Why is Mystic Adept cheaper than Magician? Options

[Cthulhudreams]

I edited my post after you started writing yours I'm guessing - but yeah, if just putting it inside a lipstick tube and handing it over with the rest of the dross in your handbag isn't okay (which it should be, because a cyberware scanner is predicated on looking through oranic material which your makeup case isn't, letting your roll concealment again), using the weapon mode in arsenal that makes it indistinguishable as a weapon will make it okay - easy breakdown, 8R page 315. Then you have perfect concealment back. Just screw it together in the bathroom.

[Kerenshara]

I edited my post after you started writing yours I'm guessing - but yeah, if just putting it inside a lipstick tube and handing it over with the rest of the dross in your handbag isn't okay (which it should be, because a cyberware scanner is predicated on looking through oranic material which your makeup case isn't, letting your roll concealment again), using the weapon mode in arsenal that makes it indistinguishable as a weapon will make it okay - easy breakdown, 8R page 315. Then you have perfect concealment back. Just screw it together in the bathroom.

Okay, now you're getting someplace, but I still think a lipstick tube is going to be too small for safe control. You need to be able to have full wrist control to keep the thing from coming back on you. And easy breakdown isn't really apropriate to all weapons (as far as the disguisable thing... and how do you break down the blade of a katana?). I suppose you could have the reel in one item, the weight in another, and figure some way to use a hairbrush or something as a larger handle... but that's pushing it... a lot. And the "Running the Shadows" section at the back of the BBB expressley states a cyberscanner is good at finding concealed weapons, too. It's getting an echo off everything about your person - keys, cards, comlink, watch, condoms, comb, disinfectant gel (especially, since it could be liquid explosive - works already IRL), nazal spray, vibroknife, 'trodes, the lifts in your shoes to compensate for the height you think birth denied you, sunglasses, non-metalic silenced heavy pistol, chewing gum... you know, stuff like that; It's not just for cyberware. *grin* The cyberware scanner can penetrate low density materials, as well. Think of it like an x-ray machine mashed with an MRI in that regard. It can see inside the lipstick tube. (They wouldn't bother with the "hand it over" routine any more if the gate could do it faster and easier.)

[Cthulhudreams]

Again, if you don't like any particular trick, the easy breakdown feature means you can disguise it as shiny bling or a trode net so it doesn't particularly matter.

[Kerenshara]

Again, if you don't like any particular trick, the easy breakdown feature means you can disguise it as shiny bling or a trode net so it doesn't particularly matter.

Note, I did say "pushing it... a lot." I didn't say it was entirely impossible. But even then, the self-retracting spool of monofilament is going to have a CHANCE of showing up... I still say there are easier ways.

[Octopiii]

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.

Empathic Heal is not the same as Heal, despite having the word "Heal" in the title. If it conflicted with the Heal spell, I would imagine that the write-up in the power's description would mention it. The only limitation given to us re: Empathic Heal is that "Empathic Heal can only be used once on any given set of wounds." Since the process does not Heal wounds (despite the name) but rather transfers them, I don't see the conflict.

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.

They can? "The suspect had an aura that reminded me of chocolate, containing swirls of daydreams and emotional unavailability. The over-all color was blue." Since the core doesn't really go into what an Astral Signatures look like, you can make it into however you want in your game, but I have a hard time seeing how a Signature can be described to someone else. I've always thought that Auras and recognition worked on a pre-cognative (i.e., magic) level - you just know if you've seen an Aura or Signature before within the heart of your magic being.

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

I didn't say that. I said that Lone Star was not going to be entering a facility (which is what you first stated). Once you leave extraterritorial grounds, you're ok - you haven't broken any UCAS laws, because you were not on UCAS territory.

[HappyDaze]

I don't think astal signatures can be written down or transcribed. the closest you could come would be 'telephone' (the game) style by magicans playing with Flexible Signature to show the next guy down the line what the sig looked like. Even then, a copy of a copy of a copy... should lead to a diminished signature.

[Falconer]

Actually thought of another problem w/ empathic healing. It's magical healing face it... you can say it all you want.. it's a form of magical healing, it's HEALING the target w/ magical power. It says it's subject to the exact same dice penalties to the heal spell. The heal spell states magical healing will only work once... so if you heal him... you can't empathic... if you empathic, you can't heal.


Also empathic transfer very explicitly uses the word transfer. If it's a transfer, then it eliminates a problem I just thought of... we have 2 adepts. They proceed to empathic one... then first aid... then empathic back, then first aid... if each time it's empathic'd it's a new set of wounds then it's valid, and a repetitive loop. If it's a transfer, then that damage has already been first aided away and isn't elgible for another test. I'm raising that as it's a catch-22 that only just crossed my mind.


Karenshara:
You have a very odd viewpoint coming from SR2... that's so oldschool (hehe). I pretty much missed out on SR2 and 3.. But all I can say, is a lot of the things you bring up I've never seen in the 4th rulebook.

I still don't think it's abusive for a mystic adept to start as a pure spellslinger or adept. As the cost (5BP for magician gets you so much more... and 5BP more only gives you the option to be a weak spellcaster if you're already a full adept in magic investment).

You must have missed my point... I SAID IT WAS AN ABUSE TO GO MYSTIC ADEPT ONLY TO COUNTERSPELL... and listed it explicitly as an abuse of the type I thought the text referred to. And at that point, the GM should just go... no you can't do that. Keep it up and prepare to start burning edge.

If I'm making an adept... I like to take mystic adept... just so I have the option of picking up spellcasting or summoning later. That's 5BP lost in chargen. I don't see how that's abusive at all.

[Cthulhudreams]

Note, I did say "pushing it... a lot." I didn't say it was entirely impossible. But even then, the self-retracting spool of monofilament is going to have a CHANCE of showing up... I still say there are easier ways.

The obvious thing to do would be (to me) is to seperate the spool and the spooler - probably by concealing the spool in some sort of cable (optical fiber would be a favorite as lots of people carry that to connect their datajacks to their commlinks) and the spooler in lipstick or your commlink or whatever.

Concealment there would be very good - optical fiber is currently very thin strands of plastic or glass that causes grievous bodily harm by just brushing against you so picking the legal ones from the illegal one would be hard, an optical cable would have dongles on either end to conceal the interlock mechanism, and finding a spooler in a commlink would be difficult.

(Intresting aside, glass fibres from fibre optics are so dangerous that left overs from terminating optical fibres in australia are called 'sharps' and have to be treated as medical waste)

Or, you could just have a completely legit spooler - in say a set of portable headphones.

[Octopiii]

Actually thought of another problem w/ empathic healing. It's magical healing face it... you can say it all you want.. it's a form of magical healing, it's HEALING the target w/ magical power. It says it's subject to the exact same dice penalties to the heal spell. The heal spell states magical healing will only work once... so if you heal him... you can't empathic... if you empathic, you can't heal.

That's an interesting assertion. Let's put it this way. I have 2 Nuyen; I transfer that 2 nuyen to you. Have we made money? Lost money? No, the amount of money between us has remained static. The same applies to Empathic healing - you're just shifting the location of the damage.

[Traul]

How about a gnome with a monofilament yo-yo? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Kerenshara]

How about a gnome with a monofilament yo-yo? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

OK, that's just SICK!!! *snorts*

But with a heavy duty ring (and a willingness to lose fingers on even a simple glitch) I have no problem mechanically with that idea. The weight is heavy enough to give a strong measure of control. Now, since you have the SMALL end in your stump-er, hand, you won't be able to pull off some of the cooler moves possible with a full handle and the small weight outside the arc.

[Kerenshara]

Karenshara:
You have a very odd viewpoint coming from SR2... that's so oldschool (hehe). I pretty much missed out on SR2 and 3.. But all I can say, is a lot of the things you bring up I've never seen in the 4th rulebook.

Don't make me put you over my knee and spank you, childling. On second thought, you might enjoy that.

If you've never seen anything but SR4, then suddenly a lot more becomes clear to me. You don't have the benefit of the deep and rich trove of context and history us old timers have. SR4 hasn't had even a CHANCE to get anywhere NEAR the kind of contextual descriptive text out there that previously existed. I am hopeful (as are many of us) that the new anniversary products will succeed in beginning to rectify that. Up until now, it's been a race to get the core rulebooks out before the license changes hands (heavens forfend! I like these Catalyst people so far!) again. As for SR3, I view that the way most Trekkies view the fifth movie: "Star Trek V? No such thing". Notice just how spare the timeline is from Crash 2.0 to 2070? It's really vague, and I think that was intentional, allowing the Dev's a clean re-start on our beloved 6th worlkd. And so far, I think it's worked well, and I am willing to overlook those omissions and gentle nudges in the plot lines.

I still don't think it's abusive for a mystic adept to start as a pure spellslinger or adept. As the cost (5BP for magician gets you so much more... and 5BP more only gives you the option to be a weak spellcaster if you're already a full adept in magic investment).

You're entitled to your opinion. It violates the very spirit of the quality. And - again, coming from the "old school" - I don't look at it the way you do. It didn't used to be a 5 BP diference - it used to be a full priority point diference. Go look at the "priority" system in the Shadowrun Companion to see what I'm talking about. And FYI, in 1st and 2nd editions, priority A in "gear" got you 1,000,000¥. That's not a typo: a cool million nuyen. And availability wasn't the same thing back then, either. Priority E on the other hand, IIRC, was something like 250¥ - how's that cardboard box there, chummer? Go think about THAT for a while.

You must have missed my point... I SAID IT WAS AN ABUSE TO GO MYSTIC ADEPT ONLY TO COUNTERSPELL... and listed it explicitly as an abuse of the type I thought the text referred to. And at that point, the GM should just go... no you can't do that. Keep it up and prepare to start burning edge.

And you missed MY point: if it's an abuse, and even YOU acknowledge that, there is no way I or my GM or anybody I play with or a large fraction of the people here on DS, including the lurkers, are going to permit it at their tables. And as I mentioned above, depending on how you read the rules for taking Magical Active Skills, you may not even be ABLE to take the skill until you drop a point into spellcasting. That is certainly the way I would rule it.

If I'm making an adept... I like to take mystic adept... just so I have the option of picking up spellcasting or summoning later. That's 5BP lost in chargen. I don't see how that's abusive at all.

Here, I agree with you, regardless of the Crunch & Munch. I like the versitility of the type, and I am comfortable with both the limitations and the roles it allows me to adopt withing the parties/teams I join. My fall back is a mage, never a pure adept.

But tell me this: if you couldn't take Counterspelling at char gen without putting a point into it (and paying to max the stat), would you still take the MA?

[Kerenshara]

The obvious thing to do would be (to me) is to seperate the spool and the spooler - probably by concealing the spool in some sort of cable (optical fiber would be a favorite as lots of people carry that to connect their datajacks to their commlinks) and the spooler in lipstick or your commlink or whatever.

Concealment there would be very good - optical fiber is currently very thin strands of plastic or glass that causes grievous bodily harm by just brushing against you so picking the legal ones from the illegal one would be hard, an optical cable would have dongles on either end to conceal the interlock mechanism, and finding a spooler in a commlink would be difficult.

(Intresting aside, glass fibres from fibre optics are so dangerous that left overs from terminating optical fibres in australia are called 'sharps' and have to be treated as medical waste)

Or, you could just have a completely legit spooler - in say a set of portable headphones.

OK the last idea works a LOT better than the others. Here's why: OC Fiber is "medical waste" because it's so rigid and "sharp" in short lengths, it's worse than a needle! Nanofilament is dangerous for a diferent reason: it's ingerently dangerous to handle it at all! How were you planning to knot it to the weight? That is ordinarilly done in an industrial process involving nano-welding, if you follow the general process. I would say it's more akin to the broadening of OC Fiber as it approaches the termination point or as used in optical periscopes (read: mage goggles). Handling the length of it comes under the heading of a Bad Idea. You thus would want to keep at MINIMUM the spool on it's spooler (that sounds so foolish) in their casing (to keep it from unintentionally unwinding) and with the "weight" (counterweight?) attached. The weight doesn't have to be particularly heavy, say, like a large fishing bobber given the absurdly minimal weight of the line it is manipulating. That low inherent weight is the REASON you need the "weight" at the end, so you can control the swing at all. Otherwise it would be worse than trying to swing used dental floss in the wind.
That's why I like the idea of hiding it in the headphones: legit reason for the spooler and the length and the "weight could be one of the neodmyium magnets that makes the thing fire, so it could even work! If it's carbon nanofilament, it would even be conductive. Now a way to peel off the sheath in a hurry...

[Falconer]

Don't make me put you over my knee and spank you, childling. On second thought, you might enjoy that.

If you've never seen anything but SR4, then suddenly a lot more becomes clear to me. You don't have the benefit of the deep and rich trove of context and history us old timers have. SR4 hasn't had even a CHANCE to get anywhere NEAR the kind of contextual descriptive text out there that previously existed. I am hopeful (as are many of us) that the new anniversary products will succeed in beginning to rectify that. Up until now, it's been a race to get the core rulebooks out before the license changes hands (heavens forfend! I like these Catalyst people so far!) again. As for SR3, I view that the way most Trekkies view the fifth movie: "Star Trek V? No such thing". Notice just how spare the timeline is from Crash 2.0 to 2070? It's really vague, and I think that was intentional, allowing the Dev's a clean re-start on our beloved 6th worlkd. And so far, I think it's worked well, and I am willing to overlook those omissions and gentle nudges in the plot lines.

You're entitled to your opinion. It violates the very spirit of the quality. And - again, coming from the "old school" - I don't look at it the way you do. It didn't used to be a 5 BP diference - it used to be a full priority point diference. Go look at the "priority" system in the Shadowrun Companion to see what I'm talking about. And FYI, in 1st and 2nd editions, priority A in "gear" got you 1,000,000�. That's not a typo: a cool Tmillion nuyen. And availability wasn't the same thing back then, either. Priority E on the other hand, IIRC, was something like 250� - how's that cardboard box there, chummer? Go think about THAT for a while.

And you missed MY point: if it's an abuse, and even YOU acknowledge that, there is no way I or my GM or anybody I play with or a large fraction of the people here on DS, including the lurkers, are going to permit it at their tables. And as I mentioned above, depending on how you read the rules for taking Magical Active Skills, you may not even be ABLE to take the skill until you drop a point into spellcasting. That is certainly the way I would rule it.

Here, I agree with you, regardless of the Crunch & Munch. I like the versitility of the type, and I am comfortable with both the limitations and the roles it allows me to adopt withing the parties/teams I join. My fall back is a mage, never a pure adept.

But tell me this: if you couldn't take Counterspelling at char gen without putting a point into it (and paying to max the stat), would you still take the MA

*sigh*... you're pretty dense at times...

One. I replied to you a while ago... I started playing SR1 (as in first ed)... I missed out on 2nd and 3rd. And if you're female and attractive, yeah I might like it ;P.

Two, I'm familiar with priority chargen as I took the time to learn about it... your comments on nuyen and such are somewhat irrelevant as costs have radically changed since the old days. (a lot of things which were rediculously expensive came down a lot in price... I'd ask people more familar w/ both SR2-3 and SR4 how much the costs then balance against 250000 nuyen of gear in SR4. But that really does digress from mystic adepts. (good thread topic in it's own right; one I'd enjoy lurking in just to learn more about how things have changed). Also, I don't know anyone who uses priority chargen w/ SR4, so using that as the benchmark seems rather off base.

Three, the spirit of the quality is that a player should play w/ both halves, or at least be INTERESTED in exploring both aspects. It does not say they have to do it straight out of chargen. And provided the GM polices abuse, if a player never does... they just spent points on a feature they'll never use that could have been spent elsewhere.

Four, I listed buying counterspelling and only counterspelling as an abuse of the type the quality warns against... and the correct reaction is for the GM to just say no (GM Fiat is used a lot in qualities and such). I've NEVER done it, and I wouldn't do it as it's completely cheesy.

So your assertion that I'd take Mystic adept just to abuse it is completley off base... I'd like an apology and actually reading what I wrote for once. As this is the third time I've written it AS A SPECIFIC ABUSE EXAMPLE to be policed by the GM. I believe that the GM needs to look at the adept in perspective... is the player gaming the system by doing this? If the answer is no, then the mystic adept isn't optimal and let the player have fun with it. Failure to split the points at chargen alone, isn't abusing the mystic adept.

We both like the type for it's inherent flexibility (just I'm a bit more cautious of it's traps and limitations). We only disagree that simply coming out of chargen w/o taking both magic and power points is an abuse if I've read your posts correctlly. And I don't understand your reasoning, as it's not an advantage, but a disadvantage to do so out of chargen.

[Kerenshara]

*sigh*... you're pretty dense at times...

One. I replied to you a while ago... I started playing SR1 (as in first ed)... I missed out on 2nd and 3rd. And if you're female and attractive, yeah I might like it ;P.

It was a specific reference to the "perspective" thing. An attempt at levity, as it were. And I lost track of what you've said previously because the comment made it sound otherwise. I don't think I'm THAT old, and I wanted to convey that in a humorous way.

Two, I'm familiar with priority chargen as I took the time to learn about it... your comments on nuyen and such are somewhat irrelevant as costs have radically changed since the old days. (a lot of things which were rediculously expensive came down a lot in price... I'd ask people more familar w/ both SR2-3 and SR4 how much the costs then balance against 250000 nuyen of gear in SR4. But that really does digress from mystic adepts. (good thread topic in it's own right; one I'd enjoy lurking in just to learn more about how things have changed). Also, I don't know anyone who uses priority chargen w/ SR4, so using that as the benchmark seems rather off base.

Again, just an attempt to inject some perspective on how things have changed (assuming based on what you said that you DIDN'T go back that far). The prices haven't changed THAT drastically across the board; A Priority A sammy was a BEAST compared to the current cap (equivalent to the old Priority B).

Three, the spirit of the quality is that a player should play w/ both halves, or at least be INTERESTED in exploring both aspects. It does not say they have to do it straight out of chargen. And provided the GM polices abuse, if a player never does... they just spent points on a feature they'll never use that could have been spent elsewhere.

Four, I listed buying counterspelling and only counterspelling as an abuse of the type the quality warns against... and the correct reaction is for the GM to just say no (GM Fiat is used a lot in qualities and such). I've NEVER done it, and I wouldn't do it as it's completely cheesy.

So your assertion that I'd take Mystic adept just to abuse it is completley off base... I'd like an apology and actually reading what I wrote for once. As this is the third time I've written it AS A SPECIFIC ABUSE EXAMPLE to be policed by the GM. I believe that the GM needs to look at the adept in perspective... is the player gaming the system by doing this? If the answer is no, then the mystic adept isn't optimal and let the player have fun with it. Failure to split the points at chargen alone, isn't abusing the mystic adept.

Back at you for the "not reading" part: I have seen your "specific abuse example" but I didn't recall you specifically disavowing it. I presume that is what you are saying explicitly now, and will proceed accordingly. What I keep pointing out, though, is that I don't think your idea is even LEGAL under the RAW, especially given the FAQ. Now if it was flat legal to take ANY of the Magical Active skills before your first point goes into the spell side, I would have left off on the point long ago. THAT is the thing I was trying to discuss. It wasn't about the "abusive" side of it.

We both like the type for it's inherent flexibility (just I'm a bit more cautious of it's traps and limitations). We only disagree that simply coming out of chargen w/o taking both magic and power points is an abuse if I've read your posts correctlly. And I don't understand your reasoning, as it's not an advantage, but a disadvantage to do so out of chargen.

*waggles hand back and forth*
The limitation is that of all the things out there, it's the most hostage to Karma. But your "acknowledged abusive" (and presumably expressly disavowed based on what you've said in the post I am responding to) build would actually be ADvantageous because of the "cheap" magical defense dice. Even if you only took a point or two of skill, that's two dice to add to WIL on resist, or whatever. I had to fight very hard to limit those dice to just three based on the character's background given the utility of those protective dice.