Adepts and Ordeals, What ordeals can a Physical Adept take? Options

[Abstruse]

What ordeals can a Physical Adept (or just plain Adept these days I guess) take? They can't take Astral Quest or Ally because they can't project or summon. But what other ordeals can they actually take?

Also, how does an Adept do a thesis ordeal exactly? According to MitS, you roll your "highest Active Magical Skill" (p. 61 MitS), but Adepts without the Astral Perception power won't have active magical skills. They can't cast spells, so they wouldn't need Sorcery, they can't conjure spirits so they don't need Conjury, and without the Perception power, it's pointless to have Aura Reading. What would an Adept roll?

Thanks in advance.

The Abstruse One

[Lilt]

They can take the Centering skill, and Enchanting...

[Abstruse]

Can't take Centering until they know the Centering metamagic technique. And my player is wanting to take Thesus for his first grade of initiation.

The Abstruse One

[Lilt]

Actually: You can learn centering, any character with a magic attribute of 1 or greater can, but you can't apply it to skills until you get the metamagic.

I'd suggest Oath for a first initiation (are you in a group?). The only one not strictly allowable for an adept is the Familiar ordeal, aside from that they're all OK (but some, like Meditation and Ascetism, are hard or undesireable for adepts).

You may even want to look at what your character has done. If he has done anything significant that was in-line with the group's (or his own if he's not in a group) outlook then he may-well have already performed the Deed ordeal.

[Abstruse]

A) I'm GMing, therefore it's not my character. And the player of the character is dead set on doing Thesis as his ordeal. And the second he gets the karma, he's going to initiate, and with the adventures I have planned, he won't have done anything I'd qualify as a Deed, unless he goes way off base or way out of his way to be the good guy. He'll be able to use Deed for Grade 2 though (they'll be run through Missing Blood once they're at about 20-25 karma :P )

But how does an Adept who has no active magical skills do a Thesis?

The Abstruse One

[RedmondLarry]

He buys one from a service on the Internet and turns it in as his own work.

[Zazen]

[Lilt]

Well: If the game hasn't started yet, I'd talk to him and suggest he takes an active magical skill of some sort (Enchanting, Centering, or Divining) at character creation. Otherwise he's just out-of-luck as far as canon rules and theses go.

Straying into the realm of house rules though, you could let him do a "somatic thesis" using something he has improved skill in (Athletics, a Martial Art skill, Melee weapons skill, etc.). He goes through all of the acrobatic maneuvers / katas he knows, and the final thesis (with his astral signature imprinted on it) is something he was wearing/using at the time such-as the Katana he used throughout. I suspect he'd only be able to use the "Improved Skill" dice to do this, or you could just make the thesis harder to make, as otherwise he could be rolling far more dice than any other magical character and it wouldn't be balanced.

[Drain Brain]

For an Adept, I always house rules Thesis as a piece of work rather than an inherently magical task...

What I mean is that you'd use a language skill to write a text, use Edged Weapons B/R to craft a masterful sword which encompasses all you feel and know at this time...

You get the picture...

[toturi]

A good way to make use of a Thesis is using Enchanting. Edged Weapons B/R + Enchanting for making a Thesis Weapon Focus.

[Darkest Angel]

I'd definately allow use of a relevant knowledge skill for Thesis, perhaps not the 'Magic' background skill as it's rather vague, but something more closely associated with his path/beliefs would certainly work.

Also, an Adept of the Shaman's path can take an astral quest, since their Avatar or Totem can show them the way.

[Nikoli]

His thesis could be based on his combat skill if he's a fighter type adept or stealth if he's a sneaky one.

[mfb]

well, the rules for designing a spell formula (which a thesis resembles, creation-wise) say that you can default to a background skill at a +2 modifier. i assumed, when my adept initiated, that this applied to theses as well; though upon second reading, the rules don't really support this except through a fairly long logical leap.

[Lilt]

Hmm. I quite like mfb's reading. It may have a canonical-logical leap, but that's better canonically than a complete house-rule.

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Siege]

Not to mention, whatever form his thesis takes, it's still an astral link to him.

That by itself is one helluva risk.

-Siege

[Nikoli]

Until he changes his astral signature on the next initiation.

[Siege]

[Lilt]

Or throws the thesis into the ocean, or buries it...

[edit] Nothing to see here [/edit]

[Nikoli]

No, destroying the thesis risks losing magic point

[Rev]

I am pretty sure that physical adepts can use astral quest. They need a free spirit with astral gate, or some other unusual help to do it though.

[Drain Brain]

I'd quite like to see an adept character make something other than a weapon or "a book" for a combat type theme - how about a combat dummy? Ornamental armour (neo-samurai armour)? An ornamental shrine for pre-combat centering? Something a little bit different...

[Crimson Jack]

I like your ideas DB on having the adept create something besides a book. Think I'll use those as suggestions for my group. :)

[Cain]

I dunno, I like the book concept. Miyamoto Musashi's Go Rin No Sho can be considered his thesis, for example.

Physads can use Astral Quest with either the participation of a free spirit, or if they're a totemic adept electing to go on a Vision Quest. Deed is particularily appropriate for an adept, as is Oath or Geas.

[Rev]

Shamans can make artistic things as a thesis. I think it even mentions the possibility of creating a dance, but you do have to record it somehow and keep at least one copy of it intact.

As for making a weapon I think that should only be allowed if the weapon is ceremonial in nature or in other words: useless as a weapon. Actually it would also be ok if the weapon was usable, but actually using it would cause a destruction of the thesis. For example a sword intricately painted, or very finely etched such that actually fighting with it would mess it up destroying the thesis.

Absoluetly no thesis/fingertip compartment/weapon focus/monowhips. :)

PS I fairly recently saw a chinese martial arts film (who's name I cannot rember, but it was great. Fantastic scenes of vollied arrow fire to name on memorable part if anyone knows what it is) where one of the main charachters created what would in shadowrun be called a thesis with calligraphy. He wrote the charachter for sword, after much rumination, and the other main charachter gained the knowledge needed to defeat him by examining this charachter.