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Message no. 1
From: Bob Tockley zzdeden@*******.com.au
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 08:04:51 +1000
> Actually, you can still have them in SR3. Consider a mage with a
>Sorcery of 2 and a Magic Attribute of 6. If he has enough Spell Pool to
>be able to add up to his maximum of 6 dice, he can roll a total of 8 dice
>to cast a spell. Say he casts the only spell he knows, Manabolt. He
>doesn't know much, but he knows manabolt, and can cast it at force 6.
> Say his target is a random goon, Willpower 4. The untalented
>street mage rolls 8 dice (2 Sorcery + 6 Magic Pool) at a target number 4
>(his target's Willpower), netting a statistical total of 4 successes,
>enough to stage the damage up twice. Ouch! His target, on the other
>hand, rolls 4 dice versus a target number of 6 (the force of the spell),
>yielding a statistical total of 0.67 successes (i.e., if he's lucky he'll
>get one). This is not enough to stage the damage down. Hence, the street
>mage need only cast a Moderate Drain Manabolt at force 6 to give his
>target a deadly wound.
> Had the target had a Willpower of 6, the mage would have gotten
>fewer successes (1.33 on average), but even with a Willpower 6, his target
>would only typically get 1 success against the force 6 Manabolt. While
>this isn't sufficient to stage the damage up, a tie goes in favor of the
>caster, meaning the target will take the spell's base damage. As such,
>the no-talent street mage (recall his Sorcery skill of 2) can inflict a
>Deadly wound on his target, but has to cast a Deadly drain manabolt to do
>it.
> In order to affect his targets, he needs to cast high force
>spells, which means that he will have fewer of them (as he only has so
>many points to spend).
> In other words, he has a lousy sorcery skill, but can still cast
>a few impressive spells at the cost of keeling over.


Just one problem with the example. You can't add more Spell Pool than
your Sorcery rating. Meaning, that the magician would only be capable of
rolling 4 dice (2 skill + 2 pool).

SR3 spellcasting has a few major problems (and don't even get me started
on other magic issues like astral space...), mainly that your Magic
Attribute has even less of an effect than it used to (at least in regards
to spellcasting, conjuring is another matter entirely.) Under SR2, your
Magic Attribute limited the Force of your spells (if you didn't want to
really screw yourself over) and limited how much Magic Pool you could add
to a given test. Under SR3, your Magic Attribute limits only the Force of
your spells. Given a few other factors, like the availability and costs on
Alpha-Grade cyberware and the sheer number of Force Points Ade... er...
Aspected Magicians (Gah) receive at character creation, is it a wonder that
any min/max-er worth his salt plays a lightly-cyber, Aspected Magician with
a small number of high Force spells?

It really torques me off that the designers and developers of SR3 have
moved away from a system that was supposed to provide rules and guidelines
for resolving 'real-life' situations, and have ended up with a
video-game-like system. Yeah, I know that it -is- a game, but that doesn't
mean it has to play like one. 'Real' life has weapons, cyberware (well
maybe not at the moment, but soon hopefully...), equipment, skills, and
people who are better than others, why not the game system? "It promotes
better roleplaying" you say? But at what cost? Do you really want to be
roleplaying a 'real' character in a 'video game' world? (and no quips about
the matrix here, either)

(>) ARKHAM
"Okay, it's almost done... should be released any day now... hold on a
bit... just a few days... sorry, but it'll be out next month... here we go
- oops, just a sec... now for the grand unveili...er... just another few
days... any day now... soon... really soon... we've had some kind of
mix-up, it'll be out in a week's time... yeah, I know the website says it's
out, but we haven't got it to the printers yet, at least a week more to
wait... soon, trust me... next few days, definitely... damn, we've had some
kind of computer error, it'll be released in a few days..."
- FASA Executive announcing the release of a new Shadowrun book.
Message no. 2
From: Chris Maxfield cmaxfiel@****.org.au
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 13:57:12 +1100
At 08:04 4/03/99 +1000, Bob Tockley wrote:
> SR3 spellcasting has a few major problems (and don't even get me started
>on other magic issues like astral space...), mainly that your Magic
>Attribute has even less of an effect than it used to (at least in regards
>to spellcasting, conjuring is another matter entirely.) Under SR2, your
>Magic Attribute limited the Force of your spells (if you didn't want to
>really screw yourself over) and limited how much Magic Pool you could add
>to a given test. Under SR3, your Magic Attribute limits only the Force of
>your spells. Given a few other factors, like the availability and costs on
>Alpha-Grade cyberware and the sheer number of Force Points Ade... er...
>Aspected Magicians (Gah) receive at character creation, is it a wonder that
>any min/max-er worth his salt plays a lightly-cyber, Aspected Magician with
>a small number of high Force spells?

Curious. :-) To my point of view, SR3 has done the opposite and made the Magic
Attribute even more relevant. Spell force is still "limited" by magic and now,
in SR3, at last, so is spirit force. In SR3, instead of limiting magic pool
dice allocation, Magic helps define the spell pool; for me, a far more
significant result. In SR3 the Magic Attribute is even more important for
Banishing spirits or Controlling uncontrolled spirits, since power foci no
longer act as a crutch and boost the Magic Attribute for purposes like this.
Additionally, Magic rather than Sorcery, is now rolled for setting up wards.
These are the differences that spring to my mind between SR2 and SR3, and so I
think the Magic Attribute has even more impact on characters' actions in SR3.






Chris Maxfield We are restless because of incessant
<cmaxfiel@****.org.au> change, but we would be frightened if
Canberra, Australia change were stopped.
Message no. 3
From: Bob Tockley zzdeden@*******.com.au
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 08:37:19 +1000
>Curious. :-) To my point of view, SR3 has done the opposite and made the
Magic
>Attribute even more relevant. Spell force is still "limited" by magic and
now,
>in SR3, at last, so is spirit force. In SR3, instead of limiting magic pool
>dice allocation, Magic helps define the spell pool; for me, a far more
>significant result. In SR3 the Magic Attribute is even more important for
>Banishing spirits or Controlling uncontrolled spirits, since power foci no
>longer act as a crutch and boost the Magic Attribute for purposes like this.
>Additionally, Magic rather than Sorcery, is now rolled for setting up wards.
>These are the differences that spring to my mind between SR2 and SR3, and
so I
>think the Magic Attribute has even more impact on characters' actions in SR3.

If you'll re-read my post I agree with you about the Magic Attribute
being more important in -other- areas, just not in spellcasting. Your
Magic Attribute has even less to do with Spellcasting than it did before.
It all comes down to your Sorcery Skill and nothing more -at least in
regards to resisted spells. Unresisted spells are an exception because of
the Force-related limits on successes.

Take for example, your typical starting Sorcery Aspected Magician, who
has four points of cyberware (maybe Wired Reflexes-2, a Smartlink,
cybereyes with the works, and some miscellaneous other junk - more if he
Alpha-Grades some of the cyber), and who has a Sorcery Skill, Intelligence,
and Willpower of 6 (not exactly typical, but we're min/maxing here
remember?).

Because of his Magic Attribute of 2, his Spell Pool would be 4
(6+6+2=>14/3 =~ 4), while his Magic Pool (under SR2 at least) would be 6.
If this character was to hurl a Force 1 Manabolt (with a (M)oderate
staging using SR3 or the imposed (S)erious staging using SR2) at your
average person, he'd be rolling a maximum of 10 dice offensively under SR3
or a maximum of 3 dice offensively under SR2 (Force of 1 plus maximum of 2
Magic Pool because of Magic Attribute limit). Both tests would have the
same Target Number - Willpower (3 in this case) plus modifiers.

Assuming no modifiers apply (yeah, sure) the SR3 magician will roll
around 6 - 7 successes while the SR2 magician will roll around 1-2
successes. The target, rolling his Willpower of 3 against the spell's
Force of 1 will usually get 3 successes. End result: SR3 magician either
severely wounds or outright kills his target while the SR2 magician is
lucky to even effect him.

It gets worse, neither magician really runs any risk of taking Drain.
Using 6 dice for Willpower against the Drain Target of 2 will get the SR3
magician more than the four successes he needs to walk away without damage,
and the SR2 magician with his leftover Magic Pool can easily get another
two or so successes on top of his Willpower ones.

Suggested patch for this problem: Re-introduce the Magic Attribute limit
for spellcasting. No character may add more than his Magic Attribute in
Spell Pool dice to his Sorcery test when Spellcasting.

(>) ARKHAM
"Okay, it's almost done... should be released any day now... hold on a
bit... just a few days... sorry, but it'll be out next month... here we go
- oops, just a sec... now for the grand unveili...er... just another few
days... any day now... soon... really soon... we've had some kind of
mix-up, it'll be out in a week's time... yeah, I know the website says it's
out, but we haven't got it to the printers yet, at least a week more to
wait... soon, trust me... next few days, definitely... damn, we've had some
kind of computer error, it'll be released in a few days..."
- FASA Executive announcing the release of a new Shadowrun book.
Message no. 4
From: Chris Maxfield cmaxfiel@****.org.au
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 01:14:25 +1100
At 08:37 5/03/99 +1000, Bob Tockley wrote:
> If you'll re-read my post I agree with you about the Magic Attribute
>being more important in -other- areas, just not in spellcasting. Your

OK. I felt that your comment was wider in intent than that but I see what you
mean.

>Magic Attribute has even less to do with Spellcasting than it did before.
>It all comes down to your Sorcery Skill and nothing more -at least in
>regards to resisted spells. Unresisted spells are an exception because of
>the Force-related limits on successes.

Yes, in that Sorcery is more important at the expense of spell-force mechanics
domination.

> Take for example, your typical starting Sorcery Aspected Magician, who
>has four points of cyberware (maybe Wired Reflexes-2, a Smartlink,
>cybereyes with the works, and some miscellaneous other junk - more if he
>Alpha-Grades some of the cyber), and who has a Sorcery Skill, Intelligence,
>and Willpower of 6 (not exactly typical, but we're min/maxing here
>remember?).

Sure.

> Because of his Magic Attribute of 2, his Spell Pool would be 4
>(6+6+2=>14/3 =~ 4), while his Magic Pool (under SR2 at least) would be 6.
> If this character was to hurl a Force 1 Manabolt (with a (M)oderate
>staging using SR3 or the imposed (S)erious staging using SR2) at your

I don't know what you mean here. Are you talking about drain? If so, then
choose the SR3 Manabolt to do S damage, same as SR2, so they both impose S
drain.

>average person, he'd be rolling a maximum of 10 dice offensively under SR3
>or a maximum of 3 dice offensively under SR2 (Force of 1 plus maximum of 2
>Magic Pool because of Magic Attribute limit). Both tests would have the
>same Target Number - Willpower (3 in this case) plus modifiers.
> Assuming no modifiers apply (yeah, sure) the SR3 magician will roll
>around 6 - 7 successes while the SR2 magician will roll around 1-2
>successes. The target, rolling his Willpower of 3 against the spell's
>Force of 1 will usually get 3 successes. End result: SR3 magician either
>severely wounds or outright kills his target while the SR2 magician is
>lucky to even effect him.

This is being discussed in the other thread. As some have stated, and I agree,
this is as it should be. Skill should be a powerful factor, not just the power
of the weapon. The cyber-mage has trouble channeling his magic, sure, but with
a skill of 6 in Sorcery, he's a master. He should be taking down an average
Willpower target without raising a sweat! This is a fix not a fault.

> It gets worse, neither magician really runs any risk of taking Drain.
>Using 6 dice for Willpower against the Drain Target of 2 will get the SR3
>magician more than the four successes he needs to walk away without damage,
>and the SR2 magician with his leftover Magic Pool can easily get another
>two or so successes on top of his Willpower ones.

Sure.

> Suggested patch for this problem: Re-introduce the Magic Attribute limit
>for spellcasting. No character may add more than his Magic Attribute in
>Spell Pool dice to his Sorcery test when Spellcasting.
>

I don't see that the problem for this solution really exists. To me, the
limitation that Magic imposes on spell pool size is more significant than the
SR2 limitation on magic pool added to a spell test. With less total spell pool,
there's less to go round for spelling, drain and spell defense. This hurts, and
doubly so with the spell pool not refreshing until the next turn - your
cyber-mage above has only 4 dice for all this. Magic is just as important as
ever. It's just applied differently.






Chris Maxfield We are restless because of incessant
<cmaxfiel@****.org.au> change, but we would be frightened if
Canberra, Australia change were stopped.
Message no. 5
From: Bob Tockley zzdeden@*******.com.au
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 01:23:13 +1000
>This is being discussed in the other thread. As some have stated, and I
agree,
>this is as it should be. Skill should be a powerful factor, not just the
power
>of the weapon. The cyber-mage has trouble channeling his magic, sure, but
with
>a skill of 6 in Sorcery, he's a master. He should be taking down an average
>Willpower target without raising a sweat! This is a fix not a fault.

Skill already is a powerful factor. Too much of a powerful factor. In
all the novels and in the majority of the sourcebooks, magical characters
have some kind of latent magical talent. Some people are just more
powerful than others, simple as that. This doesn't translate well into
game mechanics -except- as a variation in the Magic Attribute (albeit a
minor one that doesn't really have any game effects).

With the way things are shaping up in SR3 (pre-MitS-release), it looks as
if magical characters will be -the- characters to play if you want to
min/max. Given the new initiative system, the reduced effect of the Magic
Attribute, ease of acquiring cheaper, more essence-friendly cyberware, the
ability to get low-Force, high-effect initiative, attribute, and
armour-enhancing spells, and so on, the SR3 magician will be able to
out-think, out-fight, out-run, out-gun and out-do a street samurai at
anything and everything... and all he needs is a high Sorcery Skill to do
it. Why bother with Spell Pool? It's only going to refresh once a Combat
Turn. Leave your Intelligence, Willpower, and Magic Attribute alone and
beef up that Sorcery Skill - you can count on those dice all the time.
It's the Firearms scenario all over again. One skill that covers way too
much and has too much potential for abuse.

>I don't see that the problem for this solution really exists. To me, the
>limitation that Magic imposes on spell pool size is more significant than the
>SR2 limitation on magic pool added to a spell test. With less total spell
pool,
>there's less to go round for spelling, drain and spell defense. This
hurts, and
>doubly so with the spell pool not refreshing until the next turn - your
>cyber-mage above has only 4 dice for all this. Magic is just as important as
>ever. It's just applied differently.

Not exactly. You see, under SR3 your mage doesn't have to allocate Spell
Pool for Spell Defence, he has to allocate points of Sorcery Skill plus any
Spell Pool he wants. Now, the way it's written there are two basic ways to
interpret how this works: 1) You allocate dice from your Sorcery Skill,
thus reducing your Sorcery Skill for other magical actions (makes sense and
limits the magician quite a bit), or 2) You allocate up to your Sorcery
Skill to a number of targets (yourself included) and protect them without
suffering any impairment to your magical abilities. If you're using the
former interpretation, great. If your SR3 mage wants to toast someone with
a low-Force spell, he leaves himself wide open to magical attack. If
you're using the later interpretation, well.... let's just say the system
becomes a fair bit unbalanced in the magician's favour.

(>) ARKHAM
"Just because he's dead doesn't mean I can't have a little fun with him."
- Sledge Hammer
Message no. 6
From: Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 14:37:04 -0500 (EST)
On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Bob Tockley wrote:

> Suggested patch for this problem: Re-introduce the Magic Attribute limit
> for spellcasting. No character may add more than his Magic Attribute in
> Spell Pool dice to his Sorcery test when Spellcasting.

Yup, that's what I did too. Unfortunately, I realized after I
gave my mathematical breakdown on skilled versus unskilled mages a few
days ago that I was assuming said house rule in my explanation. Sorry for
any confusion I may have inadvertantly caused.

Marc
Message no. 7
From: Mongoose m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 16:31:29 -0600
:I don't see that the problem for this solution really exists. To me, the
:limitation that Magic imposes on spell pool size is more significant than
the
:SR2 limitation on magic pool added to a spell test. With less total spell
pool,
:there's less to go round for spelling, drain and spell defense. This
hurts, and
:doubly so with the spell pool not refreshing until the next turn - your
:cyber-mage above has only 4 dice for all this. Magic is just as important
as
:ever. It's just applied differently.


Very differently. The difference between the pools of a mage with
magic 1 and magic 7 is just 2 dice- less than a cheap focus or a single
use of a totem modifier. Additionally, they both have (almost) exactly
the same chance of dying from casting a force 8 spell.
In SR2, there was a big difference between having a magic rating of 2
and a magic of 4. In SR3, its at most 1 pool die, and both mages would
have the same trouble casting force 5 spells.

Not that this is all bad; magic rating is VERY important now in astral
space. It is just quite different.

Mongoose
Message no. 8
From: Chris Maxfield cmaxfiel@****.org.au
Subject: SR3... SpellCasting (and Game Balance)
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 18:19:14 +1100
At 01:23 6/03/99 +1000, Bob Tockley wrote:
> Skill already is a powerful factor. Too much of a powerful factor. In
>all the novels and in the majority of the sourcebooks, magical characters
>have some kind of latent magical talent. Some people are just more
>powerful than others, simple as that. This doesn't translate well into
>game mechanics -except- as a variation in the Magic Attribute (albeit a
>minor one that doesn't really have any game effects).

To use magic, the innate magical talent must be there, of course. The strength
of this innate talent is reflected across the game mechanics (in SR2 and even
more in SR3) in many places. However, Shadowrun is a skill-based game and,
therefore, skills should be the defining factor for character capability. A
highly skilled Martial Artist is more powerful than a street punk, even if the
street punk is stronger.

> With the way things are shaping up in SR3 (pre-MitS-release), it looks as
>if magical characters will be -the- characters to play if you want to
>min/max. Given the new initiative system, the reduced effect of the Magic
>Attribute, ease of acquiring cheaper, more essence-friendly cyberware, the
>ability to get low-Force, high-effect initiative, attribute, and
>armour-enhancing spells, and so on, the SR3 magician will be able to
>out-think, out-fight, out-run, out-gun and out-do a street samurai at

More essence-friendly cyberware bonuses the chrome boys & girls as well. Pack
more cyberware, e.g. a tactical computer, in a street sam and watch him go.
The SR3 Increased Reflexes is no different to SR2. For Increased Attribute
spells, they're more difficult since they're force limited. The sustaining foci
(all with a much higher rating than a 1 point spell lock) required to maintain
these spells stand out in astral space like a sore thumb. Any astral magician
or spirit can blow them away without a sweat. Further, these spells can and
should benefit the other team members just as well.

The new initiative system restrains anyone, with ultra-fast reflexes, into
using tactics rather than brute speed. This applies to magicians and
chrome-boys both. Better yet, the SR3 initiative system means that it's
possible to play a non-boosted character and still be effective in a fight. For
that reason, a couple of players in my game have decided that their new
magicians will never acquire Increased Reflexes.

I don't see how a magician can out-gun a street sam. The sam can spend all of
his karma on acquiring and increasing the wide range of firearms skills and
master many different weapons. The magician has other priorities before he
starts spending karma on firearms skills. The increased karma cost of Attribute
increase is very significant here, as well.

>anything and everything... and all he needs is a high Sorcery Skill to do
>it. Why bother with Spell Pool? It's only going to refresh once a Combat
>Turn. Leave your Intelligence, Willpower, and Magic Attribute alone and
>beef up that Sorcery Skill - you can count on those dice all the time.
>It's the Firearms scenario all over again. One skill that covers way too
>much and has too much potential for abuse.

No. I don't think it's the same as the Firearms skill. With the SR2 Firearms
skill, you could just pick up any old weapon you found lying around, even if
you've never seen its type before, and use it. With sorcery, you have to
deliberately spend time and karma to acquire each and every weapon (spell) .
With the power level problem you are describing here, I don't see much
difference to the SR2 essence 2 cyber-mage with a Force 8 Manabolt, exclusive
and with expendable fetishes. This magician was virtually invincible against
standard opposition, had no need to use magic pool dice on the spell success
test and only 1 or 2 on the drain test to avoid taking any drain. Even if the
cyber-mage took the physical drain, it would most likely be a light wound,
easily fixed with First Aid, or easily healed by magic (the other team
magician, ally spirit, or anchored spell etc.). All the rest of the magic pool
could be placed in spell defense - and the magic pool refreshed every action. I
feel the power problem you seem concerned about already existed in SR2. :-)

> Not exactly. You see, under SR3 your mage doesn't have to allocate Spell
>Pool for Spell Defence, he has to allocate points of Sorcery Skill plus any
>Spell Pool he wants. Now, the way it's written there are two basic ways to
>interpret how this works: 1) You allocate dice from your Sorcery Skill,
>thus reducing your Sorcery Skill for other magical actions (makes sense and
>limits the magician quite a bit), or 2) You allocate up to your Sorcery
>Skill to a number of targets (yourself included) and protect them without
>suffering any impairment to your magical abilities. If you're using the
>former interpretation, great. If your SR3 mage wants to toast someone with
>a low-Force spell, he leaves himself wide open to magical attack. If
>you're using the later interpretation, well.... let's just say the system
>becomes a fair bit unbalanced in the magician's favour.

To me, the text in page 174 (Astral Combat) and page 183 (Spell Defense) are
pretty clear in that Sorcery dice allocated to another purpose are gone for use
in Spell Casting. The wording of the rules may be a bit unclear but the
author's intent is, I think, clear. These rules are consistent with the many
additional restrictions placed on magicians in SR3.

Over all, I think the magic system is balanced in SR3, with more consistency
than in SR2. All, of course, IMHO.






Chris Maxfield We are restless because of incessant
<cmaxfiel@****.org.au> change, but we would be frightened if
Canberra, Australia change were stopped.

Further Reading

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