From: mancinis@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (steven mancini)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: SRUN: Questions from the Minotaur: The Next Generation
Date: 15 Sep 92 06:08:07 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Labyrinth

In article <ggynatb.boserj@netcom.com> boserj@netcom.com (Jeffrey Boser) writes:
>
>For the most part, magicians are the worse choices..  

	Actually, I have always thought it to be a toss up between
	the Tribesman and the Detective... oh well..

>they are expensive as all hell to maintain
 
	Excuse me? Maintain? If you mean expand, I disagree Strongly, if
	you mean Maintain, I am not really sure what you mean. Could you
	explain please?

> Hard as hell to play (keep them in roll, with totems and such). 

	Hard? 
	What roll definition to you force upon a mage? 
	Shamans are not that much worse:
	" Shamans are human and a totem is not a religion, though it
	 gets close. There are no commandments the shaman has to follow.
	 Gamemasters should be lient about the occasional goof."

> The spell locks are pretty inexpensive, I multiplied their
> cost by 10, and since only initiates can quicken that takes care of
> that possibility. 

	I don't want to address the problem in this fashion. The Grimoire
	pumped the prices up enough, IMHO. You are avoiding the problem
	by making the class unappealing; I was looking for an alternative
	means.

> With a magicians problem with healing, this all makes it hard to play. 

	You've lost me again? Healing is a problem? Not when you Magician
	has a healthy 6 points of essence. that make his/her target for
	a heal/treat spell 4. One success is all it takes. For the 
	selfish magician, they can drop the drain on these spells just by
	making them Caster Only. 

	I concede that under fire, siting around for X turns while the 
	spell tosser heals is not advisable, but then again, it takes
	almost as much time to use a biotech/first aid skill.

	And yes, I will also concede that once they hit Deadly Wounds,
	they are once again in a shitload of trouble. However, our teams
	usually travel with at least 2 magicians (in fact, we recently
	imposed a maximum of 2 full blown magicians per team) one of
	which has a treat/heal deadly and the other usually has a stabilize
	so that the other team member can be get the tosser to someone
	who can help (gotta ove those magician contacts.. ugh).


> With the spell lock lack, and the penalties for maintaining a spell, 
> reaction adjustment spells are no problem.

	I would second this motion; if I could ever get it across. I 
	would *love* to try a team where we install a rule such as
	"No Reactions Spells Locked/Quickened"  

>A simple fix for Physical adepts is to require all new special abilities
>to paid for in karm, with cost similar to attribute adustment.  This means
>that it will take a while to make up a hot-shot PA..  and puts him in
>more danger in the mean time.
>

	And once again has you manipulating the archtype so as to make
	it unappealing; something I am trying desperately to avoid.


>No, in order to assense something, the magician has to be astrally
>projecting.  

	No, I think you have that wrong. Yes, the mage does 'go astral'
	but he/she does not have to project:
	"Any magician can perceive Astral Space, but he must spend an
	 action to switch from normal senses to astral senses." (p. 89)

>And even then, he can only assense living things. 

	Nope. He can "Assense anything that is actually there" (ibid)

> And even so, the dm can only give info like 'The creature seems kinda weak,
>with a diseased life force' for something like a cybered creature.

	Once again: "Assense a being's aura to determine its true nature"
	"Viewing the aura reveals information about the true form or nature
	 of the being." (ibid)
	
	
>If your magicians are learning more, tell your dm to place a limit.

	I am the GM :)

>When astrally projecting, they cannot see physial details..  they cant
>read a book, or interact with anything that has not been indelibly
>stamped by a living being.  and even then, the impressions are vague.

	But they can be a pain in the ass. They can waltz through a wall
	find out how many people are on the other side, where they are 
	(since their life has greater form than physical objects), and
	if there is anything waiting in the Astral (Granted, then they
	may have just come face to face with another problem.)

>>Except for masked initiates, which should be uncommon, assensing
>>someone tells most everything you need to know about a person. 
 
	How hard? All the player needs is about 12 points of karma,
	which I don't believe is too hard to accumulate slowly, if
	the mage plays if careful.


>> And a mage without focuses and fetishes has a real disadvantage 
>> against those who do.

	Debatable. Yes they add neat power, but I have a group
	paranoid of Grounding. (As they should be). Many of the people
	have avoided fetishes (while others haven't).

>Yes, but 'truly are' isnt how they look in real life.  An old mage
>will appear in astral space to be a powerful, energetic, being...

	Which generally means he is magical, and he is powerful. I
	believe the Grimoire even says you can get the intentions/emotions
	of the being.

>>  What makes plots interesting is the unexpected.
>>Although a good gamemaster can always keep the players on their
>>toes, it certainly is a *lot* easier with no one going Astral
>>to scout.  Try a game with only sams, PAs, and sorcery adepts and
>>I believe you will find that it has a real nice quality to it.

	I agree. We had a team where the primary mage was played
	by a person used to playing Physical Adepts. he rarely asked
	to assense and I shot nasty looks at ANYONE who prompted him
	to do so. (I *really* hate people running other folk's characters)

>But thats what i like about shadow run..  with all the problems with
>running a mage (even simple spells can cause trouble with resisting
>fatigue), they are pretty much indispensable.

	Not to sound as if I am flaming you Jeff, because it is far
	from my intention since you took the time to respond, but the
	difficulty of running a mage appears to be because you have
	installed House Rules that make it unapealling; which is something
	I am *desperately* trying to avoid.

							-Minotaur

-- 

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| Steve Mancini (a.k.a. The Minotaur) | mancinis@mentor.cc.purdue.edu   |
|    Grad Student {Dazed & Confused}  | mancinis@vm.cc.purdue.edu       |