Confused Orc Adept Needs Help - Foci, Geas..., Rather out of my depth here Options

[Leviathan]

I'm playing an Orc stealth adept, new character (6 karma). Specialising in hand to hand combat, sneaking, and disabling security systems.
I've been thinking that the best thing for him to get next is a ruthenium body suit, but my gm says it'll cost like, 81k.
Then he said something about using Anchoring Foci, or getting cyberware and Geasing so that I've still got the magic point, that kind of thing.

I have no idea what he's talking about, can anyone give me a rundown? And some advice on what to get?

[Ancient History]

O.o

Your GM sounds like he's on crack. You can't use an anchoring focus, cyberware wouldn't give you what you want, and I don't recall a ruthenium poncho costing 81 large.

[Leviathan]

Well, it's a body suit.
We're playing set in Melbourne, so +25% cost for ruth
20k for the ruth, 20k for the cameras
Street index means 40k for the ruth, 50k with the Melbourne cost
25k for the cameras after Melbourne cost

So 75K for matirials, 6k assembly fee.

The cyberware was more advised for things like extra vision enhancements and stuff, not the invisiblity.

Can't comment on the anchoring focus, since I dont know anythign about them, except that Melbourne prices are -10% for all magical equipment.

[Critias]

I...are these price mods official? Or is it just house rules up the wazoo?

[Leviathan]

The price mods (assuming you mean the price difference for Melbourne) are I believe in Target: Awakened Lands.

[Sheffield]

There's no reason whatsoever for an adept to get any sense improvements as cyberware. Any cyber sense can be duplicated by an adept for the low low cost of 0.25 magic points.

[Enigma]

Cyberware-wise, he's probably talking about Dermal Sheathing with the Ruthenium Polymer add-on. This is very expensive, but the expense doesn't really cover the other disturbing aspect - you need to be substantially naked for it to work. I'm all for creative character approaches to standard situations, but I draw the line as a GM at a character saying "so, my ork character strips down to his jet-black speedos and sneaks into the facility". Hot elven female face character, fine. Male orc with all the build points gone into stealth and hand-to-hand and not charisma, hell no.

Anchored spell-wise, you could go for the anchored Stealth and Improved Invisibility spells. These would be pretty pricey anyway. Very effective where you get to use them, but you run into severe practical difficulties with wards, and until you can mask the d*mn things you're going to be detected all the time. Note also (whether or not this matters in your game is another question) that running around with active foci makes it easier to be detected by spirits using the search power and astral patrols. Since I often play stealthy characters, I personally get freaked out by doing anything that makes it easier to be detected. This is a reason why I never take a Suprathyroid Gland in such characters.

Personally, I don't like playing characters wearing a ruthenium suit. It's a little over-powered and pisses of GMs. I prefer getting one of those activewear jump suits, stuffing it full of thermal dampening and chosing an appropriate twelve changeable camo patterns. Still stealthy, but not as over powered. Also, Shadowrun is a game that is especially cool (at least until SR4 comes out) in combat, so if you assume that for the sake of the story you are going to get into combat, then the idea of running around in a 100K suit that must by definition take some hits some time becomes somewhat uneconomical.

[Eyeless Blond]

Yes, but you can pack in a lot of cool cybersenses into 1.00 Essence worth of eyeware, or you can Initiate and get exactly four.

The real problem is that adept geasea are horribly horribly broken; there's essentially no reason *not* to get a Geas as an adept, as you lose nothing over someone who just sucks up the Magic loss.

[Leviathan]

Thats true, though getting the extra magic points takes a *lot* of karma.

[Sheffield]

There's a great reason not to geas. What geas do you take? Do you have to chant to make your senses work? Real sneaky. Do your senses work only at night? That's kind of lame if the sense in question is low light vision. Geas are only broken if GMs allow players to choose geas that do not truly limit their character. Like: "My improved ability [projectile weapons] only works if I have a bow in my hands." Great geas. Get back to the drawing board.

[toturi]

[weblife]

Never buy cyberears or eyes for an Adept. Use Group Initiation With Ordeal when initiating. Saves Karma.

Use money on stuff that can't be replicated with magic. Ruthenium suit is very nice.

And getting hit, doesn't mean you lose your armor. Some GM's will demand a repair upkeep, but generally armor takes no damage that a "Fix it" spell can't solve.

[Sheffield]

[Aku]

[Dawnshadow]

Is it just me, or do magical groups seem ungodly common?

I mean.. my game has been running for over a year, and we've only encountered one group. It's invitation only.

Now... as for the specifics..

Why does every geas have to be such a limitation that it makes it more almost as appealing short term to take the magic loss and initiate again? Long term, makes perfect sense -- not getting the metamagic when you initiate again hurts. It's a quite a price for the 'priviledge' of being able to use magic after magic loss.

Quite frankly, the way shedding involuntary geasa works, geasa should not be particularly limitting. There should be some element of it, but it should not be that bad. Not in the least. You've already shafted the person if they want to get rid of the limitation -- because, for instance, they tend to get punched a lot by someone with metal fists, and when they spit out all their teeth, they don't want to lose their magic point as well. (Str 7, 2 cyberarms, titanium bones..)

Likewise, a good GM won't cripple a character because he had a really lousy run that left him losing magic when he was already the weakest in the party. But hey, a geas should be a limit, so he has to become even weaker, to the point the other PCs have to break their characters to take him along, because he's a liability, not a help.




And what is wrong with low-light only working at night? That's not the only time it's important. They're in the dark, that does not mean it's night. It means they're in a building with no (or few) windows and someone has cut power.

[Grinder]

[Sheffield]

Ignore the low-light at night thing, as you can't geas 0.25 point powers. It was just a "solar flashlight" example.

[toturi]

[Eyeless Blond]

[DexRiley]

[Sheffield]

Sorry, typo. But I think you knew that. No good GM should allow such nonsense.

A geas is, by definition, a limit. If a GM wants to allow a more powerful campaign, they can ramp up the build points or go BeCKs and allow initiation in CharGen.

But to me it just ain't "fun" to make up a b.s. geas simply to squeeze an extra 0.25 points of power out of a character.

To me, "fun" is seeing how folks play through real limits, not how well they can justify a non-limit.

And as for this "canon" geas business, as EB notes, the rules put control of geas firmly in the hands of the GM.

[toturi]

[Critias]

This really isn't the thread to revive the whole "Geasa should suck taking" versus "Geasa should be fun to take" argument. It's never been resolved, yet, and likely never will be.

[Eyeless Blond]

[toturi]

Let me ask you this: How do you know we are not at "the point where we cannot psychologically upgrade a meaningful geas to a meaningless one?" How do you know that someone in the game world does not have "Knowledge Skill: Geas Design: Gazillion"?

Yes, we should just agree to disagree. :P