Advancement for Adepts, Is there more than Initiation? Options

[Wyldhorse]

Havent been playing for long and very new to these forums so I apologize in advance if this has been discussed before:

Going over my one of my player's Adept character I noticed an issue with his power selection. He overspent his point allowance. He has Karma to spend, so I thought I could just subtract an appropriate amount and everybody happy. I cannot find any info if an Adept may purchase new powers with Karma or what the prices might be?

Are the powers you purchase at creation the only ones you ever get? Can they ever get improved over time?

Thanks
Wyldhorse

[Ancient History]

Power points are based on an adept's Magic rating. To get more power points (i.e. increase or buy new powers) you have to raise your Magic rating, using Karma and Initiation.

[Glyph]

Initiation is the process by which awakened characters improve their powers. It raises the maximum of their Magic, letting them buy it higher. Each point of Magic gives them an extra power point, which can be used to either raise existing powers or buy new ones.

Also, SR4A (the anniversary edition of the basic rules) introduces an optional rule that an adept, when initiating, can opt to get a power point's worth of powers instead of a metamagic when initiating.

[Wyldhorse]

Thanks for the response.

[darthmord]

Initiation is the process by which awakened characters improve their powers. It raises the maximum of their Magic, letting them buy it higher. Each point of Magic gives them an extra power point, which can be used to either raise existing powers or buy new ones.

Also, SR4A (the anniversary edition of the basic rules) introduces an optional rule that an adept, when initiating, can opt to get a power point's worth of powers instead of a metamagic when initiating.

That rule has been available in previous editions too.

[PatB]

Also, SR4A (the anniversary edition of the basic rules) introduces an optional rule that an adept, when initiating, can opt to get a power point's worth of powers instead of a metamagic when initiating.

I've been looking for this rule, but can't find it. Where is it ?? Tx in advance.

[Delarn]

Initiation does not grant a magic point ! Initiation grant you the possibility to get a magic point, you pay for the grade then for the point.

[Dakka Dakka]

And if his magic Attribute isn't maxed yet, he could simply raise that. No Initiation necessary.

[PatB]

The question was specific to a possible optional rule where Adepts could get 1 point of powers instead of a metamagic power (that's beside increasing your Magic to get Adept powers). I think I saw that optional rule (unless I was dreaming) but can't find it anymore.

[Glyph]

My bad. I thought it was in the SR4A changes document, but it is actually in the Street Magic errata. Here is the optional rule:

[b]p.31 Tweaking the Rules
Add the following Tweak:
"Adept Initiation. Groups may consider allowing adepts to gain 1 Power Point instead of a Metamagic at Initiation."

[Falconer]

I'm going to make a very strong point here.

1 point of adept powers for initiation isn't even an optional rule, it's a suggestion for a way to tweak the system as a potential house rule. It was also written before karma costs for increasing attributes were increased w/ SR4a.

With the changes in SR4a I believe and argue it's a wholly broken option now. In many cases you're far better raising your initiate grade than your magic rating AND it's far cheaper. It used to be more expensive to initiate than to raise magic. (3x magic vs. 10+3x new grade for initates). Now that magic is 5x new rating though, this is very quickly untrue.


Example... you're an adept w/ magic 5 out of chargen. It'll cost you 30 karma for the next point of magic.. but potentially only 8 karma for grade 1 initiate w/ a 40% reduction from ordeal & group. (IIRC: it's 20% for each, please correct if wrong). Initiations will cost you less than raising magic the whole way to initiate grade 5, when you must raise magic to go higher.

Now what does raising initiate grade do... it does a lot... it increases the number of penalty dice you can ignore w/ adept centering, it increases the difficulty of seeing through masking, it increases a lot of very usefull benefits. What does raising magic do? It mostly only raises your max ranks in single adept power (most adepts I find have their points spread out so that this isn't a huge problem once you hit magic 5 or 6...).


Given all this... I think it would be far better, barring changes in initiation costs, if as an option GM's consider limiting the initiation to .5PP per initiation grade. Or strongly consider this effect on the game.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I'm going to make a very strong point here.

1 point of adept powers for initiation isn't even an optional rule, it's a suggestion for a way to tweak the system as a potential house rule. It was also written before karma costs for increasing attributes were increased w/ SR4a.

With the changes in SR4a I believe and argue it's a wholly broken option now. In many cases you're far better raising your initiate grade than your magic rating AND it's far cheaper. It used to be more expensive to initiate than to raise magic. (3x magic vs. 10+3x new grade for initates). Now that magic is 5x new rating though, this is very quickly untrue.


Example... you're an adept w/ magic 5 out of chargen. It'll cost you 30 karma for the next point of magic.. but potentially only 8 karma for grade 1 initiate w/ a 40% reduction from ordeal & group. (IIRC: it's 20% for each, please correct if wrong). Initiations will cost you less than raising magic the whole way to initiate grade 5, when you must raise magic to go higher.

Now what does raising initiate grade do... it does a lot... it increases the number of penalty dice you can ignore w/ adept centering, it increases the difficulty of seeing through masking, it increases a lot of very usefull benefits. What does raising magic do? It mostly only raises your max ranks in single adept power (most adepts I find have their points spread out so that this isn't a huge problem once you hit magic 5 or 6...).


Given all this... I think it would be far better, barring changes in initiation costs, if as an option GM's consider limiting the initiation to .5PP per initiation grade. Or strongly consider this effect on the game.

Except that The Initiation Grade ONLY benefits as you indicate IF the Adept has those Metamagic Techniques that you are pointing out as an advantage, otherwise it means nothing...

Keep the Faith

[Draco18s]

Example... you're an adept w/ magic 5 out of chargen. It'll cost you 30 karma for the next point of magic.. but potentially only 8 karma for grade 1 initiate w/ a 40% reduction from ordeal & group. (IIRC: it's 20% for each, please correct if wrong). Initiations will cost you less than raising magic the whole way to initiate grade 5, when you must raise magic to go higher.

Correct. However, there are a very limited number of ordeals any given character would like to do, and you forget to +5 karma for joining a magical group (FYI: for your first initiation it'll be 13 karma raw, 13 with the 40% discount, 15 (group only) or 10 (ordeal only)).

[Falconer]

Tymeaus,

The entire reason for the suggestion for the house rule tweak in the book, is that adepts have less available metamagics than mages, and quickly run out.


Then lets not forget there's another actual optional rule presented, that players can buy metamagics for a straight 15 karma w/o initiating. (still subject to the limit on max known metamagics == magic). So if you combine the two, now you can automatically buy 1PP for 15karma flat cost... no matter high how high your magic is.



On to other points:
IIRC it's 10 karma to join an initiatory group. But they come w/ other benefits/drawbacks as well... so it's not a complete waste. Especially if viewed as a group contact of sorts, if initating, it will pay for itself after the 4th initiation. For mages, they also add the ability to do ritual magic with others outside your tradition IIRC, as well as a source of learning new spells.

I still stand by my original point... even WITHOUT reductions for initiatiatory group, or ordeals or the like. It's only 25 karma for the 5th initiation grade. And to put a different spin on this... if taken this way... how is say 'masking' any different from being a 1point adept power not much different than 'astral perception'. Excepting of course, that unlike a normal adept power they automagically increase in strength w/o investing more power points into them.

[Draco18s]

On to other points:
IIRC it's 10 karma to join an initiatory group. But they come w/ other benefits/drawbacks as well... so it's not a complete waste.

It's 5. Street Magic p69.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Tymeaus,

The entire reason for the suggestion for the house rule tweak in the book, is that adepts have less available metamagics than mages, and quickly run out.


Then lets not forget there's another actual optional rule presented, that players can buy metamagics for a straight 15 karma w/o initiating. (still subject to the limit on max known metamagics == magic). So if you combine the two, now you can automatically buy 1PP for 15karma flat cost... no matter high how high your magic is.

Odd... Having played an Adept to Grade 8 before changing characters, I had a great deal more to purchase in the way of Metamagics... I was in no danger of running out as you suggest...

Lets see... I see 16 potential Choices for Metamagic Techniques for an Adept (See List Below), 2 of which can be taken multiple times for different things... does not seam all that limited to me... as a matter of fact, there are only 28 Metamagic Techniques listed in Canon, of which 16 are useable by Adepts (14 if you discard the two arguable ones, which brings us to half of the available metamagic techniques, definitely not LESS than a MAge after all)... How are Physads limited in Metamagic exactly?

Adept Centering
Attunement (Animal)
Attunement (Item)
Cognition
Divining
Empower Animal (Advanced Technique)
Extended Masking (Advanced Technique)
Flexible Signature
Flux (Advanced Technique)
Great Ritual (Arguable, as there is no skill being used, and would fit in well with a Wiccan Philosophy)
Infusion (Advanced Technique)
Masking
Psychometry
Quickening (if you possess the Living Link Quality, again Arguable)
Sensing
Somatic Control

Hmmm.. I guess that an Adept is not really all that limited after all is he?

[Nows7]

How are Physads limited in Metamagic exactly?

Adept Centering
Attunement (Animal)
Attunement (Item)
Cognition
Divining
Empower Animal (Advanced Technique)
Extended Masking (Advanced Technique)
Flexible Signature
Flux (Advanced Technique)
Great Ritual (Arguable, as there is no skill being used, and would fit in well with a Wiccan Philosophy)
Infusion (Advanced Technique)
Masking
Psychometry
Quickening (if you possess the Living Link Quality, again Arguable)
Sensing
Somatic Control

Hmmm.. I guess that an Adept is not really all that limited after all is he?

Adept centering is great for a Phys Ad

Attunment Animal is pretty bad in my opinion though.

Attunment Item woud be great if it was easier to use on things like bikes or cars, but it doesn't work for weapon Foci. Since Atunment item requires Karma to get, and Karma to bond the item, I'd rather just get an Weapon foci - especially if you're using the 4A rules that make them dirt cheep to bind. The other downside is that you must pick a specific TYPE of item. So you can't just take the metamagic and then bind your car, Katana, and your lockpics, you would have to initiate three times, and then pay more karma to bond to each one.

Great Ritual - Again

Cognition is cool for Hacker or other mental adepts, but doesn't do it for Phys Ad's.

Divination - I just don't see your average knife weilding brawler adept having a large dice pool of logic + Arcana to get the hits needed for it, nor is this really "Physical Adept" territory here. It's NEAT, but it's more of a miscellaneous ability that doesn't jive with alot of Physadept concepts.

Empower animal - I'm unimpressed by the regular version, why go back for more? Though i do admit, i want to make a troll who rides a horse, wears metal armor, and uses a lance.... why's he a shadow runner? Cuase he's fucking crazy and thinks he's king F'n Arther!

Masking / Extended masking are more for social adepts to hide their nature than anything. A neat trick but something that most physad's can wait on.

Flexable Signature is for Magicians and Mystic adepts who are concerned with leaving their astral figerprints on their spells. It doesn't hide the fact you just put your fist though someones face, or hide that you are awakened - that is what masking is for.

Flux is pretty much at the bottom of the barrel in my opnion. A pure Phys Ad will have no bound spirits or foci (other than weapon) to track him by, so this is useless there, and if he goes with Item Attunement (Katana) then he's not likely to even have a weapon foci. Also, if you're leaving foci in the middle of an Aztechnology research center, you're doing something wrong.

Great ritual - Not really a traditional phyad thing. Maybe your group does more ritual casting than mine, but ritual's are more a function of NPS's and the NPC's cast at the speed of PLOT! They do what they do, and my helping them out isn't going to keep them from passing out from drain while the runners have to fight the angry spirit they poked. I think we agree this is not terribly likely to be a first choice.

Infusion is a great power for Any adept.

Psychometry requires Assessing, which many adepts may not have, AND it requires more karma or BP's for assensing to make it actually go anywhere.

Quickening... Seriously?

Senseing, is Meh^3. Yes it is Meh cubed.

Somatic control is great though.

Of course You millage may vary.


Ok, my sleeping pills are sudenly kicking in in full gear... so i'm going to go to sleep RIGHT NOW,

SC

[Thanee]

With the changes in SR4a I believe and argue it's a wholly broken option now.

Well, whether it is broken depends a bit on whether paying the x5 cost to raise Magic is fair or maybe a bit much for Adepts to gain new powers.

Now what does raising initiate grade do... it does a lot...

But does it do as much as raising Magic?

Magic directly influences a number of Adept powers and also limits their maximum rating. Not something to dismiss for sure.

Bye
Thanee

[Ascalaphus]

Is it me or is Meditation by far the preferable Ordeal? It doesn't take all that long, you can retry if you fail, and it doesn't hurt (no ritual links, chopped off fingers, messy quests etc..)

[PatB]

Is it me or is Meditation by far the preferable Ordeal? It doesn't take all that long, you can retry if you fail, and it doesn't hurt (no ritual links, chopped off fingers, messy quests etc..)

You're right, but once you picked it, you cannot pick it for other grades. Treat this as a free 20% Karma.

Likewise, Asceticism is not a big deal either. You simply have to live on the street for 1 month (1 lifestyle to make it simpler). Role-playing-wise is good, but the impact is much less than a deed or a geas.

[Dakka Dakka]

You're right, but once you picked it, you cannot pick it for other grades. Treat this as a free 20% Karma.

Where does it say that you can pick any ordeal only once? Ironically the Meditation ordeal gets easier to succeed the later you take it.

[PatB]

Where does it say that you can pick any ordeal only once? Ironically the Meditation ordeal gets easier to succeed the later you take it.

I just reread the ordeal. My bad, you're right. I believe my memory was affected with an old rule from a previous edition.

[etherial]

Odd... Having played an Adept to Grade 8 before changing characters, I had a great deal more to purchase in the way of Metamagics... I was in no danger of running out as you suggest...

Lets see... I see 16 potential Choices for Metamagic Techniques for an Adept (See List Below), 2 of which can be taken multiple times for different things... does not seam all that limited to me... as a matter of fact, there are only 28 Metamagic Techniques listed in Canon, of which 16 are useable by Adepts (14 if you discard the two arguable ones, which brings us to half of the available metamagic techniques, definitely not LESS than a MAge after all)... How are Physads limited in Metamagic exactly?

Adept Centering
Attunement (Animal)
Attunement (Item)
Cognition
Divining
Empower Animal (Advanced Technique)
Extended Masking (Advanced Technique)
Flexible Signature
Flux (Advanced Technique)
Great Ritual (Arguable, as there is no skill being used, and would fit in well with a Wiccan Philosophy)
Infusion (Advanced Technique)
Masking
Psychometry
Quickening (if you possess the Living Link Quality, again Arguable)
Sensing
Somatic Control

Hmmm.. I guess that an Adept is not really all that limited after all is he?

You forgot Centering.

[Dakka Dakka]

While Centering may be available to adepts it doesn't make much sense. The only Power that actually causes drain is the Attribute Boost IIRC, and only if someone takes a lot of levels in it does the drain increase to an amount where centering is needed.

[Draco18s]

While Centering may be available to adepts it doesn't make much sense. The only Power that actually causes drain is the Attribute Boost IIRC, and only if someone takes a lot of levels in it does the drain increase to an amount where centering is needed.

Adept Centering (Adepts Only)
Adept Centering is a variation of Centering (p. 189,
SR4) available only to adepts and mystic adepts that allows
an initiate to reduce negative dice pool modifiers to Physical
and Combat skills by her initiate grade—as long as she can
physically perform her chosen method of centering.

Uh? Adept powers and drain? What adept powers and drain?