An opposed test against a single stat, the single hardest stat in the game to raise I might add, I don't see how 3 hits against a DP of around 3 is going to fail 'much of the time', and of course if you're talking about overcasting, then you're looking at 6 hits against the same DP. Far from useless.


Force 6, heal up to 6 boxes, which is about 60% of most people's track, and since damage is based on the target instead of force of the spell, no reason not to overcast.


Actually it'll hide you from nearly all guards, but yes, no cameras/drones.

A mildly handy 'people can see what others see' spell. A good way to share vision (or other senses) if your group is paranoid about having a wireless signal.

Once again, or 6 with overcasting, which would be most stats. And even at 3, that can still be potentially useful.
True, not very mechanically useful, but a large number of people get spells like this that aren't very 'mechanically' useful. Fashion in particular is great for making your body armor look like... not body armor.

Dareadrin, trauma damper, platelet factory, cerebral booster, and that leech thing. That's a potential +5 drain DP and a flat 2 less damage on the drain. Yeah, cyber can give a serious boost to drain.

Plenty of people overcast all the time, and it isn't like you're being asked to overcast on a high force spell. A force 6 spell has a base DV of 3, modified by the spell itself, usually anywhere from -1 to +1 on average, which means a whopping 4 damage. Heck, I'd be happy to take that with the cyber above alone, not even counting the actual stats involved in the drain, which if you include could easily make it a DP of 15, or higher if you really want.

So yeah, plenty of stuff you can do with a magic of 3. And 2. And even 1 has a handful of useful spells, you just have to be smarter about them.

So following on from that, it would be ok for a player to build his magician with an pre-made essence hole from before he awakened? Thus allowing some implants later on without impacting his magic stat (obviously doesn't benefit characters with maxed magic)

I think AH said it was possible to install ware, then buy magic during character gen, but I only had 3 hrs sleep, so don't quote me.

While the fluff and rules suggest this could be donne, it is not explicitely allowed so I strongly advise you to discuss the matter with of your GM before trying to pull this kind of stunt.

Well, the issue is that Latent Awakening doesn't determine what kind of Awakened character you turn into. So you could awaken with something useless like Spell Knack: Shape Jello. If Latent Awakening let you "pre-determine" what type of awakened character you would become (or, at the very least, restricted it to Adept, Mystic Adept, or Magician) it would be really good, as it is, I don't really like it because of the large possibility of awakening into something worthless.

If I'm not mistaken, what Zoot suggest is not to have the character awaken during play, but to create an Awakened character who happens to have got a few cyberbits stuffed into him before his awakening so that he does not have to pay karma/BP for the magic points that would have been lost if the implantation was post-awakening, and has some wiggle room to stuff an extra goodies or two without loosing magic later in play, when he has earned enough money/favors for them.

[edit] Double post, sorry [/edit]

Hmm. I'm pretty sure doing it *during* chargen requires GM-fiat. Attributes come first in the process, then 'ware; if you want to pull this trick (and that's what it is), you just have to convince the GM that it's fair.

That is pretty much same as trying to claim that "My character got this Synaptic Booster 3 as a gift, so i shouldn't need to pay for it at chargen"
Characters background has nothing to do with the chargen cost of stuff.

Don't forget the +1 willpower from an activated Pain Editor.

Pain Editor: what stun track?

EDIT: Never Mind, My replies were Already covered above...

Which is why you would discuss such things with your GM... there is no chart to roll to determine the outcome, it is GM fiat... seems to me a conversation would eliminate the silly stuff you do not want...

Indeed. If your GM screwed you like that… fight time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It would definitely be an annoyance I would think...