Surge Effects of Astral Sight, dabbling in the Way of the Munchkin? Options

[Typhon]

ok here is my problem , and I really hope I'm not opening some bizzar can of worms but here it is :
Astral Sight
the character undergoes a limited Awakening , aquiring a magic rating of 1 . This awakening allows her to open her perceptions to the astral plane and assense , just like a magician. she can also learn the magical skills of aura reading and enchanting . she cannot astrally project , however , nor does she gain access to any other magical abilities or skills.
so here is my question , can said character initiate , it doesn't say you can't improve you magic rating , also would this give the character the ability to pick up metamagics , I know it says you do not gain access to other magical abilities but is that just out of the gate , in other words you don't gain access to say becoming an Adept or an Aspected mage of somesort , but what would stop some Street Sam from Surging gaining this , picking up a grade of initiation and grab something like masking to keep the his new ability under wraps or to use his new sight to pierce an other initiates masking? again just wondering have a player wanting to pick this up in my game and I'm hoping its not going to become some twink tool :cyber:

[toturi]

You can either enforce the no other magical abilities or skills outright or allow him to get metamagics. Personally I feel it is a GM call, simply because it is not very explicit on not being able to initate and gaining metmagics. However, even if you do bar the Sam from Metamagics, he should be still allowed to Initiate.

[Edward]

I don’t consider it that much of a problem. What metamagics are actually going to be available and how usfull to you.

Cantering would be useful if taken in the adept variation but I don’t think you could.

Divining would be as useful as to any other character (that is to say not very)

Masking would be good but mostly because you want to hide your awakened nature, penetrating masking don’t come up all that often.

Nothing else in the main book qualifies at all. Will any of those hav an adverse affect on the game balance.

Without having a magical tradition you wont be able to join an initiatory group do the karma cost will be quite significant.

I don’t see it as being unbalanced, the question is dos it fit the flavour of surge, I am thinking not but others may disagree.

Edward

[toturi]

Psychometry. And the main problem with Astral Sight has never been with metamagic, but with the increase in Magic that initiation brings. By initiating, a street sam could increase the Force of the Cyber Spur/Weapon of Choice Weapon Foci he decides to bond. Now, that's the problem.

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[toturi]

Because initiation is not an ability or a skill per se, no more than increasing any other Attribute is. However, as a GM, there is nothing stopping you from ruling that it is, though that is somewhat arbitary IMO.

[Jrayjoker]

The increase of a stat is nothing more or less than character development. I say let them initiate, but the canon limitation should apply to metamagical skills. And by that I mean all metamagics.

[durthang]

Another question is how would you rule the effects of cyber and bioware on that magic rating of one?

Just going off of memory, I think several cases could be made by the rules lawyers.

1. The Munchkin gets the first five points of essence reduction for free, since he does not have the magic to loose.

2. The Munchkin’s connection to magic is a thin thing at best, as represented by only having a magic attribute of one, and so any cyber/bioware that would cause magic reduction reduces it to zero.

3. Any cyber/bioware the Munchkin has prior to surging has no affect on the magic rating since the rules says he gain it at one. Any cyber/bioware added later would have one of the above affects.

So, depending on how you rule that would make a difference on how appealing initiation is.

[Shockwave_IIc]

I would go along the lines of 1 and 3.

Basically, If the characters Essence is already below 1 then ANY addition of Cyber or Bio from that point onwards would cause the character to lose their one and only point of magic. But if they are say at an Essence of 2.3 then they can go down to 2 with no further loss.

And as to Iniating, i would allow it, but the only Meta-magic technic they could get would be Masking (which would be Very weak anyway) and any other that require nothing more then a Magic Attribute. I would allow it to increase the magic Attribute so as they can get better at masking and it would allow more Bio and Cyber as per a normal magican.

[mfb]

when i asked th FAQ guys about this very subject, they told me that the edge does not allow initiation, and that any essence loss subtracts from the point of magic. i'm cool with the first part, but i don't use the second part; it makes the edge less useful, since only completely uncybered mundanes could use it.

[Tanka]

[hahnsoo]

Fortunately, it is much more difficult for cybered mundanes to make SURGE rolls than it is for unmodified mundanes. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but I'll bet that if you enforced the SURGE test, the heavily cybered sammies (or riggers) would fail the roll.

I would not let the person initiate (after all, initiation means contacting an astral avatar or joining a group, and what tradition are these SURGE characters part of?), unless they make a deal with a free spirit, become a serviteur (joining a voodoo initiatory group), or something similar... it would have to be very well defined. The character is likely to be a low-cyber mundane, so I'm more likely to cut the player a break as the GM.

[Modesitt]

My interpretation -

I'd allow someone with it to initiate, but remind them that the prohibition against magical skills applies to the various skills metamagics require. This would leave them with, at best, a handful of different metamagic techniques usable(Or rather, useful) to them. I'm not sure what I'd do about tradition - Either I'd say they're a tradition all their own(And thus need to find other people who Awakened in this way) or let them pick one according to character's outlook(Some of the minor traditions, like Psionic, would certainly work in this case).

If they already had cyberware or bioware, it applies regardless of when they took the cyberware. You'll note that there are canon references to what happens to people who have cyberware before they Awaken, albeit they aren't very explicitly game mechanically - Pg 28 Rigger 3. "There are even some examples of people with Awakened potential who spoiled their Talent with rigger cyberware before they even knew they had it."

I don't think there's any reason to not let them take Geasa to offset the magic loss from cyberware if they were really gung-ho about this.

They could do a few things magically, but I honestly doubt it would break the game or be in any way unbalancing. It'd make a great little bit of flavor for a character or NPC with Talismongering and Spell Design skills.

This post has been edited by Modesitt: Feb 13 2005, 07:45 PM

[mfb]

heh. we had one character, on shadowland, who dutifully rolled for SURGE for all his characters, even though he personally didn't like SURGE. every single one of them--20+, as i recall--failed, except for his street sam. the character with the single lowest essence rating out of his entire stable got a success on the SURGE test.

[Typhon]

well something else I'm looking at is spell pool , technically if he gets a magic rating of 1 he would get access to that which on its own isn't that bad but think about a 6 intel and your average willpower 3 street sam , grabs a level of initiation and picks up either shielding or reflecting , now he's got a spell pool of 3 (6+3+2 = 11 /3) which for reflecting wouldn't be too bad but suddenly with shielding the guy becomes invincible to magic , least to your average mage , I don't know just throwing more wood under the fire , that and I like to work all the angles before I let my players have anything =P

[Modesitt]

[Ancient History]

The Spell Pool requires the magician to know Sorcery...which isn't the case here. So no Spell Pool, no Spell Defense, no Shielding.

I'd allow initiation. I'd allow the character to learn metamagics...from a limited list. That list being (from my Metamagics page):

Centering - Only applicable toward Enchanting and Divining.
Divining
Focus Blocking
Masking - Hey! I'm normal, really!
Psychometry
Sensing
Severing

[mfb]

not only does it require knowing the Sorcery skill, it requires being able to use Sorcery to cast spells. adepts can learn Sorcery for use in astral combat; they don't get spell pool.

[Eyeless Blond]

Centering and Divining are magical skills, so you couldn't have them either, could you? Well, I suppose you could take the metamagic, but you're prohibited from taking the associated skill, so it wouldn't matter anyway.

[Fortune]

Yes, as I previously mentioned, the Centering and Divining Active Skills are listed as Magical Skills, and therefore could not be used by the SURGEling.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I would be perfectly willing to allow someone to Initiate after gaining the effects from SURGE.

Of course, I'd also be willing to allow someone to Awaken if they defered it after taking the priority or BP, or paying a buttload of karma, and probably karma pool.

[Shockwave_IIc]

[toturi]

Depending if the GM is being an asshole and ruling that Aura Reading is a Magical skill (although non Awakened can take it), I would say Sensing and Psychometry.

[Typhon]

well thanks to everyone who posted to help me out with my situation , and I had guessed that the surge effect wouldn't give him some crazy gamebreaking edge , though I just wanted to see what you guys could come up with I kinda like to check all the angles with aspects of the game I'm not too familiar with so again thanks to everyone who chimed in to help me out :smokin: