| From: | Malcolm Shaw malhms@*********.com.au |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re SR3 Magic Rules & Spellcasting |
| Date: | Sat, 13 Mar 1999 23:51:25 +1100 |
the topic had already started under Spell casting. Is Am here in
Australia and I have had a very tiring week with family health probs
etc. and have sat down after sending my previous post and caught up this
the last 7 digest ( i get the post as a digest to save time) and
realized my error. I hope that you will accept my apologies in the
manner offered but I needed a grumble/ bitch and perhaps the following
may elucidate my reasons:
I have mainly played a street sam in Shadowrun with our group on a
thursday night and recently decided to try out a mage. My first tryout
was a terrible failure and if you want to know how bad try the bloopers
where people were asked to submit the funniest errors in game play etc.
that was on the old list (someone may have the URL for these and please
advise if you know for those that may ask for them as at this time of
the am I am too tired to look it up). Anyway the mage I am now running
is a dwarf combat mage and I have tried to set her up (dwarf female of
chinese origin) with as broad a response (combat) as I thought possible.
To do so I chose to have most spells as exclusive and force 5 (3+2 for
exclusive) and up till last thursday night everything seemed to
balance. Then the Shit hit the fan I lost a willpower roll and became
controlled by an opposite mage and forced to cast my most damaging spell
at my own group. The spell was stun ball force 5 cast at deadly level.
As I rolled badly (my companions should have praised my dice rolls) and
got one only success at 6. Then the arguments started in regards to
staging up/down damage of combat spells. Our group tends to use the
book as "the bible" and after several fraught minutes it was decided
that the number of success v failure was the factor and if my companions
rolled more successes than I then they took no damage at all. This led
to arguments (me included now) about why a mage would even choose to use
a spell where one success more than his would totally negate his spell.
Comparisons - some reasonable others spurious with other skills ensued
and never fully or satisfactory resolved.
The group I am with have a Combat Mage (me) a Street Sam, a Physical
Adept, a Shape shifter and an Aspected shaman (Shamanist following Snake
Totem). The Shamanist rarely casts spells apart from invisibility and
Treat when needed) because he carried a shotgun with burst fire and
freely, and I may add happily, states "why cast a spell when I can do
bulk damage with this brute and cannot get near it with spells". Before
you all jump in a say that a snake shamanist cannot cast combat spells I
know and so does he. THe point I am trying to make is the philosophy -
use a shotgun that fires burst fire not spells to cause damage. There
are other arguments I have about the shotgun and shotgun rules but I
will leave them for another post If I get riled up enough, but let me
stick to my grumble. I think as a whole the changes from SR2 to SR3
are beneficial to the game and do give a better balance.
However I do think that the mage has a few areas where the writer(s) of
SR3 may have had a clear idea of what they were trying to state and did
not achieve it. The rules on combat spells is one area where I think
they failed to clarify the rules and have caused confusion, another is
the spell defence dice area that has already been mentioned in a post a
fair number of issues back. So finally I come to my bitch - my group
takes the book as "the Bible" and the main or only area of change they
accept is notes and errata. Is there anyone on the list that can solicit
a response from FASA in regards to these points?? and If anyone has
suggestions or comments about playing a combat mage I would be most
grateful for all or any constructive advice.
Malcolm
