So....it's cheaper to get a group of people together to initiate - is this because a magical group has extra resources, or purely the fact that everyone working together on it share the babysteps of initiative, saving everyone a little extra effort (aka karma) by doing so? Could you just find a few fellow mages that want to take the leap, make a circle in your warehouse, and do it there? Can you all get up and say farewells afterwards?


It's an interesting idea really, avoiding the magical groups to gain the benefits they provide in this step, and the risks it involves doing either - Suppose a teaching mage is going to initiate himself - would he take along a student for his first initiation too, so they can both benefit a little and the student gets the help of his master, but backs off while he does his own quest?

queries, answers, solutions, 'what the heck are you talking about!?' desired. Would you like to give them?


..and yeah, it's suppose to be initiate! damn fingers typing before my head things it...

In SR3 they had to pay or get an Avatar Spirit to help them with their initiations. So the saved karma was (you can assume) him helping them and showing them short cuts. Not the baby steps makign it easier. In fact initiating with a group was harder, because you had to find one, donate karma or if you made one you and your group had to find that avatar spirit. It took karma and time and energy, liek days of astrally projecting looking for an Avatar.

Getting up and leaving the group after you initiate meant you lost your ability to cheaply initiate later.

...well I wanted to know about SR4 sotospeak, but sr3 info is important too, lol.

Alas, I also found the sr4 answer shortly afterwars: the initiation discount you get for a group comes from a group bond, which is part of how magical groups. Without that bond, you can't do the cheap initiation (though nothing stops you from doing it, then dispersing the bond at the cost of a karma point later, but at 1st and 2nd initiation that only adds up to so much).

So there is some potential options, but they're tricky. Ah well, at least answers were found!

Everything you need to know is in "Street Magic". You spend 5 karma and make a Arcana+Logic test with a threshold of 1(+1 for every 5 members in the group). Yes you heard me right ARCANA! It is described as a "ritual" then why not ritual spellcasting? I don't even have the Arcana skill so I'm going to have to spend even more karma to get it so I can join the group I'm choosing. And if I fail the roll I still loose the 5 karma!

Every group has their own rules so unless you form your own group (which uses a different set of rules) you'll have to follow them so I doubt you can form up just to initiate and then leave.

If I may rant here for a second, I can't understand why they felt the need to add yet another skill to the long list of skills that magicians need (and have to spend lots and lots of karma for). There is already Astral combat, Banishing, Binding, Counterspelling, Ritual spellcasting, Spellcasting, Summoning, and my favorite Assensing (still don't understand why you need this skill when you already have the Perception skill, if you are perceptive in the physical world you are going to be perceptive in Astral). :end rant:

gunsnammo

I do like the new skills... talismongering is a very cool flavor skill for magicians, even if the economist side of me would prefer buying anything needed - to time consuming.

If you don´t want arcana for anything but joining the group, consider that the membership fee is now at least 9 karma. How many times do you want to initiate?

I´ll still join a group for the social benefits (connections, gear, teachers), but if you just want to save karma like Cold-Dragon, the payoff is not good at all.

Wow, imagine that, something works in terms of tie-ins to the game, potential plot points, connections, and all sorts of other in-character stuff instead of just cold, hard, math efficiency. Heaven forbid.

Only half the truth - Assensing is used for spotting hiding auras/astral forms.