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Message no. 1
From: Malcolm Shaw malhms@*********.com.au
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 17:31:52 +1100
HI I have come out of lurking mode in the hope that some of you "More
Learned Folk" might have some suggestions about spirit powers and
Disruption that may help me.
An event occurred in our Shadowrun game the other week that has left me
slightly dazed and confused.
My character is magical and is a 6th level initiative, and before anyone
starts with munchkinism comments there are good reasons for my character
to have reached this level over many deadly adventures. Anyway that
night my character decides that she could go on an Astral quest in order
to find some vital information regards to a magically active suspect our
group was ordered to check out. As per the rules the GM (page 92 MitS)
rolled in secret and the quest was on. I survived three our four places
in the metaplanes before arriving at the place of battle and with the
help of a force 3 weapon focus I was not only holding my own but
starting to overcome the spirit I was facing when the Gm decided It was
too easy and used the spirit power of confusion on me - Viola +9 to all
Tn's for my character as that it turns out was the level of the quest
and the force of the spirit I was facing. Needless to say I was soon
disrupted and arrived back in my physical body battered and bruised
beyond belief. Then I had to roll for magic loss (page 160 SR3) and then
the problem arose - as a level 6 initiative I can never roll 2D6 and
better my magic rating. How do you handle this situation? It appears
to me that Mike etc never envisaged the disruption rules for mages,
shamans etc with a magic rating of 12 or over. Our house rule is that
if the person disrupted is willing to pay good karma permanently then
they can retain the magic point.

The second question of Spirit powers then became a point of research for
my character - there was no way that any spirit was going to simply
waltz up and confuse her without her having some defence, or so I
thought. Then I read SR3 and MitS from stem to stern to find a method
of protection from the spirit powers of Fear, Confusion, Accident and
possibly noxious breath.
Astral Barrier was my first thought but the description in the book (SR3
page 198) is mainly about the physical barrier and the Astral Barrier
only works on the Astral and neither appear to stop spell never mind
Spirit Powers. Then Eureka! or so I thought there is a spirit barrier
spell in MitS (page 148). THis spell it states impedes the use of
spirit powers. But my GM pointed out that it says that the spirit
barrier is a variant of the Astral Barrier and therefore the only spirit
powers it would impede are the spell like power and not the innate
powers.

So finally I ask - no plead, Mike if you are lurking or anyone can they
give me a better definition of Astral Barrier and Spirit barrier that
would allow the protection for a person from the Spirit power? Does
such a thing exist and if not why not?

just think you are facing a great mage or a dragon - call up a spirit
with fear or confusion power - say level 9 and viola +9 to the mage's
or the dragon's TNs without any defence at all.

Thanks Malcolm.
moral advocate for CAMP and mage in the shadows
(Join today Campaign Against Mage Persecution and fix the Adepts and for
all)
Message no. 2
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 11:27:47 +0100
According to Malcolm Shaw, at 17:31 on 2 Dec 99, the word on
the street was...

> Then I had to roll for magic loss (page 160 SR3) and then the problem
> arose - as a level 6 initiative I can never roll 2D6 and better my magic
> rating. How do you handle this situation? It appears to me that Mike
> etc never envisaged the disruption rules for mages, shamans etc with a
> magic rating of 12 or over. Our house rule is that if the person
> disrupted is willing to pay good karma permanently then they can retain
> the magic point.

You could apply the Rule of Six to the dice, that way it becomes possible
to roll over 12 (it's not all that likely, but it can happen). But in
short, yes, when your Magic is 12+, you are usually screwed when Magic
loss becomes an issue.

> The second question of Spirit powers then became a point of research for
> my character - there was no way that any spirit was going to simply
> waltz up and confuse her without her having some defence, or so I
> thought. Then I read SR3 and MitS from stem to stern to find a method
> of protection from the spirit powers of Fear, Confusion, Accident and
> possibly noxious breath.

The trouble with critter powers is that many get far too weak if they
automaticlaly get a resistance test... But if you do want to give a test,
I suggest using the attribute that is best suited to the test (Willpower
for Confusion, for example) against a TN equal to the critter's Essence,
with each of your successes taking away one of the critter's.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
When you've seen how big the world is, how can you make do with this?
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 3
From: abortion_engine abortion_engine@*******.com
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 08:48:26 -0500
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>


> According to Malcolm Shaw, at 17:31 on 2 Dec 99, the word on
> the street was...
>
> > Then I had to roll for magic loss (page 160 SR3) and then the problem
> > arose - as a level 6 initiative I can never roll 2D6 and better my magic
> > rating. How do you handle this situation? It appears to me that Mike
> > etc never envisaged the disruption rules for mages, shamans etc with a
> > magic rating of 12 or over. Our house rule is that if the person
> > disrupted is willing to pay good karma permanently then they can retain
> > the magic point.
>
> You could apply the Rule of Six to the dice, that way it becomes possible
> to roll over 12 (it's not all that likely, but it can happen). But in
> short, yes, when your Magic is 12+, you are usually screwed when Magic
> loss becomes an issue.

Which is just backwards as hell.
Message no. 4
From: Bruce iti03678@****.co.za
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 16:29:39 +0200
-----Original Message-----
From: abortion_engine <abortion_engine@*******.com>
To: shadowrn@*********.org <shadowrn@*********.org>
Date: 02 December 1999 03:50
Subject: Re: Spirit Powers and Disruption


>From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
>
>> You could apply the Rule of Six to the dice, that way it becomes
possible
>> to roll over 12 (it's not all that likely, but it can happen). But
in
>> short, yes, when your Magic is 12+, you are usually screwed when
Magic
>> loss becomes an issue.
>
>Which is just backwards as hell.

Perhaps this is a kind of naturally enforcing limitation on the power
of magic slingers. A Magic att. of 12 should be enough anyway!

- -
Bruce <phantasm@****.co.za>

Give me reasons why the sun has to shine
why they murdered the noisy mime
tell me the answers to the puzzles of Poe
and sing me to sleep on the rivers of woe
Message no. 5
From: Paul Gettle RunnerPaul@*****.com
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 11:10:48 -0500
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 08:48 AM 12/2/99 -0500, abortion_engine wrote:
::You could apply the Rule of Six to the dice, that way it becomes
::possible to roll over 12 (it's not all that likely, but it can
::happen). But in short, yes, when your Magic is 12+, you are usually
:: screwed when Magic loss becomes an issue.
:
:Which is just backwards as hell.

Only from a certain perspective. If you borrow an analogy from
physics and look at it from the perspective that higher levels of
magic are "inherently unstable" and given the opportunity will tend
to seek a "lower energy state", then it makes absolute sense. It's
like trying to use a single finger to roll a marble up the side of a
cone. Should the marble slip, your chances of recovering and keeping
the marble from falling back down are entirely dependant on how high
up the cone the marble was rolled at the time of the slip.

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 6
From: dbuehrer@****.org dbuehrer@****.org
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 10:24:10 -0700
abortion_engine wrote:
>From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
>
> > But in
> > short, yes, when your Magic is 12+, you are usually screwed when Magic
> > loss becomes an issue.
>
>Which is just backwards as hell.

To borrow K's "wire" analogy, IMHO a character's Magic rating is similar to
data transfer rates for computers (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit, etc).

8 bit systems are slow, but they're reliable. The new 128 bit systems are
blazingly fast (until they come out with 256 bit systems :). But there's a
lot more that can go wrong with a 128 bit system, especially when it's
exposed to static electricity or to much electricity, or just over time,
because it has more connections.

Think of it as one port to the astral/mana flow per point of magic. A mage
with Magic 6 has six ports. A mage with Magic 12 has twelve ports. If
each mage get's hit with the same attack and each port has a 1 in 6 chance
of being shorted, the mage with Magic 6 will probably lose one port
(reducing his Magic to 5). However, the mage with Magic 12 will likely
lose two ports (reducing his Magic to 10).

At least that's the way I look at it. YMMV.

-Graht
--
"The light is reached not by turning back from the darkness,
but by going through it."
Message no. 7
From: abortion_engine abortion_engine@*******.com
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 08:28:48 -0500
From: "Paul Gettle" <RunnerPaul@*****.com>


> At 08:48 AM 12/2/99 -0500, abortion_engine wrote:
> ::You could apply the Rule of Six to the dice, that way it becomes
> ::possible to roll over 12 (it's not all that likely, but it can
> ::happen). But in short, yes, when your Magic is 12+, you are usually
> :: screwed when Magic loss becomes an issue.
> :
> :Which is just backwards as hell.
>
> Only from a certain perspective. If you borrow an analogy from
> physics and look at it from the perspective that higher levels of
> magic are "inherently unstable" and given the opportunity will tend
> to seek a "lower energy state", then it makes absolute sense. It's
> like trying to use a single finger to roll a marble up the side of a
> cone. Should the marble slip, your chances of recovering and keeping
> the marble from falling back down are entirely dependant on how high
> up the cone the marble was rolled at the time of the slip.

Yes, but I've always thought of initiation as a way to gain more control
over the inherent instability of magic. To use your analogy, it would be
like getting more fingers to roll the marble as you get higher up the cone.
A big "IMO" goes here. :)

Interesting side note: magic seems, as one might expect, to be inconsistant
in its entropic potential; sometimes, bereft of control, it will seek a
lower energy state, but sometimes a higher one. God bless magic in a
fictional world. :)
Message no. 8
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: Spirit Powers and Disruption
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 14:15:59 -0500
> > If you borrow an analogy from
> > physics and look at it from the perspective that higher levels of
> > magic are "inherently unstable" and given the opportunity will tend
> > to seek a "lower energy state", then it makes absolute sense.

> Yes, but I've always thought of initiation as a way to gain more control
> over the inherent instability of magic.

I think you are both (sort of) right. I view Initiation as getting your
body/soul/whatever to be a better _conduit_ for magic. In a certain sense,
you become a more pure conductor. Unfortunately, the more pure you are, the
easier it is to corrupt your "conductivity".

To illustrate, say as a mage you are a 99% pure conductor. At grade 1, you
are a 99.9% pure conductor. At grade 2, you are a 99.99% pure conductor,
and so on. At high grades, you only need a little "pollution" to send you
back a notch.

Further Reading

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