I was working on an adventure to run, and was thinking of throwing out an homage to old kung-fu movies. The run would take place in China, and the runners would interact with a group of adepts studying at a Shaolin monestary. Naturally, each of the monks would have a schtick wherein they blasted one of the adept powers to the exclusion of all the others. Some of the abilities have limits, but AFAIK most of them have no cap on how many times one can take a power. So I made a bunch of adepts with 6 magic and as many points in a power as I could get.

This ends up making some pretty neat characters such as the guy with 12 points of armor while naked and the guy that gets +12 dice on his defense rolls, but the real winner is Golden Fist Killer, the adept that buys 24 ranks of Critical Strike at .25 a pop. With a 3 strength this guy does a minimum of 27 points of damage when he hits. (Str/2 = 2+24 Critical Strike +1 for the success on the attack roll) Even with it all being stun that is likely enough to kill you dead unless you're pretty tough. And no one takes that and stays conscious. And that's presuming he only got one success on his roll to hit you.

Mind you, I would never make a character like this for a game, but the cockles of my heart are warmed thinking of a man that pokes you in the chest and you explode.

Sidenote: Can anyone find a rules reason preventing one from doing this? It would be a funny character to make in a game with a GM one didn't like. "I'm afraid 20,000 is far too much for a job like this Mr. Killer, hey stop poking m-- *BOOM*"

pg 187. in the blurb under ADEPT POWERS:
"Many adept powers may be purchased at a
variable rating. The maximum level an adept may have in any
power is equal to the adept’s Magic attribute."

so the highest your 6 magic monks could get in anything is 6 ranks.

Oh thank god! Well that is good to know. Thanks all. Always good to see crazy loopholes not work.

Nah, that loophole still works. You just need to feed them a buttload of karma for initiation and more levels of magic

I may be wrong in this, but why would a monk dedicated themselves to only 1 ability? Firmly, completely, absolutely devoting yourself to one style/power to the exclusion of all else is unbalanced... I thought a monk seeks balance with himself and his ki so that he flows with the universal order, rather than fight the current and possibly drown in the process of seeking power.

you've never seen any old kung-fu movies, have you?

Watch the Five Deadly Venoms or another old school Kung-Fu movie in that vein. Or Shaolin Soccer for that matter. The schtick is that every guy in the temple has some cool trick that he's really devoted himself to mastering. Iron Vest may be practically invincible while Golden Palm may have perfected a technique that kills in one blow. While this may not be the smartest or most realistic approach to developing one's kung-fu, it does work nicely for movies, and that's what I would be basing it on.

Mind you, they would all be kick ass martial artists, with high Unarmed and Athletics skills, but they would also have a "kewl power" that would make them a very distinct adversary.

You can still devote all Power Points to a single purpose. You just need to diversify a bit. 'Golden Palm' would get Killing Hands, maxed Critical Strike, Strength Boost and Improved Unarmed Combat, while 'Iron Vest' would get maxed Mystic Armor, maybe some Pain Resistance and Improved Body, and the 'Erratic Dragonfly' would take maxed Combat Sense and Improved Reflexes.

Bye
Thanee

Thanee, you win both for the good idea and for the name "Erratic Dragonfly" I'll be sure to cite you when I write up the adventure.

Glad you like it.

Bye
Thanee

Waltermandias, Thanee: Great ideas!!!!
I am absolutely going to steal this from you two... But first I have to wait till the runners finish their job against S-K...

BTW: Waltermandias, How does the actual run go? Extraction? Security? Wetwork?

Cheers,

Max

I was thinking that the runners would be hired by Wuxing to "convince" the monks to move. Wuxing wants the site of the monestary since it's (naturally) built on a site of substantial geomantic power. The corp wants to use the powerful feng shui of the site to enhance it's magical research. Obviously the monks are... difficult to dislodge, what with the powerful adeptyness and the fact that they are something of folk heroes to the locals (imagine the leader as a Wong Fei-Hung like figure.)

Obviously this depends on what kind of spin you want to put on it. If you want your runners to be "good" guys, make the monks out to be awful, arrogant bastards lording their power over the locals a la Pei Mei from Kill Bill or the evil Buddhist Monk from Iron Monkey. If you want them to be the "bad" guys use the folk hero, paragons of humility monks. I'm going to let the runners choose. Do the job and make phat bank, or screw the corp to do the right thing, with all the appropriate consequences to their reps and bank accounts.

I'm trying to come up with some ways they could compromise or clever "outs" they could take to assuage their morals and make a little scratch. We'll see how that goes.

They're becoming masters of that wonderful skill we gained from Magic in the Shadows: Zen Flamethrower.

It's for farming. Really.