It's pretty hard to split 1 point of Magic two ways, which suggests that it's viable to have 0 magic for either adept or mage. But maybe this is for characters who are waiting for their power to manifest.

The overall magic hasn't been reduced to 0 but the mage half has. Does this mean one side of the characters magic has been burnt out forever and he can never add more mage specific magic? Or does it just mean he can't use mage skills till he gets some more magic points?

Before anyone else gets around to bringing it up I thought I should also post the disclaimer from the qualities description.

While it's pretty clear this thread is about min/maxing I think question 1 opens up the possibility for roleplaying a character who was a mystic adept but burnt out part of their skill with cyberware.

Bonus question: What if I took a Mystic Adept with only one magic point allocated to Adept powers, would he be allowed to take Counterspelling?

Well this magic loss occured during character creation, but otherwise I guess it would be up to the DM whether it was my choice, his choice or randomised.

Try and find a quote that explicitly says that. There are quotes that a GM may interprete and extrapolate to reach that conclusion, but the same quotes can be interpreted the opposite way.

That's just the result of trying to write a concise sentence. It would sound awfully clumsy to say only characters with the magician or mystic adept quality and a magic attribute of 1 or greater in the former case or 2 or more in the latter case are able to take or use Magic skills.

Or "... a Magic attribute (for the purpose of spellcasting) of 1 or greater".

Yeah that works too. With a bit of thought you can come up with neater ways of saying it. But try and apply a bit of thought to every few lines of a three hundred page rule book and you're bound to find a few things like this. Personally, I'm pretty sure it's just a natural result of trying to say two similar things in a single, simple way.

Hmm, true, and I could be convinced to make an exception on a case-by-case basis if I trusted that the player was looking to roleplay that aspect of discovery, but I'd look over that character's selected Magical skills with a fine-tooth-comb before giving it the thumbs up to enter my game.

Then in that case nothing will ever be labeled "muchkin" because I'm sure that for whatever twisted mangling of the rules someone can come up with, someone else can make up a backstory for it to fit.

And although its true that the Counterspelling skill itself is bought, what I meant to say is free access to buy the skill, as given the context of the character it's fairly clear that he would have taken those 2 Points of Cyber no matter what, so the only reason he would choose to be a Mystic Adept over a normal Adept is to gain extra Spell Resistance in the form of Counterspelling. So yes, I consider that Munchkin since the player never had any intention of actually playing a Mystic Adept but rather just wanted to twist the rules to be a normal Cybered Adept with access to Counterspelling.

So that concise statement tells you explicitly who may use Magic skills. As long as you have Magician or Mystic Adept quality and a Magic attribute of 1 or more, you can use Magic skills. Not "Magic attribute(for the purposes of using Magic skills)".

This was in the thread I linked above.

It must be taken in conjunction with the Rules for Mystic Adepts... If you don't have a magic attribute of 1 or more for Magic Based Skills then you don't meet that requirement.

Now, although it doesn't name Counterspelling by name, Counterspelling IS a Magic-linked skill so it applies.

*Edit*

Also the way I read it, it also closes the loop-hole of Mystic Adepts using their full Magic Rating as the limit of how high high they can raise an Adept power as well.

It only states that each point spent you get 1 point to use with mana-based abilities. So if you spent 0 points on mana-based abilities, you get 0 points to use with mana-based abilities. It does not mean that you have 0 points in Magic or that you cannot use mana-based abilities.

This is the general rule. In order to use magic skills, you must have the magician or mystic adept quality and a magic attribute of 1 or greater. It is an exclusionary rule to prevent characters with either 0 magic or qualities such as spell knack.

This is a further limitation upon Mystic Adepts. Essentially, mystic adepts have

Magic (mana-based): x
Magic (physical): Total Magic - x

If x = 0, they do not meet the general rule, anymore than a regular adept meets the general rule.

Cool by me. Good stories should conquer all.

Is this like "the sound of one hand clapping?" Do I meditate now?

I never said I'd be okay with any old story. I'm just saying that a good story can justify most things. With a good enough story, I'll break the rules for a player.

This is the key for me. The, “it has to be because of my background” argument is just putting the cart before the horse. Just about every time someone says, well my background just simply won't work if I don't have 30 dice for this thing, or access to everything over here, is just BS. I could give you 5 other builds that don't leave you unbalanced compared to the other 4 people at the table.

The way I deal with a good back-story is worth some direct in game benefit is that I give Karma for back-story.

During my games, and before we even start, I award Karma for well-written stories. Karma worthy stories can be back-story, or they can be a narrative chronicle of the events of the last run/session. I feel it is a more worthy reward than allowing munchkinism or rule bending/breaking.

Nope. Quoting from pg. 187 (emphasis mine):

That's pretty unambiguous. And the FAQ doesn't even contradict it, unless you start using it as a starting point for your own interpretations. But even if the FAQ did contradict it, the FAQ is not canon (and has been know to be mistaken, or to contradict the RAW, on more than one occasion).



On the question of a mystic adept using counterspelling, I agree with Frank and some of the others that you should need to have an effective Magic of at least one point towards the mage side to be able to use counterspelling.

Consider:

A PC that has Mystic Adept Quality. He doesn't buy any more points in Magic at chargen. He puts that 1 Magic in physical. Oops - instant burnout, even if he decides he wants to develop his Magical side later in-game. Or if we apply the second part of the ruling to adept powers and he has only Magic 1, instant burnout for adept powers. Which begs the question, is a chargen PC allowed to be illegal in any instance during chargen? Why? Because at the instant you buy the MA quality you gain 1 Magic and you have to assign it. Oops, you are no longer able to use mana-based abilities or never able to buy adept powers again. So I see your bullshit and raise you 2 bulldreks .

Access to magic skills is an aspect of the Magic attribute, not an aspect of the skills. The RAW says Magic attribute, not effective Magic attribute. And the FAQ doesn't say that the Magic(mana-based) is the effective Magic attribute besides. It may be infered to be so, but I can also infer the other way.

This explains why Adepts are not allowed to use Magic based skills. The same reasoning must be applied to Mystic adepts: Mystic adepts that do not allocate magic points to use with Magic based skills cannot use such skills. Under your reasoning, adepts should be allowed to learn magic skills, which is logically inconsistent with the actual rules. The only logically consistent conclusion is that Mystic Adepts must allocate at least one point of magic for use with mana-based skills in order to use those skills.

Also, I can't find where it states a mystic adept with a magic (mana-based) of 0 becomes a normal adept. If their total magic becomes 0 they lose all abilities. Otherwise, they can simply choose to assign subsequent magic points to the use of Magical skills. Until they do, however, they are unable to use their magic skills. This is supported by the idea that a mystic adept has the option (not mandatory) of splitting their magic attribute.

At character creation, I have personally always applied power points after reducing magic for essence loss, so you wouldn't be allowed to buy Counterspelling and then lose the magic. I don't have any conclusive authority for this, but technically, the assigning resources section comes before the magical resources section, so it makes sense to do it that way.

By my reasoning, the reason Magicians and Mystic Adepts can learn Magic skills is they have the Magician or Mystic Adept qualities and have a Magic of 1 or more. An Adept does not have the Mystic in his quality.

Correct me if I assume wrongly: you want to apply the "all aspects" argument such that you cannot use Magic skills if you are at Magic(mana-based) 0 but yet you are not burnt out in Magic(mana-based), even though Magic 0 is burnt out?

Seems like this is another case of previous version knowledge slipping through the SR4 filter into my current expectations. Under 2nd edition rules physical magicians (optional rule in Awakenings p119) always lose magic first from their Magical Skills, and if the effective Magic ever drops to zero they lose all ability to use conjuring and sorcery.

I don't see where they appear in sr3 at all. Magic in the Shadows does not have Mystic Adept or Physical Magician in the index, nor does SR3 core.

Why can't he use magic skills? Is that an aspect of the skills or the Magic(mana) attribute itself? If your Magic is zero, you cannot use magic skills - I see this as an aspect of Magic, and not an aspect of the skills.

They are called magician adepts, and are described under the magician's way, on pgs. 22-24 of Magic in the Shadows. The rules for them are almost exactly like what you have quoted for SR2.


But comparing SR4 to SR2 and SR3 is like Comparing Bubblegum Crisis 2040 to the original Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash - some of the names are the same, but everything else has been drastically changed.


There is no doubt that mystic adepts use the magic points allocated to their mage side for mage skills, since their description under the quality and later on in the Adept section say that unequivacably. The problem is that using counterspelling as spell defense doesn't use the Magic Attribute, just the skill. And mystic adepts are in the unusual situation where they could, due to Magic loss, have an effective Magic rating of 0 for purposes of using mage skills, but still have a Magic Attribute. So some, like Toturi, could argue that the mystic adept should still be able to use counterspelling despite having an effective Magic Rating of 0 for using that skill.


It's probably one of those grey areas where the GM has to make a ruling, but personally, I am disinclined to allow it. Under the description of magical active skills, it says that you need a Magic Attribute of 1 or greater to use Magic skills. Mystic adepts invest in mana-based abilities to gain points of Magic to use with Magic-based skills. So in my opinion, a mystic adept with no points in mana-based abilities does not meet the criteria for using Magic skills - he or she may still have a Magic Attribute, but so does an ordinary adept. For using Magic skills, an effective Magic Attribute of 0 should mean an inability to use any Magic skills such as spellcasting or counterspelling - even if using one of those skills does not directly use the zeroed-out effective Magic Attribute.


Look at it this way - if a background count reduces a full-fledged magician's Magic Attribute to 0, he or she cannot use any magical abilties, even though spell defense does not use the Magic Attribute. So why should an effective Magic rating of 0 be any different for a mystic adept?

Oh well, then I guess it'll remain a house rule as opposed to canon in my campaigns then.

Then I'll call your bluff, a mage who enters a Mana Void with a Rating greater then his Magic has an effective Magic of 0 while there and according to Street Magic while in such a state "he is rendered unable to use any magical abilities".

A Mystic Adept without any points of Magic invested into the Mystic Arts has a Magic of 0 for the purposes of all aspects related with Magic-linked skills, that we know from the FAQ, and like it or not, when a Mage has an effective Magic of 0 he or she loses access to those magical abilities.

And yes we do know that the Magic Points alotted towards the Mystic Arts are the effective Magic Rating because in all skill tests you roll Skill + Linked Attribute, and the FAQ clearly stats that a Mystic Adept with Magic 6 (Adept 2/Mystic 4) and a Counterspelling of 6 only gets to roll 10 Dice while trying to dispel a Sustained Spell instead of 12.

Ok, I think I see what you are getting at, however the problem is that the FAQ says;

That means that a Mystic Adept with Magic 4 (Adept 4/Mystic 0) does have a Magic of 0 as far as any Magic-linked skill is concerned. So you are partially right, it isn't the skill itself that forbids the Mystic Adept in question from using Counterspelling, it is the fact that the Mystic side of his Magic is 0.

I couldn't agree more, plus something that I think people are trying to forget is that Counterspelling does use Magic when a Mage tries to Dispel a Sustained Spell.

You are correct. In a void, a mage is unable to use any magical abilities and that is all Magic 0 does in that case. Otherwise, it is burnout-ville for the mage.

A Mystic Adept without any points in Magic(mana) is Magic(mana) 0 and is Burned Out for Magic(mana)! In order to avoid the situation that a Mystic Adept decides to put his only point of Magic at chargen in Physical powers first and develop his Magic(mana) side later in game and finds out that he is effectively Burned Out when he tries to increase his Magic(mana) stat, I interprete it such that the "all aspects" refer only to aspects of the skills and not an aspect of Magic(mana).

Ok, I'm starting to see more clearly where you are coming from, but something you might want to think about is that unlike previous Editions, Magic doesn't start at Rating 6 in Fourth, so I don't think its at all unreasonable or even in violation of RAW to only apply 'Burn-Out' status to Mages/Adepts/ect who managed a Magic of 0 through the active Loss of Magic.

Really? Then perhaps you'd like to explain this quote: