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Message no. 1
From: Mongoose <evamarie@**********.NET>
Subject: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 22:12:57 -0700
:>you can anchor the spell to pretty much anything, and leave a condition
:>such as: When Sammie's Condition
:>monitor = S, cast treat. I'm fairly certain I'm wrong somehow
:
:Uhm, actually...You'd probably state it as 'when the samurai achieves
:serious damage treat spell kicks in..'


Anchors have some specific modifications which affect the spells use.
In your case, the easiest would be a verbal activation, called an
activation link, (so anybody who knows the word can kick it on) and a
sustaining link (so the spell stays on long enough to do its job). Both
increase the drain of doing the original casting.
To have it kick in automatically would require some way for the anchor
to detect the samies health level.
The problem with this specific spell being used this way, IMO, is that
it requires a wounded target as its subject, and only heals the wound's it
is cast for.
Oh, BTW, doing an anchor requires you do some trivial enchanting on
the physical thing that the spell is anchored to. Whats the enchanting TN
for a samurai? (not that it matters; you don't even need to roll
successes, they just reduce the time)
I've tried to go this route, and don't really like where it leads, so
I dropped it, myself.

Mongoose
Message no. 2
From: Razor Girl <sprawlg@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 20:26:32 PDT
> Oh, BTW, doing an anchor requires you do some trivial enchanting
>on the physical thing that the spell is anchored to. Whats the
>enchanting TN for a samurai? (not that it matters; you don't even
>need to roll successes, they just reduce the time)
>
>Mongoose
>
To make a half assed guess at it, I would base the number on two things.
First page 182 and the object resistance table. They lay out an example
range of target numbers for object made of various substances. The range
is from 10 (Computers, Complex Toxic Wastes) to 8 (Advanced plastics,
alloys, electronic equipment) to 5 (Brick, leather, Simple plastics) to
3 (Trees, soil, Unprocessed water). Un-modified humans would fall
somewhere around four (more complex than soil, trees and clean water but
slightly more natural than simple plastics, bricks and treated leather).
This number also matches the Heal and Treat target numbers on page 193
(10-targets current essence). The un-modified human would have the same
target number of 4. The ultra cyborg, shell o' man, more hydraulic fluid
than blood has a target number of 10.

Thus, for anchoring to living creatures, I would generate the target
number for enchanting for anchoring to be the creatures 10 minus the
creatures current essence. And requiring a voluntary target.

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Message no. 3
From: Elindor Quinn <rjakins@****.MURDOCH.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 23:49:07 +0800
Razor Girl wrote:

> > Oh, BTW, doing an anchor requires you do some trivial enchanting
> >on the physical thing that the spell is anchored to. Whats the
> >enchanting TN for a samurai? (not that it matters; you don't even
> >need to roll successes, they just reduce the time)
> >
> >Mongoose
> >
<Snip Anchoring on a person essence comparisons>
> Thus, for anchoring to living creatures, I would generate the target
> number for enchanting for anchoring to be the creatures 10 minus the
> creatures current essence. And requiring a voluntary target.

The ORT is slightly different for anchoring.
Natural Wood or Stone 3
Treated, Hardened wood 4
Natural or basic metals (silver, gold, etc) 5
Refined metals (steel, steel alloys, etc) 6
Highly refined metals or composites 8

So, the obvious trick is to anchor the spells onto a piece of treated
wood (so it doesn't crumble to pieces). First, you enchant it to
make it a better receptacle (Use the artificing proceedure, TN 4,
reduce the anchoring target number by 1 for every two successes
achieved. The karma pool can be used to enhance the test as well,
so enchanting 4 should have no problem dropping the TN to 2)
When you anchor the spell, you cast is at a target number of 2,
and set up a temporal link for 15 turns (45 seconds - +1/+1 to the
drain code) and an activation link (+0/+1), giving you a final drain
code of (F/2+3)D. Sorcery 6 should net five sucesses, so add two
dice from the spell pool to pretty much guarantee six sucesses,
and put the rest into drain resistance. For 8 Karma and a spell you
can recharge after it's been expended, you can easily recover from
the injuries suffered during combat.

Elindor Quinn
The Devil's Advocate
(rjakins@****.murdoch.edu.au)
ICQ #9277613
I'm a 5354533534 kind of person.
Message no. 4
From: Brian Moore <mooreb@****.FAC.COM>
Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:33:44 -0400
Elindor Quinn <rjakins@****.MURDOCH.EDU.AU> said:
> <Lots of stuff snipped>
>
> So, the obvious trick is to anchor the spells onto a piece of treated
> wood (so it doesn't crumble to pieces). First, you enchant it to
> make it a better receptacle (Use the artificing proceedure, TN 4,
> reduce the anchoring target number by 1 for every two successes
> achieved. The karma pool can be used to enhance the test as well,
> so enchanting 4 should have no problem dropping the TN to 2)
> When you anchor the spell, you cast is at a target number of 2,
>
> <More stuff snipped>

I have a hard time believing that they are going to keep the same
procedure in MITS. It is just so easy to abuse. Consider the
following...

1) A mage with Willpower 6 has a Force 6 Increase Willpower spell.
Normally, the mage would have to roll Sorcery + Magic Pool against a
TN of 6, and every 2 successes results in +1 Willpower (to a max of
the Force of the spell, 6). A lucky mage will get +2 Willpower. If
you instead anchor the spell to a piece of treated wood, the TN is 2,
and you have mages with 11 or 12 Willpower. And with a base drain of
M, you can anchor it for a long time.

2) Want to heal a cyberzombie troll with -5 Essence and 10 Body Index?
No problem, just anchor the Heal spell to a piece of treated wood and
give it an activation link. Your target numbers for the Heal are 2!
He'll be up and fighting again in no time.

3) Want to convince Lofwyr to give you his megacorp? No problem, just
anchor an Influence spell to a piece of treated wood, TN 2. You'll
get about 10 successes, more than you would get if you used the normal
TN of his Willpower. And he can't even Shield to increase your TN,
though he does still get to try to resist it. He'll probably roll
around 25 dice, against a TN of 6 if you have a Force 6 Influence spell.
Even if he uses Karma, you've probably got your own megacorp.

So far I and my group have not abused anchoring this way (though I
have been tempted).

--
Brian Moore, mooreb@***.com | I wrote up a nice script to truncate all News&
First Albany Corp. Netadmin | Mail sigs that are greater than 4 lines long.
standard disclaimers apply | It is still in beta testing due to an off-by-
Message no. 5
From: MCP <MCP@********.COM>
Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 10:23:45 -0700
> From: Brian Moore <mooreb@****.FAC.COM> Wednesday, September 16, 1998
9:33 AM
> > Elindor Quinn <rjakins@****.MURDOCH.EDU.AU> said:
> >
> > So, the obvious trick is to anchor the spells onto a piece of treated
> > wood (so it doesn't crumble to pieces). First, you enchant it to
> > make it a better receptacle (Use the artificing proceedure, TN 4,
> > reduce the anchoring target number by 1 for every two successes
> > achieved. The karma pool can be used to enhance the test as well,
> > so enchanting 4 should have no problem dropping the TN to 2)
> > When you anchor the spell, you cast is at a target number of 2,
> >
> I have a hard time believing that they are going to keep the same
> procedure in MITS.

Actually, if you read the Grimmy closely (at least in my copy), the
TN in question is only involved in attaching the spell to the
object. When the spell is activated, (Force) dice (plus Magic Pool
allocated to the anchoring) are rolled against the standard TN to
see what the effect is. This is described in the Spell Link section,
or in the section on activating Anchorings, IIRC.

So it is really easy to Anchor a spell to a natural object, but
the final spell result isn't any better (or worse), you just have
changed when Drain takes effect.

MCP
Message no. 6
From: Mongoose <evamarie@**********.NET>
Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:28:24 -0700
:2) Want to heal a cyberzombie troll with -5 Essence and 10 Body Index?
:No problem, just anchor the Heal spell to a piece of treated wood and
:give it an activation link. Your target numbers for the Heal are 2!
:He'll be up and fighting again in no time.


No. Yes, for some reason, there is a spellcasting that uses the OR as
its TN; that is the "anchoring" casting, the same one where drain is
figured. Then, when the spell activates, you make a normal spellcasting
roll to determine effect ("Effects of Anchored Spells", p. 49, The
Grimoire).
It is unclear (to me) just what the purpose of that first roll is, but
it does not determine spell effect.

Mongoose
Message no. 7
From: Royce Cetlin <rcetlin@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 08:08:00 PDT
>From: Brian Moore <mooreb@****.FAC.COM>
>Subject: Re: [sr2] Re: Anchoring
>To: SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET
>
>Elindor Quinn <rjakins@****.MURDOCH.EDU.AU> said:
>> <Lots of stuff snipped>
>>
>> So, the obvious trick is to anchor the spells onto a piece of treated
>> wood (so it doesn't crumble to pieces). First, you enchant it to
>> make it a better receptacle (Use the artificing proceedure, TN 4,
>> reduce the anchoring target number by 1 for every two successes
>> achieved. The karma pool can be used to enhance the test as well,
>> so enchanting 4 should have no problem dropping the TN to 2)
>> When you anchor the spell, you cast is at a target number of 2,
>>
>> <More stuff snipped>
>
>I have a hard time believing that they are going to keep the same
>procedure in MITS. It is just so easy to abuse. Consider the
>following...
>
>1) A mage with Willpower 6 has a Force 6 Increase Willpower spell.
>Normally, the mage would have to roll Sorcery + Magic Pool against a
>TN of 6, and every 2 successes results in +1 Willpower (to a max of
>the Force of the spell, 6). A lucky mage will get +2 Willpower. If
>you instead anchor the spell to a piece of treated wood, the TN is 2,
>and you have mages with 11 or 12 Willpower. And with a base drain of
>M, you can anchor it for a long time.
>
>2) Want to heal a cyberzombie troll with -5 Essence and 10 Body Index?
>No problem, just anchor the Heal spell to a piece of treated wood and
>give it an activation link. Your target numbers for the Heal are 2!
>He'll be up and fighting again in no time.
>
>3) Want to convince Lofwyr to give you his megacorp? No problem, just
>anchor an Influence spell to a piece of treated wood, TN 2. You'll
>get about 10 successes, more than you would get if you used the normal
>TN of his Willpower. And he can't even Shield to increase your TN,
>though he does still get to try to resist it. He'll probably roll
>around 25 dice, against a TN of 6 if you have a Force 6 Influence
spell.
>Even if he uses Karma, you've probably got your own megacorp.
>
>So far I and my group have not abused anchoring this way (though I
>have been tempted).
>


Uhmmm...To me it looked like the TN#2 referred to the success test for
anchoring the spell. Not the success test for the spell itself.

Pathfinder

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