I am about to initiate in a few runs and therfore i read the ordeal-section in the street-magic-book. Mediation requires the following conditions:

Meditation
The character must spend time in daily meditation, trying
to consciously bring the physical, mental, and astral aspects of
her being into perfect balance. To achieve this, the character
must succeed in two Extended Tests:
• A Body + Willpower (Charisma x Strength, 1 day) Test.
• A Logic + Agility (Intuition x Reaction, 1 day) Test.
To successfully complete the ordeal, the Extended Tests
must both be completed in (desired grade x 4) days. Unless
both tests are successful, the character must begin the meditative
cycle over again. This ordeal is particularly demanding and
leaves no time for any activities other than the most ordinary
tasks. Environmental distractions must also be kept to a minimum:
apply a –2 dice pool modifier if the character’s lifestyle
is Squatter or lower, or if the character is unable to meditate in
peaceful seclusion. Do not apply this penalty if the character
is living in the wilderness during this ordeal and has a Survival
skill rating of 3 or more.

I play the often mentioned dark mage with the following attributes:

Charisma: 7
Willpower: 5
Intuition: 5
Logic: 2
Reaction: 2
Body: 3
Strength: 2
Agility: 2

I test-rolled the ordeal several times, but at least in the first 2 initiation-grades, i stood no chance to manage it successfully. I really can´t believe that there is a ordeal that gets more diffucult the better your attributes are. And i also don´t feel that this test is intended to serve only for high-grade initiates. Did you also see this problems up to now?

(Thank goodness, someone besides me noticed this, and was bothered by it. My first read-through of Street Magic that jumped out at me. Maybe someone here can shed some light on this.)

The Meditation ordeal is better suited for the Logic traditions and not the Charisma or Intuition traditions. I do not see a problem with this actually. Strength is generally a dump stat for mages, so no problems there. The Cha x Str test should be a breeze, the only problem should lie with the Int x Reaction. Most people do not lowball either Int(Perception) or Reaction(Dodge) so there may be a problem.

Intuition makes it harder to meditate...? Logic helps?

But seriously, the guidelines for meditation just seem so arbitrary and random. I'm ok with it being easier the better you get (grand old ninja/jedi masters are better at meditating than blonde Kill Bill heroines), but I do feel it's wonky that it's harder to meditate the "better" (stat wise) you are.

That´s the point. I know somebody is about to point out "you want the benefit of reduced karma-costs, do something for it", but this isn´t logical. The better you get, the easier it should be. Not the other way round. It is like this for all other character-classes, so why should the mage (once again) be the exception for this?

Meanwhile, at the Tower of Ordeals

Meditation is designed to be an attractive option for higher initiations, because the player-tendency for minmaxing can make them inversely difficult at the beginning initiations.

Let's say that your threshold was 20 for each of the tests. Going for Initiate Grade 1, that would require getting 10 hits per test, consecutively, four times in a row. When going for Initiate Grade 5, that would require getting 2 hits per test, consecutively, ten times in a row. Much more manageable, though it draws out the time it takes to initiate.

I don't think that the karma discount for ordeals is worth the trouble. It's only 2 karma off for the first two grades, then only three at the third grade. Why roll all those dice meditating when you could be rolling dice on a run instead, which is more fun? Why get slapped with a 10 BP negative quality in the Suffering Ordeal when you could just spend 2 more karma and avoid it altogether? Why perform a Deed to save 2 karma when you could have gone on a run and made 4 to 6?

Deed is one of the ordeals that can save some serious karma. To qualify for this, you have to take a run and the karma-donation you get for this, should equal the karma you need for the initiation. So you get the karma AND the ordeal at the same time. To be honest, this ordeal is the only one i can´t complain about.^^

You act as if these were mutually exclusive. They aren't. Initiation is done in downtime.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that the deed ordeal required you to refuse the karma reward for the run that qualifies as a deed.

It's a trick, see? A proper mage should be cunning about it!

Take drugs to smash your limiting attributes and strengthen your helpful ones. If you have the ability, have a spirit sustain an Increase/Decrease Attribute spell on you.

That's why all proper vision quests involve starvation or the excessive use of nindbenders.

That... actually makes sense. Are there in game stats for peyote, I forget?

What are the stats for peyote anyway?

The book says: As a
general guideline, the Karma award for the run should be comparable
to the Karma cost of the grade the character seeks.

Depends on the GM. For me, it sounds like you would get the karma automatically subtracted for the initation. But i admit that it could be read the other way round.

Complete Agreement.

Otherwise the Deed ordeal becomes the worst ordeal in the game, as it's actually more expensive that not doing one at all.

Grade 3 initiation = 10 + Gx3 or 19 base cost.
15 Karma from a 20% discount (ordeal or group), 11 Karma for both (40% discount).

So assuming your mage is in a group (most PCs are for the discount, right? it's a pretty easy one to get), and you do a deed ordeal, your run should net a minimum of 11 karma (not unreasonable for a SR4A run at all).
If you get both karma & the deed (as both Machiavelli and I assert) then you get exactly enough Karma to pay for your initiation in total, and you keep even with the rest of the party.
If you forfeit the karma to get the deed, they you effectively pay 11 Karma, for to gain a 4 Karma discount (in this example. It gets worse as the Grade goes up) So 7 of that Karma just vanished into the ether of nowhere, leaving you 7 behind the rest of the party.

And you just paid 22 Karma (cause your still buying that initiation you just did all that work for, right?) for an intiation that you could have gotten for 15 by skipping the Ordeal and being in the group.

You have to get both the Karma, and the Deed, or the Ordeal doesn't make any sense.

Use the stats for red mescaline from Arsenal.

Wow...colors.^^

On the taking drugs to boost your chances of the Meditation ordeal, that also makes complete sense.

I think it used to say in the earlier books that you were supposed to get wasted to do the ordeal anyways, since it's what Shamans going on a 'vision quest' would do, along with the Metaplane quest.

Drugs that help:
Core:
Deepweed - +1 Willpower
Bliss - -1 Reaction
Zen - -2 Reaction +1 Willpower
Arsenal:
Red Mescaline - +1 Charisma , -1 Reaction, +1 Willpower (helps only a little because of the Charisma bonus)
P4MO - +1 Agility
Arsenal - Awakened Drugs:
Crimson Orchid - -3! Reaction, +1 to all thresholds (again helps, but the penalty makes it not worth it)

So if you skip Red Mesca & Crim. Orchid, you take Deepweed, Bliss, Zen, & P4MO (so your heart doesn't explode) and you get: +1 Agility, +2 Willpower, -3 Reaction.

Does that make Meditation a more doable ordeal? It certainly helps the second roll a lot.

(Editted because I forgot the 2nd roll was Logic+Agility, not Logic+Intuition)

Aha, now mages have to become junkies to deal with their ordeals? Great, THIS is cyberpunk.^^

Like I said, it makes a lot more sense for a Shaman.

But I could see it for others too. Lots of Scientist experimented with drugs historically trying to expand their minds, why shouldn't mages?

As I said in the other thread, if your looking for efficiency, you can't beat Deed/Metaplane, everything else your doing at least partly for the RP (which is hardly a bad thing).

Of course it's cyberpunk! Cyberpunk with dragons and elves and magic, but still cyberpunk.

Actually, crimson orchid helps a lot, making it logic+agility ((reaction-3)xIntuition +1, 1 day).

So, if you have Int 5, Rea 5, then you'd be looking at a threshold 25 (5x5) normally (Gad-zukes!)
But, if you take red orchid it becomes 11 (2x5 +1)

Nice catch rathmun! I miseed that

Umm... I don't think the drugs will work. Well maybe, but the costs are too high.

Let's see: Most Drugs work for.. around 10-Body hours, maybe less? Mage has.. say 4 body. So you really want to pump him full of drugs for.. say 12 hours a day (3 doses) for FOUR days? (Or more) Yeah... that seems expensive and unhealthy... i MEAN REALLY unhealthy. As a GM i wouldn't allow someone to meditate a day, THEN quickly pop multiple drugs, make the test and go to bed with a bunch of successes... eh, hits.

Also.. yeah pitting Logic+Agility against Intuition times Reaction seems a bit ouchy. The whole multiplication is a bit strange for me. I would pit the stats against each other (With a slight bonus to the body ones, maybe split their magic attribute for them). One pair each day. If some fail, you have to start over. (This makes it impossible(nearly) for an imbalanced mage to make this ordeal and rewards mages who trained their body AND their minds. Takes time, has it risks, is possible. Good ordeal.

I'll admit that's a lot of drugs.

But it's all in the name of MAGIC! (kudos if you get the ref)

So we're back to square one. Meditation, as written is hard to do, and only becomes feasable at higher grades, with the right stats.

It's kind of sad how superior Metaplane/Deed are to everything else. Although Ally isn't bad (if you wanted one anyway) and Oath & Thesis aren't always awful, but are a lot riskier. Everything else kinna ... sucks.

Welcome to the world of magic...where so much sucks but we love it anyway.^^

You go through the suck, because of the awesome on the other side.

Mages are extremely flexible in power, and have some very difficult to stop tricks. There is just too many good options is the problem, to afford it all

Found what I remembered in an earlier edition, doesn't look like it applies to SR4 thank Dunkelzahn.



It really was a bad deal wasn't it?

Not necessarily, it depends on how much Karma you'd save for the ordeal.

Actually, it doesn't matter how much you'd 'save' with the ordeal. If you have to turn down an amount of karma that is at least equal to 60% of the base karma cost of the next grade, in order to reduce that cost by 20% of the base cost, then you are losing out big time.

What would really be interesting: The karma-donation you get for the run, should equal the costs of the initiation. I really DON´T want to deal with a run that gives app. 10-20 karma (think of future initiations) These runs seem to be pretty deadly for such an amount of karma.

You get 11 Karma for a run? I want to play at your table. I'm used to getting 3 - 6 Karma per run, and never more than 8.

Can friends help on a Deed? If so, it might be worth it at lower grades, simply b/c you aren't willing / able to accomplish an ordeal alone yet.

11 would be a pretty normal award for a run if using SR4A:s new karma award table.

For my ogre spellcaster:

5+3=8 dice vs. threshold 5*5=25, est. 10 days
6+5=11 dice vs. threshold 4*3=12, est. 3-4 days

The next grade is 5; I could have pulled this off for grade 3.

The only thing this says to me is "what? a willpower 3 mage?" ^^

*shrugs* Nothing wrong with a ( Willpower 3 ) Magi.

No need to worry about that char, promise.

Not until he gets targeted with a mana-spell. ^^

"Welcome to the world of magic...where so much sucks but we love it anyway.^^ "

I agree. I agree forever.

Just felt like I should share this, because it's relevant and hopefully interesting to others besides myself. Our GM is famously known as the sort who wants us to succeed, provided we deserve it or work hard enough to make things happen. Recently, I performed a meditation ritual with my physical adept martial artist without the direct intention of initiating, but was able to achieve it on account of doing so well. Here's what happened: My character took a good eight-nine boxes of damage from a full-auto suppression burst to the head. (Orks should wear helmets too. They will save your life.) One massive concussion later, he was on his way to a magical rehabilitation center for a sensory recalibration procedure to restore his hearing. The meditation ritual was done in a room designed for the purpose and was guided by magically active medical personnel. (My character was already experienced with this sort of thing owing to his background, so I suspect the difficulty threshold may have been slightly scaled back, but I could be wrong.) His stats were: BOD 4 / AGI 6 / REA 4(6) / STR 7 / CHA 3 / INT 6 / LOG 3 / WIL 4 / MAG 6. The procedure was an overwhelming success, so his hearing was restored and he qualified for Grade 1 initiation. Granted, I also edged the crap out of those rolls with my 5 boxes of edge and was lucky enough to roll well each time. Never expected to use it all during a downtime, but I guess those things just come up every now and then.

So the moral of the story is to do it without actually trying to do it, and do well? Not sure. I can only hope that this sheds some more light on the issue, provided it wasn't too boring to read.

Counterspelling.

At the second iniation-grade you should statistically speaking succeed, even with those seriously unbanced stats.
-8 dice to get 14 successes in 8 test, with avarage 2 and 2/3 successes per test should succeed easily
-4 dice to get 10 successin in 8 test, with avarage 1 and 1/3 successes per test (4 successes in 3 days) it's tight but should succeed
From third iniation forward succes is pretty much quaranteed.

Sure, but nevertheless a lame amount for a character-classes mainly needs willpower. And for drain-issues, there is no skill i know.^^

It´s like a sam with agility 3 and somebody says "firearms-skill".^^ Just a bad choice if you think of it, but i think he manages to succeed anyway. Sometimes fluff is more important than optimization....did i really say that?^^

Yeah, from the third on it is quite usefull, but before that you hardly stand a chance. I think we all share the world-wide-phenomenon of dice that refuse the proper numbers if you need them most, aren´t we?^^

No. This is actually a severe failure on the second initiation. 2 2/3 successes means that, on average, you take 5.25 days for the first test. However, since the interval of the test isn't measured in quarters of a day, it actually takes 6 days on average. The second test, with 1 1/3 successes per test, takes 7.5 days on average. Again, that's increased to 8 because of the interval of the test. 6 + 8 = 14 days, far beyond the limit of 8 days given for the entire test.

Even on the third initiation this would be a failure, as 14 > 12. With these stats you shouldn't even attempt the meditation ordeal until the 4th initiation and you should probably hold off on it until the 5th initiation just to be sure.

This is even ignoring the new "-1 die per test beyond the first in an extended test" rule in SR4A. With that in place, it's actually not even realistically possible with these stats. With -1/3 success per day on average, you run out of dice on the first test at 12 successes in 8 days. On the second test you only get 2 1/3 successes in 4 days.

4 days. "Both tests must be completed in [8] days." I.E. in 8 days both tests must be completed, leaving 4 days each (on average) for each test.

Still not working, just getting worser and worser. I think this ordeal is definitely a case for edge-rolls.....if your GM accepts this.

Oh silly me was thinking you could do both test simultaneously.
Well then i quess you could rush the job shortening the intervall to 12h, that should make it doaple at second iniation level.


The way thats descripted, i would have severe problems with any GM who would apply that rule to meditation ordeal.

There are other ways to lower initiation costs? Not everyone is the same? Some work for other types? I can choose which is best and most effective, or fun for me? There are cases where Meditation works? I'm not forced to take meditation as the ordeal?

And I say that there is nothing wrong with a sammy that has ( Agility 3 ).

Yeah, I have to agree. With the listed character stats, it's not a good choice of ordeal. I have a character that could complete it on his first initiation, on average, though. I'll probably wait til #2 just to be sure I have enough time, but having 14 dice for a 5 threshold/1 day test followed by 10 dice for an 8 threshold/1 day test can reasonably be accomplished in 4 days (7 body + 7 willpower with Pain Editor on vs 5 strength x 1 charisma for the first test and 6 logic + 4 agility vs 4 reaction x 2 intuition with Pain Editor on for the second test). Yeah, I realize the shortcoming of only having 1 charisma for a spellcaster, so no lectures please Even with a 3 charisma that should be doable by the second initiation.