Thanks guys, I just installed Arcanum. Time to see if I can actually get past the first slow part of the game.
It's worth it. I've found a formula for old-school RPG's that has yet to fail me. The more installations and un-installations it takes to actually begin playing the game past the intro, the more ravenously you will love the rest of the game. I don't know why, but it's like all the pain, sorrow, rage, and let-down forms into a glowing ball of love and content.
It's worked for me on Arcanum, BG2, Bloodlines and probably a few others I'm forgetting. It also happened to me for God Hand, which I went on to beat like three times, and about 30-40 more hours of dicking around.
Hate can become love. I'm waiting for Deus Ex to click for me.
Keep soldiering on, that game gets wicked awesome later.
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What about Phantasy Star Online/Universe? Lots of sci-fi laser guns that can fire special attacks.
Rising Zan (The Samurai Gunman) for one sword and one gun and some magic.
Killer 7! Dan (The Hellion) can fire special shots. Like he was 'from some sorta anime' they say.
In Advent Rising you can shoot a gun in one hand and superpowers in the other. Hmm, that's not quite right...
I think this one is a big stretch, but in Phantom Dust you play a third person shooter/card game where you do fire magic attacks. And some are called bullets.
Hol Horse from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has a magic gun. >.>
I was talking about the expendable foci, I just don't remember what they were called. You cast a spell into it, and specified a condition that would cause the spell to fire. I'm pretty sure that you made the spell roll when you made the item, though the drain may not have kicked in until it was used. It would make sense if it was rolled when you fixed the spell into the item, though.
Regardless, it was just cool to shoot arrows that caused globes of magical darkness to spring out of nowhere, even if you didn't get any big game benefit out of it. Plus, other people could use them too, I thought? My books are someplace in a dusty attic, so I can't find them to check.
Those are from a metamagic called Anchoring. It required a butt-ton of Karma to bond and create an anchor. They are ways to trigger spells as a delayed casting. You would have to have a very specific detection spell to trigger something that even remotely resembled a projectile. And according to RAW (rules as written), you wouldn't be able to do it with a combat spell unless it was an area effect (it might not even work for combat spells... I'd have to check), or it would toast you or your friends in the area effect (since to trigger the Anchor, the target would have to be touching it... not a good idea for a bullet-in-a-gun focus).
Again, spell guns don't exist in Shadowrun. To engineer something that resembles a spell gun would require a lot of Karma, and would involve at least one custom and specific detection spell. In all that time, you might as well chuck a Stun Bolt or shoot an Ares Predator (or Panther Cannon, depending on how cheesy your campaign was). Heck, in 4E, Stick and Shock ammo in a hold out pistol is more powerful than most spells.
EDIT: This isn't to say that the idea isn't cool. It was nice of your home GM to let you do such things in your game. It's your game, after all. But mechanics-wise, it doesn't fit in with the rules system and content-wise, it doesn't fit in with the game history as a whole (There are specific places that say "There are no magical projectile weapons"). If you walked up to the SR devs at Gen-Con and talked to them about your cool spell-gun, they'd probably stare you down and say "Get out."
Those are from a metamagic called Anchoring. It required a butt-ton of Karma to bond and create an anchor. They are ways to trigger spells as a delayed casting.
Ah, now I remember. Yes, it was the Anchoring meta-magical technique. The GM ruled that one-shot items took a fraction of the Karma cost to form, and also could be done in batches. I have a feeling that he was in part transferring the Talen rules from Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Bind a spirit into an item, when the item breaks/is used/whatever, the spirit is released and it has an effect depending on the spirit, and how well you negotiated with it in the first place). Given that it didn't break anything, and was just like casting a spell a few days earlier so that you didn't suffer from the drain (and took a meta-magical technique to learn), we ran with it, and it was awesome.
I never quite got why 'no magical projectile weapons' was such a big thing in Shadowrun, given that you could only use them on people in line-of-sight, and you could only use -magic- on people in line-of-sight. That, and you had to hit, too.
Anyhow. Um. Devil May Cry, sorta? Devil Trigger causes you to shoot bullets imbued by magical energy so they do more damage.
Jericho was a game that could have been awesome, but wasn't. Though there's a butch lesbian sniper with Telekinetic powers who could guide her bullets after she'd shot them to hit about thirty people.
Ah, now I remember. Yes, it was the Anchoring meta-magical technique. The GM ruled that one-shot items took a fraction of the Karma cost to form, and also could be done in batches. I have a feeling that he was in part transferring the Talen rules from Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Bind a spirit into an item, when the item breaks/is used/whatever, the spirit is released and it has an effect depending on the spirit, and how well you negotiated with it in the first place). Given that it didn't break anything, and was just like casting a spell a few days earlier so that you didn't suffer from the drain (and took a meta-magical technique to learn), we ran with it, and it was awesome.
I never quite got why 'no magical projectile weapons' was such a big thing in Shadowrun, given that you could only use them on people in line-of-sight, and you could only use -magic- on people in line-of-sight. That, and you had to hit, too.
Probably because of the cheese that you mentioned. *grin* Actually, the makers of Shadowrun went about making the magical system before coming up with the magical rules, and certain key aspects would not work if you had magical items that remained magical when out of user's hands, because all active magical objects had a dual-natured aura that obstructs in both astral plane and physical plane. I don't think it had anything to do with game balance. Otherwise, you'd have astral nets that shoot out and capture spirits. In fact, in 2nd edition SR, they TRIED this idea as part of one of the sourcebooks, but it caused so much nerdrage and arguments among GMs that they revised it in 3rd edition.
Also, you don't have to have line of sight to perform Ritual Magic. There are also several spells in various editions that didn't require line of sight to cast and hit (especially gaseous Manipulation spells), although many of these were weeded out by 4th edition. For Anchoring, drain occurs when the spell goes off, not beforehand. So it's actually more dangerous to use Anchoring for one-shot combat effects, since the drain for Anchoring tends to be higher. The main advantage of Anchoring is the use of a delayed trigger (making it great for, say, a Detect Bullet/Anti-Bullet Barrier anchor). I'm guessing your GM thought he had a cool idea from a different game and went with it, and rules be damned. Which is totally acceptable. After all, it's your game.
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Keep soldiering on, that game gets wicked awesome later.
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Rising Zan (The Samurai Gunman) for one sword and one gun and some magic.
Killer 7! Dan (The Hellion) can fire special shots. Like he was 'from some sorta anime' they say.
In Advent Rising you can shoot a gun in one hand and superpowers in the other. Hmm, that's not quite right...
I think this one is a big stretch, but in Phantom Dust you play a third person shooter/card game where you do fire magic attacks. And some are called bullets.
Hol Horse from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has a magic gun. >.>
Again, spell guns don't exist in Shadowrun. To engineer something that resembles a spell gun would require a lot of Karma, and would involve at least one custom and specific detection spell. In all that time, you might as well chuck a Stun Bolt or shoot an Ares Predator (or Panther Cannon, depending on how cheesy your campaign was). Heck, in 4E, Stick and Shock ammo in a hold out pistol is more powerful than most spells.
EDIT: This isn't to say that the idea isn't cool. It was nice of your home GM to let you do such things in your game. It's your game, after all. But mechanics-wise, it doesn't fit in with the rules system and content-wise, it doesn't fit in with the game history as a whole (There are specific places that say "There are no magical projectile weapons"). If you walked up to the SR devs at Gen-Con and talked to them about your cool spell-gun, they'd probably stare you down and say "Get out."
Ah, now I remember. Yes, it was the Anchoring meta-magical technique. The GM ruled that one-shot items took a fraction of the Karma cost to form, and also could be done in batches. I have a feeling that he was in part transferring the Talen rules from Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Bind a spirit into an item, when the item breaks/is used/whatever, the spirit is released and it has an effect depending on the spirit, and how well you negotiated with it in the first place). Given that it didn't break anything, and was just like casting a spell a few days earlier so that you didn't suffer from the drain (and took a meta-magical technique to learn), we ran with it, and it was awesome.
I never quite got why 'no magical projectile weapons' was such a big thing in Shadowrun, given that you could only use them on people in line-of-sight, and you could only use -magic- on people in line-of-sight. That, and you had to hit, too.
Anyhow. Um. Devil May Cry, sorta? Devil Trigger causes you to shoot bullets imbued by magical energy so they do more damage.
Jericho was a game that could have been awesome, but wasn't. Though there's a butch lesbian sniper with Telekinetic powers who could guide her bullets after she'd shot them to hit about thirty people.
Also, you don't have to have line of sight to perform Ritual Magic. There are also several spells in various editions that didn't require line of sight to cast and hit (especially gaseous Manipulation spells), although many of these were weeded out by 4th edition. For Anchoring, drain occurs when the spell goes off, not beforehand. So it's actually more dangerous to use Anchoring for one-shot combat effects, since the drain for Anchoring tends to be higher. The main advantage of Anchoring is the use of a delayed trigger (making it great for, say, a Detect Bullet/Anti-Bullet Barrier anchor). I'm guessing your GM thought he had a cool idea from a different game and went with it, and rules be damned. Which is totally acceptable. After all, it's your game.