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Message no. 1
From: Court Schuett <schuett@*****.IVCC.EDU>
Subject: Magic and Essence
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 15:19:37 -0500
I'm running a world where almost all the PCs are cybered to the max,
mosstly munchkin type players, however, two of them did have a good point
the other day. They were getting healed magically, I was feeling
particularly generous, and an Indian Shaman offered to heal them for
helping protect him from some other chummers. Anyway, it was the first
time any of them had seen magic, hell, it was the first time, I, as a GM
cast a spell. I just picked up the book and learned it myself, so we
didn't start with all the rules at the beginning and cause no one wanted
to experiment with magic, but, I digress. Being the greedy munchkins
they are, whenI asked them for their essence to find target numbers for a
heal spell, they were quite upset. "You mean there are draw backs to
having 0 essence?" Anyway, they wanted to know why combat spells, which
I threw at them earlier in the adventure went off Body or Willpower and
didn't take Essence into consideration. They were upset because combat
spells could hurt them easily, but healing spells are hard to cast on
them were didn't work as well because it was based off essence. I was at
a loss cause I hadn't played it for long, and I really don't know.
Anybody have any answers? Why is it that combat isn't based off essence,
but health is. If how much you can heal a person is based on Essence,
why isn't how much you can damage them based on Essence?
I'm not necesarilly looking for a different system, or house-rule or
anything, though, I'm always open for that. I'm more looking for a
reason behind the game mechanics.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Court-the-confused-and-often-perplexed-GM
:)


/* Court Schuett

schuett@*****.ivcc.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's only one thing that I know how to do well
And I've often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And that's be you,
Be what you're like,
Be like yourself,
And so I'm having a wonderful time
But I'd rather be whistling in the dark
-They Might Be Giants
*******************************************************************************/
Message no. 2
From: Brett Barksdale <brett@***.ORST.EDU>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 13:43:44 PDT
>Anybody have any answers? Why is it that combat isn't based off essence,
>but health is. If how much you can heal a person is based on Essence,
>why isn't how much you can damage them based on Essence?

When you are trying to hurt someone (i.e. targetting them with combat
spells), you are simply "blasting" them with mana. You couldn't care less
how "artificial" or "pure" (low or high essence, respectively) the
target
is. It's just damage that the target has to resist and/or soak.

However, healing is a much more subtle and intricate effect. You are
going in and "reweaving" wounded parts of their body together. Now, if
they are "pure" (essence 6.00), there is nothing in your way. But if
they are not (essence around 0.01), it becomes much more difficult to
fix their body when, as far as magic goes (essence), they don't have much
of a body /left/.

- Brett
Message no. 3
From: Mike Alex <mra0118@******.SDSMT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 14:52:25 -0600
> Anybody have any answers? Why is it that combat isn't based off essence,
> but health is. If how much you can heal a person is based on Essence,
> why isn't how much you can damage them based on Essence?
> I'm not necesarilly looking for a different system, or house-rule or
> anything, though, I'm always open for that. I'm more looking for a
> reason behind the game mechanics.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>

My personal take on it is the basic fact that it is harder to fix
something than to break it. With health spells (at least by one
interpretation) you are feeding energy through the targets aura and trying
to tightly control it to repair damage. You are, in fact, trying to make
the body match the aural template. If there is disharmony between the
body and the aural template (i.e. he's cybered) it's harder to bring them
back into sync. With combat spells on the other hand, what you are doing
is dumping *lots* of energy through the targets aura to fry them from the
inside. The tougher they are (higher body) the more energy it takes.


Mike Alex, mra0118@******.sdsmt.edu
"Resistance is futile, (if < 1 ohm)."
Message no. 4
From: Justin Pinnow <jpinnow@*****.EDU>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 17:06:36 -0400
Court Schuett wrote:
>
> I'm running a world where almost all the PCs are cybered to the max,
> mosstly munchkin type players, however, two of them did have a good point
> the other day. They were getting healed magically, I was feeling
> particularly generous, and an Indian Shaman offered to heal them for
> helping protect him from some other chummers. Anyway, it was the first
> time any of them had seen magic, hell, it was the first time, I, as a GM
> cast a spell. I just picked up the book and learned it myself, so we
> didn't start with all the rules at the beginning and cause no one wanted
> to experiment with magic, but, I digress. Being the greedy munchkins
> they are, whenI asked them for their essence to find target numbers for a
> heal spell, they were quite upset. "You mean there are draw backs to
> having 0 essence?" Anyway, they wanted to know why combat spells, which
> I threw at them earlier in the adventure went off Body or Willpower and
> didn't take Essence into consideration. They were upset because combat
> spells could hurt them easily, but healing spells are hard to cast on
> them were didn't work as well because it was based off essence. I was at
> a loss cause I hadn't played it for long, and I really don't know.
> Anybody have any answers? Why is it that combat isn't based off essence,
> but health is. If how much you can heal a person is based on Essence,
> why isn't how much you can damage them based on Essence?
> I'm not necesarilly looking for a different system, or house-rule or
> anything, though, I'm always open for that. I'm more looking for a
> reason behind the game mechanics.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.

When you attack someone with a spell, they resist with either their
mental strength (willpower) or their physical structure (body). The
spell doesn't care whether the body is cyber or meat. It is destroying
its target.

Healing is a different matter entirely. The heal/treat spell attempts
to heal wounds via setting bones, reattaching tissue, etc. The healing
spell only heals meat, not cyberwear. Thus, the presence of cyberwear
makes it harder to heal the muscle.

Make sense now? :)
<Snip of signature>


--
_____________________________________________________________________________
Justin Pinnow
jpinnow@*****.edu
Message no. 5
From: Rick Jones <rick@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 15:58:52 -0500
Court Schuett wrote:
> to experiment with magic, but, I digress. Being the greedy munchkins
> they are, whenI asked them for their essence to find target numbers for a
> heal spell, they were quite upset. "You mean there are draw backs to
> having 0 essence?" Anyway, they wanted to know why combat spells, which
> I threw at them earlier in the adventure went off Body or Willpower and
> didn't take Essence into consideration. They were upset because combat

I had the same arguement from the cyber-troll in my group.

My answer:
A person's physical body is mapped to an "astral template". The
body wants to be like the template. When you put in cyberware, the body
is further and further away from the template. So, when a heal spell
is cast, the body is trying to heal the damage to the template caused by
the implants as well as the damage caused by bullets and such. The mage
has to "regulate the mana flow" (or some such nonsense) to make the heal
spell work only on the bullet holes and not to get the body to "heal"
over the strange stuff.

On the other hand, a combat spell is like taking a baseball bat
to the aura. So long as there's something to slam into, it doesn't care
how "broken" the aura is.

Now, there *is* a point when having enough metal in you becomes an
advantage to resisting spells - unfortunately, it comes after enough metal
is implanted that the aura can no longer "hold onto" the body, and the
patient dies. Unless, of course, the patient has some big mojos on him to
keep him alive when his spirit wants to get the hell out of Dodge. (See
Cybermancy in Cybertechnology)


--
Rick Jones Can not run out of time, there is infinite time.
rick@******.com You are finite, Zathras is finite. This.... is wrong
tool. No. No. Not good. No. No. Never use this.
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~rickj/ --Zathras, Babylon 5, War Without End
Message no. 6
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 18:48:32 -0500
[Snip beginning of uestion]

>Anybody have any answers? Why is it that combat isn't based off essence,
>but health is. If how much you can heal a person is based on Essence,
>why isn't how much you can damage them based on Essence?
>I'm not necesarilly looking for a different system, or house-rule or
>anything, though, I'm always open for that. I'm more looking for a
>reason behind the game mechanics.
>Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
Because... Combat spells are doing damage directly at their body or their
mind, and violating or breaking something is always easier than mending.

When you're healing (IMO), you also have to heal teh body's spirit. It's a
total package thing, with the spell asking the body to accelerate the
healing process. The more metal the person has, the harder it is to get
that body to mend itself. Also, i believe the High TG takes into account
the fact that usuaslly you have to mend metal and tissue back together as
well, and that's not a natural process, which makes it harder to do.

Does this make any sense, and does it help?

God, I'm explaining rules again... Pete, Andrew, Sascha... Somebody THWAP
me!!!! (but just a little one... save the big fish for later...:))

-Bull-the-what-the-hell-does-a-decker-know-about-magic-decker-trned-GM
Message no. 7
From: NightLife <habenir@******.SAN.UC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 20:16:51 -0700
>God, I'm explaining rules again... Pete, Andrew, Sascha... Somebody THWAP
>me!!!! (but just a little one... save the big fish for later...:))
>
>-Bull-the-what-the-hell-does-a-decker-know-about-magic-decker-trned-GM

thwap...No that didn't feel quite how about the medium... Thwap....There
that should do it. ;-)


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nightlife Inc.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

If you have to ask then it's probably classified.
Which means that I have to follow protocol.
But if you ask nicely I might forget that you asked.
Then again maybe not.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Document Classified
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Message no. 8
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 12:11:59 +0100
Court Schuett said on 15:19/24 Oct 96...

> I'm running a world where almost all the PCs are cybered to the max,
> mosstly munchkin type players, however, two of them did have a good point
> the other day. They were getting healed magically, I was feeling
> particularly generous, and an Indian Shaman offered to heal them for
> helping protect him from some other chummers. Anyway, it was the first
> time any of them had seen magic, hell, it was the first time, I, as a GM
> cast a spell. I just picked up the book and learned it myself, so we
> didn't start with all the rules at the beginning and cause no one wanted
> to experiment with magic, but, I digress.

First couple of games I ran, we decided not to use magic until we had a
reasonable ideas of the combat rules. Of course, this was in SR1 so I had
to create a flow chart of the spellcasting rules in order to make sense
of them :)

[snip]
> They were upset because combat spells could hurt them easily, but
> healing spells are hard to cast on them were didn't work as well because
> it was based off essence. I was at a loss cause I hadn't played it for
> long, and I really don't know. Anybody have any answers? Why is it that
> combat isn't based off essence, but health is. If how much you can heal
> a person is based on Essence, why isn't how much you can damage them
> based on Essence?

Well, taking something apart is always a lot easier than putting it back
together. Open an alarm clock (a mechanical one) and pull everything out,
then put it all back in, and see if it still works as it did before you
got your screwdrivers out.

I say the same thing is happening with combat and healing spells. All a
combat spell has to do is pump enough magical energy into the target to
cause damage to the body or the mind, which is relatively easy since it's
essentially an application of brute force. Healing magic has to be very
delicate and precise in putting the damaged "components" of the body back
together. Put another way, combat magic damages the aura, while healing
magic repairs it. Cyberware alters the user's aura, which means the body
is not what it's supposed to be, and that in turn interferes with magical
healing.

If cyberware had an effect on combat spells, I'd say it would make causing
damage easier rather than harder.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
...but I don't know...
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 9
From: A Halliwell <u5a77@**.KEELE.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 13:22:41 +0100
|Anybody have any answers? Why is it that combat isn't based off essence,
|but health is. If how much you can heal a person is based on Essence,
|why isn't how much you can damage them based on Essence?
|I'm not necesarilly looking for a different system, or house-rule or
|anything, though, I'm always open for that. I'm more looking for a
|reason behind the game mechanics.
|Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ahhh, it's the old astral template question.

Think of it this way....

Is it easier to injure someone in real life or to heal them.

When you cast a combat spell, the energy is not particularely subtle.
It just hit's your aura and *WHAM*, that hurt.

Repairing the damage to someone requires the magic to work off whe astral
template, which tells the magic what the person SHOULD be like, before he
was injured.

When you buy cyber, it drains your essence. The essence is a measure of how
close you are to your astral template. As the link between the two becomes
weaker, the magic has to try harder to fix the damage....

I think that just about sums it up....
--
______________________________________________________________________________
|u5a77@**.keele.ac.uk | |
|Andrew Halliwell | "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!" |
|Principal subjects in:-| "THAT WOULD BE AN ECCLESIASTICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!!|
|Comp Sci & Electronics | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ 5++ |
|X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! >*SULK*<|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 10
From: Sascha Pabst <Sascha.Pabst@**********.UNI-OLDENBURG.DE>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 14:47:18 +0000
On 24 Oct 96 at 18:48, Bull wrote:
[snip question]
> Because... Combat spells are doing damage directly at their body or their
> mind, and violating or breaking something is always easier than mending.
No, they don't. I wanted to answer to this earlier when I remembered how
combat spells are cast. They are attuned to the target's AURA in astral space,
then ground into physical space (and the target's physical body :-). So there
ARE arguments for using Essence as target number, but the reason - and thus
the answer - is quite simple. It's called "game balance" and means there have
to be problems when you use mucho 'ware, not just advantages.

[snip]
> God, I'm explaining rules again... Pete, Andrew, Sascha... Somebody THWAP
> me!!!! (but just a little one... save the big fish for later...:))
No.
:-)

Sascha
--
+---___---------+----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| / / _______ | Jhary-a-Conel aka Sascha Pabst | 'Hate is a force of|
| / /_/ ____/ |Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.de| attraction. Hate is|
| \___ __/ | | just love with its|
|==== \_/ ======| *Wearing hats is just a way of life* |back turned' - Terry|
|LOGOUT FASCISM!| - Me |Pratchett-Masquerade|
+------------- http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary -----------------+
Message no. 11
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 11:42:21 -0700
> God, I'm explaining rules again... Pete, Andrew, Sascha... Somebody THWAP
> me!!!! (but just a little one... save the big fish for later...:))

THWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAPTHWAP

There.
Better now Brawnar?
Message no. 12
From: Brian Johnson <john0375@****.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Magic and Essence
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 20:34:38 -0600
Why does essense count in health spells and not combat magic?

because they're two different types of magic:

if you used a harmful health spell to kill them (Wound, not heal)
you'd have the same difficulty casting the spell with effect.

Combat magic works a different way, because it affects the environment
just as badly as the people in the area.

It's a purpose kind of thing. It's a lot easier to kill someone with
magic intended to kill, than to use the powers of healing to kill.

It you want a serious explanation, then health magic works on a fine
cellular level through the aura. Combat magic isn't as good at hitting a
specific, damaged area, but does the trick.

If you had health magic that worked in the same mechanic as combat magic,
It would be easier to heal a weak willed individual than a strong willed one.
That doesn't make much sense. Hence, the existing mechanic.

ok?

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Magic and Essence, you may also be interested in:

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

Thwap!