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Lilt
post Mar 29 2004, 10:11 PM
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This little topic was spawned by me wondering wether it was possible to make a character with Mage/Shaman abilities, Adept abilities, and Projection. By the rules in Dot6W, I believe that it is possible for a drake Physmage to have all of these (any drake with magical skills can project in either Draco- or Metahuman form).

Well. Isn't that Nice? But what can they do? The hefty cost of being a drake Physmage (55 points/Priorities A and B) streches the Skill, Attribute, and Resources fairly thin. You probably won't even have the attribute bonuses of your dracoform for most of the time. They get some nice freebies (enhanced senses, astral armor, innate spell: flamethrower, flight in dracoform) but what attribute/skill/resource/adept power/spell combos can really compliment this well? Are there any archetypical roles that can benefit from this significantly?

Right now I'm leaning towards a stealth physad with magical skills providing spirits and a few choice spells (Invisibility, increase reflexes +3, ETC) where needed.

Also: Do drakes have Armor or not? I'd expect so and it's listed under the stat-line in Threats 2 but not in Dot6w.
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blakkie
post Mar 29 2004, 10:58 PM
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I'm doing something similar, if you've noticed in the threads, with my own character:

I've looked at Invisibility, and have given that a pass. You need at least a Force 4 to have a consistant shot at hiding from even the weeniest of security, and with stealth you definately want to go with consistant. The F:5 or F:6 spell you are going to want to rely on when your life is on the line will put a serious strain on your magical resourse. Maybe later on once you have built up your Magic and/or Power Foci? But at the start concentrate on things like the Improved Reflexes, Makeover, Shapechange, etc. that you don't have to worry about opposed rolls.

Onto Projection: someone mentioned that they include Astral Perception within Adept metamagic, but that the Initiates need to use 2 grades worth of metamagic to gain it. I'm not sure why that couldn't be extended to an extra grade or two beyond that giving you Projection. If you think you even have a chance of convincing your GM to give the thumbs up for a Drake PC then i suspect he is a GM that would definately consider that. *shrug*
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Ancient History
post Mar 30 2004, 12:29 AM
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Physad powers do not apply in Drake form, sorry. The tradeoff of being a physad Drake is that:

1) You can cast spells as a drake, but not astrally project.

2) You can be really deadly in either form.

That's it.
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Cochise
post Mar 30 2004, 12:36 AM
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QUOTE (Ancient History)
Physad powers do not apply in Drake form, sorry.

*huh?* We#re not talking Shapeshifters here ... I cannot find such a limitation for Drakes in either Threats II or Dragons of the 6th World

QUOTE (Ancient History)
The tradeoff of being a physad Drake is that:

1) You can cast spells as a drake, but not astrally project.


Again: *Huh?* A physad Drake wouldn't be able to cast spells at all (except for the inate spell "flame thrower".

And a PhysMage-Darke could project in Drake-form due to that little passage on p. 5 of Critters concerning dual natured creatures being able to project if they possess "magical skills" (oppossed to the critter power "Magical Skills", note missing capitalization on p. 5)

QUOTE
2) You can be really deadly in either form.


Jupp ...
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Lilt
post Mar 30 2004, 01:33 AM
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Invisibility is useful at force 1 as long as you are rolling enough dice. OK: Rolling enough dice is tricky if your magical magic attribute is low (as it may be for a physmage) which is why I was considering taking an ally spirit or something (5 spell points and -1 magic for a force 2 power focus that can fight as well as you in astral combat). If I managed to take centering as a metamagical technique that would also help.

As for 2 initiations worth of metamagics for perception: That is for people who don't understand how useful centering is for adepts, let-alone physmages. I was even considering taking magical power 6 and initiating 3 times using the spell points (possible only if you use groups & ordeals). That way I could take Centering on Physical skills (Athletics and Stealth), Magical skills (As per normal mages), and another area like Melee combat.

@ AH and Cochise: It states that drakes can use all magical skills and abilities while in dracoform on P184, Dot6w. It also states that any drake with magical skills can project whilst in either form (on the same page).

Just as a general query to the group: What would people consider to be the strength of the Drake?
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mfb
post Mar 30 2004, 01:50 AM
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well, the main one i can think of is that you can project as a physad. there isn't much on the astral that'd be scarier than that.
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Ancient History
post Mar 30 2004, 01:56 AM
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Okay, I wrote the last post at school, so let me look through my books and check <flip, flip>

Hrm. Okay, according to Threats 2, drakes may cast spells and use physical adept abilities in either form (which is sort of ridiculous, since neither shapeshifters nor dragons can use physad abilities when transformed, but I digress). It also says that if the drake can astrally project, it can do so in either form. So, a physical magician still cannot astrally project.

And, DotSW backs it up.

Strength for drakes is Natural + 4 in Drake form.
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mfb
post Mar 30 2004, 02:53 AM
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DotSW goes on to say, in the next section, that "Drakes with Magical skills can also astrally project like magicians in iether humanoid or dragon form." however, as both Threats 2 and DotSW contradict that, the best choice is probably to ignore it.

another oddity: in T2, it takes 4 or 6 succs on an assensing test to determine a drake's true nature; it DotSW, it's 3 or 5.
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Lilt
post Mar 30 2004, 01:53 PM
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QUOTE (mfb)
DotSW goes on to say, in the next section, that "Drakes with Magical skills can also astrally project like magicians in iether humanoid or dragon form." however, as both Threats 2 and DotSW contradict that, the best choice is probably to ignore it.

How is it contradicted? It is stated that drakes with magical skills can project, and that drakes with the ability to project can do so in either form. It still dosen't say that all drakes can project.
QUOTE (mfb)
another oddity: in T2, it takes 4 or 6 succs on an assensing test to determine a drake's true nature; it DotSW, it's 3 or 5.

There are a great many differences between the descriptions in Threats 2 and Dot6W. In T2 it states that they change between humanoid and minature western dragon form, in Dot6W is says that they can be one of the any four types (I must admit, being a sea dragon drake would be interesting). Dot6W also describes the difference between true and bred drakes, where T2 just glosses over it. Dot6W also gives stats for True Drakes... *shudder*
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toturi
post Mar 30 2004, 03:13 PM
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QUOTE (Lilt)
How is it contradicted? It is stated that drakes with magical skills can project, and that drakes with the ability to project can do so in either form. It still dosen't say that all drakes can project.

It can be interpreted that as long as the drake has magical skills, it can project.
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hobgoblin
post Mar 30 2004, 03:35 PM
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why do the topic make me want to scream munchkin at the top of my lungs?
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blakkie
post Mar 30 2004, 03:41 PM
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QUOTE (hobgoblin)
why do the topic make me want to scream munchkin at the top of my lungs?

I believe the word you are searching for is "high powered campaign". :grinbig:
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hobgoblin
post Mar 30 2004, 03:50 PM
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does anyone have the number to ghostwalker? im planing a party and are wondering about a place to hold it :)
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The Synthcat
post Mar 30 2004, 04:43 PM
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As I'm currently GMin a... "high-powered campaign", where one of the pcs is a drake physmage, allow me to step in...

Basically, the drake physmage, on paper, is the weakest character, mainly due to points lost to being a drake and being an adept. Drake form can help to go around this, but, as drakes are generally rare (and hunted...), and as the game requires the PCs to be in the spotlight most of the time the drake form isn't exactly seen often.

In the game, though, the drake physmage currently holds the highest body count, for what that means.

This however, is largely due to force 6 stunbolts, which any vanilla mage can have, and probably cast better.
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hobgoblin
post Mar 30 2004, 08:08 PM
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err, bodycount and stunbolts? soundslike that drake is getting a lot of nice sucsesses :)
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A Clockwork Lime
post Mar 30 2004, 08:15 PM
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Doesn't take that many successes to use a Stunbolt to great effect. :) Resisting a 2M or even 2S Drain with Willpower 6 and a couple of totem dice (or Spell Pool dice) is pretty easy, and it only takes two successes (which don't have to be net successes) on the latter to bump it up to Deadly Stun. The target then has to roll against a TN of 6 and meet or beat his successes to avoid that Deadly Stun blow.

Sorcery 6 + Spell Pool 3 alone against even an above-average opponent (Body 4) leaves you with, what, four or five successes? That's going to take down a lot of opponents without the Drake taking any Drain whatsoever (especially since he just needs to cast it at a Moderate level with that many average successes).
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Die blaue Reiter...
post Mar 30 2004, 09:00 PM
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Being the player with the drake physmage in Synthcat's game, I think that yes, it was really hard to find a way to make an elf drake physmage somewhat useful to the team. However, the GM gave us some karma to begin with ( it's a high-powered campaign, so we all got about 70 karma ) so it greatly helped for the skills and attributes.

Anyway, here's what I did. First, I made sure that the character could sling one or two mid-level ( force 5-6 ) low-drain ( stunbolt ! ) spells per turn without fearing at all for the drain. High willpower + increase reflexes on sustaining focus, ta da ! Instant 15+ initiative. That way, the character isn't a completely useless 'combat' mage, though far from a really good one. So far so great. I wanted an elf, and decided to go for it even if it cost 10 points because of the charisma bonus, which greatly help for conjuring and the natural low-light vision ( vision modifiers, anyone ? ). As I couldn't afford to waste any point I invested in, I made her the 'face' of the group with a thinned-down version of the usual skillset you'd see for a face. Effectively, it makes her a two-trick poney : she's as good as the mage archetype for slinging spell but she's a lousy conjurer, she can talk her way out of most situations ( or at least try ) and scare/lead people but lack the usual 30+ diversified contacts you'd expect the face to have. Wahoo... :dead:

One of the players chose to make his character a technology-oriented jack-of-all-trades ( street sam/rigger/decker ), which, effectively, makes him rather average in everything he does. Yes, he can rig, deck or fight, but not really better than your average, 123 build point archetype. His strenght is that he can do what 3 different archetypes can do. Well, almost. Thus, I didn't look too underpowered in comparison.

One of the players wanted a path of the wheel druid, with a strong kick for illusions. While I did spend mucho power points ( geased, mind you :S ) to get an effective magic rating for spellcasting of 6, he is wayyyy better than I am. He started iniated - I didn't, he had powerful foci - I just had to forget about those. Nonetheless, since our abilities don't overlap too much ( except conjuring, but again, I can't even hope to be as good as he is ), it's alright for me.


Well, you don't need 9 successes to effectively take out someone with a stunbolt. Cast lev6 stunbolt, damage level serious. Hope to stage up. At this point, the target is usually unconscious ( if it isn't, try again ). Then if you really need to kill it, cast the same spell again, but damage level medium ( to avoid drain ) until damage overflow. Nice and easy. :grinbig:
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Lilt
post Mar 30 2004, 09:58 PM
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Umm. Is it possibble to take drake *and* be an elf?

As for the munchkin/powergaming aspect: Yes, I fully accept that this is a munchkin topic, as with every other "What is the best possible initiative?" style topic (which is kindof what I meant it to be, but not how it seems to have turned-out).

Anyway. You can make the character effectively a full mage with 36 spell-points rather than 25 by puting 6 ranks in Magical Power. The disadvantage is that you advance differently/slowly (and geases affect you differently), but you have the avantage that you can take a few points of adept powers as you advance.

@DBR: I'd be interested in seeing what you took, although it would be somewhat different due to the 70 karma tacked-on at the end.
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BitBasher
post Mar 30 2004, 10:10 PM
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QUOTE
You can make the character effectively a full mage with 36 spell-points rather than 25 by puting 6 ranks in Magical Power.
then you're not a full mage, you cannot project.

Edit: aaah, nice loophole. yeah. since drakes can automatically percieve and can project if they have any magical skill.
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Lilt
post Mar 30 2004, 10:14 PM
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Exactly :)
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Cochise
post Mar 30 2004, 10:50 PM
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QUOTE (BitBasher)
Edit: aaah, nice loophole. yeah. since drakes can automatically percieve and can project if they have any magical skill.

Note however that the loop hole only works in drake form. Since drakes are dual natured only in that form.
So a full mage drake has still the advantage of projection while in human form.
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Lilt
post Mar 30 2004, 11:04 PM
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Except that projection is explicitly allowed in either form by Dot6W.
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Cochise
post Mar 30 2004, 11:34 PM
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Still arguable, but o.k. ...
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hobgoblin
post Mar 30 2004, 11:47 PM
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err, my point above was that usualy the word bodycount is used when you kill a lot of people, not just knocking them out like stunbolt does. (that is unless you hit them 2 times with it or something like that :eek: )
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mfb
post Mar 31 2004, 12:28 AM
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once they're knocked out, you just run around in drake form, biting heads. bodycount, QED!
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