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From:	Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Wed, 31 Jul 1996 19:20:27 -0400 (EDT)

Message no. 1 At 08:33 AM 7/31/96 -0600, you wrote:

>As a gm, I limit my mages, and other characters, when the game gets
>too out of hand. This is easily done. Attacking foci (reducing their power
>ratings), destroying their doss and equipment etc.

Or sending them on non-combat missions, sending them on BIG runs (like a Tir
Tairngire border crossing) or retiring them.

>The occasional sniper with a Barret from a random rooftop is fairly successful
>at getting the gm's point across.

Do you mean the french hat or the plastic clip women puts in their hair? ;-)

>A character should NOT be able to take a direct hit from a
>Panther assault cannon and just shrug it off. If I have to resort to
>Tactical Nukes to damage a character, then the party is retired, one way or
>the other.

One of my players had a 1st edition character like that. She was hurtable
for awhile in the 2nd edit, but only brought her out for real tough
adventures (ie,
one involving the team illegally crossing the border). I was planning on
retiring her for good by sending her through Harlequin's Back and having her
stay at the bridge, but our group broke up before then.

--
"I dyde shyte thre grete toordes." Fables of Aesop,
Caxton translation,
V15 1484

From:	Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Thu, 1 Aug 1996 13:44:35 -0400 (EDT)

Message no. 2 At 01:46 PM 8/1/96 GMT, Mark wrote:
>Gurth writes

>> * Levitate Person: all your nice security fences mean jack shit when a
>> magician knows this (I speak of experience). A one-time fix is to string
>> monowire above the fence, but once one magician has had his legs chopped
>> off the others will clear the fence with a few meters to spare instead of
>> going only just over it.
>
>yeah, the 'monowire in trees' scared them the first time, now folks
>just blow up hedges in my corp compounds before they find out what i
>hid inside :(

Why does that remind me of a certain Monty Python sketch?

>> * Control Thoughts, or even worse, Mob Mind:
>
>tell me about it :(, i had a player find this, mass ganger/innocent
>control.

My player has moire fun with that spell, but tries to bend the rules a bit
when using it, although it is conceivable Mob Mind can be used to issue several
orders per casting...

The funniest use I've seen was in this one adventure in which the team was
crashing a rave party at a mall to get some info. When Lone Star arrived to
break the rave up, she cast Mob Mind and made the ravers dosie-do out the
front door at them!

>> * Mind Probe, obviously: just keep in mind that it requires the caster to
>> touch the target, and gives unpleasant personality shifts for a while (see
>> Plus Ca Change in SRII).
>
>Also you get 2 questions then the target number goes up for 24hours.
>its good but the person needs to be immobile really by which time the
>same could just twist their arm though admittedly mindprobes are more
>reliable. Fortunately in my experience PC's have trouble finding the
>right questions.

The problem I have is that the target (contact type) always has a Will of 2!

--
"I dyde shyte thre grete toordes." Fables of Aesop,
Caxton translation,
V15 1484

From:	Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Fri, 2 Aug 1996 08:29:25 -0400 (EDT)

Message no. 3 At 08:45 AM 8/2/96 GMT, Mark Steedman wrote:
>Mike Elkins writes

>> I just had an EVIL thought on how to balance to too-powerful mages campaign.
>> Introduce a horror or two to the astral plane. Maybe they haven't manifested
>> physically yet, but they are out there polluting astral space (raising
>> magical target numbers) and horror marking powerful magicians...
>
>These things seriously frag things up, seen the rules for background
>count level 10?

That should be nearly impossible to encounter, unless you're near where a
nuke has gone off or are in Earthdawn.

>Just don't just more than once in forever there are next to none on
>the physical plane as of 2057.

What?

>> <Danger! Evil thoughts increasing!>
>
>effective but too nasty. The magician plain does not stand a chance.
>They will in my opinion complain of unfair treatment and being picked
>on.

I certainly would if it happened to me.

>But then the mage i'm playing at the moment just bought
>rythmoid polymers, why rely on magic if you can use tech and when the
>going gets very bad combine them. Very expensive but this stuff
>seriously works.

Mark, I think you need to get some coffee in you before you write to the
list. ;-)

--
"I dyde shyte thre grete toordes." Fables of Aesop,
Caxton translation,
V15 1484

From:	dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Fri, 2 Aug 1996 06:48:55 -0600 (MDT)

Message no. 4 Ubiquitous wrote:
|
|At 08:45 AM 8/2/96 GMT, Mark Steedman wrote:
|>Mike Elkins writes
|
|>> I just had an EVIL thought on how to balance to too-powerful mages campaign.
|>> Introduce a horror or two to the astral plane. Maybe they haven't manifested
|>> physically yet, but they are out there polluting astral space (raising
|>> magical target numbers) and horror marking powerful magicians...
|>
|>These things seriously frag things up, seen the rules for background
|>count level 10?
|

Or, send the team on a run in glow city or Hiroshima (gotta be some huge

-David

/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."
~~~~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm~~~~~~~

From:	dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Fri, 2 Aug 1996 06:59:03 -0600 (MDT)

Message no. 5 David Buehrer wrote:
|
|Ubiquitous wrote:
||
||At 08:45 AM 8/2/96 GMT, Mark Steedman wrote:
||>Mike Elkins writes
||
||>> I just had an EVIL thought on how to balance to too-powerful mages campaign.
||>> Introduce a horror or two to the astral plane. Maybe they haven't manifested
||>> physically yet, but they are out there polluting astral space (raising
||>> magical target numbers) and horror marking powerful magicians...
||>
||>These things seriously frag things up, seen the rules for background
||>count level 10?
||
background counts there).

(That's better)

-David

/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."
~~~~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm~~~~~~~

From:	"Mark Steedman" <M.J.Steedman@***.rgu.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Fri, 2 Aug 1996 16:45:15 GMT

Message no. 6 Ubiquitous writes

> At 08:45 AM 8/2/96 GMT, Mark Steedman wrote:
> >Mike Elkins writes
>
> >> I just had an EVIL thought on how to balance to too-powerful mages campaign.

> >> Introduce a horror or two to the astral plane. Maybe they haven't
manifested
> >> physically yet, but they are out there polluting astral space (raising
> >> magical target numbers) and horror marking powerful magicians...
> >
> >These things seriously frag things up, seen the rules for background
> >count level 10?
>
> That should be nearly impossible to encounter, unless you're near where a
> nuke has gone off or are in Earthdawn.
>
well 'horror or two' is in the post i was quoting. Nukes cause a
maximum background count of 5 (normally, see the details on Cermak)
I agree its rare but i din't start mentionin horrors which do cause
things like that.

> >Just don't just more than once in forever there are next to none on
> >the physical plane as of 2057.
>
> What?
>
Horrors should not show up regularly in 2057 (SR) is what i meant. Ok
the sense might not be clear but.

> Mark, I think you need to get some coffee in you before you write to the
> list. ;-)
looking at the send time i had probably just drunk some :) i was most
certainly awake, though probably rushing the post, i don't have
anything like as much time to write posts well as i would prefer.

>
Mark

From:	Mike Elkins <MikeE@*********.com>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Fri, 02 Aug 1996 12:10:27 -0500

Message no. 7 <Regarding possibility of "balancing" too powerful mages w/ horror(s)>
When I suggested this, I didn't mean for it to be a course of action to be taken
lightly. If people don't like the idea for their campaign, thats fine, I don't think I'd
use it for mine either (but I don't have powerful mages yet).

If you DO want to try this idea, here are my comments on the criticisms that I
have seen so far:

Background counts > 10 are horrible. Well, just make them three or four. What I
would say is that a horror is "hanging around" the astral area around the mage,
attracted by the powerful magic. At first, this would just add one, later two to the
background count of whereever the mage is. Pretty soon he/she might get
suspicious as to why he can never find anywhere without a background count...
Towords the end, astral perception might very well notice evil tendrils emanating
from nowhere into astral space in the vicinity of the mage, wherever he goes
(count = natural + 4 or so)

Horrors aren't around yet in 2057. Not in any numbers, no. But there could
easily be one or two who can just barely affect astral space and astral items (like
focii) if they can "locate" them by sensing strong magic. The longer they sit
and
"listen" from whereever they sit, the more accurately they can affect astral
space.
They might not be able to physcally manifest for another century or so, but who
cares.

If someone did this to me, my character would die/ it just wouldn't be fair. Clearly
having the horror physically manifest or cast irresistable manabolts from beyond
astral space would be putting the mage in an untennable position. What I suggest
instead is that, having "listened" to the mage's magic for a few years, the
horror
doesn't want to (or can't) kill the mage. Instead, it wants a bigger return on it's
investment. That can either be to corrupt the mage, to drive the mage mad, or to
trick the mage into creating more of a "spike" to allow horrors to cross over
easier. As for the fairness: FASA has clearly stated that when horrors are
around, using magic in the SR way is suicidal. In the fourth age, mankind
learned new tricks to allow magic use without accessing astral space directly. If I
was running this campaign, I'd start hinting that such tricks are possible and have
the character start trying to learn them. This could either be an epic Magic
Theory task (TN > 24, task period about 1 year) or you could hunt down an
immortal willing to teach you (and of course youd learn things one limited trick at
a time...). Of course, all this time, the horror will be putting false
"inspirations"
into the mage's subconscious, suggesting that BIG BLOOD MAGIC is the best
way to combat horrors (heh heh heh). You can probably find an immortal
teacher for that too :)

Double-Domed Mike

From:	"Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Sat, 3 Aug 1996 12:09:24 +0100

Message no. 8 Mark Steedman said on 16:45/ 2 Aug 96...

> > Mark, I think you need to get some coffee in you before you write to the
> > list. ;-)
> looking at the send time i had probably just drunk some :) i was most
> certainly awake, though probably rushing the post, i don't have
> anything like as much time to write posts well as i would prefer.

Maybe you need a secretary? :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Don't waste your time with your visions of the future and your party lines.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

From:	dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Mon, 5 Aug 1996 08:23:31 -0600 (MDT)

Message no. 9 Ubiquitous wrote:
|
[snip: various problems caused by Mind Probe]
|
|The problem I have is that the target (contact type) always has a Will of 2!

Which doesn't make sense to me. If a person is out doing
business in the streets of the 6th(?) World they've gotta
have a fair ammount of balls. And that's what contacts are
doing, whether their business is legal or (in most cases)
illegal. They have a high level of risk every day. Just
to step out the front door every day would require a fair
amount of schutzpah. I put the average Willpower of
contacts and such at 4. And I've got no problem with
raising the Willpower of "professional" contacts to 6.
Your basic wageslave on the other hand gets a 2. And then
there's always the exceptions to that. Consider the
wageslave that goes home every night to a beast of a wife
(or husband). In my game low Willpower is the exception
rather than the rule.

-David

/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."
~~~~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm~~~~~~~

From:	Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Mon, 5 Aug 1996 12:17:39 -0400 (EDT)

Message no. 10 At 08:23 AM 8/5/96 -0600, David wrote:
>Ubiquitous wrote:

>[snip: various problems caused by Mind Probe]
>|
>|The problem I have is that the target (contact type) always has a Will of 2!
>
>Which doesn't make sense to me. If a person is out doing
>business in the streets of the 6th(?) World they've gotta
>have a fair amount of balls. And that's what contacts are
>doing, whether their business is legal or (in most cases)
>illegal. They have a high level of risk every day. Just
>to step out the front door every day would require a fair
>amount of schutzpah. I put the average Willpower of
>contacts and such at 4. And I've got no problem with
>raising the Willpower of "professional" contacts to 6.
>Your basic wageslave on the other hand gets a 2. And then
>there's always the exceptions to that. Consider the
>wageslave that goes home every night to a beast of a wife
>(or husband). In my game low Willpower is the exception
>rather than the rule.

Or... give the wageslave with a beastly with a skill in Ignore Wife.
;-)

--
"I dyde shyte thre grete toordes." Fables of Aesop,
Caxton translation,
V15 1484

From:	"Mark Steedman" <M.J.Steedman@***.rgu.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Tue, 6 Aug 1996 08:31:20 GMT

Message no. 11 David Buehrer writes

> Ubiquitous wrote:
> |
> [snip: various problems caused by Mind Probe]
> |
> |The problem I have is that the target (contact type) always has a Will of 2!
>
> Which doesn't make sense to me. If a person is out doing
> business in the streets of the 6th(?) World they've gotta
> have a fair ammount of balls.
Fair considering the quantity of willpower 6 PC's (given much
exposure to mana magic if not before)

The other matter is that mindprobe is a fixed target 4, this is
important as it gives the poor will 2 wageslave a vague (very vague
but) chance. It does however render shielding no defence (counts as
spell defence, he he) so if you have a force 6 (2 exclusive
expendable, this is not a spell you use on friendlies or while they
can do much about it so the limitations are not much of a problem
while the drain code sure is!) spell even moderate grade initates
have little defence. If the PC's can use it so can the nad guys, and
'Judge mindprobes suspect, 'are you guilty' oops' if perfectly legal
for trials in some NAN nations!

Mark

From:	dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Tue, 6 Aug 1996 06:57:46 -0600 (MDT)

Message no. 12 Mark Steedman wrote:
|
|If the PC's can use it so can the nad guys, and
|'Judge mindprobes suspect, 'are you guilty' oops' if perfectly legal
|for trials in some NAN nations!

Which is the ultimate answer for balancing the game. If
you've got players that have found loopholes don't let
their work go to waste, use them too. If your players come
up with good tactics, do the same to the PCs. If the PCs
are levitating people up a couple hundred feet and dropping
them, do the same to the PCs (well, maybe only a hundred
feet). And when you do say, "Thanks for the idea <grin>."
That oughta bring the players back in line.

-David

/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."
~~~~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm~~~~~~~

From:	"Mark Steedman" <M.J.Steedman@***.rgu.ac.uk>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Tue, 6 Aug 1996 16:39:03 GMT

Message no. 13 David Buehrer writes
>
> Which is the ultimate answer for balancing the game.
The number of players that lose interest in panther cannons when you
suggest the bad guys get them to. Even one or two munchkins can be
brought in line by friends not wanting to get geeked in the crossfire.

> If
> you've got players that have found loopholes don't let
> their work go to waste, use them too. If your players come
> up with good tactics, do the same to the PCs. If the PCs
> are levitating people up a couple hundred feet and dropping
> them, do the same to the PCs (well, maybe only a hundred
> feet). And when you do say,
Ah the list of tricks i try to make sure even the good guy NPC's
don't use so that the PC's don't copy them. I had enough fun when
someone finally got hold of the stats for my favorite research spell.

> "Thanks for the idea <grin>."
> That oughta bring the players back in line.
>
Been seen enough, fortunately the implementation stage is rarely
required by GM's.

Mark

From:	Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Sat, 10 Aug 1996 09:59:58 -0400 (EDT)

Message no. 14 At 11:20 AM 8/10/96 +0100, Gurth wrote:
>Peter said on 2:16/10 Aug 96...

>> >* Control Thoughts, or even worse, Mob Mind: NPCs will do whatever the
>> >players want them to, including letting them into places they shouldn't
>> >be. The only bright side to the use of this spell is that such situations
>> >would often come up in areas with high magical security. But then there's
>> >still the trouble with Mob Minding the gang that's come to kill the PCs...
>>
>[snip]
>> Secondly, the target of these spells know that is happening to them. If
>> you probe someone and get beyond their surface thoughts they will know.
>> If you take control of a guard and make him open a door for you he knows
>> that he shouldn't be doing it.
>
>Does he? The name "Control Thoughts" implies to me that the magician can
>make it appear like the guard thought it up all by himself. As far as he's
>concerned, he's doing things right, because if you don't have clearance he
>wouldn't let you in, now would he?

I believe Control Thoughts is more like a hypnotic post-suggestion (spell
description, anyone?), while someone under the influence of Control Actions
would definitely be aware of what happened to him. Of course, this assumes
you don't try anything too weird with Control Thoughts, as later the target
wonder "What the hell possessed me to do that?" (no pun intended). Control
Thoughts is perfect for those "These are not the droids we are looking for"
scenarios.

On the other hand, the target of a Mind Probe spell knows what happened.

--
"I dyde shyte thre grete toordes." Fables of Aesop,
Caxton translation,
V15 1484

From:	Pete Sims <petesims@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject:	Re: [SR2] Game Balance
Date:	Sun, 11 Aug 1996 18:20:05 +0100

Message no. 15 In article <9608061257.AA01457@******>, David Buehrer
<dbuehrer@****.org> writes
>Mark Steedman wrote:
>|
>|If the PC's can use it so can the nad guys, and
>|'Judge mindprobes suspect, 'are you guilty' oops' if perfectly legal
>|for trials in some NAN nations!
>
>Which is the ultimate answer for balancing the game. If
>you've got players that have found loopholes don't let
>their work go to waste, use them too. If your players come
>up with good tactics, do the same to the PCs. If the PCs
>are levitating people up a couple hundred feet and dropping
>them, do the same to the PCs (well, maybe only a hundred
>feet). And when you do say, "Thanks for the idea <grin>."
>That oughta bring the players back in line.

Yeah, :-) this can work. I had a player who wanted a Shaman, OK I
thought, why not. He then produced a Coyote Shaman, who specialised in
Acid related spells. Using a low power, and a lot of dice, it was not
possible to resist such a multiple success attack. I threw Lone Star at
him - after all, Acid clouds are not selective in who they burn, and
after he burned the tyres off've a car and killed several innocent
bystanders (alienating the team), I sent a mage and shaman after him,
after I'd hit him with a high power acid spell and convinced him the
only way he was going to save his character was by hurling himself off a
twelve story building, the Shaman was dealt with, and the player chose a
slightly more reasonable style of playing.

You don't need tremendous amounts of firepower to kill players or sort
out problems, sometimes it's just a little taste of the same.
--
Pete Sims

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