Hmm.. I guess I havn't watched enough of the series yet to figure things out properly..

You are old......that is all.

You misspelled "in the SR setting, would pretty much have to" up there. Hope this helps. Have a nice day.

Which episode was it where Ein cracks through some computer security like it was warm butter and Ein was a chainsaw. That part really cracked me up because only Ed noticed it and all she had was a puzzled look. The significance of it was lost on the group, they just said thanks to Ed for cracking it.

That's pretty much a Technomancer, well except the part about needing trodes unless they wanted to connect by hardline they don't even need that. By 2070 trodes are good enough that anyone can run hot through them.

Hell Hound?

That was the episode with the cult being run by a kid hacker that was hooked up to the net even while he was in a comma.

Welsh Corgi superotaku.

considering some of the examples of intelligence displayed by the group throughout the series, it's a tough call. I think even a hellhound might give them a run for their money competing with them on the level of intelligence.

But can a hellhound deck and (if one consdiers the manga canon) do hellhounds have Sentient Knowbots running data storage in their brains?

He also misspelled "Otaku". Ed is very unlike a technomancer, unless I missed her accessing the 'net without gear somewhere in there.

~J

1) I haven't read Loose Alliances, and if IIRC that is what are refering too?
2) If by "pathological aversion to saying anything bad about them" you mean "adversion to filling up page after page with angst filled moaning", yes.
3) If by "pathological aversion to saying anything bad about them" you mean that literally and "them" being Fanpro and associated editors, obviously no once you read through the actual contents of all my posts. Do i actually need to bring up examples, or are you just going to go sit in the corner and quietly enjoy snacking on your foot?

Umm, that actually might be an issue if i disputed it. Did i? No. As far as i understand that particular chapter was written in IC in a persona that is extremely similar to Ed. *shrug*

*cough* Oh yes, he's never been known to make extremely dubious claims.

But that wasn't my point here. SR and literature in general tends to be chock full of echos of past works. Just perusing through this board, and in fact the subject of this thread, shows that SR games are full of recycled themes and character types.

In short, James was bitching about water being wet.

You jumped in a post too late then.

Nah, he's just got a Smartlink II system or even a Smartlink III and vision mag and a damage compensator. He can be really messed up and at long range and have friendlies in and around the line of fire and still not suffer any negative mods.

There's no reason to believe that Spike is in any way magic, when biological enhancement could explain all of it.

Sounds like a Control Rig to me, but since he only has to come up with .2 more essence to fit it in somewhere, he probably just has some alphaware. And a Control Rig.

-Frank

Er, no that is called "clarification to correct a misunderstanding". Enjoy the thread, later.

In a universe with immortal children, ghosts reaching from other dimensions with the power of Feng Shui and swordsmen who can magically survive firefights I would argue that Spike's abilities don't necessarily point to biological enhancement and away from magic.

It would be more in the vein of the universe to go with biological enhancement, but I think that a more effective model of Spike could be made with adept powers (like SIDESTEP, which that man has in spades). mfb's point regarding centering also makes a great deal of sense.

Further, 26 dice of full defense doesn't exactly scream Spike to me (unless this is SR4 and he's sacrificing an initiative pass to dodge, which also doesn't seem too appropriate).

Finally, I assume this smartlink III is an SR4 device and not a wacky house rule. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're wrong. SR4 does not assign any designators to the generic Smartlink.

The Smartlink II and such were always mostly flavor. In SR4, you get the practical advantages of additional assistance with long range fire by just having a vision mag system. So yeah, Spike negates most any set of modifiers that would apply under normal circumstances.

Spike's normal combat routine against enemies is to take his first initiative pass as Full Defense, at which point he rolls way too many dice for anyone to do anything about. Then he has three more initiateive passes where he beats the living crap out of people.

Which in Shadowrun means that he has non-detectable cyberware like Synaptic Boosters. If he was an adept, he would have been detected as such by the magicians he went up against. The fact that he was able to skate past them without triggering alarms indicates that he has no magical talent.

-Frank

Or a decent level of Masking.

True.

One could logically conclude that he is either a multiple grade initiate with Masking and Centering, or that he simply has a lot of bioware. Based on his past history, and the fact that the magicians who knew him a long time ago don't seem to know about his superior combat abilities and his former triad associates do... I'd say it was probably the latter.

Adept with Masking can't be ruled out for just about anybody, but there's no pressing reason to believe that he has any adept powers at all when he could get much the same effect with a Synaptic Boost, a Synthacardium, and some Reflex recorders.

In fact, I'm not seeing someone being able to get Spike's primary skill-set with less than about 10 magic worth of adept powers, but I was able to cover all of his idiosyncracies (including his ability to eat things that I wouldn't) on less than 6 essence. The bioware option seems pretty clearly the better choice. Not the only choice, just the best.

-Frank