More Adept Power Points, I MUST have MORE!!! Options

[Black Jack Rackh...]

I remember back in 3rd Ed. adepts could purchace another power point for 20 karma without needing to initiate and buy up their Magic. Is my search-fu weak and thus I am unable to find this for 4th ed or is my adept simpy SOL?

[Ancient History]

The reason 3rd Ed. adepts got that was so that, unlike in 1st and 2nd edition, adepts would be able to advance without buying another book. Now SR4 has initiation in the core book, so it isn't really needed.

[Black Jack Rackh...]

Ouch, that's gonna get REAL expensive real quick. Thanks AH.

Mark

[Kyoto Kid]

...that was actually a stopgap until Magic in the Shadows was released. Pity in a way. I would actually have liked in in 4th as it now takes as base of 34 karma to boost an MA of 6 to 7. This system could have worked if you could 1) only go up to your MA in extra PPs, 2) you were still limited to your MA for the purpose of caps for certain powers, and, 3) you could not lean any Metamagic abilities. (you would still need to initiate for that).

There have been several threads which have dealt with this.

MPO is that adepts have few options to expand and enhance their "natural" abilities compared to spellcasters (Gesa, Intiation + MA improvement, and a meager selection of useful metamagics) and hence see a slower rate of improvement to the character's core concept (all talk of cyber/bio burnout aside for the moment).

Our group has considered allowing Adepts to just initiate for the additional PP. This again would follow the normal rules in that you could only do so up to your MA. Once again this would not increase the caps on powers and one would have to choose between the additional PP or a Metamagic ability.

...the downside of this, it is yet another houserule to add to the many others that muddy up the rules.

[jago668]

Or ZOMG if magic just went up when you initiated like it used to.

[DocTaotsu]

I'm not very clear on the Magic Groups rules now but that might be an interesting RP way to defray the karma cost.

I've (house?)ruled that belonging to an appropriate magical group would allow an adept to initiate for less karma but still cost like hell to increase his MA. It just made sense to me that initiation would be an easier undertaking if your surrounded by a number of like minded adepts in a dojo of some sort.

Of course than i realized my player was a gun adept.

And than we decided he'd have to join the NRA.

[Rail]

And than we decided he'd have to join the NRA.

Better have good spam filters on your comm-link.

[Kyoto Kid]

...since we seem to be talking houserules here, one that I considered is ditching the Arcana skill requirement for adepts joining a group. It really doesn't make much sense as the skill encompasses theory that is more applicable to spell design. My thinking is more along the lines of setting up a test or ordeal based on the main focus of the group and adept who wishes to join. Like Some form of athletic test for followers of the Athlete's way, a non lethal (or lethal if you like) fighting tournament for those of the Warrior's way, some kind of debate or presentation for those of the Speaker's way etc. This can be an opportunity for roleplay or even a hook for a mission.

[jago668]

What about a houserule to give either a free magic point, or discount the buying of a magic point if you give up a metamagic ability.

So you initiate the first time, rather than pick up say centering you go to magic 7 (or 3 or 5 or whatever for your character). Either poof it happens or you get a 1.5 multiplier discount (or 1 or 2). So instead of costing 21 karma it would cost 11 karma (or 14 or 7). I imagine that would help lessen the kick to your karmic nutsack. Kinda makes sense also. You are giving up a "deeper" understanding of magic for just more raw power.

[DocTaotsu]

Eh... as a proponent of the TANSTAAFL theory of roleplaying giving a point of magic to someone without an interesting hook (like metamagics, astral perception, whatever) is just like telling a street sam that his panther does an extra point of damage for no good reason.

I would be willing to entertain the notion of giving metamagic feats instead of magic points. Maybe as sort of a karmic layaway program to defray costs.

KK:
I wasn't aware that Arcana was a necessary skill to get in. I think that's goofy as hell. I agree that it makes more sense that an adept would have to provide some sort of practical demonstration of his power and faithfulness to the Way to get into a group. My groups adept is a gun bunny survivor and we've already discussed that his actual initiation ceremony is probably going to take the form of some deep wilderness parahunt/spirit journey (since he wants to get the astral perception ability). His method of reaching inside himself and channeling the magical energies into boosting his attributes and skills isn't something I imagine him writing an arcane paper on.

I was going to make his initiation (and entry into a magical group) something we RPed outside of a regular game but do you have any suggestions on how I could include other players into at least some aspect of his journey?

[Dender]

not a horrible idea. Trade off an interesting and useful ability for quick cheap raw power.

i like it. I like it more than the homebrew ability of "boost efficiency of foci, extra +1"

[jago668]

Eh... as a proponent of the TANSTAAFL theory of roleplaying giving a point of magic to someone without an interesting hook (like metamagics, astral perception, whatever) is just like telling a street sam that his panther does an extra point of damage for no good reason.

You wouldn't be giving someone a point of magic for free. There is still the cost of initiation, and the giving up a metamagic ability. Which is worth (using optional rules) 15 karma. So for a rank 1 initiate the first cost would still amount to 28 karma, a discount of 6 karma. zomg I'm breaking the game *runs screaming down the street* That is saying you give them the point of magic. Remember the other thing where I just said give a discount for giving up a metamagic feat. That would put the cost for a rank 1 at 39 karma. A additional 5 karma cost.

I just find the karma sink a bit annoying. So I was offering the idea on how to make it not so bad. So maybe a magician would still have some karma left over for raising skills, other attributes, new spells, foci, etc. I mean look at say rank 6 (28 for initiation, and 36 for the magic attribute, total 64 karma) that is a bit extreme that is two months of gameplay. Especially considering most campaigns aren't going to run long enough for you to get the other 230 karma necessary (39 weeks) to even have to start worrying about that rank.

Even at completely free magic point gain it would still take half a year to rank 6 initiate and that is giving up all your metamagic abilities. No masking, no centering, no channeling, no invoking, nothing. That half a year isn't even taking into account buying any new skills, new spells, or new foci. You would have the exact same character that you started with. You would be soaking drain with the exact same dice as you started with, and only rolling 6 more dice (for an average of 2 more hits) than you started with, no new spells (better hope you really planned ahead at character gen), no new attributes so you would be soaking normal damage pretty much the same, no new foci to play with. Even the increased force of spells does you limited good as you have to worry about outpacing your drain soak by too much.

It is useful, but by no means is it anywhere close to the same as just saying to someone "Here have an extra +1 DV for free."

[DocTaotsu]

I guess my math was fuzzy. I'm sorry if I made it sound like your proposal broke the game I just didn't like it because you said "free point of magic". The discounted bit I cribbed from you though.

I should also say that I give out quiet a bit more karma than is recommended. Namely because our game has a very set time limit on it and I want players to play with all their characters fiddly bits.

That might have come out wrong.

[jago668]

I guess my math was fuzzy. I'm sorry if I made it sound like your proposal broke the game I just didn't like it because you said "free point of magic". The discounted bit I cribbed from you though.

I should also say that I give out quiet a bit more karma than is recommended. Namely because our game has a very set time limit on it and I want players to play with all their characters fiddly bits.

That might have come out wrong.

Ah, well yeah passing out more karma points makes normal initiation less of a burden. Just that the cost of initiation hasn't really changed but you now have to actually buy the magic point gain. Adding both those costs together causes the cost to start spiraling well out of what most characters will ever be able to afford.

Plus think of the poor phys ads that can no longer just buy an extra power point. Course initiating for enough magic points to buy improved reflexes 3 takes about as long as getting the money together for delta synaptic boosters 3.

[BishopMcQ]

If you just need Power Points, there is also the Geasa option. Get 8 Power Points out of 6 Magic by limiting all of the powers.

[Zhan Shi]

Since we're talking adepts and initiation, I thought I'd ask this here rather than starting another thread. The difficulty of forming a magical group increases if the members admit more than one tradition (-2 dice pool modifier for each, p. 69, Street Magic). For this purpose, do adepts as a whole count as one tradition? Or would it increase for each adept "way"? For example, if you have a warrior's way and an artist's way adept attempting to form a group, does that mean a dice pool modifier of -4?

[Daier Mune]

what about just charging adepts karma for thier new powers? say...5 karma per 0.25 ability, 10 for a 0.5 and 20 karma for a full 1 pointer. then something like an additional +(new rating) modifier. (by that math...going from a critical strike 2 to 3 would be 13 karma). taking a geasa would impose a -2 karma cost.

players would still be limited by thier Magic attribute in limiting thier power ratings, and thier dice pool modifiers would still be capped at (skill rating)x1.5.

so, it'd be faster development for adepts, but still worth thier while to actualy invest in initiation and enhancing their magic attribute. (or at least i think so)

[Daier Mune]

*edit*
after further consideration and discussion, i'd say improving Rated abilites would be +(new rating x 2). also, a 'modified' maximum on adept's power points of +1/2 thier magic attribute (ie: a mag 6 adept could only purchase an additional 3 full PP worth of abilities this way),

[BFaolan]

Where is the rule for applying geasa to adept powers?
I've seen it referred to on Dumpshock, but I don't remember it in Street Magic.

[samuelbeckett]

It's in the Tweaking the Rules section (p.31 of Street Magic) - voluntary Geasa for adepts to reduce power point cost.

[bluedragon7]

I allways liked that 20 Karma per PP rule and did not disallow it after MitS came.

Other magicusers have lots of opportunities to improve their magic abilities without the need of initiation.

Thats why i reinvented this option as a house rule in sr4 (so far no-one used it, but they will)

[jago668]

what about just charging adepts karma for thier new powers? say...5 karma per 0.25 ability, 10 for a 0.5 and 20 karma for a full 1 pointer. then something like an additional +(new rating) modifier. (by that math...going from a critical strike 2 to 3 would be 13 karma). taking a geasa would impose a -2 karma cost.

players would still be limited by thier Magic attribute in limiting thier power ratings, and thier dice pool modifiers would still be capped at (skill rating)x1.5.

so, it'd be faster development for adepts, but still worth thier while to actualy invest in initiation and enhancing their magic attribute. (or at least i think so)

Would be useful maybe after the first initiation or two, otherwise it would still be cheaper for some powers to just initiate. So not something that everyone would use, but would probably help out later on into the game.

[Kyoto Kid]

It's in the Tweaking the Rules section (p.31 of Street Magic) - voluntary Geasa for adepts to reduce power point cost.

...yeah but they include "baggage" the adept may not necessarily want to carry. Meanwhile...

Other magicusers have lots of opportunities to improve their magic abilities without the need of initiation.

...that has been my particular point of argument since 4th ed came out.

[Ophis]

What about a houserule to give either a free magic point, or discount the buying of a magic point if you give up a metamagic ability.

So you initiate the first time, rather than pick up say centering you go to magic 7 (or 3 or 5 or whatever for your character). Either poof it happens or you get a 1.5 multiplier discount (or 1 or 2). So instead of costing 21 karma it would cost 11 karma (or 14 or 7). I imagine that would help lessen the kick to your karmic nutsack. Kinda makes sense also. You are giving up a "deeper" understanding of magic for just more raw power.

I've been running with this ort of house rule and it seems to work. I also do odd things with karma costs of increasing attributes so that the racial and ab modifiers don't push up the karma cost to much (basically the new point always 18). When the adept intiates he can for go a metamagic to get a 50% discount of the magic point. Later he can pay off this discount to get the magic point (this allowed the adept in my game to initiate, gain astral perception then go back and buy psychometry).

[Dashifen]

I've thought of allowing Adepts to forgo a metamagic and, instead, learn a point of powers when initiating. Total number of power points active at any given time would still be limited by Magic, but it would give people more options to gain different powers to use at different times.