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> Mnemonic enhancer, Free skills?
Frater Inominatu...
post Jul 15 2005, 12:40 PM
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If one were to take Mnemonic enhancer, which reduces the cost of learning/improving skills by one point of karma, would that in effect give the character a "jack of all trades" ability? Perhaps not actually gaining all skills, but effectively giving them the ability to roll one die without defaulting on any skill.

Sort of like the cantrips from MitS. You can get free, low level spells by making them exclusive or fetished. Why not do the same thing for skills?
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toturi
post Jul 15 2005, 01:03 PM
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QUOTE (M&M p. 73 Mnemonic Enhancer)

Under Game Effects, change the third paragraph to read:

Because memory retention is key to learning, the Karma cost for learning or improving skills and specializations is reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1) for any character with a mnemonic enhancer.

No, it doesn't.
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Frater Inominatu...
post Jul 15 2005, 01:25 PM
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Way to let a guy down easy toturi. :(
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toturi
post Jul 15 2005, 01:37 PM
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Hey, I do have a rep as an insane bookninja to maintain. :D
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The_Eyes
post Jul 15 2005, 01:52 PM
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It's still a great deal though.
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fistandantilus4....
post Jul 15 2005, 02:07 PM
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now here's the fun part. Become an initiate, do an astral quest rating 2 (pretty much idiot proof) to learn a spell. Learn a force 6 spell for 1 karma. And get two more dice to do it with!

Is it cheap? yes . Is it legal? yes Should it be allowed? debateable, but it doens't say anywhere that they're not compatible.

Then get the cognition metamagic too and knock off another one.
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 02:39 PM
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How exactly are you paying half karma for spells in the first place? Spells aren't skills, and the mnemonic enhancer only saves one karma on skills. Congnition similarly only applies to skills, but can stack with the mnemonic enhancer.
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fistandantilus4....
post Jul 15 2005, 02:59 PM
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you're right , sorry, figuring in house rules again.

To us it just made sense that if you could use it for skills, it would work for learning spells as well since a good chunk of it is retention , at least w/ hermatics. YMMV
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 03:30 PM
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Ah, that makes more sense.
Do you still use the TN F*2 test to actually learn the spell, or has that been made easier too?
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Dawnshadow
post Jul 15 2005, 03:34 PM
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QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm)
How exactly are you paying half karma for spells in the first place? Spells aren't skills, and the mnemonic enhancer only saves one karma on skills. Congnition similarly only applies to skills, but can stack with the mnemonic enhancer.

1 karma per level on skills for the mnemonic enhancer.. level 3 mnemonic enhancers reduce the karma cost by 3, along with all the other bonuses.
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 03:35 PM
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No, it's been errata'd to only provide 1 karma cost reduction regardless of grade.
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Dawnshadow
post Jul 15 2005, 03:33 PM
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Ah, my bad.

*makes a note to argue his GM out of following that particular Errata if he ever plays the character with it*
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Grinder
post Jul 15 2005, 04:14 PM
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I once had a player who had a human sammie with mnemonic enhancer (3) before the errate came out. It's not nice.. after a couple of runs he was a jack-of-all-trades (had started out with good attributes though). The reduction to only 1 karma point reduction makes sense imo.
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 05:36 PM
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The level 3 version is still very useful. You get an extra die to all your knowledge skills, and 3 extra to all your language skills. An int 6 character can effectively have 4s in 9 languages, or 5s in 4 languages, providing significant fluency in multiple environments.
Definately beats out knowsofts and linguasofts in my opinion if you aren't playing the int 1 troll (who needs the chips to speak clearly in complete sentences).
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fistandantilus4....
post Jul 15 2005, 05:50 PM
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QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm)
Ah, that makes more sense.
Do you still use the TN F*2 test to actually learn the spell, or has that been made easier too?

oh we most defintely do. I had one player that was all happy "I saved up and took manabolt at force 20!"

"really? and you rolled a 40 to learn it when?"
"huh? 40?"

I'm not looking for a way to completely gimp the system here. It just made sense. Besides, astral quests to reduce the karma cost of learning a spell is already pretty damn easy, especially for shamans, since (unless I 'm remembering wrong) hermetics need to quest to all 4 elemental planes. Realistically, on an astral quest, a 5 is pretty damn easy to roll too as long as you have a good spread of skills. So it's not like getting dirt cheap spells isn't already written in. This way, they at least have to lower their magic rating, or take a geas to do it do to the 'ware.
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 05:59 PM
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Shamans need to go to their totem plane, same with voodoo. Hermetics and wujen go to whatever plane corresponds to the spell (hermetic goes to earth to learn armor, don't remember if it's the same for wujen). It's only for the initiatory astral quest that hermetics and wujen get the metaphysical boot to the teeth.

I was mainly asking because the extra dice from the astral quests are at least as important as the karma reduction when trying to learn a spell.
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Apathy
post Jul 15 2005, 08:40 PM
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QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm)
Shamans need to go to their totem plane, same with voodoo. Hermetics and wujen go to whatever plane corresponds to the spell (hermetic goes to earth to learn armor, don't remember if it's the same for wujen). It's only for the initiatory astral quest that hermetics and wujen get the metaphysical boot to the teeth.

Combat - Plane of Fire
Detection - Plane of Air
Manipulation - Plane of Earth
Illusion - Plane of Water

I can't remember what they do to quest for Health spells. Are you not allowed to quest for Health spells?
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 08:57 PM
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Hermetics can't quest for health spells, no corresponding plane. They also can't use an elemental to aid study for health spells for the same reason.

Since it isn't earth for manipulations for wujen, I will amend my parenthetical comment with this brief list.

Wood - Detection
Fire - Combat
Earth - Health
Metal - Manipulation (and Sylphs)
Water - Illusion

So wujen get it slightly worse when astrally questing for as an aid to initiation, but at least they can learn Heal with extra dice.
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Frater Inominatu...
post Jul 15 2005, 10:10 PM
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QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm)
Hermetics can't quest for health spells, no corresponding plane. They also can't use an elemental to aid study for health spells for the same reason.

Since it isn't earth for manipulations for wujen, I will amend my parenthetical comment with this brief list.

Wood - Detection
Fire - Combat
Earth - Health
Metal - Manipulation (and Sylphs)
Water - Illusion

So wujen get it slightly worse when astrally questing for as an aid to initiation, but at least they can learn Heal with extra dice.

MitS pg. 94

QUOTE

In the case of formulas that do not fit a particular element, the gamemaster selects an element at random, based on the astrological influences or some similar tide in the universe.
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Herald of Verjig...
post Jul 15 2005, 10:41 PM
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Hmm... missed that line. And that was one of my prime reasons for preferring wujen over hermetics.
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6thDragon
post Jul 15 2005, 10:44 PM
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I assume, with the errata, the -1 karma cost for skills is at any level. Is this how everyone plays? It seams like a very powerful piece of bioware for .2 BioIndex and :nuyen: 15,000. Does anyone else house-rule this for level 2 or 3?
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mfb
post Jul 15 2005, 10:45 PM
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mnem enh 3 is almost as good as that language-learnin' adept power (can't think of the name). together, they are horriffic. any language you are exposed to for more than an hour or so, you learn (for free!) at an effective rating of 4.
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FlakJacket
post Jul 16 2005, 01:10 AM
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Linguistics allows you to pick up the basics of the language at rating one, not sure where you're getting rating four from, in about four/five hours for no karma and reduces the time to learn it when improving your skill rating after that. You'd have to also take the Cognition metamagic to get near the bonuses of a level three mnemonic enhancer IMO.
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toturi
post Jul 16 2005, 01:34 AM
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Flak, level 3 Mnem Enhancer gives 3 bonus dice to Knowledge and Language Skill Tests, in addition to other things.
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Frater Inominatu...
post Jul 16 2005, 02:10 AM
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Where do you find the'cognition' metamagic technique? I've not heard of it.
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