Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: Senko on <05-11-14/0656:54>
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I've been trying to make a mage but whatever I do I seem to wind up having to sacrifice something somewhere and so I'm wondering are the enchanting, disenchanting etc used often ingame or could I leave them off and simply be unable to use those 4 skills (right now only the unlimited range ritual seems useful for example and enchanting requires a lab and karma) whereas leaving them off would save me 12+ skill points.
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Actually extend that to all 11 magic skills which ones aside from the obvious (spellcasting, summoning, counterspelling, assessing and arcana) see regular use?
What I'm currently looking at is street kid learnt by doing/occasional tutoring by spirits. So right now the spells I'm thinking would be taken are spellcasting, summoning, assesing, arcana (all would see regular use as they grew up), counterspelling and banishing (wouldn't see regular use but seems too useful after the game starts to leave off) and dropping the rest.
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I'm not using Binding on my Shaman, for both flavor reasons and because I figure it'll be less hassle just summoning when I need to. I do plan on picking up both Enchanting and Alchemy, but I only had so many points to play with, even at Skills A. Disenchanting I might get as well, if only to break down something I'm not interested in to get raw materials for Enchanting (assuming I can do that). Banishing I am avoiding, as it seems to be easier to banish a spirit by tearing it apart with mana spells. Originally I took Astral Combat, but once I discovered I could still cast in Astral form, I used those points elsewhere.
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I've had a player that actually was a Talismonger for the group who would either sell custom ordered foci or reagents he had gathered. He was a mystic adept so he took skills like tattooing to do Qi Foci Tattoos and then a couple of crafting knowledge skills and played to his specialty, namely bone carving. He was also good to have around when prepping for a meet with the Johnson or just a general insertion cause he would make potency, basically one shot potions that give their rating to a certain attribute such as charisma, agility, and what not for a either eight or so hours once more depending on how he rolled. Seeing how our group had a mage, a shaman mystic adept(Hiim), social and gun adept(Me), decker and a rigger we got alot of bang for our buck and he give us discounts on our magical goodies. It is just the mage and the shaman had to be ready to heal his ass if he screwed up making magical items, he nearly killed himself turning his monofiliament whip into a force six weapon foci. He also did my tattoos.
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Most of the time when you are the only mage, ritual spellcasting is not used. In fact, I've never used it before and most of the time I don't take the skill. I even had a mage with the flaw incompetent (ritual spellcasting) for fluff reasons and it never bothered me much.
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I LOVE ritual spellcasting.
It's a bit clumsier than spellcasting, but well applied can wreck some fantastic havoc.
Even alone, watchers and the health spell circles can do some awesome stuff.
I used the SR NPC Puck in a game I ran in Denver. Gave him an underage magician girlfriend with a focus on health spells. She used rituals to boost up his mental stats to their augmented limit. Which makes him hell on wheels as a technomancer.
Using them effectively as a player requires a bit more finesse and planning, but there are at least two serious arguments for any mage to have it in their toolkit: Watchers (crappy spirits you create to look for things or guard them) and wards (astral walls). Watchers are great for risky situations where you want to check something out in the astral without putting yourself or a more valuable spirit in jeopardy. Wards are delightful because they let you protect a place from astral intrusion and, unlike dual natured ivy/bacteria, they can have a little extras added in. In SR4/3 you could make crossing a ward very dangerous. Those rules aren't in SR5 yet.
As long as you've got someone willing to play spotter, you can wreck quite a bit of hell or gather considerable information via prodigal Spell/Remote Sensing rituals. Lets say your group has two magicians both with magic 6 and a mundane stealth specialist. You want to find a guy you were introduced to last week, whose skipped bail. You have the appropriate lodge and whatnot and an idea where he usually is. So you cast the ritual at force 1 (and use edge to remove the limit). At the beginning of the ritual, your stealth guy heads out to around where you think he might be.
At the end of the hour you finish up and cast Detect [Your "buddy"]. Because you're using a ritual, you get a 1.2km radius (12 total magic performing the ritual *100m * 1 for force) centered on the spotter and, lucky day, you pinpoint him with much more ease than you would have if you tried to track him down on foot. Everyone resists drain, including the mundane spotter, and we all go home with a little extra cash in our pockets and hopefully minimal nose-bleeding.
This also means, if you've got advance warning about where someone is, you can slam them with a high-force combat spell from a mundane. Astral signature could still be a problem, of course, but there are other ways around it.
Basically, it's a specialist's tool.
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I don't find astral combat/disenchanting/banishing to be useful at all compared to other options. Ritual spellcasting is pretty handy for watchers though (that's mainly what I've used it for) and I know it has some far-reaching other implications, just haven't gotten into that yet.
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I wouldn't say any of the skills are "useless" so much as some of them are clearly niche use &/or can very much wait for post-chargen Karma.
12 Magic Skills into 3 Categories.
VERY-Useful (Must Have at Chargen)
Sorcery
Summoning
Fairly Useful &/or Situational Dependant
Alchemy : Do you want to pick your own reagents or make potions ?
Arcana : Research Spells &/or Initiate
Assensing: Like Perception skill but for Astral.
Binding : Costs Cash but can make you a "Spirit Army" over time.
Counterspelling : Spell Defense against Mages.
Ritual Sorcery : Special "utility" castings &/or Extended Range castings.
Limited Use
Artifacing
Astral Combat
Banishing
Dispelling
The first category is simply a MUST have.
While the Last is going to see very minimal use IMHO
What it really comes down to is that middle group of 6 skills.
Those are the areas that will add "flavor" & "role" to your magician.
Are you in command of an Elemental Army, or are you able to protect your entire team from ALL incoming magic attacks.
Do you plan on adding more spells to roster & initiating OR are you passing out potions to the rest of your team & gathering your own reagents to save cash?
Are you doing Astral Recon & checking out everyone's aura or wards OR are you searching for your target from 1/2 a mile away underground?
Basically what is it that YOU want to do and then from there grab a selection of the 2nd group IMHO.
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I would call Counterspelling must-have, personally.
Binding, I think it's fair for it not to be must-have, but it's certainly very, very good especially if you need a huge alpha strike/nova.
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I would call Counterspelling must-have, personally.
Binding, I think it's fair for it not to be must-have, but it's certainly very, very good especially if you need a huge alpha strike/nova.
I didn't want to try & create 4-5 different categories. Which is why most of them are in the middle as "good, but it won't kill you if it waits 1 run before you get it". Counterspelling is GREAT, IMHO, but it is situation dependent in that if the GM doesn't throw Mages at you, well, its not very useful at all. I also agree that Binding is awesome, but, it does cost quite a bit of cash & it only ADDS to the base ability of summoning which gets you that first spirit all the time. So it too could wait for post char-gen karma if you were really tapped in skill points.
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I thought survival was used to gather reagents for some reason, ok alchemy got a bit more important.
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Ritual magic can be great for setting up temporary safehouses or dropping attack spells on someone from afar.
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I would call Counterspelling must-have, personally.
Binding, I think it's fair for it not to be must-have, but it's certainly very, very good especially if you need a huge alpha strike/nova.
I didn't want to try & create 4-5 different categories. Which is why most of them are in the middle as "good, but it won't kill you if it waits 1 run before you get it". Counterspelling is GREAT, IMHO, but it is situation dependent in that if the GM doesn't throw Mages at you, well, its not very useful at all.
Maybe so. I dunno. Lack counter spelling and you may not even make it through that 1 run :P It's dangerous to try and hedge your bets with the GM like that on certain skills.
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The mage at our table get great millage out of Alchemy. He makes stuff before runs and then rests and thus saves a ton of stun.
What about taking your mage thought your last game session (in your mind) and think about how they would react/solve problems they encounter. Then take those skills and if you find you want something later get it in game.
I find that there is way too much stuff to try to do everything so pick those skill that you can do without and take what is left over.
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I agree with Tarlisar, with the added comment that arcana and assenssing are also must haves, with at least a few skill points. Although those 2 arent essential for a starting character.
Im planning on buffing artificing with the ability to upgrade existing focii and the ability to choose whether to use karma or nuyen when crafting stuff (at the rate of the standard karma/nuyen exchance rate)
I see arcana as a rather lacklustre necessary evil when initiating. I plan on allowing it to upgrade existing foci formula, to be used together with artificing.
dispelling is rather underpowered, especially in those groups were they have ruled, that a damaged lynchpin destroys the spell bound into it. I mean whats the point of the skill if you could just poke at the "fireball lynchpin carpet" with a stick to destroy it?
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I don't know, personally i've always though of arcana as niche, but still really useful even outside of initiating, as basically the magic equivalent of computer (minus the data search)
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I have a Dwarf Mage that is heavy in many of these secondary skills. I haven't had the chance to use him that much, but here are my thoughts so far.
Alchemy - situationally useful. It's actually more difficult to make lynchpins then you might think and they usually come out weaker then your main spells. Cool, but it kinda slows down the game (lots of rolling). It not that fun to interrupt your GM and say, how much time do we have to prepare? Then you make rolls for making the lynchpin, drain, perhaps multiple times, then body and willpower for each hour you heal. That can be lots of rolls, so I think it really depends on the table.
Disenchanting - sounds like it would be useful for a astrally projecting Mage. Giving them another way to effect the battlefield by turning off foci. I haven't had the chance to use it yet though, and I don't think it will come up on its own without me mentioning it to my GM. Also is it a complex or simple action? I don't remember seeing that in the book. Could be better if you could disenchant as a simple and reckless spellcast as another simple.
Astral combat- this is the skill that seems like it would be really useful, but my character doesn't have the attributes for it. Not sure how I would make an astral combat specialist as a dwarf without losing lots of skill points. And there are enough elves at the table.
As always I think a lot of the skills are really up to the GM in their usefulness. If you had a GM that is really comfortable with the magic rules and how magic exists in the everyday world you could get lots of mileage out of them. But both my GMs are just really getting comfortable with the rules in general. Still really like my Mage though. He feels like a real seeker of forbidden knowledge, and not just a combat caster.
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My mages always made their own foci and on occasion make Oraculum (sp?) on the side of extra income. I realize its easier in some ways to just buy the items for me it wasn't I bought this. It was I made this weapon bitches it fits my hand perfectly. Honestly when a mage starts picking up Alchemical skills he has no need for money ever again.
Same with researching spells particularly custom spells. Ie a Pixie mage creating a spell to "look" human or at least dwarf/child. Travelling the world where you were considered vermin and shoot on sight with no law penalties made that a big goal.
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Ritual Magic I have only used once maybe 2x in my entire experience playing shadowrun from 1st edition to now. At best its just a plot mechanic possibly part of a scenerio or other abstract gobbidy-gook game mechanic...
Eg. you go to your lodge and talk to your other initiates to try and track down mr. bad guy.
-Party- Mage now that we found him can we hit him with a fireball
-Gm- Err yesmmm no no there is this thing umm astral spirit that would notice you and you think it would be bad too..
-Party- but it says right here.....
-GM- read read read. ooh darn you ran out of time he went into a building with a mana barrier too bad.
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i never put binding on shamen mages. most my mentor spirts run by gms have warned me its dis respectfull. my wolf mentor guy got chewed out for onces binding a force 10 spirte we needid for a run.
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They don't like it, but you can still explain doing so since sometimes you NEED those extra service possibilities. As long as you treat them with utter respect, and have a real reason for it, it's not that disrespectful, especially not if you make a deal with the Spirit to get them something. It depends on how your GM interprets it, and how much chance he's willing to give you to proof yourself. If he's chewing you out without any redemption possibilities, it sounds like he's going overboard.
Of course Binding a Force 10 Spirit would likely kill you in my games, given how you risk taking a LOT of Physical Drain on the resisted-with-Edge Oversummon, leaving you at bad odds to then survive the Summoning+Binding. You'd pretty much have to get a decent amount of Centering first to live, using 4 Edge in one go (Summon, Drain, Binding, Drain.)
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i never put binding on shamen mages. most my mentor spirts run by gms have warned me its dis respectfull. my wolf mentor guy got chewed out for onces binding a force 10 spirte we needid for a run.
This is why I want some kind of alternate mechanic for people who don't want to be dicks to spirits. Bartering with reagents maybe.
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Let's be clear: binding at a baseline isn't being a dick, though it can turn into that easily. But it's not that as a default in the rules. If you or your GM think it is or play it as that, that's fine, but it's not enshrined in the RAW that way.
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There are some things that one needs a bound spirit to accomplish. I have a Shaman and while I don't bind often I do when I have a reason too. Though I try to be nice and even tip spirits with reagents too.
I don't like to mow my lawn but, I have too. Some people don't like their jobs but, still do them. Just cause spirits don't like something doesn't mean you can't work around that.
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Let's be clear: binding at a baseline isn't being a dick, though it can turn into that easily. But it's not that as a default in the rules. If you or your GM think it is or play it as that, that's fine, but it's not enshrined in the RAW that way.
True.
That said, it just doesn't feel right, fluff wise, to me for a Shaman to force spirits to their will without even the option of some more consensual working relationship.
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Hm, I think an optional chiminage mechanic involving reagents or something would be col.
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Let's be clear: binding at a baseline isn't being a dick, though it can turn into that easily. But it's not that as a default in the rules. If you or your GM think it is or play it as that, that's fine, but it's not enshrined in the RAW that way.
True.
That said, it just doesn't feel right, fluff wise, to me for a Shaman to force spirits to their will without even the option of some more consensual working relationship.
Depends on how you roleplay it.
One of the old myths about fey, which later on came to influence a lot of ideas about magic (and might actually the basis behind the concept of a Faustian deal), is a favor for a favor. Basically, you're bartering either doing something or having done something in return for the spirit doing something. Note this is also found in a lot of forms in other religions, but the fey are really the clearest example of it.
So, how can that translate to binding? Your shaman cuts a deal: For allowing you to bind them, you owe the spirit one favor for every service it does while bound. This creates a form of barter, where all the spirit is doing is trading a short binding period for being able to get you to do things later.
This also creates a plothook later, when the spirit comes to call in the owed favors.
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You are not forcing you are making a contract. Binding materials are very expensive in sr4 anyways the the offering of the materials Benifits the spirt in some abstract way. By not binding spirits or making a contract, or offering or what ever you want to call it is not a negative relationship. thats not to say it can be when you use or how you use the services. There always is the rare chance these spirits can become free spirits which is extremely beneficial to the mage/shaman. As this lets the spirits manifest at will in the material plane.
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Sure, they don't like being bound, but you can talk with them about it before you succesfully bind them, explain the situation you need them for, and promise you'll treat them fairly.
Abuse would be making a Spirit of Man hunt down Rats with services. Non-abuse is doing it because the idiot fled, by bike, from a Barghest and having the Spirit pout and demand to at least ride the bike until dawn then.
(Yes, last night's online session was fun. ^_^)
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Maybe so. I dunno. Lack counter spelling and you may not even make it through that 1 run :P It's dangerous to try and hedge your bets with the GM like that on certain skills.
True but if you come to the table w/o Counterspelling its like ? Really ? Well this might suck.
Come to the table w/o Spellcasting and its "WTF Man, you said you were bringing a Mage, not an Aspected-Conjurer!?!?!"
I agree with Tarlisar, with the added comment that arcana and assenssing are also must haves, with at least a few skill points. Although those 2 arent essential for a starting character.
All the skills in that middle list are stuff you "want" IMHO.
But each is a "flavor" type skill v/s the basic 2 that every full magician needs to be a full magician & not aspected to 1 or the other.
Those 2 (Splcst/Sum) are going to get used every game no matter what happens to you really.
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Astral Combat becomes more useful if you do a lot of Astral Recon, and Run & Gun added an option for using Astral Combat vs materialized spirits, but it is still fairly limited.
Counter-spelling can be used to help protect your team members from your own AoE spells, so I tend to rank it high on the middle list.
My group uses assessing for astral perception, and having a poor perception in this game can be deadly. Again with the astral recon thing.
For Sorcery Aspected Magicians ritual magic's watcher spirit allows for astral over watch, and watcher spirits can not be dispelled or banished.
Ritual magic also allows for wards other than mana lodges. The only downfall is with this edition it counts as a known spell.
I can't find any listing for prices for ritual spells. Does that mean that they only cost Karma?
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i never put binding on shamen mages. most my mentor spirts run by gms have warned me its dis respectfull. my wolf mentor guy got chewed out for onces binding a force 10 spirte we needid for a run.
One thing you can do for bindings is rather than try to force them into a binding, negotiate with the spirits you summon and do favors for them. Clean up a dirty lake, volunteer at an animal shelter.
I have a summoner (Human, Edge 8, Magic 6, Aspected) that was taught Hermetic by a free water spirit. While she doesn't have the religious reverence for spirits that shamans have, she sees them as complete equals. She spends half of her free non-run time doing favors for the spirits she has bound (One actually turned into a run she hired her crew for. They had to go 'convince' a mage that had bound a really ancient spirit to stop having it sustain his spells).
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Is there a limit on known spells?
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Is there a limit on known spells?
There is a limit at character creation: see p. 69 of the core book.
Otherwise the sky is the limit. Or the lunar sphere, whatever =)
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Is there a limit on known spells?
There is a limit; you can't know spells that don't actually exist. Beyond that, refer to Electrycerze's post.
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2xMagic from what I've heard. Though it might be someone getting 4e and 5e mixed up. But that is also the same for complex forms too.
Alchemy is.. well.. It sucks honestly. About the only saving grace is rule of Cool using enchanted arrows. Some people however will say "Nope wont work" at all on that though.
A couple of the hyperbole arguments against it is people loading up 10 arrows with an AoE, being able to get them at full potency, not having to deal with any drain or the drain goes away in an hour, being able to use invisibility, and filling a troll full of bolts with their team of four others doing the same thing.
In actuality.. My GM at the time ended up having to house rule that the resistance roll can only get up to 1/2 the dice the thing is rolling. Cause many times, I'd get no net hits. I wouldn't fail exactly fail I just wouldn't get net hits. So I wasn't getting potency. Even then, I was only getting 8 or 9 dice for the spells attack roll.
I dunno about any of you guys, but If I'm playing a caster, do you really want your 'main thing' to be 8-9 dice only with certain spells? Anything that wasn't a direct touch spell, I'd probably do a lower force, causing me to have even less dice.
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As long as you've got somewhere to store the spellform anyway, thats a weird mechanic (I can't memorize this spell due to complexity but as long as I have the sculpture sitting at the bottom of the Hudson river I can cast it all day long.