Shadow Magic
Originally a form of dark paganism that started as a blend nascent magical practices with the Gothic chic of the late 20th century, shadow magic only really came into its own a couple of decades after the Awakening. Many individuals involved in paganism and similar forms of spirituality saw the Awakening as the beginning of a new, better world than the one in which they were currently living. When dream didn’t come to pass, and the resurgence of magic had in many cases actually made the world a worse place than before, some of these pagans and former Goths embraced a more nihilistic view of their own beliefs. Combined with a number of elements taken from the Hermetic tradition, this collection of dark pagan beliefs and Gothic nihilism eventually developed into the tradition of shadow magic as we know it today.

Modern followers of shadow magic rely heavily on introspection, ritual, and contact with spirits to advance in their magical understanding. To a shadow magician, magic is the lifeblood of existence, and the only thing with any real meaning. Everything else is transitory. Shadow mages summon spirits of the elements – fire, water, earth, and air – for power and practical knowledge, but their real fascination is with spirits of man, who they conceive of as the literal ghosts or shades of the dead.
Drain: Willpower + Intuition
Spirits: Combat spells – Fire spirits; Detection spells – Air spirits; Health spells – spirits of Man; Illusion spells – Water spirits; Manipulation spells – Earth spirits
Tools and Trappings: Magical tools in shadow magic include the dagger (athame) and pentacles common to both black magic and witchcraft. Gothic and dark elements, such as black candles, blood letting, skulls (real or fake), and copious amounts of incense are common elements of this tradition’s practices. Tarot reading and scrying are common methods of divination in shadow magic, while chanting in Latin or Greek is a common method of Centering. Some groups of shadow magicians who delve too deeply into the darkest aspects of their tradition learn the Sacrificing metamagic, thus becoming magical threats.

Y'know, it seems everyone's homebrew traditions have been using Will + intuition. What about other Combinations? The Will + Charisma route of the shaman seems underutilized. It would fit in with this tradition, seeing how it both deals with spirit interaction as well as being a stylistic tradition.
I've also been curious about a tradition that resists drain with Will + body. The tradition would be based on the belief that your life force is what you power magic with, and probably has heavy blood magic overtones. The only thing holding me back is the idea of Trolls who follow that tradition

PlatonicPimp: that's because intuition is used for perception tests and for initiative - it's much more useful than charisma or logic.

it's just munchkinism.

Its more likely just that the book does not list a specific tradition that has intuition, so everybody and their kid brother want to get original. If they had mad a tradition for each atrribute, this might be a bit more spread out.

Edit: And both logic AND charisma are at least as useful as intuition. Show me a sharp eyed caster and I'll show you a caster you just can't say no to or a caster who can hack, heal, or explode things with the best of them.

Indeed, maa01. Charisma is quite important (important enough overall for any PC to not put a couple points into Influence and keep Charisma at least average at their peril). I think given the preponderance of nature-based magic like Shamanism, or it's more realistic Pueblo counterpart I prefer to use down there, that Charisma is a good attribute to use seeing as though several aspects of Willpower and Charisma overlap already.

there was some topics about this, but:

intuition:
* used for initiative
* used for perception and assensing

charisma:
* used for maximum number of spirits
* used for social skills

logic:
* used for hacking and healing

there is something missing, right?

I used Intuition on this one (as well as Fern Witchery and Chaos magic) due to the fact that these traditions place a lot of importance on the practitioner's intuitive feelings - hence Intuition.

Perhaps I should have gone for Logic instead. That's definitely the attribute for intuitive feelings, right maa01?

Logic: Hacking, healing, demolitions, Mechanics, Armoring, Knowledge skills, and Memory.
Intuition: Artisan, Assensing, Disguise, Perception, Judging Intentions, Tracking, Knowledge Skills, and Initiative.
Charisma: Social skills of all kinds (very important here!), Spirit Max, and Composure.

They're all important, but some might be more important than others, depending on the character concept. Mages remeber alot of crap and are able to use a bit of synergy with magic and non-magical skills, Shaman are freakin' smooth, and Intuition based traditions are hawk-eyed bastards. I think that about sums it up.

no, because just like in D&D people will make up new traditions.

'course, they won't be getting much outta ritual spellcasting if they do that, mind you =P

In my opinion, this whole concept (Shadow/Goth Magic) is just another way of looking at the already established Hermetic Tradition.

yeah, it's just that intuition feels right for ANY magic that isn't logical, including shamanism. And in the end, most traditions we'll be inventing are ones that are for those who felt that the other traditions weren't for them. It'll get really repetitive.

I'm not saying it's bad, but lets try some variety. Any magic that can be said to have rules and formulas to follow, in which you do something the same way for the same result, logic should apply. Any magic where the practicioner has some leadership role in a culture, or in which ritual and showmanship is highly important, should be based on charisma. Any magic based on going with the flow, following your heart, or doin what works should be based on intuition.

I'm still trying to figure out paradigns that use physical stats as drain. I can figure one out for body, where the mage feels that their magic is powered by their life force. The tradition would have havy sacrifical and blood magic overtones. However, I'm concerned about the possibility of Trolls with that tradition. I am trying hard, but I can't think of a tradition that would resist drain with strength, agility or reaction, but I'm trying.

For those complainning about Hermetics, don't forget there's a Cerebral Booster that directly adds to your Logic, so a hermetic can start out rolling 15 dice for Drain resistance.

As for physical-stat Drain traditions, well, Naruto-style Ninjutsu would require Agility, as it's all about having the manual dexterity to form a bunch of hand seals quickly and accurately.

DBZ-style "martial arts" would be Strength-based; most of that's about literally channelling your strength outside your body.

I wouldn't do any of these as actual SR traditions though. For one, SR is much more generous about boosting physical attributes than mental ones, so any physical-stat drain tradition would be at a decided advantage, especially when metavariants come back. Secondly, they're just silly.

True, except for the body based blood magic. That's just scary.

Interestingly, "Intuition" has little to do with anything you would refer to as intuition in natural english. Intuition may as well be called your "noticing" stat, because that's what it is about - noticing stuff.

When most people talk about "intuition", they are talking about things that you get from Charisma in Shadowrun. Everything that is based on "feelings" is all Charisma in Shadowrun. The only thing that is vaguely intuitive in Shadowrun that runs off your Intuition stat is your ability to Paint (which is based on Artisan). Your ability to glean information from encounters with other people (Ettiquette), your ability to sound like you know what you are talking about (Con), your ability to explain how you think about things (Instruction), and your ability to know what other people want/need to hear (Leadership) are all Charisma based.

If a tradition is in any way based on "feelings" it is based on Charisma. If a tradition is based on noticing stuff, it's Intuition. Fern Witchery is Intuition-based because of all that stuff where you look carefully at flowers in order to conect with them. Shadow Magic is Charisma-based because you are in any way concerned with the feelings and attitudes of yourself and those around you.

-Frank

yeah. it would be much less confusing if theycalled it Perception.

Intution has a good deal to do with "intuition". RL intuition is indeed very much a "noticing" thing.

Also Con is linked to Intuition, but in a defensive way. Sure it would help to have Intuition to make a Con, but that is where the GM can have the character attempting the Con do a Perception check up front if there is a partcularly hidden detail that might give an edge to the character. Or better yet a character could make an active Perception check before attempting the Con to try get a better idea of where to go with the Con.

Leadership is linked to Charisma because well, let us glance at the dictionary again.

Yes, Ettiquette can be used in an "intuition" way. Charisma is just the main attribute because Ettiquette is primarily a projecting. *shrug* This happens with a number of skills, and is an old saw.

P.S. Note that Disguise is linked to Intution.

The mage in my campaign came up with the Shinto/zen/kung fu tradition that uses intuition.

His reasoning was that his magic was based on ancestor spirits, which is rather a rather neat and original concept.

Of course the disadvantage to having a unique tradition is that it's going to be hard to find supplies/teachers of that tradition. Lots of room for adventure hooks there.

It won't be once the enchanting rules come out.

Everyone is forgetting about the number one use of Logic for spellcasters in general. Page 191, under Activation:

"The number of foci you can have active at one time is equal to your Logic."

So if you're trying to get away with a 1 or 2 Logic caster, you're in for some trouble once you start getting some money under your belt.

By the way, for people who equate the number of new traditions to D&D prestige classes, think about this:

For D&D, you needed to come up with a character concept, BAB progression table, spell progression table, list of new and useful abilities and their functions, saving throw progression table, list of skills, prerequisites, etc. etc...

For SR4 traditions, all you need is a little bit of creative description, a choice between Logic, Charisma, or Intuition for drain (I'd highly recommend AGAINST using Body, like one poster mentioned... I think the point is that you must use a Mental stat, but who knows), and a semi-randomly selected list of spirits and spell elemental links. There's not much thought that really goes into it (game-mechanics-wise).

So yeah, expect to see a million different traditions with very little actual differences, besides flavor text.

I only used Intuition as the Drain stat one time. A friend of mine gave me a cross-over challenge and told me to create Nick Scryer from "Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy" using SR4 chargen and rules. Since he was a psychic-type with telekinesis, mind-reading/control powers, pyrokinesis and the like, I figured the best drain stat FOR him would be Intuition.

I ended up making him a Magician with combat abilities.

My real magician characters use Logic.

I've played this game for almost 10 years now, never once have I had a successful magician use more then 2-3 focus.

Do you mean they've never used a focus rating higher than 2-3, or never used more than 2-3 foci?

I'd think most mages, eventually, would have more than three foci they'd find useful. The ratings of course depend on the power level of your campaign.

Especially now that SR4 has split the Counterspelling Foci up into spell categories.

On the flip side, all foci are comparatively more expensive as cash is generally "worth" about 4 times as much, except for Power foci which are cheaper.

And Spellcasting and Spirit foci have always been limited by spell category; counterspelling and power foci are the only ones that weren't. Sustainning foci used to have to be rebonded for sustainning a different spell.