Agreed and a stupid thing to not state more explicitly. Then its in the Aug errata with the right way to add essacne mods and all the together interesting things that need fixing shame its only word or mouth atm

So would Type-O also cover genetheraphy then?

I think think it will as you can't IIRC even get delta genetheraphy so it can't be the qeuivelt of somthing that can't exist. Other wise it gos form a good quaility to OMG best in the game.

Draco18, for whatever reasons your description does not make sense to me lol (this disconnect is on my end). There is no set Max from having a low essence, if your initiate at grade 1 when you have magic attribute 5 then raise your magic by 1 then you have effective magic rating of 6, lose one essence from augmentation, so effective magic rating is now 5 again.

Initiate to grade 2 raise magic to attribute to 6 again, take more Bio and essence loss is now 3 decreasing magic attribute to 5 again.

Rinse and repeat this till you have essence .1, initiate grade 5, magic 5 with magic attribute natural max set at 6+5 (grade)=11. Essence loss never effects natural max, nor does it set a cap, it is only mentioned in the sections that contain the Magic attribute and the Essence attribute is that when you lose essence below the whole number (I.E Essence 5 becomes essence 4.9) then you lose one point of magic and if the magic attribute drops to 0 at any point then you become burnt out.

If something I see is not right then of course i will adjust this thought process, but it really reads this way in the main rule book.




Page 68 S4a

Exactly.

If you have Essence of 1 and no initiations your maximum magic is (6 - Lost Essence + Initiations) or 1. You cannot raise your magic above 1 without initiating. While having 1 magic and max magic of 1, you have a maximum number of allowed initiations equal to 1 (your current magic). By initiating once you raise your max magic by 1 to 2. By raising your magic to 2 you have a max initiations of 2. By initiating a second time your max magic rises to 3, etc.

As long as you have at least 1 essence you always have a way to raise your magic, but by dropping to 0 < essence < 1 you lose another max magic, which if it was 1 higher than your current magic your Magic = Max and can no longer initiate (because your current number of Initiations = Magic and your Max Initiations = Magic so Current = Max).

Also:

Yes there is and yes it does:

Which is really a nice way of saying reduces what in effect is Augmented maximum as well. B/C you can only initiate to your essence x2. But this really isn't an issue for this character as far as i can tell. 5.2 E is plenty. I'd say as long as you can keep the balance above 4, you horizon isn't overly limited. Especially if the optional rule is in play. (Giving you a max of 8 magic and as many as 12 PP if you don't select any Meta Magic.) In most games its not relevant, the karma cost of 4 initiations is a lot (Hard to give a figure due to discounts), and the karma cost of raising 4 to 8 is 130, often beyond the scope.

Not quite. Here's how it works:

Max Magic = Essence (round down) + Initiation Ranks
Max Initiation Ranks = Current Magic

Magic Loss = 1 point Magic for every 0.01 to 1 point of Essence loss*

* so if you lose 0.5 Essence, you lose 1 point of Magic but now have another 0.5 Essence you can use for implants w/o affecting your Magic stat.

Now, with the above out of the way, you need to stay at 1 Essence of higher in order to keep advancing magically. If you don't, you run into problems.

See how:

Essence 6
Current Magic 6
Initiation 6
Max Magic 12

To initiate again, you must raise Magic first. You raise it up 3 points so now you are at:

Essence 6
Current Magic 9
Initiation 6
Max Magic 12

Now you get 3 Essence of implants. That changes your stats like so:

Essence 3
Current Magic 6
Initiation 6
Max Magic 9

Now something comes up and you decide to get another 1 Essence of implants. Your stats change like so:

Essence 2
Current Magic 5
Initiation 5
Max Magic 7

Now what happened? You ran afoul of the rule that says your ranks of Initiation cannot exceed your Magic attribute. That's why your Max magic went down 2 points with only 1 point of Implants. The way to avoid that is to keep your Magic attribute higher than your Initiation Ranks. If you do, you lose very little.

That said, if you go to less than 1 Essence remaining, you run into a slightly different problem.

Essence 0.5
Current Magic 3
Initiation 3
Max Magic 3

You cannot initiate again because 4 ranks of Initation would exceed your Current Magic of 3. In this case, you are stuck at Magic 3 because if you had not initiated, your Max Magic would be 0.

Now if you stayed at 1 Essence, you neatly avoid this issue altogether. See here:

Essence 1
Current Magic 3
Initiation 3
Max Magic 4

You have room to raise your Current Magic to 4. That gives you room to Initiate and increase your Max Magic to 5. Rinse & repeat.

Does that mean that your max Initiate Rank is 6?

What a mess. I can't even imagine going through that for a character. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The key to infinite Initiation is:
- Max Initiation rank = Magic
- Max Magic = Essence + Initiation rank

So your Initiation max is 6 if you never raise your Magic above 6.

Uh, if someone's Essence drops below 1, their Magic (and thereby Initiation Grade) drops to zilch, or so I was led to believe.

Once again I get caught with selective reading/listening, if I was talking with my wife she would have broken out the flash cards again to get the point across. Bottom line is less than one essence = bad, 1+ essence = you got a chance at being a contender.....thank you everyone for pointing this out to me. It is hard to be so thick, and it is nice to have a community that explains without making thick people like me feel stupid. Cheers and again thanks.

The key is making sure that as you drop below 1 essence is that you COULD initiate one more time, eg:

1.01 Ess, 6 Initiations, 7 Magic, 7 Max Magic.

As you drop to 0.99 Ess you lose a point of magic and max -> 6/6 and still have 6 initiations (maximum allowed by new magic score)

Otherwise you waste an initiation:

1.01 Ess, 7 Init, 7 Mag, 8 Max -> 0.99 Ess -> 6 Mag, 7 Max, 7 Init [error: Init > Mag] -> 6 Init -> 6 Max

I thought the rules were fairly clear that if Essence < 1, then Magic = 0 despite the number of initiations.

I suppose I'll have to go through them again to verify.

I thought so as well but apparently there an exception case. However given that essence can be restored if you willing to drop the gear i don't see why it would be so hard to keep 1 point around.

It's a little unclear. While normally true that Ess < 1 does result in a burnout it makes no mention of how that functions with Initiations.

What I think it says is that if Magic drops below 1 you burn out, not if Essence does. In any case, its probably open to interpretation. Some of us just like the mathematical approach because we're all logical thinkers.

Blar. It was easier before this whole Initiation fad started. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Everything was easier back then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

No, SR4A made it clear that if your Essence went below 1, the major effect is that you've lost a point from Magic and your natural maximum Magic was also reduced by the same amount.

Essence.......Magic...Loss
..6.00-............6.........0
..5.99-5.00.....5.........1
..4.99-4.00.....4.........2
..3.99-3.00.....3.........3
..2.99-2.00.....2.........4
..1.99-1.00.....1.........5
..0.99-0.01.....0.........6

What Initiation does is raise the natural maximum of Magic by +1. The only caveat is that you cannot Initiate more times than your current Magic attribute.

Now heading to sub-1 Essence is the path of the burnout as many burnouts don't initiate. No initations = burnout when your Essence drops below 1.00. If you want to avoid being locked from further magical progression, you have to stay at Essence 1+. That requirement aside, there is a crapton of stuff you can implant within 5 Essence.

You can see the relevant sections in SR4A Rev 1. For ease, I've copied the excerpts from the PDF.



Now for the section on Initiation...

I am of the same opinion of this.

As initiation is cheap(ishy) someone could potentially just initiate a bunch of times and not buy magic right away.


For adepts do you get the additional power point from initiation or gaining more magic? Because I thought you got a metamagic free with initiation and you could choose to take a power point instead. But then as an adept don't you also get a power point for each point of magic you have?

:/ You can have infinite initiations? That's not good.

By "a bunch" you mean "up to 6" right?
Even more accurately, it'd be "up to their current magic rating times."



No, Initiation doesn't "grant you a point of magic" for +1 PP, "give you a free metamagic" for +1 PP and also "give you a PP" (for a grand total of 3).

If the "power point for metamagic" is allowed, then they can initiate (for +1 MAXIMUM magic) and take the metamagic +1 powerpoint.

That still only nets you +1 PP without spending karma on more magic.

For the power point for initiation you give up the metamagic selection and you may add 1 power point as a group initiate. So first must be member of a group, then you can (if GM allows) take that option.



Once again if I am reading it right!

Yep. It's a popular option.

If you use the option presented in the Street Magic errata, your Adept can benefit from both +1 power point instead of a Metamagic, and also +1 power point when he raises his Magic score.

That option is very popular, and with good reason.

Well, very *desired* anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I dunno how popular it actually is. It seems fair enough, until they add more metamagics adepts actually want.