns can make life hell for anyone. Staging
down 2D isn't too hard for most samurai, but 2D with 6 successes is no fun.
And that's just the first shot.

>Still, in a suprise sitch, when generic goons do not have cyber ( the
>norm ), even in an unplanned fight, the sammies will splatter anyone.
>And while I do plan stiff opposition, the damn mages, grenade
>launchers, and riggers with trash-can-lids sporting SMGs help to take
>them out. I have given them a stiff dose of their own medicene, but
>these types of goups are fairly few, and the runners know enough about
>the background info to know that standard groups do not have 3+ mages
>and 10+ metahumans. And I could take out the sammies fairly easily
>(Barrett to the head, called shot, tac computer, no armor in the
>head), but it is not conducive to a good story line.

The other side to the coin is that the runners shouldn't be getting much
karma (if any) if they're waltzing through everything you throw at them.
Beating up the average gangers when you're first starting out may be worth 1
or 2, but as soon as they become no more than an inconvenience to the
runners you need to dump the karma award.

What this'll do is make them realize that they don't get anywhere taking
piddly jobs anymore and they'll start asking for the big stuff and paying
the price for facing it.

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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 137 >There was not complaint. I just mentioned "poor, down-trodden mages"
>and the fit hit the shan. I have no idea why I continued this
>arguement, prolly because it is fun. The original idea I was trying
>to get across was that while both "archetypes" are fairly even in many
>respects, those that play sammies tend to get their characters maxed
>out in archetype related skills then those who play magicians.

Different games, different players. I love my skills so I build them up as
fast as possible no matter what I'm playing...samurai, mage, physad,
whatever. If you want more "power" out of a character, then you have to
keep situations to that archetype's benefit. As soon as you're playing the
other guy's game, you're on your way to a loss.
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Bob "TopCat" Ooton <topcat@******.net>
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"Outside they are gathering and their fangs are bared, for
the bigger your fangs, the bigger your share."
-- Sol Invictus "Here Am I"
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Message no. 138 >Maybe you could clear this up. I would have thought the same thing,
>but in mana barrier's description, it says it stops Manipulation spells.
>Seems to contradict itself to me.

It depends on the TYPE of manipulation spell. It'll certainly stop, say,
telekinetic manipulations (levitate, Magic fingers), and control
manipulations (Control Thoughts). These are still astral at the target.

_Most_ Damaging manipulations, however, become physical at the caster,
and move on from there.

--
_______________________________________________________________________
/ \
| "As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it |
| wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging |
| had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I |
| realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be |
| spent infinding mistakes in my own programs." -- Maurice Wilkes |
| Robert Watkins robertdw@*******.com.au |
\_______________________________________________________________________/

Message no. 139 > >
> I played it wrong as well, until I too noticed taht rule -and its a good
> one. the problem I had was that mages kept getting Stun Bolt (the best
> combat spell in my opinion drain for Force 6 is 2S!) and using them on
> initiate mages. Those initiate mages would allocate all to shielding
> final TN of about 12! and the mage only had to get 1 success and then teh
> initiate would have to get 7 to take no damage, even with 12 dice,
> against a Force 6 spell this isn't likely.
Actully there is a one in six chance of rolling a 7 So it is
feasible for the initiates to resist completely.
---Sedah Drol

Message no. 140 > >From out of the Shadows, Paul Jonathan Adam wispered:
> >Just what is your complaint here? You're coming across as saying it's
> >unfair that samurai are better in a stand-up face-to-face fight than
> >magicians, which can be true (but not always: a little subtlety and
> >lateral thinking does wonders).
> >
> There was not complaint. I just mentioned "poor, down-trodden mages"
> and the fit hit the shan. I have no idea why I continued this
> arguement, prolly because it is fun. The original idea I was trying
> to get across was that while both "archetypes" are fairly even in many
> respects, those that play sammies tend to get their characters maxed
> out in archetype related skills then those who play magicians.

Okay, my misunderstanding. This is because I never really played a magician
until Second Ed, out of disgust at the munched-out monstrosities I ran
with in First Ed: an experienced (over 150 Karma) merc being completely
shut out of the action by the magicians really rankled. Scouting? Cast a
spell. Combat? Cast a spell. Drive a vehicle? Cast a spell. You get tired
of watching mageplayers roll bucketfuls of dice after a while.

Second edition improved things enormously. As I said earlier, I play both
magicians and cyberguys, and find the power balance pretty even provided
both use their brains rather than grabbing for dice. I did find that
Lynch rose to Firearms-10, Stealth-10 and Unarmed Combat-10 over several
years, and kept broadening his skill base after that, while Fenris (a
wolf shaman) has his highest skill at 7 despite having been played for over
four years... but then he has better things to spend Karma on (initiation,
quickened spells, and learning more magic). His skill base is very wide,
though: magic, combat, stealth, history, languages, music...

Partly, ask this - where else can sammies spend their Karma? One useful sink
for Lynch was decking: another was music. He learned to play guitar for the
hell of it, and now is bloody good: it's been very handy for a few stakeouts.
Firstly, who ever suspects the musician of being a cybermonster? And secondly,
there's enough space in the back of a Marshall amp for some *real* firepower,
yet no MAD scanner will ever detect it. As ever, lateral thinking and
imagination tend to win over brute force (in my game at least). But if you
don't encourage that sort of 'pointless' skill, sammies just keep bumping
up their Firearms.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 141 > On Mon, 22 Jan 1996, Paul Jonathan Adam wrote:
> > Fields of Fire, page 78: you take a penalty to your outgoing equal
> > to half the penalty applied to your incoming, basically, so if you're
> > in cover that gives you a +4 to be shot at, anyone you fire at is at
> > +2 because you're in an awkward position et cetera.
> >
> I personally don't use this, if the character only has his head and gun
> arm exposed I don't see why there should be any SIGNIFICANT reduction in
> his chance to hit.

Try it sometime :) When you don't have time to pick your firing position,
you can end up contorted, lying on razor-edged gravel, sinking into
sheep dung, pressing your face into thistles or stinging nettles...

Also, try this simple test, if you're right-handed (reverse all sides if
left-handed). You have to fire around a corner: your left side is 'open'
but you're right-handed (and your smartlink is in that hand). See how
comfortable you are leaning around that corner to bring 'just your head
and gun arm' to bear. If nothing else, you'll be holding the gun
upside-down and awkwardly... or firing off-hand without your smartlink.
Hard to know which is worse.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Message no. 142 Mark Steedman said on 30 Jan 96...

> > *Exterminate*
> >
> Only problem is karma for something with limited usefulness.

Not if you live in Chicago, but then you have a second problem: using the
spell without waking up more of the buggers :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Don't call it a movement -- there's other ways of saying it.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 143 >> Ouch!! He survived not just one, but 'a few' Rating 10 astral quests?
>> My respects!
>>
>Actually as long as you can get your karma pool for the character i
>find these fairly easy with about grade 3 or so. Rating ten is about
>the limit ...

That's the problem - we ditched Karma Pool long enough ago that I'd
forgotten about its existence. The GM probably started to be annoyed by it
when Dasce made 50 units of Radical gold in one circulation - worth 2 M¥.
Even that was with a 'triangular' progression of Good Karma -> Karma Pool
(ie. first Pool die comes from 10 Karma, next from 20, 30, ... etc.)

>> You probably don't want to know the proportion of magicians in my group
>> (it's rather high), but my reasoning is that magicians tend to associate
>> with other magicians more than with mundanes. You might compare, say,=
the
>> incidence of people who are millionaires in RL, with the incidence of
>> magically active people in SR.
>>
>Um, i'm not bothered, i have aquired a more than 'slightly' high
>percentage in the game i GM but more typical SR teams really ought to
>have one magician at most, they may concentrate in shadowrunning and
>the corporate sectors but there are not many about. (unless tribal
>protected you nearly become a 'runner' by default as magicain if you
>want to stay out of the grasp of the corporate recriuters, though
>there are a few detectives e.t.c. but thats not far from
>Shadowrunning investigative runs only, but admitadly different)

Apart from Dasce (a hermetic grade 4 initiate), the team has a grade 5
combat hermetic, a grade 6 raccoon shaman, a grade 2 air elemental
adept/rigger, a grade 6 physical adept, a new (non-initiated) physical
adept, and a mundane elf (NOT a decker. Even if he does have a cyberdeck.
And an SPU Math and Encephalon. And a high-bandwidth datajack to headware
memory). Probably half the group's Contacts are other magicians, and there
are a number of former PCs, and a couple of NPC magicians with whom we like
to stay in touch.

--
Tim Little

Message no. 144 >Timothy Little writes
>
>>
>> Tired of insect spirits ruining your day? How about learning a Force 1
>> Exterminate spell? Do I hear you ask "What is an Exterminate spell?"
I
>> shall gladly elaborate...
>>
>I strongly suggest you make that at least force 6 including mods or
>the first queen with the power 'Hive queens protection' at its full
>all mana spells level is really going to hurt.

At the time, the prospects of making fetishes were rather dim, and karma was
low (Chicago tends to do that), so Force 1 it was. Besides which, Dasce
doesn't like taking limitations, even if do they increase the effectiveness
of his spells.
Even as it stands, 11 dice in a Force 1 spell will still take out Willpower
4 on average, and Willpower 5 about 1 in 4 times. If you're up against a
Force 6 or higher Insect Queen, you use other tactics.

Force 1 is also good for being able to put a few spells into an anchoring
site. Anchor in 3 or 4 with an Activation Link (Touch Required), then you
can hold aloft your magic sword, and shout "By the power of Greyskull!" (or
maybe not 8^)
Then the 'Exterminate's go off, and if one doesn't get them, the others will.

>> *Exterminate*
>>
>Only problem is karma for something with limited usefulness.

That's another good reason for taking it at Force 1 - more karma left for
when you're *not* facing bugs.

>> Just perfect for those Anchorings, safe to use in those 'hard to separate
>> friend from foe' melees, and (at no extra cost) useful as a
>> "test-to-destruction" Detect Flesh Form spell.
>>
>This latter is about the only reason to take it as aura scan to
>infinity cannot be trusted.

Bug Barrier from Awakenings is even better at this. I just wish I'd either
had the book, or thought of it myself.

>You don't happen to have a 'test to destruction' 'detect enemy' (as
>in HB type) spell do you or 'test to destruction Aztechnology mage'
>spell...? :)

Sorry - these would make my life a lot easier, too. 8-(

--
Tim Little

Message no. 145 > From: t_little@**********.utas.edu.au (Timothy Little)
>
> Force 1 is also good for being able to put a few spells into an anchoring
> site. Anchor in 3 or 4 with an Activation Link (Touch Required), then you
> can hold aloft your magic sword, and shout "By the power of Greyskull!" (or
> maybe not 8^)
> Then the 'Exterminate's go off, and if one doesn't get them, the others will.
>
Ah yes, someone else found the way to use Anchoring.
Best with Force 2 spell, fetish exclusive (not as if youre casting
them at the time they go off. 2 karma for spell, 1 for activation
link.

Take 6D damge area affect cone spell, one mana stun , one power,
with nice green light show side effects. Set to fire from tip of your
origonal series trek phaser, 6 karma, now point at bad guys yell fire
ok they take 6D magic resist body, and 6D magic resist willpower,
have to split the shielding. Can we say painfull!
And it even workls after exposure to nuclear reactors Chekov! :)

ok thats two research spells but they are not going to strain you!

Mark

Message no. 146 Gurth said on 27 Jan 96...

>Just because I'm interested, do many people actually use spells with Force
>in the order of, oh, 8 or 9 or even higher? I mean without the expendable
>fetish and exclusivity slapped on, mind. The few times I suggested this to
>the local shaman's player his reaction was that he'd hardly ever make the
>TN to even learn the spell, so why bother? (The char's Magic rating is
>12(14) so no worries about physical drain.) Mostly he uses spells with
>Froce between 4 and 6, plus a fetish or exclusive modifier and a shitload
>of Magic Pool dice...

My character as two spell on that range, and both were special case,

Increase reflexe +3 at 9
PowerBolt (exclusive) at 9(11)

The increase reflexe should have been learned at 5 to have the same effect
(quickening at 9). But it was roleplaying escuse for other things (joining
a secret magical group).

The powerBolt on the other hand is what i wanted, I never used it on anyone
But physical objects (wall doors, banshee(the vehicule))but i could if i wanted.
In combat i tend to use stunbolt 6, less drain, lower TN.

It took my PC three month to learn this spell, a lot of karma (rerolls) and
fire elementals (to help). For the ones interested, my mage magic attribute
is 7, so
I don't use this spell to maximum strenght often (physical damage instead of
drain).

_________________________________________________________________________
| _____ |
| \ \ / Don't steal,... |
| \ __/ / ...the government hates the competition |
| \ / |
| \_/ Vincent.Pellerin@***.gmc.ulaval.ca |
|________________________________________________________________________|

Message no. 147 I`ve just read "Fantastyka" - polish s/f magazine. Inside was few stories.
My idea comes from one of them - "Good Rat" by Aleen Steele IIRC. In future
RAT is guy(or girl) that is working as an experimental rat. Lots of
pharmaceutical companies prefer to test chemicals on humans. So about that
idea - players can be hired by someone, who worked as a rat (or by family
of rat), and that experiment was tragical. Players should get inside, get
that medicine which were used on rat because it can be used as a proof
againist that compamy. It`s easy, because they can work as a rat. No
problem but this work is not good for health :))

Second is flood in little or medium city. Now in southern part of Poland we
have greatest flood of last 100 years. In my city (bigest in area and very
well prepared for wave (7.5 meters big)) ppl are panicked. Today (thursday)
you cannot buy milk, bread, mineral water etc. So tommorow will be worse
situation. I think that in smaller cities it`s worse. And realize, how
it`ll be, if ppl will have weapons. BTW: today city council decided to
break some barriers on river and flood few villages just to minimize wave
that will come to my city. I`m just thinking how ppl there are feeling
now... they have to move because if they`ll stay - they`ll die. Again -
realize these ppl with weapons etc... small civil war...

yASIu...
e-maIL [yasiu@******.com]
rEAL nAME???? wHAt iS rEAl nAME???

Message no. 148 Bahamut, don;t read any of this, just in case :]

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E
S

A
R
E

Y
O
U
R

F
R
I
E
N
D

Ok, that's a bit much, but i'll live.

Ok, I need some ideas. I have two core characters, a Houngoun and a Phys
Ad (Athletics, Speed, and HtH Combat Specialist), a gargoyle, and an
insignificant munchkin as my players. Most of the story revolves around
the Houngoun and Adept.

They're kinda on the run, though the big baddie chasing them won;t catch
them for some time.

I'm taking them down to New Orleans, and they're hooking up with a small
Pirate gang (Like 10 people, only 6 of which are really combat oriented).
They've basically just signed on, though none of the characters knows
anything about Pirates, boats, or the Caribbean :]

I'm fishing for some ideas for what exactly to do with them now. I have
some ideas for later on down the road, but any duggestions would be useful.
Espcially if they're in the next couple hours :]

More details later

Bull
--
Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
bull@*******.net ===== bull22@***********.com
http://shadowrun.html.com/users/bull
ICQ: 35931890
====================================================== =
= Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? = =
======================================================
"Animals have 2 jobs: To taste good and to fit well."
-- Greg Proops, "Vs."

Message no. 149 On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:53:41 -0400 (EDT), Bull <bull@*******.net>
wrote:

>Bahamut, don;t read any of this, just in case :]
>
>S
>P
>O
>I
>L
>E
>R
>
>S
>P
>A
>C
>E
>S
>
>A
>R
>E
>
>Y
>O
>U
>R
>
>F
>R
>I
>E
>N
>D
>
How about kidnapping some important corp family/exec/kid from a cruise
liner (they still have those in 2060 don't they?) It'd be interesting
to have a running fight on a boat that large, IMHO.

Message no. 150 >Bahamut, don;t read any of this, just in case :]

Boy Tim are you guys screwed!!!!! ;-)

>
>S
>P
>O
>I
>L
>E
>R
>
>S
>P
>A
>C
>E
>S
>
>A
>R
>E
>
>Y
>O
>U
>R
>
>F
>R
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>N
>D
>
>I'm fishing for some ideas for what exactly to do with them now. I have
>some ideas for later on down the road, but any duggestions would be useful.
> Espcially if they're in the next couple hours :]

There's always money to be made fishing for Megalodons.
They can mix it up with Vampires and/or zombies and the Voodoo dudes of the
Caribbean League
They could run organs for Tamanous
They could screw with the Dread Pirate Paco.
Run contraband up the coast to NYCity
Search for Atlantis
Try to reach Guinee - The City Beneath the Sea (Kinda good since you have a
voudoun!)
Play a BIG game of Man O' War! ;-)
Steal, chop, and sell boats.
Terrorize swimmers.
Reaserch aquatic magical phenomenon for a corp

Etc. etc.

Hope it helps!

Steven A. Tinner
bluewizard@*****.com
http://listen.to/tinner
"God is my co-pilot, but the Devil is my bombardier."

Message no. 151 > I'm fishing for some ideas for what exactly to do with them now. I have
> some ideas for later on down the road, but any duggestions would
> be useful.
> Espcially if they're in the next couple hours :]

If they're heading down to New Orleans take them deep into the bayou
territory possibly raiding a rival pirate base of ops.

regards,

Roger.

Message no. 152 --- Walter Scheper <Ratlaw@*******.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:53:41 -0400 (EDT), Bull
> <bull@*******.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Bahamut, don;t read any of this, just in case :]
> >
> >S
> >P
> >O
> >I
> >L
> >E
> >R
> >
> >S
> >P
> >A
> >C
> >E
> >S
> >
> >A
> >R
> >E
> >
> >Y
> >O
> >U
> >R
> >
> >F
> >R
> >I
> >E
> >N
> >D
> >
> How about kidnapping some important corp
> family/exec/kid from a cruise
> liner (they still have those in 2060 don't they?)
> It'd be interesting
> to have a running fight on a boat that large, IMHO.
>
>

I have run such a Mission For SR it is fun.
i used the old top secret module 003 lady in distress
had a blast with it .
I would recomend geting a copy of a good cruise line flier from a
travle agent if you cant find it. they usually have layouts of the ship

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

Message no. 153 At 12:38 PM 8/28/99 -0700, Michael Raglan wrote:

> > >Bahamut, don;t read any of this, just in case :]
> > >
> > >S
> > >P
> > >O
> > >I
> > >L
> > >E
> > >R
> > >
> > >S
> > >P
> > >A
> > >C
> > >E
> > >S
> > >
> > >A
> > >R
> > >E
> > >
> > >Y
> > >O
> > >U
> > >R
> > >
> > >F
> > >R
> > >I
> > >E
> > >N
> > >D
> > >
> > How about kidnapping some important corp
> > family/exec/kid from a cruise
> > liner (they still have those in 2060 don't they?)
> > It'd be interesting
> > to have a running fight on a boat that large, IMHO.
>
>I have run such a Mission For SR it is fun.
>i used the old top secret module 003 lady in distress
>had a blast with it .
>I would recomend geting a copy of a good cruise line flier from a
>travle agent if you cant find it. they usually have layouts of the ship

Yes! "Lady in Distress" is the Top Secret! module I was trying to remember
yesterday. "Die Hard" onboard the Love Boat! A classic bait & switch
adventure. Get the deck plans & whatnot at <http://www.seabourn.com>;. And
IIRC, one of their ships was also used in the epically crappy "Speed II"
which would provide additional background info if you can spare the $3 to
rent it and endure the 90 minutes to watch it.

~ Snake Eyes

Message no. 154 > At 12:38 PM 8/28/99 -0700, Michael Raglan wrote:
>
> > > >Bahamut, don;t read any of this, just in case :]
> > > >
> > > >S
> > > >P
> > > >O
> > > >I
> > > >L
> > > >E
> > > >R
> > > >
> > > >S
> > > >P
> > > >A
> > > >C
> > > >E
> > > >S
> > > >
> > > >A
> > > >R
> > > >E
> > > >
> > > >Y
> > > >O
> > > >U
> > > >R
> > > >
> > > >F
> > > >R
> > > >I
> > > >E
> > > >N
> > > >D
> > > >
>
You can also start doing runs on arcologies...
Are there arcologies in the Atlantik or pazifc??
In the northsea there are some for sure...

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