The Way it Ought to Be
Shadowrun, from the Big Blue Book to the Big All Black Year Book, has always had five categories of magic, Combat, Detection, Health, Illusion, and Manipulation. After reading through the first Grimmy, though, a couple ideas went through my head, which this document represents, slightly more fleshed out and intelligible than my raw thoughts would be.
In short, I have always seen magic as not having five categories, but three, based on how the individual spells work. The first type of magic uses mana to manipulate objects in the Astral Plane, the second type uses mana to manipulate objects on the physical plane, and the third type uses mana to detect things and determine their nature. The third category is obviously the standard category of detection, but the other two might not be so obvious.
At first glance, the first two categories seem like I am simply speaking of the difference between Mana and Physical spells, but I'm not. Everything has an astral presence, from street signs to dragons. The first type of spell, which I'll call Aural spells, acts upon these astral presences, either to affect the presence itself, or to indirectly affect the physical object that it corresponds to. In general, Aural spells correspond to Combat spells (which attempt to damage an object's astral presence) and Health spells (which seek to either heal or reinforce that astral presence). For example, a Powerbolt is fired at a street sign. Rather than attempt to break the sign through physical force, it strikes at its astral presence, attempting to shred its reality on that plane. If it succeeds, the sign that exists in the physical world will be damaged, since all objects that exist in the physical world must have some component in the astral.
The second type of spell, which I'll call Manipulation spells, acts upon the physical plane, its results on the astral plane being only secondary. In general, these are the Illusions and Manipulations of standard SR. Illusion spells may seem oddly placed, because if they truly manipulate the physical world, why aren't cameras and drones affected by normal Invisibility? They are not affected because the standard Invisibility spell (or Confusion, or Mask) makes its images (and noises) purely out of mana, which cannot be perceived by non-living objects, while the physical versions of these spells actually manipulate light and sound. Manipulation spells seem less out of place, but many spells in that category bear examination. Control manipulations seize control of a person's brain, either subtly guiding their thoughts and feelings (as in Influence) or seizing direct control of certain areas of the brain (such as motor control for Control Actions, or the frontal lobes for Control Thoughts). Elemental manipulations are simple, fashioning certain materials out of mana, and then forcing them to exist in the physical world. Telekinetic manipulations direct mana directly at the objects, using it as additional appendages, be they agile digits for the Magic Fingers spell or a huge arm for levitation. Transformation work very similar to Elemental manipulations, creating physical objects from mana or altering existing objects (be they people, shoelaces, or the very air) into other forms by rearranging the properties of those objects with mana. These objects, by and large, retain their own appearance on the astral plane, though the mana that surrounds and alters them will be clearly visible. The spell of Astral Barrier is the most obviously out of place, as it manipulates mana solely on the astral plane, having no effect on the physical. Therefore, this spell should be moved to the Aural category.
How can this all be applied, though? After all, a theory that can have no application is, as Sammy Hagar put it, mental masturbation, being a fun and generally pleasurable exercise that doesn't really accomplish much (sorry, I've been wanting to make that comment since I heard the phrase). Well, this theory has several applications.
First and foremost is in the realm of Elementalists and Shamans. Since the three categories no longer have the neat correlation to the four hermetic elements they once did, spells now become a matter of form, not function. The fire elementalist can perhaps cast certain detection spells (clairvoyance comes to mind), but must stare into a fire. His spells can now heal, but his healing requires that the wound be cauterized. His Light spells are a harmless mote of flame. Fire simply does not mean he can cast combat spells. It is woven into every aspect of his magic, into the very fiber of his being. For a shaman, his magic comes largely (or completely, in the case of a shamanist) from his totem. If he acts as in the role his totem has set before him (a Bear Shaman healing others and protecting the natural world, a Rat shaman lifting a packet of Twinkies for a Stuffer Shack), he gains a bonus to the spell he attempts to cast. If he acts outside that role (A Wolf shaman using invisibility to leave his "pack mates" behind, Eagle to destroy the wild lands), his totem will withdraw his support, leaving the shaman to struggle with the magic unaided. If he neither helps nor hinders that role (a Dog shaman using Magic fingers to get a beer from the fridge, or Cat giving a little boon because she's happy), the Totem will lend only the normal support, giving the shaman neither a bonus or penalty. A shamanist cannot act outside the dictates of his totem, and perhaps must petition his totem to allow him to cast a spell outside his normal sphere of influence (i.e. the player must justify to the GM why he should be able to cast a certain spell at this time). Note that this means a shamanist can learn any spell he wishes, but he must petition his totem in some cases in order to cast it (which, incidentally, should take a little time in order to do... at least one pass).
Way back in First Edition, they had a rule for programming on the fly... in other words, making up a program that you needed right fragging now. Now, I know jack shit about Matrix programming (or real life programming, for that matter), but I always liked the idea that perhaps this could be applied to magic-users. The magic-user attempts to guide the mana into a form that he doesn't fully understand, in order to do something that he needs done, regardless of the cost to his body. Since some of the other people on the list (Thanks, Bull!) have been so kind to send me the rules for hacking on the fly, I decided to modify them to fit spellcasting... to make it work without getting me burned at the stake for munchkinism.
In order to create this single use spell, the mage must temporarily burn a number of dice equal to the desired force of the spell from his Spell Pool, and spend a number of Good Karma points equal to half its force, rounded up. The points burnt from the Spell Pool refresh with the Karma Pool, not with the other dice pools, and neither Karma Pool nor Spell Pool can help with the casting of this spell in any capacity. You can't use the Karma Pool to avoid an "Oops", to buy successes, to buy dice, or even burn them in order to lower the difficulty. Otherwise, the spell is cast completely normally, though the drain level is one above normal for that spell (M to S, S to D, D adding +2 to the drain target number). These spells can save your butt, but they can also require you to kiss it good-bye...
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