Metamagic Habits, Common Sense Comments and Observations Options

[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.

[KCKitsune]

OK, very quick stupid question (just wanting to verify): If a mage has a cyberhand he's immune from contact poison correct?

The reason I ask this is because I have a mage with a obvious cyber left hand and I assume, that because I paid Essence for it, that I can use it for Psychometry.

[DTFarstar]

I love threads like this. You should do this for all the metamagics, AH.

Chris

[Ol' Scratch]

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.

I'd do it and just laugh at them when it finally dawns on them how useless they are for a runner. Every ward they come across (which they won't see at all until it's too late) is now an obstacle and alarm waiting to go off. They have no way of hiding it from astral security or defend it from any astral enemy who feels like destroying it. In fact the only characters -- Awakened or not -- who'll be able to function even remotely normal with a quickened spell are those with the proper Masking metamagics.

It's probably the single most worthless metamagic for a runner ever. Well, unless you're playing in a game where the GM ignores them completely, then it rocks.

[Ryu]

Can we have another Book Club, what with the frequency of your current posting?


Absorption
While most of the plain magical supremacists would never even consider the idea, some have figured out that teamwork is the best way of using this metamagic. All you need is a friend that can cast spells, too. If you really messed up with a certain type of spirit, and said spirits just happen to be able to cast spells, said type is no longer a pure bane for your endeavours.

Channeling - (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Masking - Cite Calvin (Hobbes friend): "I´ve got loads of common sense, I just choose to ignore it".

Sensing
I love sensing, one of my players... Oh.

[HappyDaze]

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.

Uless the spirit has Realistic Form - which is unlikely for most summoned spirits - it's not too hard to tell when they are in possession of a body.

[Cain]

I'd do it and just laugh at them when it finally dawns on them how useless they are for a runner. Every ward they come across (which they won't see at all until it's too late) is now an obstacle and alarm waiting to go off. They have no way of hiding it from astral security or defend it from any astral enemy who feels like destroying it. In fact the only characters -- Awakened or not -- who'll be able to function even remotely normal with a quickened spell are those with the proper Masking metamagics.

It's probably the single most worthless metamagic for a runner ever. Well, unless you're playing in a game where the GM ignores them completely, then it rocks.

It's not quite that bad. If you have Masking (which is a necessity for any magical shadowrunner, IMO) you can mask the Quickened spells. With a high enough Force on your Quickened spells, you're unlikely to lose the spell to a low to moderate ward, and have a good chance against even high force wards.

You will have to spend a lot of time astrally perceiving, to make sure you're ready to schmooze any astral barriers yu come across. But it can be worth it, if only to be a mage with 4 IP's.

[DTFarstar]

I thought you needed extended masking to mask anything besides your own aura.

Chris

[masterofm]

On Absorption - can't you just have a spirit that you summon blast you with a spell until you are topped off? It does take a while for absorption to wear off, but it seems like zapping yourself, and then bringing the pain is pretty nuts.

On Cleansing - the problem with this is can it be used as an extended task? If someone casts a force 6 spell it takes 6 successes on counterspelling + magic. If someone in your party casts... oh lets say a force 12 spell and cleansing if you can't use as an extended test then there is no way you can clean that mess up. Ever. You also need to remove the highest force cast to remove everything else. Right?

[HappyDaze]

It's not quite that bad. If you have Masking (which is a necessity for any magical shadowrunner, IMO) you can mask the Quickened spells. With a high enough Force on your Quickened spells, you're unlikely to lose the spell to a low to moderate ward, and have a good chance against even high force wards.

Yes, you'll break the wards without losing the spells - but you'll also make a lot of magical 'noise' when doing so as the magician that created the ward is instantly aware that it has been dropped.

I thought you needed extended masking to mask anything besides your own aura.

That is correct.

[Cain]

Yes, you'll break the wards without losing the spells - but you'll also make a lot of magical 'noise' when doing so as the magician that created the ward is instantly aware that it has been dropped.

Not if you have Masking... and as I said earlier, Masking should be something you pick up long before you consider Quickening. In fact, IMO Masking should be the first metamagic any awakened shadowrunner should pick up.

On Absorption - can't you just have a spirit that you summon blast you with a spell until you are topped off? It does take a while for absorption to wear off, but it seems like zapping yourself, and then bringing the pain is pretty nuts.

Not unless it's a Spirit of Man. Spirit powers might look like spells, and act like spells, but they don't count as spells unless specified as such (Innate Spell, for example).

[Ryu]

Shared first place goes to Flexible Signature. Shielding is also high on the wish list. As is Invoking. As is Advanced Masking. "Long before" indeed.

[HappyDaze]

Not if you have Masking... and as I said earlier, Masking should be something you pick up long before you consider Quickening.

Masking an astrally active Force (which requires Extended Masking) doesn't prevent it from breaking a ward - you're still flying the invisible jet through a wall and the guy on the wall can feel it breaking apart. In effect, you can mask your spell but not the disruption of the Ward.

In fact, IMO Masking should be the first metamagic any awakened shadowrunner should pick up.

Masking is great - and more useful with Extended Masking - but it doesn't cloak your effects on the local astral environment so it's not quite as useful as you seem to believe.

[Cain]

The thing about Masking is this: there is no other way to disguise the fact you are magically active. That means each SIN you have had better be registered as a magician, or you're going to end up in trouble when someone assenses you. And wherever you go, anyplace with the least amount of astral security will be able to look at you and immediately identify you as magically active-- even watchers can do it.

Masking needs to be a high priority for anyone who is magically active. Flexible signature is nice; but it only comes into play if you use magic. If your plan is to get in and out without casting a single spell, you won't need Flexible Signature...but you will still need Masking.

[Ol' Scratch]

I wouldn't say Masking is a necessity for a runner magician. Uninitiated runners get by all the time without Masking.

Sure, it's nice if you don't want anyone to know you're a magician, but it's hardly a necessity. People expect to see a magician from time to time. They're a normal part of the Sixth World. So just being identified as a magician doesn't really matter.

Now if you have illegal foci, sustained spells, Quickened spells, and all that sort of thing that you not only want but need to keep concealed, Extended Masking is useful. It's even more important than Masking, really.

The only real "necessity" that Masking provides is the ability to fool your way past a ward. (Nevermind that it's description is more appropriate for Flexible Signature and it looks like they all but cut-and-pasted these particular rules.) And even then it's pretty damn useless as all you have to do in order to slip past is deactivate all your magic... which you have to do anyway unless you have Extended Masking. But that's about it for the "necessities" of Masking.

My beef is that they split Masking up into three different metamagics. If it worked the way it originally did I'd agree, it'd be a must-have (still not a necessity) for any competent runner magician. But as it is now, it's just a stepping block to Extended Masking. And that is the necessity for a runner who wants to use Quickened spells.

[Cain]

I wouldn't say Masking is a necessity for a runner magician. Uninitiated runners get by all the time without Masking.

Sure, it's nice if you don't want anyone to know you're a magician, but it's hardly a necessity. People expect to see a magician from time to time. They're a normal part of the Sixth World. So just being identified as a magician doesn't really matter.

I disagree. If you're magically active, anyone with any astral senses at all knows it. If your (fake) SIN says "mundane", you're going to be pulled aside and asked some hard questions. True, a lot of places aren't going to have much astral security beyond a watcher or two, assensing everyone. But that's enough to expose you as a mage, or adept, or what-have-you.

I'll also add that Aura Masking is absolutely essential for PC free spirits. If you don't have that, someone will try to assense you, and they will discover your plane of origin. That's just one astral quest away from knowing your True Name.

[Ol' Scratch]

Why does your fake SIN have to say "mundane" again? And again, who cares if they know you're a mage? The only times it'll be an issue are when they're trying to decide who to kill first...

"Hey, Frank," the watcher says to his master, "dis 'ere guy's a mage! OMFG!" "Really? What's he doing?" "Just standing there." "... Is he casting a spell or anything?" "Nah, he's just sitting there." "..." "What?" "I hate you."

[Cain]

Why does your fake SIN have to say "mundane" again? And again, who cares if they know you're a mage? The only times it'll be an issue are when they're trying to decide who to kill first...

"Hey, Frank," the watcher says to his master, "dis 'ere guy's a mage! OMFG!" "Really? What's he doing?" "Just standing there." "... Is he casting a spell or anything?" "Nah, he's just sitting there." "..." "What?" "I hate you."

Well, only 1 out of every 100 is magical in any way; and even fewer are full mages. So, while it may not exactly be a red-letter day in his diary, it will be worth a bit of attention. It's a bit like being Arabic in an airport: we all *know* that they're not likely to be a danger, but that doesn't stop them from getting singled out.

But let's say your fake SIN reads "mundane". It becomes very obvious that you're lying, at the very least. IIRC, all mages have to register, so now they know you are an unregistered magician. That means your fake SIN is blown, and people are going to move in to question you. If you use magic to get away, in addition to leaving a signature, you've just committed premeditated assault against officers of the law. (Remember, all uses of magic in crimes are considered to be premeditated.)

On the other hand, if you have Masking, you are probably going to pass any casual assensing attempt, and you can stand up to detailed ones. The whole scenario won't happen to you.

[masterofm]

I was under the impression your SIN was just a number that said you were a person. Might not be likely to have a SIN attached to you that marks you as a mage, since there have been two matrix crashes, and magic only develops when you are older. Your not really born a mage you just become one at a certain point. Might happen, but then again might not.

[Cain]

I was under the impression your SIN was just a number that said you were a person. Might not be likely to have a SIN attached to you that marks you as a mage, since there have been two matrix crashes, and magic only develops when you are older. Your not really born a mage you just become one at a certain point. Might happen, but then again might not.

Your SIN, like your Social Security number and driver's license number, is made up of a code to help identify who you are. If you don't believe me, check p 259 of the BBB:

The actual numbers that compose a SIN are generated by
a complex formula from several pieces of personal data. What
this means is that law enforcement officials can determine your
birthdate, state or country of origin, citizenship, and initials
from your SIN.

I'd imagine that the fact you're a magician would also make it into your SIN. Mages have to be registered, after all, so I'd think that'd be part of the info. Besides which, a criminal SIN lists what crimes you've committed, on top of your personal info. If they can put that much into a SIN, then putting "magically active" would be trivial.

[masterofm]

A Social Security number is given to you at your birth. You are not born awakened. If a SIN functions in this way unless a SIN is an ongoing process and they actively track you down and assence you, and then put a tag on your SIN saying so I don't think it would show up is all I'm saying.

[Cain]

There's debate as to rather or not you're "born awakened", but that's for another topic. The fact is, as a mage, you are obliged to register yourself. That would go onto your SIN record, as well as any other information that they feel is pertinent. If you want to get super-pedantic about it, it'd definitely show up in the first Data Search they run on your SIN.

To get back on topic, if you are recognized as a mage, and your SIN says "mundane", you will draw all kinds of negative attention at any security checkpoint. Masking bypasses all that. You no longer have to advertise the fact you're a mage, either via SIN or astrally.

[Ol' Scratch]

For niche characters like Free Spirits or Infected NPCs, I'd go so far as to say that (Aura) Masking is a necessity. But for typical runners? I still disagree on the must-have nature of it. Your main agrument seems to revolve around fake SINs insisting that they're mundane even though there's no real reason not to say you're a magician. At worse it'll cost you a handful of nuyen for a fake magic license -- but considering how cheap licenses are, it's a complete and total non-issue.

I mean, what's worse? Pretending not to be a magician and having someone find out on a lucky roll, or being one and not worrying about it at all?

[Sir_Psycho]

Well depending on rules interpretation, a "Magic licence" isn't so cheap. Just like you need different licenses for different guns, you're spending money per spell and bound spirit.

[Cain]

For niche characters like Free Spirits or Infected NPCs, I'd go so far as to say that (Aura) Masking is a necessity. But for typical runners? I still disagree on the must-have nature of it. Your main agrument seems to revolve around fake SINs insisting that they're mundane even though there's no real reason not to say you're a magician. At worse it'll cost you a handful of nuyen for a fake magic license -- but considering how cheap licenses are, it's a complete and total non-issue.

I mean, what's worse? Pretending not to be a magician and having someone find out on a lucky roll, or being one and not worrying about it at all?

If you're a magician, even a registered one, you're just inviting trouble. Because of the rarity factor alone, a full mage showing up is like I said-- being Arabic at the airport.

But there's more to it than that. Showing up as a mage will blow almost any disguise you might try to use: "Hey, boss? That's guy's a mage." "What, the one in the janitor's uniform?" They're also more likely to have a watcher follow you and report back if you do anything suspicious.

I'll also add that Masking is one of the few metamagics available to *all* Awakened types. While different characters may have different priorities, Centering and Masking are useful for just about everyone. I think that you'd agree that Invoking is pretty useless for a straight adept. If you're going to talk about metamagics that are useful to "all awakened runners", you can't forget the adepts as well.