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

[lorthazar]

Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. Only you can decide that. I freely admit to being a fool sometimes. Especially when I start insulting people I don't know. my insults may be accurate, but that does not make me less of a fool for making them.

[Mercer]

What I mind is a thread that devolves into a Cowboys and Indians argument. Like, for instance, "I killed Ehran!" "You couldn't have killed Ehran!" "But I did!" "Ehran has a force field!" "I have an anti-force field ray!" "Your Gm's Stupid!" "You're stupid!"

I think we can all agree that we are all clearly geniuses, because we have just spent about a day and a half arguing if imaginary characters could kill ficitonal people on a piece of graph paper.

[lorthazar]

Good point and if we were any wiser we would have realized this hours ago.

[mfb]

well, geniuses often have sick, depraved hobbies.

at any rate, before the madness happened, we were talking about initiate grades. personally, i can't reconcile "has been alive for tens of thousands of years" with "grade 30". unless the rules of magic worked vastly differently in T5W (which is, i suppose, not out of the question at all), IEs should be much, much higher than grade 30.

[lorthazar]

Unless there is a point of diminshing returns. Or the possiblility of branching to other forms of magic. What if at Initiate grade 30 you get to start buying physad powers at 10 karma a pop? That could make life interesting. Perhaps they have to invest a substantial amount of karma into their physical well being. perhaps it's impossible to initiate during the down cycle and karma earned during that time cannot be used for future initiation. Many possible answers

[Fortune]

So then even in that unlikely event, they spend their time raising their non-magical skills to unbelievable levels, and just raise their magic during the multiple thousands of years that they live in upcycles.

[draco aardvark]

[Critias]

It's worth pointing out, I think, that most of the IE's would be physmages of one flavor or another, if they were statted up realistically (and if "realistically" meant "in line with what's known about them in Earthdawn").

Most of them weren't just Wizards or Elementalists of Nethermancers, but were rather dual-Disciplined (or triple, IIRC), as Archers, Warriors, or Swordsmasters, as well (generally equal to their spellcaster-type Circle, as well). If a GM really wants to give them numbers for everything, he'd probably best go ahead and give them some pretty high numbers for quite a bit more than just spellcasting and summoning.

[Wounded Ronin]

[lorthazar]

We just got off of this so can we let it rest.


I suppose in the dopwn time magic may also have required Karma just to use. So if they did anything it cost them some of that spiritual development.

[Kagetenshi]

[Fortune]

Or maybe not. It hasn't been stipulated what the exact requirements were for performing magic during a downcycle, other than it takes considerably more effort (in the form of time). Humans of both traditions would have been able to work it (and have according to canon fluff), but it took a long, involved ritual. This from people who have no real experience in mana manipulation, so one would think that someone who actually knew what they were doing would have slightly less trouble.

[lorthazar]

Two or three remember I played from the beginning

[BitBasher]

[Kagetenshi]

[Fortune]

It isn't an old topic if the thread is still active. Besides, there are people from this community who haven't logged on and seen some of the inane comments yet, and they also have a right to deride such idiocy. :D

[Kagetenshi]

That doesn't change my excessive amusement at making that post :)

~J

[Fortune]

[Apathy]

Seems like there's good arguments for either side. On the one hand, if you lived forever, you'd have lots of life experience. On the other hand if you're human, you probably don't remember anything except for the highlights that are more than a hundred years old. Hell, I can barely remember stuff from the class I took last week...Either way, it's the GM's call which way makes a better story for the players.

As far as lothazar's game where his team killed the IEs, it sounds like they all had a good time, and that's really the only part that counts.

[Herald of Verjig...]

"I've forgotten more than you'll ever learn!!!

Now, give me one of those.... fire... twig... thingies."
"A match?"
"Yes a... DREK, I just forgot how to conjure great form watcher spirits!"

[mintcar]

This has evolved into one of the most entertaining threads ever. I needed a good laugh, thank you. :spin: I´m sorry if you feel offended. You really shouldn´t, it just aint good to take yourself to seriously.

Just an open advise to all the geniuses of dumpshock: Don´t let your result on that test give you hubris. Regular, dumb people sometimes have interesting things to say. My advise is to try and forget about your IQ in all social occations, and try to listen to everybody without pre-judging the value of their opinions.


<<<edit>>> You´re in the clear though Kage. I mean, you acctually listned to me a few times, and I can´t figure out one of those wierd puzzel-book problems. :)

[Kagetenshi]

*Gasp* What, no puzzle-book problems? Now I must try to remember what I listened to you about and forget it all right now! ;)

(Continuation of the thought spoilertagged)

[ Spoiler ]

Nah, when you've seen enough people who are noticeably of less intelligence than you do so much better on just about anything that takes effort just because they actually have the drive and will to apply themselves… well, it tends to be sobering. There was one guy at my old high school, he wasn't a dim bulb by any means, but he was at most slightly above average in terms of raw processing power… he graduated from our school with a 99.9 GPA (we just did a straight average, none of these fancy "4"s or "5"s) only because it was decided at an administrative level that no matter what GPA weight bonuses he was getting from AP classes, they wouldn't give out anything above 100 and would only give a 100.0 for a perfect grade on every assignment during one's academic term. His year's graduation ceremony was nicknamed the Robert Fox Awards. I managed to get recognized for my contribution to Drama while at the school, but not much else.

To be fair, I heard he finally burnt out sometime around winter of his Sophomore year in College, which is a pity. Then again, given that I pretty much burned out Junior year of High School and am still trying to unburn, he still had an edge on me there.

That being said, if you want some help looking at the weird puzzle-book problems the right way, or good places to find more, just PM me :)

Back on topic! We have a canon statement of Harlequin's initiatory grade. Some people have suggested we also have statements of the initiatory grades of some Dragons. While it seems odd that they would initiate, are there any suggestions for how, within the context of the Shadowrun/Earthdawn world, we could make sense of these figures?

~J

[mintcar]

I think I can do without those advise, because I don´t think I´m going to take an IQ test if I don´t have to. (I´ve tried some of the problems, but never a complete test). What good would it do? If I got a good result I would have to combat illusions of grandure. If I got a bad result it would prevent me from secretly thinking I´m better than everyone else. :)


Sorry no thoughts on the actual subject. I just thought my previous might provoke a reply of some kind, so I stayed online. Going to bed now. 1 AM were I´m at.

[Kagetenshi]

Who cares about the tests? Puzzles are fun! :grinbig:

~J

[mintcar]

Oh. Guess I missunderstood.