| From: | Malcolm Shaw malhms@*********.com.au |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re Centring versus Penalties |
| Date: | Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:03:15 +1000 |
>I've been going over the rules for centering vs penalties lately and it
>seems to me that the system is slightly out of whack.
<SNIP>
and
Gurth wrote:
>My guess to what's happening here is that you're doing statistics on the
>rules, while the original author, whoever that may have been (Paul Hume,
>Steve Kenson, or whoever) did not -- they IMHO are much more likely to
>have written down something that felt right within the Shadowrun rules,
>rather than try to figure out precisely how likely it is that a penalty of
>X would be centered away by someone with a Centering skill of Y.
OK I get Gurth's point about statistics and I also get Callum's point
about Centring _ and before anyone complains its is spelt correctly if
one uses English spelling.
Anyhoo - centring is already penalized when one looks at MitS - the
mage/shaman or phys ad has to learn two, thats right two skills, to use
centring. He or she has to learn centring and another skill to represent
the centring. My mage took latin as a language skill - now level 6 and
used it as a centring skill which is now at level 5; so for any centring
test my mage can sling a grand total of 5 dice against the test.
Now according to MitS centring must take place in the same phase as the
the operation the centring is intended to augment. I have memories of a
certain shaman in one of our games that used dancing ( more like an
epileptic fit) as his centring skill and claimed at one stage in a
crowded auditorium that he was centring - throwing himself into a
dance?? in the middle of this crowd in order to reduce the drain of
spell he was casting. Our GM allowed this, to my chagrin at the time,
without reaction from the crowd. Personally I would have had one of the
crowd kick the idiot on the floor, writhing as he "centred", and break
his centring. I mean, one should have some realistic approach to any
skill - if he had drawn a shotgun at the time the crowd would have gone
berserk. Another example comes to mind of a mage running across broken
ground in the middle of a fire fight and saying " I am centring using
singing " - well paint a bulls eye on his forehead and give all
opposition a free shot at the idiot, he has just announced in the
loudest and most visible manner that he is a mage or shaman or phys ad
and to my way of looking at it if I was his GM, he deserves a right
royal kicking - one for doing it and two for expecting to be able to do
it while in such a situation. Centring should be used when and as
appropriate not indiscriminately and certainly I think that the
situation should give conditions where centring may or may not be
applicable.
Now on the other side of the coin I totally agree with Callum's comments
that centring is out of whack with the expectation (rule) that it
requires two successes at centring to achieve one success at the
intended operation it is meant to augment. My mage has a centring skill
of 5 and I really would like to say that I rolled two successes against
a TN of 8 as per the example of Man-of-Many-Names does in the example in
MitS for his drain resistance test - it is hard enough to roll one 8
with 5 dice let alone 2. In the other examples where centring is used
against a penalty - phys ad for a skill test and the mage/shaman for
his magic - one can use the initiate grade to reduce the target number
ie TN+penalties-initiate grade but the proviso is that it cannot reduce
the TN below the original TN no matter how many successes. So if the TN
is say Willpower for the spell at 6 and the penalties add up to +4 and
the initiate level is 2 then final target number is 6+4-2 =8. Strike me
pink once again we have a problem that callum complains about - the need
to roll a high TN and still only get one success for every two rolls of
8 with 5 dice (the mage's centring skill)
To have to learn two skill to use centring is bad enough in game terms,
I cannot think of another skill where this applies. I believe that the
majority of people on shadowRN think that magic is too powerful - this I
have deduced from the replies I have read whenever magic questions raise
their heads. If a question on pistols or rifles etc is raised there are
numerous replies, but if a magic question is raised - there are very few
replies and if one dares raise the point and complain that when one
casts a spell that does physical harm and find that equal successes on
behalf of the target wipes out the effect of the spell and tries to
compare this against the rules for say a shotgun the replies are do not
complain - use a shotgun if you want to take the opponent down.
Well I believe it is time for CAMP to raise its head and give voice -
Doc you should have fun with this one - Campaign Against Magic
Persecution. The time is, I believe, most apt for the raising of CAMP,
when one reads replies on shadowRN like the following:
>Nope. Just blast the magic out of the person. Lots of stimulants and/or
>cyberware until a Court-appointed magician certifies that the felon no
>longer possesses useful magical ability.
>Harsh? Yeah, but how else do you deal with those Evil Rogue Magicians?
>> Yes, the setup costs would be high, but after that, the costs
>>would probobly be much cheaper than you might think otherwise.
>Imagine the screams from the taxpayers. Subsidising a luxury lunar hotel
>for convicted felons?
>I'm not sure how many magical criminals would get arrested anyway.
>Remember, a magician who just _looks_ at you can kill you - so "shot
>while resisting arrest" becomes very, very broad if the victim was
>suspected to possess magical talents.
--
>Paul J. Adam
If Paul's "Remember a magician who just_looks_at you can kill you" is
the belief and attitude then I must have my mage totally wrong. I do not
have a single spell that works like that and boy at times I sure wish I
had. In fact in most situations I find that the mage has much less
chance of killing his opposition than the Sam or Phys Ad or even a Mage
with a shotgun.
And before I leave the topic - long rant etc - remember that a mage
legally can only have force 2 spells - try matching that against a legal
weapon sometimes.
Malcolm - moral advocate for CAMP and mage in the shadows.
