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[kv]

Are there any benefits for learning exclusive spells?

  -kv

[Retread]

Yes, Exclusive spells either take 2 less karma to learn or are considered 2 force below for the purpose of drain (basically lowering the drain power by 1) Unfortunately, exclusion is very nasty when you're trying to sustain some buffs for yourself or your allies.

Some exclusive spells are terribly easy to learn, along with some fetish required spells. For example, if you learn a fetish-required version of powerbolt, you can learn the force 1 version for free if it is fetish-required or you can learn the force 2 version of a spell for free if it is Exclusive. You must however, still have the spell formula and take the time required to study and learn it.

That is, however, my interpretation of the rules, it never specifically says the spell is free, but why would anyone learn a fetish-limited version of a force 1 spell if it didn't have any discount?

[ROOTless]

Then again, why would anyone want to learn a Force 1 version of a resisted spell?

K_V: Do you remember my lightning bolt?
Because it was exclusion limited, I couldn't cast it while doing something else, like maintaining another spell.
However, I could cast it at Force 7, while taking drain as if it was Force 5. That meant I didn't take physical drain, and was actually able to gather enough successes to take no drain at all after the dice fell, while at the same time causing a target number my opponent was unable to resist (7-1 for armor was a 6).

That's how you use exclusively limited spells.

[Retread]

Why would someone want to learn a force 1 spell? Easy, if you throw enough dice at a problem, there's really no way for someone to resist. A force 1 powerbolt with 6 successes behind it is dangerous to most normal people. It's not like learning it at force two will do any better, one way or another the target number to resist is still 2.

Six sorcery dice plus six spell pool with a light damage force 1 manabolt will pretty much maim someone regardless of how many Willpower dice they have. Additionally, this allows a magician to learn a variety of spells right off the Matrix on Magicknet or the Magick Undernet simply in their spare time. They can also design spells in their spare time just to test their effects before blowing 6 karma in designing and learning the higher force version of the spell. I'd much rather save my karma for initiation and raising my skills than on high force spells.

Elemental manipulations do not require high force for their primary usefulness to take effect, which is their ability to do all sorts of other nastiness to a target besides harm them. According to the rules, force doesn't really affect secondary effects but rather the damage level. So resisting a force 2 moderate damage fireball really won't help you if all the ammunition you're carrying explodes anyway. For direct damage you should use combat spells and save the elemental manipulations for special situations, like lightning bolting the guy using his radio to call for backup.

[kv]

Cool- thanks to both of you!

  -kv

[Gabriel]

Retread, I don't remember just where the rules for karma cost for learnign spells is, but I'm pretty sure you HAVE to spend a minimum of 1 karma to do ANYTHING. If you learn it, it costs you. If you have a Force 2 Exclusive Stealth spell, it will still cost you 1 point of Karma to learn. If it didn't , you would have to assume the EVERY AWAKENED PC would know ALL spells at a Force 2 Exclusive or Force 1 Fetish Limited. Game balance has to be observed at all times, and free spells will throw the entire game off kilter.

Gabriel

[Retread]

Nowhere in canon does it say that karma is a requirement for learning a spell. However, the rules are left to the GM and players to interpret. Keep in mind it still takes time and money to learn new spells. It's not as if people who design spells do it for free. To hire an instructor it would take at least 1,000 nuyen per force not to mention a bonus for the teacher's Instruction active skill. Also, it takes one full day to learn a force 1 spell. A training day in Shadowrun is roughly 8 hours. So, you'd have to pore over the formula for 8 hours before you could learn it on top of spending 50+ nuyen per formula and then another 50-200 nuyen simply for the fetish. The average magician doesn't necessarily have these resources, let alone would the exact formula be available with the right kind of fetish for that formula.

Addtionally, if you follow standard character creation rules, you can still get 30+ different force 1 spells if you wanted to, so I don't really see much difference in paying 1 karma for an un-limited spell and spending no karma for a spell which requires you show off the fact that you're a magician by fiddling with some gewgaw before you throw the mojo, have to pay extra for, and simply have to find available.

Again, interpret how you will, but nowhere in any canon that I find does it elaborate on the cost of force 1 spells with limits.

[Gabriel]

That's basic GM'ing, chummer. No one gets anything for free. And yeah, if you want to spend your 25 force points buying 25 Force 1 spells at creation, you could, but the thing is that you have to spend them. Money and time are nothing in a game like this. I'll give you an example. You hav a mage that graduated MIT&T. He then moved on into the corprate world since his scholoarship was sponsered by (let's just say) NovaTech. Since he went to a university, he spent a minimum of 2 years, but probably ,more like 4 or 6, learnign his trade. Without spending any Karma, you could concievably have a PC who knew every spell in the book at Force 1 for no cost at all. You can't honestly tell me you think that is a fair interpretation of the rules.

Gabriel

[ROOTless]

Trust me Retread.
As far as mages are concerned, money is nothing, Karma is the limit on the skies. The only limit.

[Retread]

Right, two years not including those in which you need to learn Sorcery, Conjuring, Spell Design, Magic Background, and a myriad of other knowledge skills related to the school. The number of study days required to learn all of that stuff would well encompass more than two years even without studying spells.

I'm simply saying that by basic math 1 - 1 is zero. So a force 1 spell limited by fetish costs 0 karma. Of course, 1-2 is -1 so you're not going to get free karma for learning an exclusive force 1 spell. Besides, if you were to learn your fetish limited spell and upgrade it to force 2 it would simply cost 1 karma anyway, there really isn't any difference.

ROOTless, I know that karma is desperately important to magicians, but saying that money isn't important is sort of relative, most especially if allow players to purchase karma with money. Additionally, have you ever seen the price on a Power focus? Crimeny.

[ROOTless]

But since the Focus Addiction rules were introduced, I've seen very few foci in actual use, power or otherwise. Mind you, I didn't see a lot of them before either,because of Bonding karma cost.

[kv]

Yeah, that karma binding cost really makes things difficult for new characters.

  -kv

[Retread]

Heh, anyone wanna make some house rules for Limited Foci?

[Gabriel]

I'm simply saying that by basic math 1 - 1 is zero. So a force 1 spell limited by fetish costs 0 karma. Of course, 1-2 is -1 so you're not going to get free karma for learning an exclusive force 1 spell. Besides, if you were to learn your fetish limited spell and upgrade it to force 2 it would simply cost 1 karma anyway, there really isn't any difference.

That still doesn't work. To get an advantage in a game, you have to pay a price for that advantage, and money is no limiting factor when you want to learn a new spell at such low levels. But to put it another way, you MUST spend at least 1 Point of Karma to learn any skill in the game, no matter what. It is never free. So, learning a spell would be the same thing. There's no way you should be able to learn a spell for no other cost than some "down time" that can be explained away by saying, "Well, he studied it for a month between that last game and this one."

Gabriel

[Retread]

The karma point would be spent if they attemtped to upgrade the spell. Otherwise the existence of a fetish limited force 1 spell is null. The rule is there for a reason and there is no rule that state's to the contrary. If they upgraded the spell to force 2 it's the same as if they never learned the force 1 spell in the first place.

You don't charge your players karma when they gain new contacts in-game, do you? You don't charge them karma when they learn a new piece of information for free, yeah? How about if they steal that car, I guess they should pay karma for that too? Time and money are just as important investments as karma to anyone and a force one limited spell is not terribly useful. I don't see any problem with players learning them for free if they are willing to spend the time, money and effort required to get them.