| From: | Mark Steedman <RSMS@******.EEE.RGU.AC.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Big elementals (Re: ?from my mind? |
| Date: | Thu, 7 Sep 1995 08:46:35 GMT |
this quote could get rather long beware.
> The 5 sept. I wrote
>
> >Thats why we created in my group (dare i say it) an House rule!!
> >
you may dare as far as i am concerned.
> >it goes like this
> >
> > All damage taken as a result of spellcating and summoning can only
> >be healed
> >with time, no magical healing, no biotech (first aid). This was to stop
> >the proliferation of force 11 elementals...
>
> The reaction to this simple statement was astounding to me, ad from multiple
> listmember...Sebastian, Kelly, Mark, gurth (and maybe others).
>
> Than i looked... I forgot to put a smiley at the end of the last
> line, this was supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. But I will explain
> why i said it.
>
common enough problem.
> When i began playing SR the political situation was strange, This
> was a merging of two groups playing from 6 month to a year. Each group saw
> its own munchkins in actions. So very fast discussion where made on what to
> change on the rules.
>
> The group that we had joined, did have a mage who summoned some (not
> a proliferation) strenght 11 elementals. This was Shadowrun FIRST edition.
ah.
> With a charisma of six, this can make a serious wound Physical (in fact S1).
> Some karma gave you automatic succes for the summoning (SR1 again). A treat
> spell, couple of days and voila!! You begin the run with a force 11
> elementals. The mage did it two or three times.
>
yes, its easy to get rid of the drain in 2nd ed if you have a friend
with treat or yourself have centering to treat yourself at better
than 5's [well at least limit to a light which is a nights rest to
loose]
Though its the cost of the tries needed to get that conjouring 11 in
2nded that tends to limit people. Certainly at the money i hand out,
11K is affordable but not change to waste.
> When the merging was done the GM's decided that to stop this and
> instituted the rules mentionned earlyer.
>
> When the transition came to the second edition we kept this rule to
> keep this in check, but, there was never a case where we did used it since.
> I never played with a force 11 elemental...
>
> Sorry... I'll try to be clearer next time.
>
>
> Wed, 6 Sep Mark wrote..
>
> >yes force 11 spirits have thier uses but lacking dice pools or threat
> >rating it is quite easy for a decent guy with a gun or sword to
> >flatten them (simple it don't have enough dice), never mind damaging
> >manipulations against which they get no armour at all.
>
> I believe dice pool are dealt in prime runner (i don't have it , can't quote)
> They CAN have Threat ratings (I've seen it in some module).
>
ah, yes but..
Free spirits are treated as NPC's and can therefore get threat
ratings, and sometimes FASA might hand them out to opponents
generally. I also have given 'free' spirits dice pools. My comment
above was meant to cover only directly controlled spirits summoned by
PC or NPC mages [ordinary ones, no blood mages etc.]
> A gun would have to get by an armor of 22 (SR2 p219) and use is
> willpower
> instead of is firearm skill or armed combat. (if the spirit is even
> manifested that is).
>
if its not manifested it cannot affect the mundanes. Fair enought but
when the willpower 6 guy with the burst fire shotgun opens up
smartlinked and goes 6 success (assuming simple corp corridor so you
do get target 2's) the poor spirit needs 14 succes to stage that
down, [6 offset attackers + 8 for a deadly] the target number, quite
possibly -10 does not matter, the thing only has 11 dice, and takes
at least a moderate, and with the rule of one a poor roll easily gets
a serious!!
fair enougth that force 11 free spirits that get threat rating for a
few more dice are massively more difficult to kill. [memories of
trying to manabolt force 10 queen bugs & force 9 free spirits, that
being free were a real bind, even with the correct treatment to hand]
> I believe a force 11 elemental is a terrible weapon, a one shot weapon,
> usefull to survive some dangerous situations. But if for you they are so
> easy to kill, your campaing is on a higher power level then mine... :-]
>
i wouldn't say easy to kill due to campain its just they have nasty
weaknesses, particularly to folks that know what they are doing,
though i have seen players get it wrong.
Having had combats with guns vs fire elementals [force 8] i know a
bit, and even vs assault rifles with the right rules i needed to use
partial cover and similar cunning to keep the spirits alive for long.
> Vincent.Pellerin
>
hope that explains my workings a bit better.
I have noted from experience that trying to guess things about
campains from a few out of context examples is a black art, and one
folks usuallly fail at. We all have our own opinions and so many
munchkin sounding things are simply being seen out of context. Also
the effectiveness of good tactics with dice pools and karma and
knowing what to hit things with can be quite amazing [ unless you
expect it]
If the thing has too much armour you either 'get a very very big
attack' to defeat it or 'throw everything in one attack' and simply
overload its defences by opening yourself up' equivalent to going for
the weakspot at any cost, if you are lucky you get it [game result is
you run the poor target out of dice, so it needs -20 but if you have
no dice you cannot get success].
Mark
