To clarify: No, it doesn't. The Metaplanar Shortcut involves a Complex Action to enter a metaplane, & another Complex Action to return at any location you have been to before. The metamagic does not allow that - it allows you to travel through Astral Space, functioning like Astral Projection, except you do not leave behind any "shoes", & instead of Manifesting, you return your body to the Physical plane.

The travel is not in any way instantaneous, but can be very fast (5km per Combat Turn 'running', 100m 'walking'), and does not allow you to bypass barriers the way the Metaplanar Shortcut does - to enter a ward, you have to have access to it as normal (created, on the accepted list, Masking, or forcing your way through).

The quote from page 10 of Street Magic talks about Magic, not just Sorcery.

This is different from what spirits do. Spirits are not corporeal... all the Materialization power does is project the spiritual entity into the Physical plane. This metamagic takes physical matter, converts it to astral matter, and reconverts it at the end to physical matter.

The arguments about the time it takes and so on making it not the same as teleportation, and about precedent among special immortals etc. are worth considering.

The quote from page 10 is also from a fluff section. It contains no actual mechanics or rules for gameplay, and such fluff sections do intentionally contain false data on occasion.

The quote from page 10 has no relevance whatsoever to if something is allowed or not mechanically.

The existence of Seattle is not mentioned in the mechanics sections, either. Does it therefore not exist?

The elements of Newtonian physics are not described in the rules, either. Does that mean they don't apply?

Lack of rules means there is no mechanical effect. Seattle does not exist in the rules of the game (outside Knowledge skills), & so has no mechanical impact on the game (outside Knowledge skills).

The limitations of Sorcery is the mechanical effect of the described limitations of magic. It affects spellcasting. It does not affect other forms of magic.

I get you. I misspoke and was not precise enough. But the basic premise is there. You end up moving rather fast between here and there.

I guess in that vein it has more in common with the Movement Power rather than Metaplanar Shortcut except that it also involves the Astral as well. Doesn't sound broken. I would still lean toward upping the cost slightly. But if it has a pre-req metamagic, then the cost may not be low as originally thought.

The biggest issue with it, from a balance perspective, is giving you the ability to travel through physical walls, but it forces you to deal with astral barriers instead. It's also pretty powerful in a defensive aspect if the opposition doesn't have astral support, but similar "get out" abilities can be obtained through spells &/or spirits, just not quite as effective (but again, doesn't have to deal with astral support).

Just curious, what happens to your mundane gear?

I can see your focuses etc. going with you, but does your SMG and your lined coat?

I don't think its a big deal either way, just not sure what your metamagic is designed to do.

Woops missed that, thanks.

With all due respect, the technique in earthdawn was ONLY available to very high level entropomancers or something like that. (can't remember their exact name). It was something of their capstone ability too IIRC. Even at that, I'm not sure that merely having 6 ranks in arcana is nearly enough justification for any player character. And even then only after extensive study/combat/interaction with the horrors at the height of the mana cycle IIRC.

And yes, 10s is trivial to someone stated out for it. (increase attribute, centering metamagic, etc... I've soaked 16 physical drain down to 4 from summons gone bad... 10S is definitely in the doable range especially w/ edge).

I don't see it as endowment-materialization for everyone. That still leaves an unconcious body you still need to worry about and can be tracked down.


As far as your other metas... multiple rounds of casting is borderline because that one casting roll goes against a single dice pool to resist it. The only thing which makes it even considerable is you're not casting on prior rounds while waiting for it to go off. But even then, it doesn't matter how much counterspelling you have, after 2 or 3 rounds of casting w/ a reasonable high force...


And increasing magic skills w/o limit is bad. Even the closest analogue is item attunement, and that requires additional karma expenditure. The metamagic is way too cheap compared to spending .5PP on similar combat skills and don't fool yourself that spellcasting/summoning skills aren't at least that valuable. Then lets hit another one of your favorites... multi-casting... split the dice pool... now look another modifier to add after the split from the meta. Even if treated as a skill mod subject to the cap... it's still questionable.

Nethermancers. And in a large part the reason why it was high circle was not because it was inherently hard but because while there was a lot of mana all of astral was massively polluted. It was like the entire planet was an aspected background for horrors, even though its a basic function of being a mage basic astral projection wasn't done in Earthdawn, mages couldn't just do it.

Which quite literally says you did not actually read it. At all.

Go read the fucking metamagic - *attempt* to comprehend what it actually says - then come back & complain about it.