Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 6:02 pm

A free spirit intuitively knows where its formula is, but does it also know where its true name is? From the way it's described, "though free spirits
have been known to quickly but quietly relocate this physical
representation to a safe place at the first opportunity"; why wouldn't the free spirit just destroy the true name? Does the true name reform elsewhere if destroyed?

EDIT: Additional question. Seeing as how the Arlington National Cemetery is noted as a rating 5, what magical tradition would it be aligned toward? Similar places in the NAN would be obvious in their alignment, as would Stonehenge or Plymouth Rock. I mainly wonder if there's a Chaplain America that guards DeeCee with the number of monuments giving a boost to magic for such magic.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 6:48 pm

virgil wrote: EDIT: Additional question. Seeing as how the Arlington National Cemetery is noted as a rating 5, what magical tradition would it be aligned toward? Similar places in the NAN would be obvious in their alignment, as would Stonehenge or Plymouth Rock. I mainly wonder if there's a Chaplain America that guards DeeCee with the number of monuments giving a boost to magic for such magic.

American Exceptionalism ought to be its own tradition by the time of Shadowrun.

He's even got his own obelisk

Combat: Patriotism
Detection: Freedom
Health: Self Determination
Illusion: Liberty
Manipulation: Justice
Drain: Willpower+Charisma

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 7:02 pm

There is nothing stopping you.
You can have a magical Tradition based on your favourite saturday morning cartoon from when you were a child.
Magic works. How it works is up to you.
It works and you make up analogies in your mind as to how and why it might work. And if you tell somebody you cast stunbolt and the spirit of Hulkamania legdrops your oponent something fierce NOBODY CAN RIGHTFULLY CLAIM THAT YOU ARE WRONG!

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 7:19 pm

A free spirit gets banished if the last representation of its true self gets destroyed. So they need to keep at least one around.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 3:53 am

The Endowment power from Street Magic confuses me. What happens if you have a free great form guardian spirit use Endowment on people; specifically stuff like giving some guy Spirit Pact or Hidden Life?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:15 am

virgil wrote:The Endowment power from Street Magic confuses me. What happens if you have a free great form guardian spirit use Endowment on people; specifically stuff like giving some guy Spirit Pact or Hidden Life?

Here's a better question: what happens if a great form guardian spirit endows you with Posession, and you posess yourself?

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:23 am

Longes wrote:
virgil wrote:The Endowment power from Street Magic confuses me. What happens if you have a free great form guardian spirit use Endowment on people; specifically stuff like giving some guy Spirit Pact or Hidden Life?
Here's a better question: what happens if a great form guardian spirit endows you with Posession, and you posess yourself?

This is some Laundry-tier shit right here.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 7:12 am

Silent Wayfarer wrote:
Longes wrote:
virgil wrote:The Endowment power from Street Magic confuses me. What happens if you have a free great form guardian spirit use Endowment on people; specifically stuff like giving some guy Spirit Pact or Hidden Life?
Here's a better question: what happens if a great form guardian spirit endows you with Posession, and you posess yourself?
This is some Laundry-tier shit right here.

You get blonde glowing hair?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:03 am

Korwin wrote:
Silent Wayfarer wrote:
Longes wrote:
Here's a better question: what happens if a great form guardian spirit endows you with Posession, and you posess yourself?
This is some Laundry-tier shit right here.
You get blonde glowing hair?

Do you get +Magic to your physical attributes?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 11:18 am

Magically rigging your own body? O.o

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 2:08 pm

I tried to look up prior discussions concerning Endowment on the tubes. All I could find was kvetching about giving people Astral Form or Materialization; which seemed a bit weird, having Astral Form doesn't shift you into the Astral Plane or remove the innate trait of "have a physical body," and having Materialization makes you much like a weaker (but more versatile) task/man spirit. The more salient questions like chain Endowment, self-possession, and endowed Spirit Pacts interest me.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 2:32 pm

i don't think you can endow possession and spirit pact.
technically, i guess it would work though . . probably a case of:"i did not think they would try that"
the things i see mentioned most in terms of endowment are guard and concealment for obvious reasons. sometimes movement.
for people without ware regeneration is seldomly mentioned.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:09 pm

Possession on a regular astrally projecting character is actually pretty terrible, because you don't have a "Force." Best stick to powers that run off your magic attribute, because you could easily have a non-zero one of those.

Endowment is a thing that Great Form Spirits could do all the way back in 1st edition, but it didn't have a name. I made it an actual power with a distinct writeup, rather than hiding it in the services description. I kinda wish I hadn't named it something that could also mean penis size, but on the other hand I kinda don't.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:25 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Possession on a regular astrally projecting character is actually pretty terrible, because you don't have a "Force." Best stick to powers that run off your magic attribute, because you could easily have a non-zero one of those.

So the powers granted to someone by Endowment use the subject's stats rather than the bestowing spirit's? This contradicts the FAQ on their website; but I trust your opinion on a rule you wrote more than them for some reason. Ah, all these questions about Endowment...

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:18 pm

Alright, so in my Shadowrun Group, one player is a Changeling-manbat who's like an aspected magician that Hulks-out Sumoning, and can do Earthquakes/Lightning Storms. What I was wondering, we couldn't find the duration in Street Magic for how long they last. Would you Frank/anyone-else have an inside scoop on what it was "supposed" to be?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:25 pm

Aryxbez wrote:Alright, so in my Shadowrun Group, one player is a Changeling-manbat who's like an aspected magician that Hulks-out Sumoning, and can do Earthquakes/Lightning Storms. What I was wondering, we couldn't find the duration in Street Magic for how long they last. Would you Frank/anyone-else have an inside scoop on what it was "supposed" to be?

Storm and Quake only last one combat round. Of course, just like the actual disasters they mimic, the fact that they only last 3 seconds doesn't mean that their effects aren't felt long after that.

A 3 second quake, for example, will actually leave the ground shaking for 30 seconds.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:50 am

Great Form Spirit with the Quake Power is still a horrible MegaPlexKillerWeapon

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 2:20 pm

Shadowrun lore question(s): Are there Immortal Orcs? Are there any IEs in Aztlan? Were there any free spirits that stayed on Earth during the Fifth Age (likely in spirit-equivalent of dragon sleep), and thus keep their Spirit Pacts valid during that entire time?

Non-Lore Question: Can a spirit use the Movement power on itself when using 'fast' astral movement? As in, will that F6 spirit start moving at 36km/hr if it really wants to get somewhere fast and doesn't want to leave Earth's astral?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:03 pm

Technically, seeing how SR is the future of Earthdawn, there should at least be one immortal Orc be taken into consideration. He stole life from death, one day at a time or something like that was the myth, as he was the worlds best thief.
IE in Aztlan . . none that i remember. I think the IE's don't like people who deal with Horrors much.
Seeing how the mana level dropped, no, the spirits could not have stayed on the earth plane, and they lack an equivalent to the dragonsleep as far as i know. They probably simply were sent back to their home meta plane.
Which means, technically, the spirits from way back when could still be active and i am not sure wether or not spirit pacts end with their disruption.
Even if disrupted, they reform in a month or so worth of time.

Astral Travel is measured in magic/force x 1000 kilometers per hour if you want to fast travel anyway i think . . combining THAT with movement could lead to some hillarious results o.O

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:24 pm

Movement is a physical power and does not affect purely astral forms.

The Immortal Ork and Immortal Dwarf storylines were, if anything, even more stupid than the Immortal Elf storylines and people pretend it didn't happen.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:57 pm

@Frank:
good point, i always forget to take the distinction of astral/mana and physical into account <.<

The immortal dorf one kinda sorta also made it into the shadowrun novels in the form of the subterranean dorf kingdom under germany . . yeah, no, don't ask . .

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 6:31 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Movement is a physical power and does not affect purely astral forms.

The Immortal Ork and Immortal Dwarf storylines were, if anything, even more stupid than the Immortal Elf storylines and people pretend it didn't happen.

Gah, I need to refresh my physical/mana spell divide.

If a storyline is stupid, I'm perfectly willing to just plain dump it in favour of something cool. I'm currently considering the idea of a free spirit with Endowment and Spirit Pact creating a plurality of immortals from the Fourth Age, and the party managing to obtain its true name in a run; but I want to double-check on the mechanics to make sure the basic idea isn't stupid and adjust the plot accordingly.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 4:27 am

Okay, you can't say "worse than the Immortal Elves" and leave us hanging.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 7:53 am

name_here wrote:Okay, you can't say "worse than the Immortal Elves" and leave us hanging.

Sigh. The Immortal Elves were annoying because they were constant cock teases interspersed with rants about how they were doing important shit you couldn't be a part of and also how you couldn't beat them under any circumstances, nyah nyah nyah. That was annoying and bad.

The immortal dwarves, on the other hand, were blue. They were literally a Smurf joke, and also unbeatable. They were explicitly comic relief characters who were unbeatable GM penis extensions at the same time. It was so infuriating that it defies ready understanding.

It was a thing that the German team came up with. They apparently thought it was fucking hilarious and for a time wouldn't shut up about them. The American team was not amused.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:46 am

Ah, yes, the Querxes . . .
That never really cought on.