I'm honestly not surprised to read here that there are no spell creation rules in Street Grimoire. From the core rule book alone, Clout does Stun damage to a single target while Acid Stream & Flamethrower & Lighting Bolt all do Physical damage to a single target with added elemental effects, and all four of these Indirect spells have exactly the same drain code (Force - 3). When you then include the AOE versions of these spells, the one spell that does Stun damage actually causes more drain. Made me think then that there was no formula for calculating drain on any spells in this edition.

However, as another import from SR5 into SR4a, having the Channeling metamagic technique opening up the option of self possession to the summoner does not sound like a bad idea to me.

Only had a quick scan so far (and skipped straight to the adepts section...), at least a couple of adept powers are duplicated from Stolen Souls...and one at least (Commanding Voice) has different rules! I don't mind the duplication so much as not everyone will buy every sourcebook, but please, can't the rules at least be the same in back to back sourcebooks???

Other than that, no real complaints (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Sure there was a formula. Reach hand into ass, pull something out.

Really they seemed to ballpark it around SR4 drains -3 but at force not 1/2 force. But they had a +1-1 they handed out at complete effing random.

As for the book itself. I've only skimmed it so far, but it seems really disorganized. Maybe after a full read it will come together, but when you just flip to a chapter lots of times you are going what the eff. Some cool things, I like most of the expanded ritual magic/alchemy stuff.(with the exception of putting things like summoning great forms into ritual magic so aspected conjurers get screwed), while it has a weird layout the metamagics are relatively cool(not keen on the new channeling being for all mages).

But there is some complete crap as well.

The drain codes on many spells are crazy off,

The PP coss of many powers are really high

the editing sucks,(im catching errors and I'm dyslexic and normally breeze right by them),

as I said on their forum and was quoted here I think accuracy 3 on improvised thrown weapons turns missile mastery into suck. You will miss the average street urchin behind a planter box and with every other thrown weapon being physical limit based it not only seems off thematically but would totally throw off the balance of a throwing expert. Also the power is there for people who want to play the super villain bulls-eye for gods sake and you make him less accurate than a hold out pistol, in his gimmick of being super accurate?

Also they didn't fix one of my mai issues of SR5 which is that if you want to play the classic adept you need to be supe rmuscle dude. Yeah now they added the super sayan energy field option but I want to play a shadowrun adept and kick through people because I'm a bad ass martial artist not because I concentrated for a pass to surround my body in fire.

Oh and still no answer on indirect touch attacks and the process of how they work. Do they get to dodge the magic test part once you successfully touched them, if so is it at -1 for it being a second dodge? With run and gun putting some time into shcok gloves and pure touch attacks it owuld be nice if the magic book had put a paragraph to the magic side of it.

My initial response after reading through it once, it needs help. There are very useful things, there are new things. There are too many indications of GM Metagaming throughout, especially in the spells and lack of a spell design system.

I do like the way the Metatalents are being done, and significant increase in the number of rituals. That said, again, no way to create ones own ritual or custom spell.

Typoed... Oh dear god, I think my favorite is under the Astral Window spell description referring to the astral projection spell in SR5 pg 313 which isn't a spell'of course but an ability. I'm also loving Critter Form v Shapechange in that the spells don't do Paracritters, but every example under the Critter Form spell description is of a Paracritters formula. Oh well, at least the drain codes between those two made sense.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Just noted the back cover text (as seen in the preview):

With more options, deeper rules, deadlier threats, and dozens of way to have fun with magic, Street Grimoire is an essential book for anyone playing Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.


...

Well, at least they spelled "Shadowrun, Fifth Edition" right...

Please, don't do this.

Sorry if I am just blind or something...

can anyone point me to the Keratin Control Adept Power, that is mentioned as a prerequisite for CLAWS on page 157 ?

Thanks

Its not in the book. They forgot to add it, so they'll add it to the next magic book called Shadow Spells.

...great

Thanks.

*face palm*

So you're saying that to get the info that was supposed to be in this seriously overpriced and very poorly edited splatbook, you need to buy yet another seriously overpriced and poorly edited splatbook...

Yay? *twists nipples out of sheer joy*

Seriously, thank you guys so much for jumping on these grenades for me.

Old hat, I know, but we're half a dozen releases in to the SR5 cycle and they still can't manage to edit or proof this shit?

Spelling mistakes galore, references to the SR5 core that go to unrelated pages... I haven't even started processing the rules yet because the overall quality of the writing is so distractingly badly edited.

Sorry, freelancers, your employers keep making you look like scrubs. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Edit : Also, what the hell, why are there blood and toxic traditions in here.

Both well defined in 4th edition Street Magic, why not keep them in this edition?

umm... i'm not exactly the grand high emperor of sarcasm detection, but personally, my sarcasm meter was redlining when Deathstrobe said that.

Prepare to be disappointed.

It sounds like Shadow Spells is going to be the SR5 equivalent of Digital Grimoire, so it'll probably have new magical things that were left out of the core Magic book, like a Norse and Egyptian tradition, and several dozen Mentor Spirits, and a lot of broken spells.

At least it'll probably be really cheap, since it'll probably only be a PDF release.

Then your meter is broken.

I mean, the "forgot" part is sarcastic, but...yeah. That's about it.

You know, I signed up as a proofreader to help fix things from the inside.

I'm not succeeding.

I think that requires wetwork.

I imagine as a freelancer you are limited in what you can ask from those above, but what has the reaction been when you have queried why submitted corrections do not make it into final proofs.

Could the final line of editors be short-handed so might not be getting through all the correction submissions or is submissions being routed to the wrong section?

For ourselves we teach courses and have an online booking system using paypal.

When the bookings come through we send out the joining instructions back through the email address provided by Paypal or in the comment box.

I still get contacted by a number of students who have booked a course but say they didn't receive instructions. When we look into it, we find they are now using a different email address and never bothered to update their paypal to reflect this nor did they add it in the comment box.

Now I am not saying your superiors have changed their email entirely, but could the chain of submission be dead ending somewhere along the way?

It could be as simple as person A used to handle it, but is gone now and B is supposed to be taking care of this and some submissions are still going to A's inbox who may not even be there anymore and B does not have access nor would be looking there as they should be getting things in their own inbox.

Proofreading is done via Google Docs. We all add our comments, which the editors in turn comment on, so there's no doubt that they've seen it. And since it's online, it pretty much stays there forever. Our file access is limited, but I can still see the locked file for the SR5 proofs (and, in our defense, many of the corrections we made never made it to the final copy). I don't know why it happened, and under a NDA I can't give examples. But I can confirm that it did.

Thanks for that and we understand how you can not discuss specifics.

It's a starting point anyway. So you know that the information is getting to the people needing to see it.

We realize just because a correction is submitted it is not automatically included as ultimately the editing level still has to decide whether the suggested correction is valid or not.

Somewhere though there seems to be a disconnect on the path to the final cut, how to find and address it is going to be the fun part.

Like I said earlier, I appreciate that you try, I just don't think any amount of effort on you or the rest of the freelancers' part can overcome the apathy and outright hostility to making a good product that's occurring at Catalyst right now.


I'm starting to assume they've already been told they're losing the rights to SR shortly.


Edit :

Seriously, from the official forums :

"Living Focus and Keratin Control are both slated for release in an e-book called Shadow Spells, which I assume is going to be similar to the Digital Grimoire from 4th edition. One of the developers has stated what his intentions are with the powers, but as they are unpublished and unconfirmed, it would be unwise to spell them out currently."

They're publishing stuff with pre-requisite abilities that don't exist yet. This is beyond just 'bad editor' levels of failure and into a publishing company that doesn't care, and just wants to get as many things to print before they get their IP pulled.

Why does anyone expect anything better? This is still the company who responded to a systemic problem with meeting product delivery dates by stopping committing to product delivery dates rather than addressing the systemic problem.

Well run companies fire people for suggesting ideas like that. CGL embraced the idea, and has proudly trumpeted it to anyone who asks about why they don't commit to product delivery deadlines.

wow, that's pretty depressing.

i had assumed that something that stupid had to be a joke. well, as the saying goes: truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense.

this is a whole new low for them to sink to.