| From: | Caric <caric@********.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: [SR3] Drain |
| Date: | Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:23:44 -0700 |
paying
| >dearly for casting the spells with very little effect, have you ever
tried
| >hitting a decent Sammie with a force 4 combat spell? It's VERY
difficult,
|
| This is all a matter of world view. A decent sammie, to me, represents
| a target that should be, at least, a full standard deviation more
difficult
| to hurt with magic than Joe Average. To me, the "average" juju that
should
| be thrown around is force 3 or 4. (Based on the 1 to 6 paradigm that
| encompasses so much of the SR rule system.)
In SR you can drop Joe Pedestrian with force 1 spells however, assuming
that you have a decent sorcery skill.
| So to me, an average spell force level (4) against a significantly more
| difficult-than-average target (a sammie) is /supposed/ to be difficult.
Try in the realm of impossible...lets assume a Sammie with a body of 6 (low
for a Sammie if you ask me) and the mageboy is casting Powerbolt (fairly
common spell) if that spell is force four the mage is doing more damage (I
know one is stun the other physical, but the mods are the same) to himself
than he is to the Sammie and he will probably never succeed in doind any
damage unless he lets himself get nailed with the drain. Say the mage has
a sorcery skill of 6 and even a willpower of 6, he rolls 7 dice at a TN of
6 (we'll say he split his magic pool) to hit the Sammie. The Sammie then
rolls 6 dice at a TN 4, needing only one more success than the mage to take
absolutely no damage. The mage then rolls 9 dice at a target number of
five (assuming that drain is full force), and he needs six of those to be
success to avoid any damage. Now if there two Sammies the mage is just
flat out screwed.
| >and you're still resisting drain of about the same amount of damage you
| >just did, why would you want to do something thats almost as painful to
you
| >as it is to your target...assuming it hits at all.
|
| This is more game view stuff. Many players and GMs feel that it is the
| mage character archetype's "divine right" to be able to sling juju and
have
| a good chance of affecting nearly ANY target without risking significant
| drain. So be it. If it's fun for you, then go for it. That's what the
game
| is there for, after all. :-)
I'm saying that mages should have at least a chance of hurting a Sammie
without killing themselves.
| Again, this is all my personal opinion. But I really think that mages
are,
| by far and away, the most powerful character type in shadowrun - bar
NONE.
| I don't have a real problem if, thru some changes or tweaking to drain
codes,
| that sammies now are clearly the "best" combat character type. It's what
| the player and character spent all of their startup money and effort to
| become. Why /shouldn't/ sammies be better in straight-out
gun-vs-combat-spell
| combat? Maybe mages /should/ be forced to take some big stun/drain damage
if
| they want to channel enough energy to really hurt/put-down the single
character
| archetype that is 90%+ devoted to combat - the street samurai.
I agree that mages are the most powerful IF the live long enough.
| I see your point about a mage having difficult with the sammie. However,
to
| me, this is not only NOT a problem. But, in fact, it might be a very
| desirable outcome.
I disagree because they would die before they could get a chance to make
it.
| > If magic is unbalancing
| >your game then change it of course, but the sorcerer needs to be able to
| >hit with his spells (especially if he is not getting three actions per
| >initiative), and they need to count...
|
| Does he/she? Why? Again, I realize that this is personal world view, but
| I see no reason to assume that mages shouldn't be totally and completely
| hosed if he gets that close to a hostile sammie. There is no reason, a
| priori, to assume that mages are supposed to be as good in combat as
| sammies are. And, in fact, there are many convincing game-balance
arguments
| to suggest why a mage should be /clearly inferior/ to a street sam in
| combat.
I'm not saying that they should be as good...there not going to be able to
drop three or four people every action forever like a Sammie could, but
they should have at least a fighting chance of succeffulyy casting a combat
spell without totally draining themselves.
| >unfortunately the way shadowrunners
| >are you need the high force spells in order to be successful alot of the
| >time.
|
| That's why I believe strongly in not allowing a player to generate their
| characters freely. If so, they tend to choose a min/max profile. At the
| very least, they go for a WP of 6 because it is SO important - even to a
| sammie. I try to throw some variability into the process. And then I
| try to create a world (and game system) where there are distinct
advantages
| to having better "side" (non combat) skills and higher INT and CHAR
| attributes. That way, they don't feel "shafted". Each and every character
| now has both advantages and disadvantages based on their initial makeup.
No
| one profile (WP 6) carries as much value anymore.
And you definately want to do that, I enjoy the non-combat experience, but
as much fun as the social skills are for role-playing once the lead does
start to fly they mage should be able to do something other than run and
hide.
| On a minor (yeah, right :-) digression, this represents my way of
reverse-
| escalation thinking. When I confront an imbalance in a game system (SR
| or otherwise), I work very hard to correct the situation by WEAKENING one
| aspect rather than STRENTHENING another aspect. It seems very basic, but
it
| has a very powerful stabilizing effect on a campaign or a game system
when
| done on a big scale.
I agree...that's the main reason that we reduced heavy pistol damages in
our game to 6M...i'd rather see a reduction of power than an escalation,
but I just don't see the drain as being a spot that needs to be adjusted.
| If I were to subjectively rate sammies as being too difficult to hurt
with
| magic, I'd weaken the sammie's defense rather than make magic stronger.
Maybe
| there's a problem in letting all PCs and NPCs get willpowers of 6. Maybe
you
| should alter the char generation system where one ROLLS for attributes
instead
| of just being able to select Ye Olde WP of 6 to start with. Maybe
allowing
| cyber or bioware that can raise WP is a bad idea? Same thing for spells
that
| raise WP, for that matter.
By that reasoning then you would make drain more tough, and then lower the
attributes of sammies to produce the same effect as what would happen if we
left the rules alone. That is unless I completely misunderstood the above
paragraph. :)
| GETTING BACK TO THE MAIN POINT
| ------------------------------
| Again, like I said, it's a matter of world view and the type of game one
| enjoys. To me, the most important thing isn't to flat-out declare that
all
| spells should be based on F. To me, the most important thing is to
| SIGNIFICANTLY expand the "campaign lethality" section to FULLY explain
| the ramifications of going with this drain code paradigm or that weapon
| damage paradigm etc. These basic decisions - made at the beginning of a
| campaign - are some of the most important and far-reaching decisions a
| GM will make. The new GM deserves a full 20+ page section in the basic
rulebook
| explaining all of these things (as well as the numerical quirks of any
game
| system based on the six-sided die) - and not just a page of basic lip
service.
I can certainly see this as something that would be nice (I think 20 pages
is a little extreme, but anyway :) and I agree that the options of changing
lethality should be there, but what we were originally discussing is the
way the "default" drain should go...IMHO it should stay f/2 because the new
players of Sammies are going to take high stats (why wouldn't they) and
therefore the new mages should be able to keep up, or they will fall by the
wayside due to game unbalancing. Now granted this is the way that it would
end up in our game, and firearms are extremely deadly in SR I don't see any
reason why magic shouldn't be as well...that's why people fear it.
-Caric
"These pretzels are MAKING ME THIRSTY!!!!!"
