Magic in Altered State

altered-state
#1

Howdy. I’m new to the system so I have a few questions. I’ll start with these: has anyone incorporated the magic rules into Altered State? If so, how? What were the results? Thanks!

#2

While I haven’t tried altered state at my table yet I imagine it should be easy to plug & play with the magic rules from ME. I bet it’d make for a quick & fun Shadowrun type experience, I’d definitely like to give it a try pretty soon

#3

I think I will. I’m just wondering how to balance out a magic-wielding character against the other classes.

#4

I think the psykers pretty well cover “magic” in AS.

#5

Yeah, but I would like to incorporate a lore aspect as well. I love the Shadowrun-type setting, but am not a fan of the rules. I would like to add to the lore of Altered State using magic.

#6

ICRPG is very robust and flexible, so I have every confidence that it can accommodate your vision. Since your question was mechanical, my conclusion was that the psyker powers established a mechanical twin to magic, and so you could rest assured that a change to the lore would have a minimal impact on how the game runs, though maybe a misunderstood your concern.

#7

Your initial interpretation of my questions was correct; they were mechanical. To be a bit more specific, I have noticed some similarities between the psionic abilities and spells from the Master Edition of ICRPG. However, there are some neat aspects of ICRPG’s magic sections that I would like to see in Altered State. I am wondering if I add a “mage” class to Altered State, what form would it take? Would a direct port from the Magic section of the Master Edition be imbalanced? If anyone has experience doing something similar or simply has more experience with the systems in general, I am curious what their take would be regarding incorporating the rules as written from Magic to Altered State. I get the feeling that the “mage” would be a bit overpowered in Altered State, but I am speculating about systems with which I lack familiarity.

#8

I’ve done it for my Shadowrun hack I’m running at the moment. As long as you change MAGIC EFFORT to a D6 (AUGMENTED) It breaks nothing. I even threw in spell burn and the overload to make sure they stay more on par with the others

#9

Personally, I would start a level 1 character off with a standard Master Edition p. 42 mage. To me, the Magic section rules are a bit gonzo, and there’s no reason to start there unless you just want to play an upper tier game.

That being said, there’s no way to find out other than to just go for it. Spell Points are a good limiter, and it should be hard to get them back.

#10

Drmazmd, I’m familiar with spell burn, but what do you mean by (AUGMENTED) and overload?

#11

Do you mean that the Magic section of the book makes them a bit overpowered relative to the class on page 42?

#12

In Altered State there is no Magic effort like in ME. All the Psychic Effort is a D6 or Augmented Effort. The overload is with the Psychics Rage dice. If a Psychic, or a spellcaster in your instance, roles a nat 1, the caster must roll all of their rage dice in damage to ALL creatures in a near radius