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From:	John DeLaHunt <JDELAHUNT@******.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:	Magic Pools and Quickening
Date:	Tue, 17 Mar 92 16:11:10 CET

Message no. 1 Hoi.

I'm with Onyx...I've just built a sorcery adept with 50 pts of
spells and 1E6 nuyen, and he bought a weapon/power/spell purpose focus, all
at rating 4. He's got no cyber, so his magic pool is 6 (regular magic) +
4 (power focus), and another 4 (spell purpose focus) when casting combat
spells. The focus is a katana, so the weapon focus rating gives him nine
dice to attack with. (5 for katana skill and four more for the weapon focus)
(That's good, 'cos his STR is 1, and he needs all the spare successes he can
get...) However, the really good way to make this guy mad, poor and less
capable is to steal his katana.
And I'm with Wildcard...Quickening is really cool, *but*, if there's
another mage in the game (like on the bad guy side), it's really easy to
break. Just go astral, fight the spell, and the Quickener loses a point of
karma (more or less). But, then again, until that happens, it would sure be
nice to count on three or four automatic successes above and beyond the armored
jacket.

On the question side:
Can anyone tell me if, anywhere in the rules, if there is a limitation
on whether or not one can fight Unarmed for an action, then Armed for an
action, and switch back and forth, depending on the opponent's respective
defense pools? I'm looking for a precedent for telling the player that his
character must choose one or the other, but not both.

Thanks.

Rat Rasta ^. .^
John DeLaHunt =>.<=
JDELAHUNT@******.COLORADO.EDU "

From:	"Erekosse, Magelord of Amber Keep" <dsk@*****.CACS.USL.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Magic Pools and Quickening
Date:	Tue, 17 Mar 92 12:46:52 -0600

Message no. 2 >John DeLaHunt <JDELAHUNT@******.COLORADO.EDU>> writes
>
I'm with Onyx...I've just built a sorcery adept with 50 pts of
>spells and 1E6 nuyen, and he bought a weapon/power/spell purpose focus, all
>at rating 4. He's got no cyber, so his magic pool is 6 (regular magic) +
>4 (power focus), and another 4 (spell purpose focus) when casting combat
>spells. The focus is a katana, so the weapon focus rating gives him nine
>dice to attack with. (5 for katana skill and four more for the weapon focus)
>(That's good, 'cos his STR is 1, and he needs all the spare successes he can
>get...) However, the really good way to make this guy mad, poor and less
>capable is to steal his katana.

I don't think I'll ever run into this problem. I allow characters to start
with item, but do not automatically have them bonded. Sure the mage can start
off with a rating 4 power focus (quite rare in my game world), but she will be
doing quite a few runs before she can actually use the thing. The other
aspect in my game is availability of such an item. I pretty much have a good
idea where any focus higher than say rating 3 or 4 will be, and that's not
in PC hands. The positive side of this is seeing the players jubilation when
they do find a focus at 3 or G-d be praised 4: they've pretty much come to
the conclusion that higher focii do no exist. I have a similar control on
spell formulas. Certain spells are just not available on the open market.

Question: What do you mean by "6 (regular magic)" or did you mean "6
(sorcery
skill" ?

> And I'm with Wildcard...Quickening is really cool, *but*, if there's
>another mage in the game (like on the bad guy side), it's really easy to
>break. Just go astral, fight the spell, and the Quickener loses a point of
>karma (more or less). But, then again, until that happens, it would sure be
>nice to count on three or four automatic successes above and beyond the armored
>jacket.

The mages in my game have trouble keeping quickened spells up for more than a
few adventures. The enemy mages tend to target locked and quickened spells.
There are a lot of ways to take the spell down. If the enemy mage is also an
initiate, watch their reaction as the enemy uses dispelling on it particularly
if the spell was locked or quickened at a low force. Similar with attacking in
astral space: the mage himself could attack or have one of his astral critters
(elemental or spirit depending on outlook) do it for him. So quickening is
useful, but tend to be karmically quite costly.

>
> On the question side:
> Can anyone tell me if, anywhere in the rules, if there is a limitation
>on whether or not one can fight Unarmed for an action, then Armed for an
>action, and switch back and forth, depending on the opponent's respective
>defense pools? I'm looking for a precedent for telling the player that his
>character must choose one or the other, but not both.

I'd have to look at this on a situational basis. If a PC were using a dagger,
I'd probably allow it with no other conditions. Similarly, if the PC had
spurs (use Unarmed skill), I'd allow them to switch between them and a weapon
in hand. For say a sword or a katana, I'd probably take a look and see if
they had some sort of unarmed concentration or specialization which would
make it reasonable (eg MA). If the PC were willing to drop his weapon in
hand, he could immediately switch to unarmed, but going back to armed would
definitely not be as easy.

Magelord Erekosse
erekosse@***.edu

Member (good standing) Nonsequitur Society of America:
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