But if your playing an honorable adept you dont hit a downed opponent. Smashing blow wouldnt be redundant be cuase it improves your damage agaisnt barriars which blades are lacking in.

From the sound of it, an Earthdawn tie-in...sounds like of those old anti-scourge habitats popped back in from the astral, and took out the supports (and infrastructure - powerlines, pipes and even subways.)

In Shadowrun? But that oddity aside, it doesn't much matter what you plan to do with them when they are knocked over. They are still knocked over and that is typically a benefit. Whether or not your character has some sort of sense of chivilry that prevents him from kicking someone when they are prone.

[doh, EDIT due to brainfry]
Weapons already do extra damage over hands. While not as good, as Smashing blow, if you topped one with the other it gets a bit silly. Not that just STR for hands isn't already silly. I think that smaller cost and just adding +Level for damage would have worked out better.

In a book named Street Magic that's a pretty good guess.

It's called the Deep Lacuna, and it comes completes with a crazy street preacher that claims to have found an ancient city that was built to hide from God scourging the earth in times past. *cough*Earthdawn*cough*

Yep, Str/2.

Doh, yah I keep forgetting. The extra damage is addition, not multiplication. Post adjusted.

I thought so, too. See, it's my keen intellect that lets me figure this stuff out.

.......

Oh... dear... GOD.

What's that? Oh, never mind. It's just me having a STROKE!

That's really going to leave a nasty dent in your keen intellect.

Maybe it'll tone down your constant pissing and moaning.

If SoLA would have been published, that knowledge would help us more.

See, he's beating a dead horse!

You asked for it.
What other explanation would you like? I mean, you don't even like the whole flooding of LA (so do I), but it's canon now and they needed to come up with a reason for it. A magic... hell, at least it's weirrd.

Noone beats a dead horse anymore:
One lets it being posessed with a spirit, and beat itself!

Feel free to try... It is remotely possible. Then with a spirit as powerful as you'd need for that, the Inhabitation roll might go against you and it might destroy the vessel.

I'm not sure what you're referring to by a "mentalist" path for adepts. I don't recall there ever being anything official along those lines. Social adepts have carried over, and 95% of the remaining adept abilities from SOTA64 and MitS that weren't covered in SR4 are in Street Magic.

I think he's suggesting something of which there were inklings of in SOTA64, but which weren't given full effect: Namely adepts that (and this was even mentioned in the fluff) excelled at analytical thinking and mental effects. Adepts who would excel in more mental tasks by combining powers like Enhanced Perception, Linguistics, Multitasking, Eidetic Memory, 3-D Memory (BTW, I hope that was corrected to be measured in cubic meters, otherwise it just looks really weird), IA:B/R Skills, the Cognition metamagic, and so forth.

There was a lot of potential for that class, especially if the decision was made to allow Improved Attributes: Mental or IA: Technical/ Knowledge Skills. It would have had to have exceptions (although, frankly, I cared little for people's concerns about a Mystic Adept getting Improved Willpower or Charisma, not least of all because it costs them so damn much compared to the benefits to everyone else), maybe, but I do actually dig the idea insofar as it is in the meatworld for there to be badass Deckmeister Adepts or thieves with IA: Electronics (and not just IA:Electronics B/R, which does exist).

My social adept is effectively half "Mental Adept" because she has most of these powers as well as Kinesics, IA: Social Skills, Centering (Social Skills), etc. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

I am disappointed in the change in adept centering, because it ruins one of my adepts who has Centering (Small Unit Tactics).

[EDIT]
Forgot to add Centering (B/R, Technical, Language, or Knowledge skills) to the list of SR3 powers and abilities that helped form the basis for the Mental Adept class.
[/EDIT]

depends on the summoner. but as long as said summoner isnt a hetrosexual female then yes...

The Adept still has a total 3D memory volume of Magic^3, which are divided up into Magic number of units.

So if you mean did they change it from one memory being Magic*Magic cubic meters, no.

The Centering will still make the Adept a more reliable commander in prolonged conflicts as he racks up the wound penalities.

EDIT

Oh, and is Analytics new? I don't recall it before. Could one of you Shadow-heads please point out any brand new Adept Power names in the list?

Yeah, but on the other hand he can no longer throw 36 dice when ambushing someone.

Analytics
Berserk
Cloak
Metabolic Control
Natural Immunity
Piercing Senses
Power Throw

Likely for the best, really.

Analytics - +1 die/level in identifying patterns, solving puzzles, or general Sherlock Holmes deduction from clues (Mentalist type Power )
Berserk - voluntary entering of +1 Physical/-1 Mental for Magic minutes (not so much Mentalist type Power )
Cloak - +1 die/level to resist active Detection spells and Search power
Metabolic Control - drastically slows the body down and with it toxin effects and bleeding damage, automatically kicks in when you go into damage overflow
Natural Immunity - is in the BBB, +1 die/level to resist toxins & disease
Piercing Senses - +1 die/level to resist Illusion spells and powers
Power Throw - +2 Str/level for range and damage of thown weapons

A mix of new powers, but mostly just rounding things out I think. Berserk is also linked to some Mentor Spirits, but when it is it triggers involuntarily.

I had a sneaking suspicion, but I wasn't sure.

That is correct. Metabolic Control also combines a couple of old minor powers in a single one.

Special thanks to mfb for Power Throw.

And now for something completely different: how are people finding the fiction elements, both the chapter intros and the Sixth World fluff? Helpful? Interesting? Suggestive? Lacking context?

He contributed to a SR4 book?

Posession will see a new popularity it seems.

Not directly, but we'd been trading comments and notes on adept powers dating back to SOTA64 and I took him up on one of his ideas.

I'm at the "sift manically through the book to find all the cool new rules" phase. Getting the book read carefully will come later and take a little longer

Indeed, as it now is nearly as powerful as materialization: It lacks instantaneousness, but is much more versatile.

shit, shit, gotta find something to bitch about... oh! why didn't you call it Illusion of Distance! you've ruined my precious intellectual property! ruined!

(Metabolic Control was mine, too!)

*flips through the TOC & Credits*

No, they didn't.