Metamagic Habits, Common Sense Comments and Observations Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Ancient History]

Absorption
Most people can pick out the problem with this metamagic right away: it depends on you getting attacked first. Talk about your passive-aggressive mentalities. As should come to no surprise, most of the characters that make best use of Absorption are champion trash-talkers, bluffers, and plain ol' assholes trying to get the other side to take the magical equivalent of the first swing and then breaking out the mystic judo.

Now, let me pick out the problem most people don't get: Absorption requires you to get hit by a spell. If the other magician calls on a spirit or decides to use her adept abilities to kick your butt, you're hosed! This is one of the reasons Absorption is popular in the magical dueling circuit; the comfortable knowledge that the other guy really is going to aim a spell at you instead of using his projectile spur or something.

Totally aside, if you do ever get a cyberspur enchanted as a weapon focus and get it implanted - don't make it a projectile spur. You'll just have to go retrieve the damn thing, which defeats the entire purpose of the exercise in getting it implanted in the first place.

Channeling
Channeling is like going to a time-share to find out there's been a mix up and some other family is there too, but both of your are too polite to insist the other leave so you just have this awkward crowded time. The nice thing about channeling is that when you're not turning on the energy aura or anything, it can be very discreet, with many handy spirit powers occuring with little if any evidence of use - as opposed to spells which are a touch more obvious in this edition than before.

Cleansing
Understand, the shadowrunner magician with Cleansing is not an astral janitor - they're a cleaner. If I had a choice of trying to wipe away all the astral signatures after even a short combat session one at a time or en masse, believe me when I say I'll get out the Cleansing mop and go-to.

Flexible Signature
I still think this is unbelievably cool. It's the mystical equivalent of being able to sign somebody else's checks. The possibilities are many, but they rely on two things: 1) not being caught doing it, and 2) having a fair number of astral signatures available. The canny magician might keep an "autograph book" of flexible signatures using an astral camera, but I honestly don't expect most players to go through that much hassle. I should like to remind players and gamemasters to keep their lies consistent. As with most skills based on duplicity, one slip not only reveals your ability, it reveals you're not who you're pretending to be. Sloppy, sloppy.

Masking
If you're playing a mundane, act stupid but don't act stupid. In other words, feign ignorance to magic and keep your foci off unless you have Extended Masking and can cover them up too.

Psychometry
The best habit to develop with psychometry is easily-discarded clothing, the reason being that you want very quick access to anything you want to scan, but if you're using Psychometry at all routinely you'll have realized that not everything is good to touch. I've lost count of the contact-poison-for-psychometrists-traps I've set and watched players blunder into.

Anyway, gloves are good - very Bester from Bablyon 5, but workable - but secretly I like flip-flops. Given that most people will hold your gaze if you look them in the eye while talking to them, a skilled psychometrist/face can slip out of their flip-flops and scan the floor of the scene very easily. Also works a treat for places where tradition demands you take your shoes off.

Quickening
If I was a player character, I wouldn't advertise this ability, but then I'm the kind of player that hides their character sheet so other people won't know what I really can and cannot do. The reason I mention this is purely practical however: it keeps the demand down. You see this a lot in Other Games, but as soon as the magician gets the ability to lay on a permanent spell effect all the other players start begging them for it...and the other players even get insulted when you want to charge them! Karma doesn't grow on trees, y'all.

Sensing
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Sensing is as much a GM tool as a PC power. It's the magical equivalent of Spiderman's Spidey-Sense going off to some cosmic whatsit downtown and forcing him to investigate. If anyone really had this power, they'd calmly note that the astral equivalent of a volcano was erupting downtown and head in the exact opposite direction as fast as their feet or in-line skates could carry them.