Intiate Grades ... who's the big gun?, Oddball, but. Options

[Ol' Scratch]

I personally prefer all the atrocities and wonders of history to have been the accomplishments of Humans alone. Color me silly that way.

As far as I'm concerned that's why Dunkelzahn was so interested in guiding us into the future and towards the coming of the Horrors. He realized the potential we had because of all those things we accomplished without magic and without the bastard brats of the Highlander fad.

[Kagetenshi]

Silly :P

I like a mix weighted towards humans, myself. Arthur as Harlequin? I'm down with that. Leonardo da Vinci as Leonardo? Not sure I like that one, but I can fit it in. However, once we get into them having been behind everything from the Battle of Hastings to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, then I just get annoyed.

~J

[toturi]

Actually I was thinking of them behind everything from the fall of the Qin Empire to the Manhattan Project. :D

[DrJest]

I wasn't advocating IE's being behind practically everything, and perhaps not even the most major things. Rather than influencing Hitler to attack Russia or Japan to bomb Pearl Harbour, perhaps an IE helped run the so-called Secret Railway that smuggled allies out of occupied France.

I do like the idea of Hitler and Himmler's obssession with the occult being the result of some kind of encounter with an IE or GD. It's historically such a... what's the word I'm looking for? Something that doesn't fit well into the overall scheme of things. You take my point? Now that would be good IE-fodder. Not starting, or even continuing, the war, but being (deliberately or perhaps accidentally) responsible for the obssession with magic. Then you get the best of both worlds - humanity is still responsible for the war, nobody's sacrifice is diminished, but you work in IE involvement.

By the same token, I can live with Leonardo the elf having been or having influenced Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci was such a spike in the smooth graph of humanity's progression that, from a writer's point of view, he's a natural for picking out to ascribe some alternative influence to.

I think the one thing we need to bear in mind when looking at history from an SR perspective is that, in a world where there are IE's and GD's (and especially egotisitcal bastards like Ehran and Alachia), we practically have to assume they've had some influence on events. Our goal as writers, then, is to decide how much influence and to locate suitable events to use as examples.

[Johnny Reb]

Gah. They Godwinned my thread.

To steer things back (Or, well, to attempt to do so hopelessly), the Dragons are rated at 10 for Great Status but none top Initiate 20 (And, in truth, probably all but Dunk and Lung are under 15) ... If the IEs come in at 90 or whatnot (Thus conflicting with published stuff), they'd have a wee bit of an edge, i'd think, instead of being under the GD power level, which they are.

Then again, I also wonder that, if a simple Magic Fingers 1 spell was nigh-impossible to cast during the downcycle, how hard would it have been to pick up, say, Initiate Grade 5 through a magical ritual? Could it be that magic worked, but at a cost? Say 100 Karma per Force of a spell to cast, 10,000 Karma per initiate grade earned? That'd bleed off that extra pretty fast, I'd think. :)

-- Johnny Reb, unboxed.

[Kagetenshi]

We have a canon statement of how high Harlequin’s initiate grade is, or at least a range. If we accept your rationalization, then that just means he earned that much more karma.

~J

[Mercer]

Actually, considering that according to canon, Harlequin's stats are a series of asterisks, I'm going to guess his karma total is "*".

[Kagetenshi]

I always did hate rolling * dice.

Just don't tell your computer to roll them.

~J

[Johnny Reb]

[Kagetenshi]

That's what I used to think, too. But I really don't think you can make a case for "high double-digit" until you've got at the very least more digits below you than above, and certainly not when you're at most a measly 20% on the scale of double-digits or lower.

~J

[Mercer]

I can see Reb's point that "high double digit" might be interpreted to mean, "high, double digit". In SR terms, Grade 20 is both high, and double digit. Largely a moot point since they don't have number values attached anyway. Harlequin, the plot device, will be as powerful as the plot requires. In a high powered game, he might have to be on the yon side of Grade 50. In a lower powered game, 20 might be all you need. He's going to come out different in every game he shows up in.

It really comes down to how many IE's can dance on the head of a pin, when you start talking about definable numbers.

[Kagetenshi]

I don't think that's a reasonably defensible reinterpretation of the text, but the rest of your point stands.

~J

[lorthazar]

It also depends completelely on your style. We had a DM who statted out Harlequin and Ehran for the Harlequin campaign. Why? Becuase he knew how the players would react and short of Flash or Superman, nobody dodges that many rounds. Sad to say in that campaign both died horrible deaths.

Why? Becuase we were playing the type of people who kill people who use us that way.
Did the GM even blink? No.

Did we blink when they miraculously returned from the dead? No.

Did they retaliate? They tried. two years of game play revolved around the games of tag untill finally we had enough and offered peace which they accepted.

Was it Canon? Who cares it was too much fun. Especially the three way fight between the Ex-Bodyguard, Harlequin, and Ehran. So many dice :eek:

[akarenti]

A Grade 10 initiate with liberal use of Anchoring and Quickening can take quite a few hits. Force 10 armor, plus Force 10 Limited Armor (Bullets), plus Improved Reactions +3 and a few Improved Attributes spells. Not un-killable, but could probably survive long enough to escape, at least.

Add in Superhuman mental stats and Elven quickness for Combat Pool, and Karma Pools between 30 and 50 (equivilent to GD as per DotSW), and a few high force Great Form Elementals on call.

On a somewhat realted note, I would kind of like to see stats for Leonardo. Asside from Harleqin, he's really the only other IE who doesn't fit with steriotypical IE mindset. How exactly does he access the Matrix?

[Kagetenshi]

Trodes or a datajack, I'd guess.

~J

[Halabis]

I thought he uised an optical cyberdeclk to read light beams. I figured he used magic to make lasers that sent the light to the deck.

[Kagetenshi]

All cyberdecks are optical :P

~J

[Wireknight]

[Siege]

Like everything in SR, canon or not, YMMV.

The cybertechnology book was one of the silliest source books released, in my opinion.

I also know gamers who live and die by the book.

If you like IEs controlling and influencing history, go for it. If you don't, easily snipped from any game.

Personally, I enjoyed the clues and threads running through the source books and the shadowy ties to EarthDawn, but trying to interact with plot devices in any sort of meaningful fashion in-game would just be annoying. Being on a first-name basis with King Arthur just diminishes the overall fun of reading the books.

-Siege

[Fortune]

I'm going to have Harley bring back the Round Table. Who should he choose for his new 'Merlin'?

[BitBasher]

Ehran ;)

[Fortune]

I actually gave that some serious thought, but figured that Ehran'd refuse, so it'd be moot. :P

[toturi]

Aina. Hey, it's the 2060s, chummer! Nobody said Merlin HAD to be a male. And the Lady of the Lake needn't be female.

Merlin = Aina
Lady of the lake = Ehran

:D

[Kagetenshi]

I always did think Ehran'd look good in a dress…

~J

[mfb]

seriously. even if an IE is only grade 20, like Mercer's, why in the world would they not have a force 10+ personal barrier spell in place at all times? i know i sure as hell would.