Adept Traditions Options

[Meriss]

This occured to me last night right before bed. Is there such a thing as Adept traditions? Or am I just doing way too much Bliss? Now a small explanation is in order. The reason I ask about traditions is that, if you have two adepts with the exact same stats, say threes across the board and the same powers. But they are from different backrounds say one is a NAN warrior and the other is a Yak. Do they manifest their powers in the exact same way? Mechanically they are the same but fluff wise they aren't. How does this work?

[Demerzel]

The rulebook actually mentions that a tradition can be chosen by an adept, but it is really flavor only. I can't say the page without my book, but someone else may point it out more exactly.

[FrankTrollman]

Street Magic, page 44 talks about Adet ways.

-Frank

[Demerzel]

I was refering to:

[Luddite]

Also the description of the Ways in SotA 2064 are pretty good, and I think somewhat more in depth than the treatment in Street Magic.

[mfb]

there's nothing to "work". it's all fluff. the NAN warrior uses his IA: Edge Weapons with a tomahawk, the Yak uses IA: Edge Weapons with a katana. the NAN warrior lets out a freaky-sounding eagle cry when he uses Smashing Blow, the Yak belts out a "hiii-ya".

[Meriss]

Ahh but what about mystic armour and the slightly more fluffy stuff. Is it the same across the board or does it look/feel different.
@Frank, care to post more on Adept Ways as I don't have a copy of Street magic yet?

[mfb]

there is no pre-defined look or feel for any power. the look/feel of every adept power is completely up to you.

[Demerzel]

Adept ways are less than traditions, and almost less than fluff. The concept is that you have a way. Like the Athlete's Way, or the Speaker's Way. There is a line that says something to the effect of it's harder to gain power if you dont' have a way, however Ways have no mechanics, so that statement is unsupported.

It's mostly a concept, like if I choose the Warrior's Way I'm choosing it because I want a canned RP reason to have a dirth of combat oriented powers.

To me the one paragraph description in the core rulebook, couppled with the generous set of traditions between SR4 and SM go farther to help you flesh out a character than the one page (If you don't count the pic of the kicking man) of ways...

[Meriss]

Kewl thanks Demerzel.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, the way SM characterizes adepts seems to indicate that Adepts aren't really as "rules" oriented as Magicians are. To put it one way, Magicians act as conduits for raw powers greater than themselves and have to abide by certain self-imposed limitations to survive such activities; Adepts, on the other hand, use magic mostly to live up to their own idealized self image. That's why they're less reliant on traditional practices and chants; somatic magic is less about channeling the raw power of the astral and more about personal growth.

[TheOOB]

Well the big difference between adepts and magicians is that adepts do not have to know how their powers work, heck some adepts dont even know their awakened. An adept with improved reflexes doesnt need to know some complex formula or anything like that, they just move faster, but for a magician to cast a spell they need to know the spells formula and have studied the magic and so on.

A tradition is basically how your character belives magic works (at least for them), and since adepts mainly do not work magic(they just have supernaturally good abilities), they dont need to know how they do it, thus a tradition for a adept is purely fluff.

[mfb]

well, it's more that the rules don't dictate that they know how they do it. i've got one adept whose powers are all geased to armor/weapons he's designed himself. he does lethal damage with his punches because he's got knucklebombs (thank-you Bubblegum Crisis); he jumps further because he's got rockets in his boots. stuff like that. he knows exactly how his stuff works. but that's just semantics, i guess.

[Meriss]

In other words "There is no spoon"

[Glyph]

I thought the "ways" were extremely lame, anyways. Why should adepts have to pidgeonhole themselves, and (in SR3) get penalized if they don't? It's like penalizing a street sam when he opts to improve his etiquette or infiltration instead of his pistols skill. I can tolerate them much better when they are solely flavor.

I think the only "penalty" adepts should face for not following a way stringently is that they won't be quite as good as the focused specialists (in other words, if you get some improved senses and multi-tasking, you will fall behind the driven warrior's way adept who puts all of his points into things like combat sense and counterstrike). On the other hand, their versatility will often more than make up for their lack of hyper-focus.

[nathanross]

First off, a slight detailing of the ways:

The Spirit Way
Adepts following the spirit's way use their powers to see into the astral plane.

The Warrior's Way
Channel their abilities into fighting.

The Artist's Way
What more to say...

The Athlete's Way
Channel their magic into being good at their particular sport.

The Invisible Way
Ninjas.

The Speaker's Way
Lawyers.

The Shamanic Way
Adepts that wasted 5BP on a mentor spirit just so that everyone knows they are awakened when the Shamanic mask comes out every time they use their powers. Though I would love to see a fox face who seems to look like a fox every time he is coning someone.

The Magician's Way
Mystic Adepts.

Sorry if some of my descriptions are lazy, I since they are all fluff Bullsh*t. I agree with Glyph, all of this is just for fluff. What is most important is that you understand what you adept's motivations are, and have a clear character concept. Other wise playing an adept is just number crunching.

[Kyoto Kid]

[nathanross]

[Glyph]

[mfb]

i dunno. it says there's no in-game rules benefit for choosing a tradition. seems like a crappy deal, i guess--you have to pay for it, but you get nothing from it.

[Glyph]

Traditions don't really cost anything - I think you are thinking about mentor spirits.

[nathanross]

Chosing a totem/mentor is not choosing a tradition, choosing a tradition is completely fluff. Like saying your adept is a voodoo adept is to say that his background, relations are in voodoo and he will be familiar with all the traditions and rituals even though he does not perform them himself.

Same way a Muslim adept sees his abilities as a gift/curse from Allah. It's just how they see it.

@Glyph, you are right that it can add +2 dice to some tests (usually social or perception/assensing), but 5BP for +2 dice? That is just a waste. Spend your BP raising your charisma or taking specializations, Improved Ability or Enhanced Perception. Shamanic masks can be a bitch as well (thats why I gave the fox example, whats the point of getting +2 Con when you wear it on your face?).

Maybe your GM will give it to you for free for fluff reasons, but you still have to wear the mask.

[Demerzel]

Improved Negotiations 2 would cost half a power point (.25 per level), each power point costs 10bp so 5bp for + 2 negotiations that does not affect your skill cap such as improved ability does would be great.

On the other hand where is it that a pure adept can take a mentor? I thought the book said, Magicians and Mystic Adepts.

[Ravor]

Although I'm feeling too lazy to crack the book to check, I also seem to remember reading somewhere (I think possibly in Street Magic) that Adepts might be able to adopt a Mentor, but that the DM should only allow the ones whose Downside would actually matter...

[TheOOB]

Considering that most mentor spirits downside have little to do with the acual act of sorcerery and conjuring thats not a real problum, the big problum is that most mentor spirits dont have benefits that are applicable to adepts, though that wouldn't be hard to fix. For example, you could change the seductress to +2 Ettiquite and Con, and keep the downside the same and boom, perfect social adept mentor spirit.