Shadowrun RPG > Magic and the Planes

Magic Rules

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ROOTless:

--- Quote from: Kid_Vid on April 27, 2006, 11:58:41 AM ---Ooh... that's an important feature to know.

--- End quote ---

It is also not correct.
Spellcasting is covered on p. 181-182.
You get your Sorcery worth of dice (or less, see below), and may add no more dice from your spell pool than your sorcery score (used dice), as usual with dice pools.


--- Quote ---Seriously, though, how does spell defense work?

--- End quote ---

SR3 p. 183

Sorcery dice (and/or dice from spellpool) may be allocated to spell defence.
Once a die has been used to cast a spell, it cannot be allocated to spell defence until your next action, and vica versa.
Subjects must be on the same plane (physical versus astral) as the magician, and within (Magic Attribute x 100 m) of the caster.
You may protect no more than your sorcery skill worth of people at any given time.
Most magicians will allocate dice to protect themselves.
When a protected person is targetted by a spell, the magician may decide how many spells to use to block the incomming spell (if forexample you expect to get hit by several spells that round). This does not require an action.
Any spell defence dice allocated are rolled against the force of the spell, and any successes generated are subtracted from the casting successes of the caster.
If this reduces the spell to 0 successes (or below threshold for certain manipulation spells), the spell fizzles. Allocating dice to spell defence is a free action. See p. 183

Some initiates may use Shielding, which is a matemagical technique, and very nice.

kv:
How do the metamagic techniques work? Centering, Masking, and Shielding, specifically?

  -kv

ROOTless:
They're in Magic in the Shadows, and what you'll want to do is get that one and read it.
Or atleast parts of it.

The ultra abridged short-version of metamagic, focus on the mentioned techniques goes as...

To learn metamagic, one must initiate. This costs piles of Karma, and add an extra dimension to playing magicians. Literally.
One of the advantages of initiation is that one may learn a new metaagical technique each time.

Anchoring is a sort od delayed casting if spells, with trigger conditions.

Sorry, will be right back, gf was talking.

ROOTless:
OK, let's see:

Cleansing removes background count (astral pollution).

Divining is just what the word say. Usually not very effective though.

Invoking is used to summon great form spirits.

Possession er.. what the word says.

Quickening sustains a spell indefinently, without concentration by the magician.

Reflection a form of spell defence with tries to reflect the incomming spell back at the original caster.

certain other kinds of metamagic can be found in varios sourcebooks, they will not be mentioned here.

Centering is a pretty complex thing. Basically, the initiate uses some mundane skill (usually, but not always, an artistic or background skill) to focus more specifically on the magic. A special Skill called Centering is also used. This skill may never exceed the skill used to focus.

Centering can then be used to aither achieve extra successes on the casting roll (2 centering successes become 1 casting succes), but only if there's already a succes from normal casting.
A magician can center against drain, using the same 2-for-1 cost.
Or the initiate can Center Against Penalties, spending 2 successes on the centering roll to remove 1 point of T# penalty from any source. This may never bring the T# down below the base value, it only removes penalties.
Adepts have their own extra uses of centering, which I will ignore for the time being.

Masking is your friend. It is good. It basically allows you to alter your aura.
Non-initiates have no chance to assense through masking. Initiates may try (secret magic test against a T# equal to Essence/Magic/Force/whatever is appropriate, with a minimum number of successes required equal to the target's initiation grade, minus the viewer's initiation grade). Some spirirts (mainly free spirits with the masking power) may try as well, same check.
A masked amgician can appear (to astral senses) as a mundane,or a non-initiated magician.
An astrally percieving (and thus dual natured) magician can seem 'not astrally present'.
Masking can also hide the user'semotions (normally clearly visible in his/her aura).
An initiate using masking can also (as an exclusive action) use deliberate masking, maing it even harder to penetrate and view his/her true aura.
Either way, an amount of Force/rating of quickned spells/foci can also be masked, making them invisible from astral space, and thus untargettable.
Further foci can be hidden via deliberate masking.

shielding works a lot like spell defence, and these techniques may be used simltaneously, but not to protect the same individuals.
Dice allocated to Shielding are added to the Spell Resistance roll of the target (see SR3 p. 183). Thsi works against all spells, including elemental manipulations. Additionally, shielding increases the T# of any spell against the protected individual by +1/spell allocated, to a maximum of the initiate's initiation grade. Multiple initiates can stack their shielding.
MitS contains the full rules (p 70-79), and an example of shielding on p. 79

Retread:
AHEM! Dice pools do not refresh until the next TURN, not next action. Therefore, if you're a mage with wired reflexes and you blow your entire spell pool on your first action you won't have any until initiative is rerolled on the next combat turn. Skills are not considered dice pools and refresh after every instance of their use.

Spell defense is like the opposite of casting the spell. The dice allocated can "attack" any spell cast at the targets with the allocated defense, this includes objects which aren't directly on a person. A magician can allocate sorcery and spell pool dice to any number of targets up to their Sorcery skill.  Allocating spell defense is a free action and therefore cannot be used before the magician's action. Meaning, if you're surprised and don't already have spell defense activated, tough krill-cookies.  Spell pool allocated to spell defense that is NOT used (ie. rolled) may be reallocated on the players next action. If it is used, the caster must wait until the next combat turn for their pool to be refreshed. Sorcery Dice used in spell defense are lost until the next action whence they may be reallocated (assumed to be automatic unless asked otherwise)

Let's use an example. Sparky the cybermage has a really crappy spell pool of 2 (cyberware and brain-damage do that to you) He was a good mage though, so his sorcery is 6. He can sacrifice his spell pool for spell defense. That leaves him with 2 dice to use until his next combat turn. If he instead allocated 2 sorcery dice, he'd have 2 dice to use to resist BETWEEN each action he gets. Meaning, if he gets 3 actions and gets hit with a spell every initiative pass, provided he allocates sorcery dice, he can resist with those two dice every time. However, if he had used spell pool he could only resist once with 2 dice or twice with 1 die each time. Depending on how the GM feels, spell defense, once declared is considered maintained until dropped.

Spells may also be multicast, however, doing so increases the drain target number by 2 per spell beyond the first for ALL spells cast. Sorcery and spell pool are split up according to the spell. At least one Sorcey die must be designated for each separate spell. Therefore, you can only cast a number of spells equal to your sorcery skill per complex action. Of course, casting 6 spells at once will raise your target number to resist drain by 12 and probably fail or do very little as a result of having very few dice.

Don't forget, when casting spells to include vision penalties. The rule of thumb is, if only part of the target is visual then there is a vision penalty. A target that cannot be seen cannot be cast upon. As a basis, in normal ranged combat, an enemy that is fired at (presuming you have a general idea of where the target is) but cannot be seen, adds a +8 target number. However, when using magic, the target must be seen, therefore, there is no blind fire penalty because it is impossible. If only 1 eighth or less of a target for a spell is seen, then a +7 target penalty is applied and every fraction thereof. To simplify you can say:

76-100% = +0
51-75% = +2
25-50% = +4
1-25% = +6
Blind = No target acquired

Other penalties add on as well. Visual penalties never go over +8. It's up to the GM if magic is possible when the visual penalty is +8.

 Don't forget, also that spells that are sustained by the magician add a +2 to all their target numbers (save Damage resistance tests, like drain or combat damage)

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