Bonus magic skills - DO NOT WANT Options

[Shemhazai]

Shem... do you really need all the skills in group form?

I normally want Sorcery in group form because I normally get Spellcasting and Counterspelling for sure, and Ritual Sorcery then is half price. The same for Conjuring. The Enchanting skills (according to the preview) are Alchemy, Artificing and Disenchanting. That would leave me with two magical skills to select if I choose Magic at priority A or B. If I want to invest in two from a group of three skills, I would probably get the third at half price instead. I want to read what they do. Using them on Assensing and Astral combat is a splendid idea, until they add something else to make an Astral skill group.

[DireRadiant]

You can also try choosing a higher skill points category , with higher group points, and a lower magic category. Use your special attribute points to bump magic back up to 6. You lose some spells, but can also improve that with karma.

Lots of options.

[Falconer]

Shem... you completely missed my point. There are magical skills which are not part of any skill group!

Three of of the biggies in fact. Arcana, Assensing, and Astral combat. Assuming they're still in the system carried over from SR4. (astral combat and assensing most assuredly are).

Lets face it perception is one of the most commonly overlooked skills of newbies in particular coming out of chargen and assensing is it's analogue for all perception purposes on the astral.

And astral combat now looks quite superior to trying to nuke things with direct spells while it's trying to eviscerate you with astral combat which no longer does cha/2 base... but Cha base!). Remember at astral speeds something can go from out of sight to in your face in the blink of an eye, especially in something like a building with a lot of astral shadows which impede LoS but not astral mvoement.

In 4th... Arcana was the skill you'd use to craft new spells. But it also doubled as a massive magical knowledge skill.


Yeah Dire... that Skills 'A' category looks mighty tempting for many characters.... assuming the marginal cost of 4 more attribute points.
Bumping 4 attributes from say 4->5 is an extra 100 karma in SR4 cost terms...
10 extra skill points and 5 extra skill group... assuming they're used to max out new skills is about 22 karma for 4 skill points. 55 for one skill group from 1->4. so that's 99 karma right there... with an extra skill group and 2 extra skill points differential from the B priority step.
Though for anyone with higher attribute caps... the attributes are probably a better deal. The problem being the classic the more points you stuff into attributes... the more they're worth and the more you generally want to pile into them. The more you can get away with high attributes and say 1 point in this skill... another 1 point in that skill... with a few cherry picked skills raised to the max.

[Shemhazai]

Shem... you completely missed my point. There are magical skills which are not part of any skill group!

Three of of the biggies in fact. Arcana, Assensing, and Astral combat. Assuming they're still in the system carried over from SR4. (astral combat and assensing most assuredly are).

Yes, Of course. I thought that since Astral Combat and Assensing are not based on Magic, they would not count as magical skills. Now I know better.