[X] My Assistant

[WorkOver]

you all think these will be making a comback?

As is now, its much much harder to get adept powers, as adepts have to intiate, then they have to raise magical attributes.

Sams need to spend money, and they can get alpha, then beta, then delta to increase.

Mages are harder to create at start, but over the course of a campaign, very easy to maintain.

Adepts get screwed.

Besides this, visible adept powers where a very cool idea.

I had mystic armour, and I LOVED to make it visible. I would get shot, or stabbed and sparks would shower away from the hit, kinda like how the characters in tekken 3 showered sparks when they blocked.

What do you all think?

I hope they come back.

[Glyph]

The trouble is, it is already more than worth it to lose one point's worth of adept abilities in exchange for some choice cyber or bio (such as muscle toner). If an adept can simply take a minor limitation rather than losing the point completely, then they effectively have the best of both worlds. Why play a sammie, when you can play an adept who has cyberware, bioware, and adept powers?

[adamu]

OR - why play an adept when one point of essence will get you much more than a magic power point?

There are lots of things adepts can do better than sammies - astral stuff, fighting spirits, stealth, social, etc. But if you want to be Jet Li or Chow Yun Fat, in other words, if you want a super-badass adept, forget it - you'll be the "colorful" sidekick to the samurai.

Of course, the sammie will EVENTUALLY max out on imlants vs. essence, but the amount of karma it would take an adept to match that sort of samurai would be astronomical under the current system.

[WorkOver]

[James McMurray]

[Glyph]

Note for the melee adept: adepts can begin the game with bound weapon foci now.

Note for the gun adept: non-cyber smartlinks are just as good as implanted ones now.

Adepts may make better specialists than generalists, but some of those specialties are definitely combat-related. And improved ability isn't the only way to go, now. You could get improved reflexes: 2 and combat sense: 6, for someone fast and extremely difficult to hit. There are many ways to make a "badass" adept.


By the way, when I said that it was worth it (strictly from a min-maxing perspective) for an adept to get 1 point worth of 'ware, I did not mean that a point of 'ware is always better than a point of Magic. But that one point's worth of 'ware can stack with your adept abilities (muscle toner combined with improved ability, or tailored pheromes combined with kinesics). And there are things 'ware can do that magic can't, just as there are things that magic is better at.

[Aaron]

I wonder if geasa will, indeed, be making a comeback in Street Magic, and if so, in what form. The original rules for geasa were to balance Magic loss from various sources outside the player's control, not specifically cyberware and bioware. With the removal of the threat of wounds, first aid, and improper medical attention, I am becoming less and less convinced that there is a need for geasa at all. Perhaps it will be folded in as metamagic, like a sort of centering that's on all the time. Soon enough, I suppose, we will know.

[adamu]

I think geasa (and ordeals for initiation) are hands down win-win. Without them, hording and spending huge amounts of karma is the ONLY way for an adept to progress, and always at the expense of other purchases (a problem not faced by the samurai, who can progress using both money and karma, so that he gets twice the payoff at the end of each run). But geasa and initiations allow opportunities - usually roleplaying-rich, if properly refereed - to get big karma discounts.

If you don't like 'em and don't want pesky limitations, fine, save your karma. If you do like 'em, that's cool too. Provided they are well-balanced (or, in the case of adepts, provided they provide some much-needed balance), more options are always better.