Why is Mystic Adept cheaper than Magician? Options

[Cthulhudreams]

Don't underestimate how effective watching is. Unlike D&D fantasy, you're fighting societies and organisations in Shadowrun. If a mage is following you around, the lone star HTRT will find you... eventually.

[Kerenshara]

Actually that line up only costs 1/2 a mil which is considerably less than just the delta synaptic boosters (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Really though you can make a perfectly well rounded sammie built around the equipment I linked before, it's hardly munchkinitis. The guy has B&E capability, is extremely stealth capability, perception, and can perform covert assassinations at close and long range. Weakest area is, as always, legwork - but you've going to use him for survillance, shadowing etc.

I said overboard, not munchie. And I assumed you'd want better than base 'ware. I guess I was trying to point out that if we're beyond early characters (how fast does the nuyen come in for YOUR team in the early going?) we might as well jump to prime runners with final cinematic builds. Yours was certainly less bad than some I have seen; At least it was more in line with something a "real" sammie might consider, and things like bioware are more "upgradable" so they could be added onto later.

Karenshara:
No putting all 5 out of 5 points into spellcasting isn't not exploring the MA's nature... especially if the player takes adept powers as he develops. Such a char is pretty gimped compared to a straight magician w/o astral perception already. And to get astral perception he has to sacrifice a point of magic. The problem comes down to 'astral scrubbing' and counterspelling... any spells he casts and sustains can be dispelled by an astral mage pretty much at will. Any spells he casts will leave astral signatures which will point right back at him and lead to a fairly short life as a shadow mage.

That line in there, is mostly to prevent this abuse. I'm playing a straight adept... but I buy MA just so I can learn counterspelling... nothing else, just counterspelling (rather than buying the adept power of magic resistance w/ PP). That is abuse to me.

A similar weaker case, where instead of killing hands for spirits... you could use the attack of will (street magic) as a face type adept and replace it w/ the skill banishing.

I didn't say 5 of 5, I said 6 of 6, max for a starting character. At least that's what I think I said. I was talking about taking 5/1 or 1/5 being perfectly acceptable at start, so long as you were really working on it. The only time I think taking less might be apropriate is if your initial magic score was 3 or less, and I would say at 2 I would not worry too much. But that's not the case. As to your taking MA just for counterspelling and never taking a single point in sorcery... you can't. If you need a "spellcasting Magic score" of >0, you would need a single point, which would be fine. IOW, you can't counterspell with [Counterspelling + 0]. If you could, just having ANY magic score would be sufficient and a regular adept could take it. Remember, when dealing with a Mystic Adept, ONLY the points put into spellcasting count for "Mage" related powers. SR4A, P.122: Only characters with the Magician or Mystic Adept quality and a Magic attribute of 1 or greater may take or use Magic skills. As to dispelling my spells, you can't touch them from the astral, unles they're in a sustaining focus. And if I have Extended Masking, you have to beat my masking first to be able to target the active (dual-natured) foci from the astral. And I will eventually take Astral Perception so I can assense people - a very useful ability. Low level spells have their astral signatures fade more quickly, and I dial the mojo to the minimum for the job, always. The only mention of NEEDING assensing or astral access is SR4A, P.198: The initiate must have assensed someone else’s astral signature in order to forge it. The other functions of Flexible Signature don't mention needing anything at all.

[Jaid]

kerenshara: you don't use your magic attribute for counterspelling.

[Octopiii]

So wait, we're comparing the monetary cost, but not the essence cost, conceability or availibity? Damn, well, lets just compare on the basis of essence cost then, I imagine that will create a meaningful comparison.

See, I can get this bling for less essence, it must be better.

Snip

Actually wait no that is a stupid comparison.

Ahh, Smartassery. Impossible to pick that up all that chargen. Synaptic Boosters 3 is 240k by itself - good luck not dying long enough to afford the rest of your toys.

kerenshara: you don't use your magic attribute for counterspelling.

You do for sustained spells.

[Muspellsheimr]

kerenshara: you don't use your magic attribute for counterspelling.

You do not for Spell Defense. You do for Dispelling.

Regardless, you loose 'all magical abilities' if your Magic is reduced to 0. Not if your Magic dedicated to spellcasting is reduced to 0, or some other similar situation.

There is nothing requiring a Mystic Adept to have points dedicated to spellcasting to use Counterspelling, & they could even technically cast spells if they dedicated points to Spellcasting (they would just be Force 0, & thus have no actual effect).

[Falconer]

Jaid:
Interesting just double checked that... learn something new... the dispelling rules explicitly say that the dispeller needs to be on the same plane. It doesn't say the spell isn't active on the astral though.

If you have an active focus or an active spell... it is clearly visible on the astral. Since astral only mana barriers will stop an active spell or focus, we'd always assumed that they were targetable in the astral, if not the character benefiting. (not grounding out... just removing the spell effect)

Also interesting, because Digital Grimoire, had the Disrupt [Focus] combat spel... as a direct LOS spell that would be usable while astral, and the book states active foci have an active form on the astral.


I understand the point on empathic... but it's a stretch to say it's not magical healing, it's an adept power. So if you use it, you're just moving damage to yourself to first aid away, then try to heal yourself. In fact, the power states it's subject to all the same modifiers as magical healing by spell... if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck... it's most likely a duck.


On the skill itself, again I understand your point regards how many boxes can be healed. However, it's unlikely... remember first-aid is a threshhold 2 test. Meaning to heal 6 boxes you need 8 hits. (after taking dice penalties for cyber/magic/unsanitized field conditions/self wounds). Failing that, the straight mage w/ mag6 and same focus would be rolling 3 more dice on the heal spell.

[toturi]

If not the setting, then what should they be modeled upon? Or are you suggesting that the rules come first and that the setting should thus incorporate every facet of the rules - including wildly silly corner cases?

BTW, your weak attempts to reverse my statements into your arguments with are getting pretty lame - you're sounding like the jackass mentor from Mystery Men. If you have something to say, try being a bit more straightforward with less game-playing.

It does not matter which ever comes first. That decision is up to the writers and developers. What we see as the setting is different for everyone but the rules remain the same. The rules should be able to produce whatever is possible in the setting including wildly silly corner cases.

I have tried so far to refrain from making personal comments. I will say instead that game playing is straightforward if you play it by RAW.

[Cthulhudreams]

I said overboard, not munchie. And I assumed you'd want better than base 'ware. I guess I was trying to point out that if we're beyond early characters (how fast does the nuyen come in for YOUR team in the early going?) we might as well jump to prime runners with final cinematic builds. Yours was certainly less bad than some I have seen; At least it was more in line with something a "real" sammie might consider, and things like bioware are more "upgradable" so they could be added onto later.

Yeah, getting better than base bioware is a stupidly long term objective. It has 'low essence cost' built right in, so you're not looking to pick up high costs.

that is the starting package I'd recommend for pretty much any street sammie - hence I was discussing starting characters. You can make that straight out of the basic book. It's flexible so you can move with the campaign, it's expandable (unlike builds with wired reflexes ho ho ho) so you can get new stuff installed, it isn't measurably illegal so you are unobtrusive so there are few risks regardless of the setting picked.

[Octopiii]

Way to go you FINALLY made a semi-usefull MA... after I pointed out the char concept as one of the few usefull ones how many pages ago?! After specifically pointing out that a MA w/ a good mentor and specialization in a single line of spells like health can be effective.

Oh, my other characters are plenty useful, you just have blinders on. Which brings us to the crux of why you think M.A.'s suck:

Though to critique... this is a char who really wants astral perception, most of the adept healing abilities are junk. Astral perception also has medical uses (think of it as a magical CAT scan ability) in assisting diagnosing things in the field. Plus EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR ADEPTS HAS LACKED THE ABILITY TO WIPE OUT HIS ASTRAL SIGNATURES!!! despite having a spellcasting focus... they leave spellcasting fingerprints all over the place. Those will get you tracked down and eliminated. Using stunbolt in combat will need to be wiped, in fact w/ your low magic you're really better off w/ a gun than an attack spell outside your specialty. The primary reason to have a direct combat spell is to defend yourself against spirits and astral mages.

As I have pointed out several times, most of my M.A. spells are either: A. Not going to leave a signature where they have to worry about it being assensed (such as their body) or B. Get cast at such a low level I would be surprised if someone would find the time to get a Mage, have them find the spell's signature (which would require them to assense many many cubic feat of area - it's not as if already cast spells exude shimmery "look at me" signs. C. I can diagnose people with first aid. It's a complex action. Why waste points getting assesing high enough to get 3 success (the amount you need to actually determine the cause of injury/illness)?

Besides, your bleeting about Astral Signatures is misplaced. You can't use a signature to track a mage. Page 193, SR4a: "Active spells are linked to their casters, spirits are linked to their casters, astrally projecting mages are linked to their physical bodies, and foci and magical lodges are linked to the magicians who activated them." So what do Astral signatures do? They allow a mage to recognize a signature if they see it again by that same mage. So, uh, wah? I need to astrally perceive why again?

Read the astral section of the book. W/O extended masking you stand out like a sore thumb on the astral already. Now you're adding active spells to make your brightly glowing aura glow even brighter. And don't forget, your increase reflexes spell is only one counter spell from being wiped out. Especially by a purely astral projecting mage you can do nothing about.

Your magic is way too high... 5/5 is enough... ditch the worthless adept heals. That's why you have the heal spell right. Actually read Pain relief... 5minute per box healed... you're almost better just taking a nap under medical supervision.

empathic healing.. pointless only transfers physical.. and you can only apply magical healing once per set of wounds (just like you can only apply first aid once, and only before magical healing).

These points have all been countered. So I light up in the astral, so friggen what? Astral mage is going to manifest and.... what? Be stern?

Worthless adept heals? Actually, now that I think about it, Pain Relief does kind of suck. I didn't notice the threshold before; that really gimps it. lame! I'm taking that power out. But Empathic Healing is pretty good: I get to heal the same set of wounds twice with it. Let's do the numbers:

[ Spoiler ]

Big Boy Bubba is a tough, willful troll. He has 9 Body and 5 Willpower for 13 Physical and 11 Stun. Bubba bites off more than he can chew: his physical track is filled, and he's in Overflow for oh, 8 boxes of damage. To top it off, his Stun track is filled too. He will die, soon, and even if saved will be out of action for a long, long time; but we're in the middle of a run and we can't just drag him out! First, he stabilizes Bubba; even with a bunch of modifiers I think with a 21dp pool we can assume he makes the 2 threshold.

Ok, but we still have the problem that Bubba's too damn heavy to carry around, and we can't leave him. Now that's he's stabilized, we use First Aid on him: again, 21dp, say -2 for conditions, gives us 6 hits, after going over the threshold of 2, we cure 4 boxes. That's not going to cut it, so we use Edge to reroll our failures, giving us ~3 more hits, which conveniently enough puts us right next to our healing cap. Bubba is now almost out of overflow. Next, our Mage then casts Heal at force 4, with a dv of (4/2-2=0). With 12 dice to resist drain, I think he can handle that. With his spellcasting dp of 13, let's assume he's average and heals 4 boxes. Bubba has now gone from 21 boxes of physical damage to 10. He's all out of overflow!

Next, Band-aid applies Empathic healing, hitting for an average of 3 boxes moved over (almost 4!), which takes 6 seconds. It has now been a total of 27 seconds. Next, he first aids himself; let's assume he can cure 3 boxes of damage with just his first aid roll; 9 more seconds. Next, he casts Awaken at Force 3 (the amount of Bubba's Stun wound modifiers). Since we can average 4 hits with healing spells, let's assume we hit the 3 threshold - Bubba is now awake and ambulatory!

Sustaining that spell with his spell focus, he casts Resist Pain on him at Force 4, again averaging 4 hits. Bubba ignores 4 boxes of damage for wound modifier purposes, effectively giving him one dice back to all his actions. Band-aid needs to sustain this for 12 seconds before it becomes permanent.

Bubba has gone from 21 boxes of Physical damage, 11 boxes of stun, and -10 wound penalties to 7 boxes of physical, 11 boxes of stun, able to move around, and suffering -4 in wound penalties, and this is just using averages.

You also quickly illustrate one of the problems mystic adepts suffer. In order to bring their magic up to usable... they really need to rely heavily on focus crutches. (power focus). So much so that a minor background count hurts you a bit. (in fact, a strong case can be made for going for a better power focus using restricted gear and dropping magic from 6->5). And to really be combat worthy, you'd want a sustaining focus for your increase reflexes.

Several of my builds use no Foci. Try not to ignore them. My M.A.'s don't use spells against people who are resisting, so you don't really need a gigantic dice pool; Band-aid is the only one, and I'm thinking about changing that.

In the end, if you're out just to heal like this... what do you gain by going MA over magician. A logic tradition mage, would have a much more potent spellcasting pool (especially w/ the power focus). All for 3 less dice on the first aid check, and a bunch of magical healings you can't use more than one of anyhow.

3 less dice, and also 3 less boxes potentially healed - First Aid does not let you heal more boxes than you have first aid skill points. Empathic healing lets him heal ~3 more boxes on top of that.

The key to making this adept work and differentiate it from the straight mage is to give it some character and branch it out a little more into other adept powers as fitting.

Hmm, what on earth have I done five times over now? Show me a mage who can duplicate the abilities that any of my M.A.'s can do. The closest you can get is with my security rigger (which you hate, by the way), and even then Astral projection/perception is useless to a character that spends most of its time in VR.

Edit: Did a few changes to Band-Aid, scenario changed slightly but bottom line remains the same.

[Cthulhudreams]

Oh, my other characters are plenty useful, you just have blinders on. Which brings us to the crux of why you think M.A.'s suck:


These points have all been countered. So I light up in the astral, so friggen what? Astral mage is going to manifest and.... what? Be stern?

Err, call lone star? Repeatedly? Until you die? A tactic for which there is only one counter? Which you don't have? Part of this thread seems to be the assumption that the GM is only going to give you challenges you can deal with effectively, at which point you may as well be totally unable to do anything except shoot.

[Octopiii]

Err, call lone star? Repeatedly? Until you die? A tactic for which there is only one counter? Which you don't have? Part of this thread seems to be the assumption that the GM is only going to give you challenges you can deal with effectively, at which point you may as well be totally unable to do anything except shoot.

"Oh, dear, Lone Star sir, this person has a spell on his person! Please come, and take him away!" Spells are not illegal per se. If i'm in a corp facility, they're definitely not calling Lone Star: that sticky extra-territoriality thing and all.

If you're in an area you're not supposed to be, such as in a back room in a party, it really doesn't matter if you have spells up or not. They see your aura in the astral, they call security. Awakened or Mundane, so I'm not sure the difference here. That's when the teams Mage (you do remember a Mystic Adept is not a Mage, correct?) does something about it. Or, my Mystic Adept'ss spirit: "Spirit, if someone comes sniffing around us astrally, destroy them. Thanks." Hell, I don't even need astral perception, I have my spirit-summoner link.

[Cthulhudreams]

Why wouldn't Ares call knight errant? They are actually the same people.

Anyway, that aside - its not purely the spotting you that is important. It's the ability to follow you that really counts. Without any ability to 'shake' the tail you're screwed.

Incidentally, one spirit will lose against an astrally projecting mage because he is there, and you are not. Presumably he will have his own spirits (and watchers!) but can also throw his own weight into the fight.

As for the role duplication.. yeah, thats role duplication. Lets go back to that list of what we need to do

Cast Healing Magic.
Use a Medkit.
Kill Things.
Operate heavy machinery.
Stealthfully enter restricted areas.
Fast talk themselves into restricted areas.
Successfully fight a force 8 spirit by themselves.
Spy magically.
Spy electronically.
Spy optically.
Control escape routes with their mind.
Collect information from the Matrix.
Track down restricted equipment.
Bypass doors.
Destroy entire installations.
Triangle Button cars.
Smuggle PCs into/out of various countries.

Doubling up somewhere just makes you weak somewhere else - it's like Sun Tzu said "Strong on the left, weak on the right, strong in the centre, weak on the wings, strong everwhere - weak everywhere"

If you double up on summoning, healing, magery etc (because lets face it, a mystic adept with summoning, some spells, counterspelling etc does a lot of what a mage does), you're going to eat it somewhere else. In a party of three with two mages, I suspect you're going to lose out on the rigging or the talking, but YMMV.

[Octopiii]

Yes, yes, but then again, does having more than one person who has a gun and sneak around make a team worthless? No.

As to tracking - First, a Mage can only project for (magic) hours. At the end of that time, his astral form dies and his meat body goes into a permanent coma. So, I don't think a Mage is going to randomly gallivant around in the astral unless he has a good reason at that moment. It's kind of like how Lone Star could place a SWAT team at every street corner, but don't, as it it's a waste of resources. The built in time limit gives us an inherent "shake the tail" - he can't follow us forever; and when he goes back to inform someone where we're at, he'll have to re-find the team again. Astral projection is not quite the "I win!" button you make it out to be.

As to astral combat: I have an advantage - they cannot effect me at all if I don't project/perceive. So I can summon, and summon, and summon, but I can tell my spirit to focus on the mage, who will eventually go down.

[Ard3]

Next, our Mage then casts Heal at force 4, with a dv of (4/2-2=0). With 12 dice to resist drain, I think he can handle that.

No, Heal has drain (damage-2). So if I calculated right, mage has to resist drain (14-2) = 12S. Ouch.
Assuming average 4 hits, that is still 8S. He might be bit woozy after that.

[Octopiii]

Oops, you're right! Still, I think it's Drain = Damage value you choose to heal, right? If it's not, then it's probably best to do Empathic Healing first.

[Cthulhudreams]

Yes, yes, but then again, does having more than one person who has a gun and sneak around make a team worthless? No.

Sure, but the weakest link gets caught with stealth. Conversely, you don't usually want 3 guys who all have the same counter spelling pool because only 1 applies, nor do you want 3 guys who can all triangle button cars. You also don't need two guys with black market skillz - the one guy can just do that for everyone.

It's like you don't want two demolitions experts either.

[ Spoiler ]

On the mage thing - the mage assigned to the HTRT in Ghost Cartels has 4 bound spirits. You'll just get your butt kicked doing the summon summon thing because the spirits will rip your face off before you get to act as a freshly summoned spirit. Also incidently, why don't you think it works on you? Finally, the duration thing is a bit silly.. watchers! Assuming that the cops cannot find you with your precise location being reported at all times in under an hour anyway.

[Octopiii]

Sure, but the weakest link gets caught with stealth. Conversely, you don't usually want 3 guys who all have the same counter spelling pool because only 1 applies, nor do you want 3 guys who can all triangle button cars. You also don't need two guys with black market skillz - the one guy can just do that for everyone.

It's like you don't want two demolitions experts either.

[ Spoiler ]

On the mage thing - the mage assigned to the HTRT in Ghost Cartels has 4 bound spirits. You'll just get your butt kicked doing the summon summon thing because the spirits will rip your face off before you get to act as a freshly summoned spirit. Also incidently, why don't you think it works on you? Finally, the duration thing is a bit silly.. watchers! Assuming that the cops cannot find you with your precise location being reported at all times in under an hour anyway.

Mages beyond the first with Counterspelling count as team-work, so on average the other two guys are adding a die each to your spell resistance. P.185. I don't see doubling up on magic ability nearly the same as doubling up on black market connections or demolitions- they're not even close to the same amount of usefulness as magic ability.

I think Ghost Cartels is not really intended for starting characters. If we start moving into that realm, why not have two mages with 4 bound spirits? Or 3? Second, I don't think it works on me because they need to manifest to have an effect upon me, in which case I have my team backing me up in that fight. Last, Watchers have a terrible dice pool, and they WILL die if I sick a spirit on them.

[Falconer]

Also, your example has another problem.

You first aid the guy, then you heal the guy. (Once heal is used, you cannot use magical healing again, and you can't use heal on someone who's been magically healed already).
Then you empathic him (go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. another magical healing... you either heal or you empathic, one, not both)

I see the partial value in it for giving 2 cracks at first aid... one on him, once on me.

Also, first aid is limited by the higher of two things... the quality of the medkit (EG: anyone can heal 6 boxes w/ a rating 6), or your skill. Granted having the skill is by far preferable. But to get 6, we need 8 net hits anyhow, AFTER PENALTIES. (I'm always amazed how many people forget to add the negative dice pool mods that first aid/medicine impose) then turn around and complain about fast healing in the game.

Also, astral signatures can be written down and described. Think of it a an APB of sorts. It wouldn't shock me if the magic division cops have their own version of 'fingerprint' software for identifying mages traces left behind at crime scenes.

[HappyDaze]

Why wouldn't Ares call knight errant? They are actually the same people.

Why doesn't the National Park Service call in the US Army Rangers? They are actually the same people (US Federal Governement).

No.

Just because a security company is part of the same megacorp as another branch - like Ares Aerospace and Knight Errant - does not make them the 'same people'. Megacorps are just way too big for that kind of thinking - just as thinking of all branches of the US government as a the 'smae people' is an error. Besides, there are likely as many Ares-owned facilities using non-KE (or other Ares-owned) security providers in situations where the Ares-owned companies were underbid for the contract.

[Kerenshara]

kerenshara: you don't use your magic attribute for counterspelling.

Yeah, the presentation suked. It was getting late. I knew what I was shooting for (I think I got it out finally in a usable form where I quoted from the BBB about needing the stat to take the skill) but never went back to finish editing the post before I hit "add". Sorry.

[Kerenshara]

There is nothing requiring a Mystic Adept to have points dedicated to spellcasting to use Counterspelling, & they could even technically cast spells if they dedicated points to Spellcasting (they would just be Force 0, & thus have no actual effect).

And the wording is STILL drekky in SR4A about how the split magic stat is applied. What lets a Mystic Adept do "magey" things is the single point they were EXPECTED to have put into casting at least minimal spells. If they never put a point into magic, they can't "cast", so how could they "counter cast"? I am sure it could be argued, but between the disclaimer about "really exploring their nature" and the FAQ "clarifications" about split application, and the fact that you DO need the split stat component to DISSPEL a sustained spell - that IS part of the skill - I think it logically stands to reason that if you built a MA with no points in the spellcasting split, you would not have access to counterspelling per the rule for all Magic-Linked skills - otherwise adepts would be on the approved list too. They probably didn't bother to be explicit because they couldn't think of anybody choosing to build a character that way. Most "broken" characters in any game system wind up occuring in the areas the Devs never bother wandering into.

[Cthulhudreams]

Why doesn't the National Park Service call in the US Army Rangers? They are actually the same people (US Federal Governement).

No.

Just because a security company is part of the same megacorp as another branch - like Ares Aerospace and Knight Errant - does not make them the 'same people'. Megacorps are just way too big for that kind of thinking - just as thinking of all branches of the US government as a the 'smae people' is an error. Besides, there are likely as many Ares-owned facilities using non-KE (or other Ares-owned) security providers in situations where the Ares-owned companies were underbid for the contract.

The original position was that megacorps don't have on call security details because they are extraterritorial

I said that is total madness - why wouldn't Ares have off site/on call security details - KE is actually part of the same business (and thus wouldn't violate jurisdiction you get the idea) and they provide off site/on call security details

Now you're are rampantly agreeing with me by saying that they DO have off site/on call security details - from a range of vendors and thus jurisdiction in mega-corporate environments can even be delegated.

Why is my position wrong? (incidently if you go out of insane-o land, the national park service would call in the cops, which is a pretty standard response)

[Kerenshara]

Yeah, getting better than base bioware is a stupidly long term objective. It has 'low essence cost' built right in, so you're not looking to pick up high costs.

that is the starting package I'd recommend for pretty much any street sammie - hence I was discussing starting characters. You can make that straight out of the basic book. It's flexible so you can move with the campaign, it's expandable (unlike builds with wired reflexes ho ho ho) so you can get new stuff installed, it isn't measurably illegal so you are unobtrusive so there are few risks regardless of the setting picked.

I personally really like the "sneaky" aspect of your build, but I can't help thinking it's awfully... I'm not sure honestly what bothers me. Something is missing. Personally, I would rather (starting out) cut it back to just the first extra IP and add something else in place. You shouldn't be facing security (or whatever) jacked that hard that you require three passes to start. I mean, how many NPCs in the modules have that level of speed that aren't leutenant or higher? How many people don't even have a second pass early on (or even later)? I guess that's it after all: too much emphasis (for me) on the IP. Drek, go ahead and install Reaction Enhancers instead of the bonus level and I would probably sign off more easily. It's preference, mostly. I forget now it it was you or not any more, but remember that EVERY item that isn't shielded by a RF Blocking sheath is going to show up on a CyberScanner (read: millimeter wave penetrating radar). This technology (surface only scans for now) is in prototype already for use at airports, and isn't much more massive than the usual MAD gateway. It provides an image of the full body with clear representations of all objects about the body. Anything non-organic with any density is going to have a chance to show. And if you're serious about protecting a site, you want to know about the sammy walking in the door if you can. And as a final note on that line, computers don't just recognize faces: they recognize objects. You didn't assemble your monofilament whip from a dowel, an eye hook and a piece of monofilament dental floss. You got it pre-made, and I guarantee you every decent corp is going to have a fully up-to-date registry of every "F" and "R" item in production or made in the last couple decades in a database the gateway can register, and flag items as contraband, going so far even as to highlight them for the guard as to where to look. Chem Sniffers would also be a logical synergistic technology. So it's not all about the MAD signature - that's low security stuff anyhow.

Err, call lone star? Repeatedly? Until you die? A tactic for which there is only one counter? Which you don't have? Part of this thread seems to be the assumption that the GM is only going to give you challenges you can deal with effectively, at which point you may as well be totally unable to do anything except shoot.

Emphasis mine.

Thank you.

There is a world of diference between "that you can [not] deal with effectively" and "beyond your level". As long as the power level is comparable (meaning neither overpowered nor pointless) to your own, it's the GM's responsibility to stretch the capabilities of the characters (and more importantly, the PLAYERS) with challengest that are NOT what they are properly suited for. If a group has no astral capability, for example, and chooses not to employ an NPC mage to correct that defficiency, then the GM is remiss if they DON'T start coming after you astrally and making your lives difficult until you get the message. I could go into other examples, but I think I made my point.

[Cthulhudreams]

Hey look, there are rules for concealing items through checkpoints - the test is called for right there in the book.

If you follow the rules for this sort of thing, the simple fact of the matter is a guy at a checkpoint isn't going to pass the tests because his pool is going to be like 3 + 3 (skill/stat, professional rating) + 4 (vision enhancement/sensors) -4 (conceability of a monowhip) for a total DP of 6 against which he has to beat 7 (agility) + 4 (palming) or DP 11. The sammie is always going to win that game, especially because the security guard needs net successes, so even if he finds two more dice from somewhere, he still doesn't have enough going on when buying successes to beat the sammie.

Plus the other great thing about the sammie is that he just isn't suspicious. There is no other sign to give you even a modest hint that the guy is armed and extremely dangerous.

Plus the other thing is, as a monowhip is just a length of wire, some sort of spring/spoiling mechanism and a weight, the logical thing to do is make it look like something else. A big dangly earring would work well. Just a thought. I mean ina wrld in which item recognition software was very widespread, it would make sense to conceal illegal items in something else. Your cigarette case for example would work a treat. Or your belt buckle to pick a very common favourite. Heck, tucking your monowhip in your belt buckle should probably be enough, point of concealment checks (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

If thats not enough of course there is a weapon mod in arsenal that you could use instead.

Incidently you can get a cyberware scanner in an RFID tag and staple that to your belt - and you'd be mad not to.

[Kerenshara]

Hey look, there are rules for concealing items through checkpoints - the test is called for right there in the book.

If you follow the rules for this sort of thing, the simple fact of the matter is a guy at a checkpoint isn't going to pass the tests because his pool is going to be like 3 + 3 (skill/stat, professional rating) + 4 (vision enhancement/sensors) -4 (conceability of a monowhip) for a total DP of 6 against which he has to beat 7 (agility) + 4 (palming) or DP 11. The sammie is always going to win that game, especially because the security guard needs net successes, so even if he finds two more dice from somewhere, he still doesn't have enough going on when buying successes to beat the sammie.

Plus the other great thing about the sammie is that he just isn't suspicious. There is no other sign to give you even a modest hint that the guy is armed and extremely dangerous.

Plus the other thing is, as a monowhip is just a length of wire, some sort of spring/spoiling mechanism and a weight, the logical thing to do is make it look like something else. A big dangly earring would work well. Just a thought.

Oh, you must have missed all the old stuff on monofilament in 1st and 2nd ed. It's fiendishly dangerous stuff. You WANT a highly controlable grip, and you NEED to be able to "reel" it away. And I wasn't talking about the cop themselves - the system rolls against your carried item's threshold(s) to send up a warning. If it tells her right where to look, and shows her a picture of what she's supposed to find, the dice pool modifier is going to be huge in their favor, and they will have REASON to be suspicious if it lists "Class 1 Contraband" as being found. The system doesn't need "net" successes, it just needs to pass a threshold using its rating. Most won't find good 'ware (Delta taking 4 hits to find), and the modifiers cap at 4 or more pieces (+2) to ping (nano-cyber is always treated as individual bits, threshold 5). THAT's why even Alphaware is so useful: takes 2 hits to find and a rating 3 scanner usually won't manage. Now do you see what I have been driving at?