Metamagic for aspected magicians, Who has access to what? Options

[Grimtooth]

I want to create a sorcery adept. I know that he has access to astral percetion and no access to astral projcection.

Down the road i want to pick up Quickening and Reflection, but MiTS says that adepts only have access to Masking, Centering and Divination.

Am i confusing my terminology between adept and aspected magician?

Please clarify.

I did a search through the topics but i'm too lazy to read ALL of them

[Nomad]

The term adept only applies to what originally was called a physical adept back in SRII. What you are creating is a Sorcerer (previously a sorcery adept)

[TinkerGnome]

Shielding is a really good one to have, as is masking ;) Both of those generally beat out Quickening and Reflection, for me.

[Grimtooth]

Character is going to be a protection specialist (aka bodyguard). He has to be able to take a bullet, grenade, or spell and survive with his client.


Quickening his protection spells and reflecting back harmful magic will be what i will need in the future.

Thanks for the info and insight!!!

[John Campbell]

[A Clockwork Lime]

As mentioned, Shielding completely trumps Reflecting. About the only time I've even been interested in Reflecting was when I was designing an Air Elementalist who only had access to Detection spells. With Reflecting, he'd be able to "cast" any spell an enemy cast at him in a combat situation, thus giving him a little bit of fun that way.

That said, my personal favorites are Shielding, Masking, and Psychometry. The last one is just a lot of fun and gives you all kinds of interesting information to work off of on a run. I've never cared for Quickening or Anchoring -- the former is too much of a liability against wards (especially high Force wards that are difficult to impossible to synchronize with) and the latter are just... inconvienient ways to cast spells you already know. It's nice for everyone but you since you're the one who suffers Drain every time the anchor is activated.

Now if anchors worked the way they used to, where Drain was handled during their preparation, they'd be a great tool. But now, they're pretty lame save for very limited -- and very expensive -- spell triggers. You're better off just sustaining subtle protective magics on a client yourself and/or using sustaining foci to do the job.

[Ancient History]

I put down requirements under my Metamagics page. Not that I'm pushing, mind.

[Grimtooth]

the reason i was looking at reflecting was that i don't intend to pick up any offensive spells at creation.

The first level of initiation would give me a chance to throw back a weak counter spell.

But i'll take Shielding under advisement. I mean the character isn't created yet so i've got lots of time before initiation.

Besides i need a good background before i can go forward on the mechanical side.

Thanks all.

[TinkerGnome]

I'd advise going ahead and taking a descent level stunbolt. Far too useful not to have one, and since it's non-lethal and willpower targeted, it's the perfect thing to keep most mundane threats at bay.

[Nikoli]

Nothing puts fear into a ganger like his troll buddy dropping when the skinny guy looks at him funny.

[Grimtooth]

i'm building this guy as a concept character.

I kind of like the built in weakness of no offensive spells. It might make the other players a little more careful about getting shot if the mage can't heal them.

There's also nothing that'll make a ganger stop in his tracks like when the smoke clears from his smg blast and you're still standin w/o a scratch.

[TinkerGnome]

That's when the ganger starts throwing grenades, generally. No healing? The bodyguard idea seems to indicate that healing would be a good thing.

[Nikoli]

Or he shouts and ALL the gangers in the area open fire, with Molotov's, heavy rocks, bullets, the odd grenade, rude language, bodily fluids, water ballons, golf balls from a slingshot, etc.

[A Clockwork Lime]

How is heal an offensive spell? :)

But yeah, having a defensive spellcaster can be a lot of fun. Earth Elemental Mages make really good ones even if they do take a -1 die hit to Detection Spells. But if you have enough dice, that usually doesn't matter with them anyway, so no big deal there 'specially considering that most Detection Spells useful for that kind of a concept are best left in a sustaining focus or whatnot. That way you can put your all into the casting without worrying too much about Drain.

Anyway, for a fully-defensive magician, Shielding should be your priority. Once you have that, try to initiate as often as you can since the higher your grade gets, the higher the TN modifier is for your enemies. Hell, you can even combine it with Reflecting; just put a single die per grade into Shielding and never use it (thus giving you your grade as that TN bonus) and put the rest of your spell defense dice into Reflecting. That way, you still have a full defense if you really need it, plus the ability to hurl spells back at your opposition. Since his successes will almost assuredly be fewer than yours, you'll probably even create a more effective effect than he would have if you didn't have Reflecting to begin with. :)

[Zazen]