This is the multi-page printable view of this section. Click here to print.
Sprawlrunners archived rules
1 - Furious Magic x Sprawlrunners x MagusRogue
These are some ideas on how to combine ManuFS’s Furious Magic supplement with Sprawlrunners and MagusRogue’s Guide to the Sprawl. It draws on all three of these books to hopefully present a coherent whole.
Note that this is not currently canon for our campaign. These are just some ideas for now and need further fleshing out before they will be ready to play.
Power Edges
Unchanged
The following Sprawlrunners Power Edges are left unchanged: all the Chi/Physical Adept ones, Weapon Focus, Flexible Signature, Lord of the Spirits, Masking, Shielding, Spirit Companion. See below for notes on the other Focus Edges.
All the Edges in Furious Magic are left unchanged, although several do not apply to Sprawlrunners as there are no Weird Scientists.
Initiation
The Shadowrun concept of Initiation is translated to Furious Magic by using the Higher Spheres Edge. For plot reasons, if the GM is requiring a metaplanar initiation quest, I suggest skipping the Seasoned variant of Higher Spheres; just do it at Higher Spheres II (which is equivalent to “Initiate”) and III (“Greater Initiate”).
Focus Edges
Sprawlrunners’s Focus Edges, in particular, need special handling.
Force/Power Focus
Notes
TBD; it might be enough to use the same rules as the Conduit Edge from Furious Magic.Sustaining Focus
When obtaining and binding the focus, the caster picks one Power that it is associated with. Whenever using that Power with an Extended Duration, the caster does not take the usual point of Fatigue when the Power ends and the caster does not suffer the usual -1 penalty to further arcane skill rolls while the Power is being sustained.
Note that this contrasts with Focus Effort, which works with any Power the caster chooses but prevents them from maintaining a second Power at the same time.
Spell Focus
When obtaining and binding the focus, the caster picks one Power that it is associated with. If the spellcaster gets a Backlash on that spell, the focus absorbs the damage instead, and the caster does not suffer the effects of the Backlash.
The focus’s astral link to the caster is disrupted by this and it must be re-bound before it can be used again (takes hours; GM discretion; likely cannot be used again until after the next Downtime phase.)
On a Critical Backlash, the caster avoids Backlash but still has to roll on the Uncontrolled Magic table.
Example
Eddie takes a Spell Focus for the Blast Power. He decides it’s time to bring the hurt against a group of mooks. He casts Blast, adding on the “extra area of effect”, “extra damage”, and “extra armour piercing” modifiers. As usual, he has to roll his arcane skill at -3, as there are three modifiers being used. Usually he would take Backlash on a roll of 1, 2, or 3. But instead, if he has a bad roll, the Spell Focus will absorb the effect of that. Lucky Eddie!Alchemy
- Spend 2 LP on reagents for any Power, add on +1 LP per modifier being applied.
- Resultant preparation can be used by anyone, as per Artificer in the SWADE base rules.
- The creator rolls Magic to activate the Power as normal at time of creation to determine the preparation’s effectiveness & drain etc.
- Preparation lasts 1d4+1 hours before it fades.
Notes
Maybe can only do this after taking an Edge to unlock the ability.(this mostly based on MagusRogue’s work)
Mystic Adepts
Modelled as a new Arcane Background. Requires Spirit d6+, Fighting or Shooting d6+, Focus d6+.
- Uses Focus (Spirit) as their arcane skill
- Can only take Higher Spheres once
- Novice powers: arcane protection, boost Trait, detect/conceal arcana, environmental protection, protection, relief, smite, wall walker.
- Seasoned powers: damage field, deflection, disguise, healing, speed, warrior’s gift.
- All Powers always have the Self limitation
- Chi Points can be used to purchase Powers interchangeably at a 1:1 ratio
Notes
I have removed Burrow from the power list above, as I consider it incompatible with Shadowrun canon and a bit of an “I WIN!” button for infiltrating subterranean facilities. YMMV!Spirit summoning
The Summon Ally power continues to be used to summon Shadowrun style spirits, but with the following limitations:
- Duration rules for the summoning follow the rules given in Furious Magic: a base duration of (Arcane Skill die type) minutes, or an Extended Duration of (Arcane Skill die type) hours. In Shadowrun terminology, an Extended Duration summoning is called “binding”.
- Binding does not count as a sustained power, so the caster does not take a -1 penalty on all arcane skill rolls during an Extended Duration summoning.
- A normal summoner can only have one spirit summoned at once. This limit can be increased by the Lord of the Spirits and Spirit Companion Edges in Sprawlrunners.
Notes
This may need a little more fleshing out.2 - Reckless casting
Normal magic involves carefully constructing a structure in astral space to draw the magic through. This helps prevent damage to the mage from wielding the mana, and when Drain does occur, its effects on the body are limited.
If the chips are down, any mage may choose to spend a Bennie to instead use wild magic, drawing mana directly into and through their own aura. The extra power surge allows them to cancel up to 2 points of penalty to the roll (which stacks with any other similar penalty-cancellation effect.) However, if they take Drain, then it will be a Wound rather than Fatigue.
If you roll a Critical Failure on a reckless casting, you should expect significant problems to occur…
Notes
NoPP casters get a slightly raw deal in SWADE, with a number of options removed compared to Power Point casters. In particular, PP casters can access the “spend a Bennie to get +5 PP” option when they are running low on juice. The above rule is intended to offer a similar option to NoPP casters, albeit with some setting-appropriate risk of drain.3 - Trappings & modifiers
Shadowrun has long been distinguished by a wide range of magical combat spells, with different strengths and weaknesses. This gives mages some tactical flexibility and trade-offs to weigh up when considering which spells to learn and to use.
In these rules, I am attempting to bring this variety of spells to SWADE and Sprawlrunners, without breaking the system in the process. I’ve done this by taking an approach detailed in Gods and Masters. Below are some pre-created “bundles” of power modifiers, attempting to simulate some flavour of the trapping in question. For each bundle, these modifers are not optional - they always apply to all powers cast using that trapping.
Mostly, the power modifiers come from SWADE. A few new ones appear, drawn from Gods and Masters.
Each trapping has a total associated PP cost. This is added to the mage’s spellcasting penalty in the usual way whenever they use that particular trapping.
Power trappings
Under these houserules, the three combat Powers - bolt, blast, and burst - are always cast with one of the following trappings. These trappings only apply to those combat spells. Rules for trappings and power modifiers for other spells work as per normal SWADE.
Mages learn spells in the usual way. They learn bolt as a single power, and can cast any of the trappings below – ice bolt, fire bolt, manabolt, etc – freely.
Except where mentioned below, no additional power modifiers can be used on these spells; for example, you cannot put Heavy Weapon onto an acid bolt (consider using earth bolt instead.) However, the specific modifiers that are part of each spell are still allowed - +2PP for +1d6 damage, and (for blast only) +0/+1PP to change the blast template to Small or Large
Wind
Required modifiers:
- Invisible (0) - cannot be seen to the naked eye; more subtle than the other spell types.
- Nonlethal (0) - deals nonlethal damage.
- Range (+1) - all ranges are doubled.
Total: +1PP
Optional modifiers:
- Range (+1/): for a further +1PP, extend range by another Smarts×2 inches.
Acid
- Corrosion (?) - +4 damage vs barriers and gear. If damaged, gear is rendered useless and armour loses 1 point of effectiveness.
- Lingering burn (+2) - on the target’s next turn, they suffer another damage roll, of one die type less.
- Evasion - acid attacks work by projecting a stream of liquid acid, which is unusually slow-moving. They can be evaded as per SWADE pg. 102; on a successful Agility roll at -2, the would-be target can jump out of the way and are unaffected.
Total: +3PP
Ice / Cold
- Biting cold (+2) - inflicts a point of Fatigue if the target is affected by the Power; this cannot cause Incapacitation. This lasts until the end of the next turn.
- Freeze in their tracks (+1) - anybody affected by the Power reduces their Pace by 2 points until the end of the next turn.
- Ice Shards (+1) - 2 AP.
“Affected” above means the target actually suffered damage. If the damage roll does not exceed their Toughness then the extra effects do not happen.
Total: +4PP
Electricity / Lightning
- Bypass metal (+1) - ignore all metal armour. NB: body armour is almost entirely smart materials, ceramic plates, and ballistic weave; it is largely unaffected. However this can often bypass vehicle or drone armour if they have not been constructed with specific electical dampening protections.
- Conduction (+2) - if target is soaking wet or submerged in water, take an extra d6 damage. Also applies when used against vehicles, drones, and most gear.
- Unpredictable arcs (0) - if the caster rolls a 1 or 2 on the Spellcasting die, a random bystander is hit instead of the target - friend or foe! Resolve as per the Innocent Bystander rules (see SWADE pg 104). This still happens even if the overall spell casting attempt fails.
- Short range (0) - Range is reduced by half.
Total: +3 PP
Water
- Knockback (1) - targets damaged by offensive water spells must make a Strength check at -2 or be knocked 1d4" away from the caster. Targets knocked into a wall or other hard surface take 2d4 nonlethal damage.
- Nonlethal (0) - water based attacks inflict nonlethal damage.
- Soaked (0) - targets are left soaking wet; they gain resistance to fire attacks (-2 damage) but are vulnerable to electricity (+2 damage.)
Total: +1PP
Earth
- Armour Piercing (1) - 2AP
- Heavy Weapon (2) - can damage targets protected by Heavy Armour.
Total: +3 PP
Fire
- Armour piercing (1) - 2AP
- Burning (1?) - on a roll of 6 on a d6, any flammable character damaged by fire magic catches fire, taking 2d6 fire damage per subsequent round. See Fire, SWADE pg 127.
- Unsubtle (0) - fire attacks shed a lot of light, which can be good (if you need light to see) or bad (if you’re not trying to draw attention.)
Total: +2? PP
Power
Powerbolt, powerball, and powerburst are magically generated fields of sheer kinetic force. They use the standard power description as written.
Total: no change to PP
Optional modifiers:
- Range (+1/+2): double the power’s listed range for 1 PP, or triple it for 2 PP.
- Selective: (+1): the caster can freely choose which targets within a blast or burst are affected.
Mana
Manabolt, manaball, and manaburst are special in that they connect directly to the target’s aura, so the magical energy flows into the target directly from Astral space.
- Range is line of sight - including optical-only vision modifiers like binoculars or fibre-optic cables. The mage needs LoS to every target in a burst or blast. Targets within the area but out of sight are unaffected. Cover modifiers apply as usual for targets that are partially obscured from the mage’s vantage point.
- Armour is ignored (+2) - but note that very heavy enclosed armour is bulky enough to envelop and hide the wearer’s aura, totally shielding the target.
- Can only target living beings.
- The only type of combat spell that can be cast on the Astral plane by a projecting or perceiving mage (but only at an Astral or dual-natured target.)
- Damage is reduced by one die type, eg. base 2d4 for bolt.
- Rather than Toughness, damage is rolled against a similar stat, but equal to (2+(Spirit/2)) instead of Vigor.
- Normal Toughness benefits do not apply here. However, the target gets +1 to this “mental toughness” for each cyberlimb they possess. It is difficult to target the auras of heavily cyberwared individuals.
Total: +2 PP
Optional modifiers:
- Selective: (+1): the caster can freely choose which targets within a blast or burst are affected.
Notes on interactions with combat spells, cover, and vehicles
Most of the trappings above – wind, ice, water, fire, acid, power and lightning – take the form of physical energies that the caster manifests at their body and then travel to the target. Cover affects this as usual. If the target is behind transparent cover, such as armoured glass, the power hits the glass; it may or may not penetrate, as per the rules for Cover and Obstructions (see SWADE pg 101.)
Lightning
Lightning spells can penetrate metal conductive barriers if the target is touching them. The target gets no benefit from cover.
If the target is inside a vehicle and the vehicle has insulative armour (see vehicle mods), the energy flows safely around the outside of the vehicle, and the occupants are unharmed. This applies even if the spell was area of effect, ie. burst or blast.
Acid
Acid spells that strike any form of barrier or cover will always damage it, even if they also penetrate and damage a target behind them.
Mana
Mana spells never penetrate barriers, as they travel to the target in Astral space. Cover penalties still apply to the Spellcasting roll, but only because they obscure the target and hide some of its aura.