Mystic Adepts: Suck?, Cheap IP's for the Awakened... Options

[HappyDaze]

Why are even those guys using light pistols, it's not like those are noticaply cheaper or easier to get.

If it makes you wonder 'why?' then it might be that the weapon was selected for that very purpose.

[WeaverMount]

Barring insane twinkery, you're probably going to have a 5 agility and 5 pistols with specialization, that's 4 hits on average, the same as the maximum you can get with a force 4 spell. The pistol-user would probably have have a smartlink and/or other modifiers for maybe 1-2 more hits on average, but the spell ignores armor and full defense, easily making this up.

You are forgetting that shooting can burst, take ammo types, use better guns than a light pistol, the can't be counter spelled, and is SIMPLE ACTION. Also you seem to be really big on the always available bit. While that is a solid advantage anywhere I don't want to be seen with a gun is also some where I don't want to drop a signature for a combat spell or spend sever rounds cleaning it up. Yes nothing says OMFGRUNNERS!!1!!!one like rocking out on some mall cops with neurostun and automatics with SnS, ... except maybe the traces of high force combat spells. And it's WAY easier to track you down with one of them.

Also your 5 AGL + 5 pistol (light) = 12 DP, thinking belies what I really feel you are missing about Improved Reaction. Real adept powers, stronger mage magics and augmentation can all blow past that DP with 3 or 4 IPs. While they don't all have optimum BP pay outs you have enough to do that without leaving any holes on your sheet. Even if you go with a sustaining focus you are basically swapping +3 reaction for +3 mage magic, and paying out 8 BP for astral projection, astral perception, and way more growth potential. One huge thing to remember about that +3 magic is that directly turns around into an extra -3 when you are concealed.

About the possession mage, I should have made that more clear. All my math has been agnostic about possession vs materialization. I avoided it because it's pretty cheesy and doesn't really shine until you pick up channeling, but completely trumps the numbers we are throwing around here.

[Mäx]

If it makes you wonder 'why?' then it might be that the weapon was selected for that very purpose.

Yes but you were talking about making it look as if it was done by gangers and i just can't see any self respecting gangers carrying light pistols, they would be the laughingstock of the whole neighborhood.

[Ol' Scratch]

About the possession mage, I should have made that more clear. All my math has been agnostic about possession vs materialization. I avoided it because it's pretty cheesy and doesn't really shine until you pick up channeling, but completely trumps the numbers we are throwing around here.

Why Channeling? In SR3 it was all but a requirement to make possession viable. In SR4 you have full control over the spirit possessing you, can still command it, direct it, and otherwise gain exactly the same benefits as Channeling for the most part. The only difference is your mental stats may go down for the duration of the possession if the spirit is of a particularly low Force.

[hyzmarca]

Why Channeling? In SR3 it was all but a requirement to make possession viable. In SR4 you have full control over the spirit possessing you, can still command it, direct it, and otherwise gain exactly the same benefits as Channeling for the most part. The only difference is your mental stats may go down for the duration of the possession if the spirit is of a particularly low Force.

Because you burn Services like a sumbeach if you go that route, chummer. Any management beyond "kill those motherfraggers" and/or "run away very fast" is going to cost a great deal. Channeling has the advantage of letting you micromanage without spending a finite resource every time you issue a command.

[Glyph]

Sorry about that--typo. Yes it's hits, not net hits--as shown by the math I included. First off, I wouldn't say "hypothetical", as I've built several characters along these lines. As for spells with no force-dependency other than limiting hits, here's a list from the BBB:

Antidote
Cure Disease
Decrease Attribute
Heal
Hibernate
Increase Reflexes
Oxygenate
Prophylaxis
Resist Pain

Confusion
Chaos
Invisibility
Improved Invisibility
Mask
Physical Mask
Stealth

Armor
Fling
Ice Sheet
Magic Fingers
Shapechange
[Critter] Form

Also, mental manipulation spells aren't that bad at low force if you don't need them to last more than a few turns, though area and combat spells get fairly hosed. Personally, I usually go with combat spells for my builds anyway, since even a low-force spell can outperform a pistol or melee weapon.

I boggle at "no force-dependency other than limiting hits". That's the biggest limitation of all! The number of hits basically defines how effective the spells are.

I thought your list would be things like Oxygenate with 1 hit to breathe underwater, Prophylaxis with 1 hit to ignore alcohol, etc. Going down your list:

Antidote: the hits determine the number of bonus resistance dice the recipient gets
Cure Disease: the hits determine the number of bonus resistance dice the recipient gets
Decrease Attribute: the attribute is reduced by the spell's net hits
Heal: the hits determine how many points of damage are healed
Hibernate: the hits determine the factor of how much the recipient's metabolism is slowed
Increase Reflexes: (I thought the whole point of your build was to get them with adept powers?) Cast on other people, you could only reach threshold 2, or a +1 bonus, with Force: 2, and I would not recommend overcasting it, due to its high Drain code.
Oxygenate: the hits determine the number of bonus resistance dice the recipient gets. Good at low Force as a cheap way to breathe underwater, though.
Prophylaxis: the hits determine the number of bonus resistance dice the recipient gets. Good at Force: 2 to negate alcohol consumption, though.
Resist Pain: the hits determine how many points of damage are ignored. Good for negating the effects of minor wounds or Drain at low Force.

Confusion, Chaos, Invisibility, Improved Invisibility, Mask, Physical Mask, and Stealth are all resisted spells, where 2 hits is dangerously low, but also juuust high enough Drain that overcasting some of them at Force: 4 risks taking physical Drain.

Armor: net hits determine the degree of armor protection
Fling: Force determines the weight that you can throw. Surprisingly, Magic determines the effective Strength of the attack (so mystic adepts, with their split Magic, still get screwed)
Ice Sheet: net hits determine the threshold for characters slipping. Good for forcing vehicles to make crash tests, though, as that is not dependent on the Force.
Magic Fingers: hits determine the spell's effective Strength and Agility.
Shapechange and [Critter] Form: net hits add to the critter's base physical Attribute ratings. Good if your primary concern is other than combat (turning into a fish to get into an aquatic complex, turning into a mouse to sneak through a small opening, turning into a bird to fly away, etc.).
Missing from the list: Levitate: At low Force, you won't get the same insane flying speeds, but still good for getting into otherwise inaccessible areas, escaping, and snagging small objects such as keys.

Mental manipulations run into the same problems as illusion spells.

[Ryu]

1) Drain Resistance is independant of the Magic attribute. Under the karma system, with magic as your maxxed attribute, you can distribute 3 points for magic, 2 points for adept powers, and forfeit 1 point for some implants. Resulting in Logic 5((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) , Willpower 5 if you want.

2) With usual hits around 5, overcasting is very much an option. Combat magic suffers, but you are not unable to use mundane weapons for killing people, like many fantasy games have it. The attribute-enhancing/decreasing spells are mostly out - their force has to match the attribute of the target IIRC.

[Rad]

I boggle at "no force-dependency other than limiting hits". That's the biggest limitation of all! The number of hits basically defines how effective the spells are.

No. As I pointed out earlier, you're going to be hard pressed to get more than 4 hits on average anyway. I even included the math, which I won't repeat here. Was that TL:DR for you, or did you just want to argue?

I listed all the spells in the BBB whose only effect from force was to limit the number of hits. I didn't take the time to cherry-pick particularly useful/low drain ones, because the argument was about how many spells were like that, not their quality or usefulness.

Confusion, Chaos, Invisibility, Improved Invisibility, Mask, Physical Mask, and Stealth are all resisted spells, where 2 hits is dangerously low, but also juuust high enough Drain that overcasting some of them at Force: 4 risks taking physical Drain.

Again, 4 hits on average means a dicepool of 12. Not supertwink, but not poor by any means. 4 hits is very good for opposed tests, and unless your target has counterspelling 2 hits puts you even with a hardmaxed human.

Missing from the list: Levitate: At low Force, you won't get the same insane flying speeds, but still good for getting into otherwise inaccessible areas, escaping, and snagging small objects such as keys.

You never get insane flying speeds with levitate at chargen. Even with magic 6 you'll be lucky to match a human's running speed without overcasting, and at those levels the drain is indeed dangerous. Force 6 x 4 hits = 24 meters. You're soaking 4 drain to move an average of 1 meter slower than you could just running with a simple action, and you still take -2 for sustaining instead of the -2 penalty for running. Overcast to 10 and you're facing down 6 physical drain for an average of 40 meters.

Mental manipulations run into the same problems as illusion spells.

Which is to say, none. Or at least nothing a softmaxed caster isn't already facing, except that the mental manipulations will wear off faster--which I mentioned in my post.

[WeaverMount]

One of the other big reasons to go with channeling is that it is a lot easier to get bonus dice on a meta human than a spirit. Especially with skill wires. An aug max level stat + 4 skill and cheep bonuses (drugs, hot sim, smart-link) can easily get you into the 15 DP range for any skill you care to get a chip for. You would need F8 Guardian/Task spirits to beat that.

[Falconer]

I'm not a huge fan of possession traditions myself... generally I see them as setting the game to easy mode cheese.

But my real question here is.
Why did they errata mystic adepts changing them from using their full magic rating as the force limiter? (or for adept powers like Attribute Boost).

It seemed like the only thing which made them playable IMO. You could at least cast at reasonable force even if you weren't rolling a lot of dice, while relying on powers like attribute boost instead of improved physical attribute. While adding things like a power focus to the dice pool to make up the difference.

[Jaid]

Again, 4 hits on average means a dicepool of 12. Not supertwink, but not poor by any means. 4 hits is very good for opposed tests, and unless your target has counterspelling 2 hits puts you even with a hardmaxed human.

you really seem to be focused on this "DP 12 = 4 hits" thing. it really isn't as hard or uncommon as you seem to think to get 5 hits on 12 dice. based on that logic, you will never score a glitch, because only 1-in-6 dice will come up 1, but you need 1/2 dice to come up 1 to get a glitch, [edit] yet as anyone who's played the game for a significant length of time can probably tell you, glitches happen.[/edit]

you see, statistically, if you roll 12 billion dice, close to 4 billion of them will probably be hits. when you reduce the numbers to as small a sample as 12 dice though, you don't get anywhere near the same probability that you will come out with 4 hits as there is in the 12 billion dice situation. you will still be wasting hits at force 4 with a DP of 12, just like you will also roll 1, 2, or 3 hits from time to time. DP 12 != 4 hits. it means that over the long run, if you roll often enough, there will be a tendency towards getting an *average* of 4 hits, not that any given roll will have 4 hits.

This post has been edited by Jaid: Sep 21 2008, 03:41 AM

[Cain]

you really seem to be focused on this "DP 12 = 4 hits" thing. it really isn't as hard or uncommon as you seem to think to get 5 hits on 12 dice. based on that logic, you will never score a glitch, because only 1-in-6 dice will come up 1, but you need 1/2 dice to come up 1 to get a glitch, [edit] yet as anyone who's played the game for a significant length of time can probably tell you, glitches happen.[/edit]

you see, statistically, if you roll 12 billion dice, close to 4 billion of them will probably be hits. when you reduce the numbers to as small a sample as 12 dice though, you don't get anywhere near the same probability that you will come out with 4 hits as there is in the 12 billion dice situation. you will still be wasting hits at force 4 with a DP of 12, just like you will also roll 1, 2, or 3 hits from time to time. DP 12 != 4 hits. it means that over the long run, if you roll often enough, there will be a tendency towards getting an *average* of 4 hits, not that any given roll will have 4 hits.

Give they guy a break, will ya?

Yes, he's talking averages. Yes, what's average doesn't always happen. But heck, if we broke things down by every possible combination the dice can offer, we wouldn't get anywhere. And as far as botches go, I have an unbroken string of botches, at least one per game, every time I'm GM'ed Shadowrun since, oh, about the late 90's. During most of that time, a botch was defined as "all 1's", so you'd think it'd come up less often. My record is 12 or 13 dice. If you want to hear weird, I've yet to score a major critical botch in SR4; I've only had minor ones, when I didn't have many dice to begin with. So, if I were to offer myself as an example of what's typical, I'd be flamed in notime flat. But I can guarantee you, the next time I GM, I will have at least one critical botch-- my luck just runs that way.

Besides which, the guy is pretty much wrong everywhere else. Don't harp on him for numbers that are close to the expected values.

[Glyph]

The numbers are close to the expected values - for a DP of 12. But most mages, while not "supertwink", will still have a DP of more than 12 (judging mainly by the PBP submissions I have seen, not only mine, but those of others). Soft-maxed Magic, spellcasting of 6 with a specialization, a Power Focus: 2, and a mentor spirit will get a mage up to 17 dice, where the average is closer to 6 hits. And even the DP 12 guy will roll 5 or more hits on occasion.

The math was pretty simple, but the underlying examples rang false to me. I haven't seen too many mages with a DP of 12, or too many sammies with light pistols. His assertion is that "a Mystic Adept with Improved Reflexes and a few choice combat spells can outperform a cyber or bio-enhanced street sam for less BP". Maybe in a game where a 12 DP and light pistols are common, but not in most games I have seen.