I am just wondering if there is any rule about pixies being technomancers? They have a magic attribute but I don't see anything about them not being able to take the technomancer Quality so long as they have not also taken any of the magical qualities.

No. Pixies (& other Sapient Critters) are Awakened. Resonance (Technomancer) & Magic (Awakened) are mutually exclusive. I am sure someone else would be willing to provide a rules quote - I am lazy.

That's true, but many GMs will allow you to entirely lose the point of magic in return for being a TM. RAW they can't, but in practice many can.

Personally i make a distinction between an inherent magic rating and being able to use magic.

Creatures that have a magic attribute purely for abilities they are BORN with would be able to take the technomancer quality and have 1 point of magic.

They cannot on the other hand have any other magical abilities...

This would mean that the Pixie wouldn't loose his flight ability just to be able to talk to machines.

What about the poor Pixie that was in the Matrix during Crash 2.0?

*Sniff*

That one is now an AI. ^_^

Sell her to a bunarku parlour?


I guess you could have pixie technomancers, which would then involve the question of why.

Would be an interesting roleplaying theme as to the poor pixie who is compelled to move from nature into the sprawl to get their resonance connection...

Not to mention the hillbilly pixie learning about the matrix...

Just because Tinker Bell can't get 50 channels of porn in Never Never Land does not meant she has to relocate. Although I do wonder how large is a pixie and do small hands really make for light work?

They're about 17-18 inches tall.

I would allow a Pixie technomancer with a great backstory. I'd also focus lots of roleplaying attention on the downsides of being a pixie. Custom armor, etc would just be the beginning...

Xykal

I would allow it provided the critter was willing to lose all of her magical powers. (Well, except for the "power" of Intelligence.)

*EDIT*

But then again I would allow a Techno or a Mage into my campaigns with the backstory that he used to be the other but forever lost all of his former powers when the new ones kicked in.

Technically, there is a loophole to produce a Pixie TM:

So a normal Pixie can be a latent technomancer by chargen.
Then it has to lose it's default point of Magic (any kind of Essence Loss will do), becoming mundane... then emerge as a TM.

Of course, being a Pixie without Magic sucks - no more flying, no more powers.

I'd rather build a pixie hacker adept- you can still fly, you can still use Concealment, you get adept powers, with that Charisma and the Chatty quality, you'd be phenomenal at gathering information from virtual contacts, your high LOG can be of good use in Hardware, Explosives, Chemistry and First Aid tests...

Might be tough for a pixie to fly around with a commlink. The smallest thing I've seen them described as fitting into is a pair of glasses. And what would a pixie use as an imagelink?

A toddler-sized trode net?

As far as the link is concerned, they can implant the damn things.
Most are the size of a PDA, so even when you're only 45 cm tall, you can just put a sling on them and let them dangle around your waist like one of those 2050ish cyberdecks.

Can I just say I love this mental image?

Of course.
I recently thought a lot about introducing a 2050s revival fad to my game, with people who get glue-on datajacks and repackage their commliks in knockoff Fairlight Excalibur casings.

The precedent has been set with Leonardo being a TM as well as a skilled magician, so just ignore those pesky rules.

Having not read the Leonardo novel, I have to ask, does it make it clear—in an out of universe fashion—that he really was both magically active and an otaku? Or is it possible that he was skilled enough at one to fake something like the other? (and therefore appearing to be both to others)

I wonder, because I know he was into optics to a level that technology still has not matched, and there is that old phrase about advanced tech and magic being confused.

If you want a strict reading, then no. Leonardo claimed to have their skills, that's about it.

FWIW, it was remotely possible to be an otaku with a Magic rating in SR3 if you SURGEd appropriately, but it was horribly munchkinny. Any reference to such 'Ascended Masters' in canon are probably the ravings of a delusional mind.

SR4, pg 73, Magic/Resonance section, first paragraph, last sentence...

"A character can only possess either Magic or Resonance - never both." (emphasis added).

Actually, though the Pixie's flight is supposedly magical according to fluff, Pixies have no Flight Power to lose (in fact, there is no magical Flight Power).


This issue, I believe, is one of the many difficulties created when they decided to give all awakened critters magic ratings. I don't believe that anything prevented you from having an otaku ghoul in SR3. This is now impossible. Shapeshifters couldn't have datajacks due to their regeneration, making otakuism impossible, but there is nothing else to suggest that they couldn't be Otaku, either. I understand that using Essence as the base for powers was no longer viable due to the system change, but there are major far-reaching consequences to this.

I would rather remove their magic rating and call their abilities Metatype powers.

Then they wouldn't be shafted just because they wanted to be Technomancers or streetsams.

The only problem with that distinction is that Concealment relies on Magic Rating in its calculations, forcing one to replace it with a different stat. Since Magic no longer starts at 6, Essence is right out. This leave us with the unenviable duty of creating a new special stat (unless one were to decide that such Powers are based on Edge, which isn't a terrible solution except that it makes Edge that much more powerful).

This.

I get really annoyed when they force a Magic rating on a character for having a magical knack. It pretty much makes those qualities and traits useless unless you're a magician (and then, more often than not, you can't even be a magician if you have such a trait). It's not a phenomenom limited solely to Pixies. Take a look at any of the qualities in Street Magic. At best you can be an unaugmented mundane with a single trick up your sleeves. And yet you still have to pay for the skills to use your feeble ability to boot.

And to reply to the above response, Concealment is pretty damn useless with a Magic of 1 anyway. It gives a -1 dice pool penalty to tests to spot them. Whooptido. Hardly the invisibility they're renowned for possessing.