A lot of people have complained about the Astral Sight and Spell/Spirit Knack qualities presented in Street Magic - and with good reason. As the weakest magicians in Shadowrun Fourth Edition, these minor magicians face the most stringent restrictions on what skills and foci they must take, not to mention the inability to raise their Magic rating. Still, these Talented individuals can, with the right development and character choices, become viable player characters - or more likely, non-player characters.

Magic is the first and most obvious restriction on these characters, as it limits the Force of any spell cast or spirit conjured (for Spell Knack and Spirit Knack, respectively), the number and total Force of all foci the magician can bind, the maximum number of times the magician can initiate, and how many metamagic techniques she can learn. Beyond this, Magic is the attribute used in most (although not all) magical skill tests. With a default and unraiseable Magic 1, this generally means that a minor magician is restricted to Force 1 or 2 spells and spirits, a single focus (which may be up to Force 5), can initiate once, and may have up to two metamagics - provided the GM allows you to use the optional rule! Another major blow is that if the character takes any augmentation that costs Essence (or loses Essence to foci or drug addiction), they lose their hard-earned magical ability!

While Force 1 spells and spirits (Force 2 if you don't mind overcasting) seems very weak, a character with any skill at all is virtually guaranteed at success casting these spells or summoning these spirits, and can likely take little or no drain. The character might become a one-trick pony, but they should be able to do that trick very well indeed! This limitation also brings forth a minor advantage: unlike most Awakened characters, the Karma demands to excel are much more reasonable, allowing the character to expand in other areas much easier than other magicians. Besides that, the characters can purchase specializations for their skills that reflect what they can do, and I would strongly suggest characters with the Spell/Spirit Knack buy the individual magical skills and specialize rather than buy the group skill - this isn't out of a desire to min/max the character, but to faithfully reflect their focus on their limited abilities. After all, if a character can only use Counterspelling on a Stunball spell, it makes sense they would specialize in countering combat spells! Lacking general access to banishing, minor magicians might be advised to focus on Attacks of Will (Street Magic), possibly augmented by the martial arts bonuses provided in Arsenal.

Initiation and purchasing metamagic are two things I would strongly suggest to any minor magician. Not only are there a great variety of metamagics to choose from, but it represents pretty much the only way to expand the scope of your character's abilities. Indeed, many initiated minor magicians can effectively become aspected metamagicians, that is magicians who specialize in a particular metamagic. While much more limited even than regular aspected magicians. For example, a character with Spell Knack can purchase the Sorcery group, which includes the Ritual Spellcasting skill; Ritual Spellcasting in turn is the background for the Geomancy and Great Ritual metamagics. While a knack magician won't be a legendary geomancer, they can be a very effective one, essentially giving the character the Aspected Domain advanced lifestyle option from Runenrs Companion with little or no cost - for every one of their homes and safehouses. In some cases, ajudication by the GM may be required - for example, the Cleansing metamagic obviously expands on the magician's uses of the Counterspelling Skill, and should probably do so as well with spell knack magicians - even though the quality description normally limits Counterspelling to their particular spell. (Of course, how the character is astrally perceiving or projecting to use the metamagic is another question - presumably deepweed or a magical compound at work.)

With regard to Spell Knack and Spirit Knack, the character needs to choose a tradition - any tradition - to determine what spirit(s) are available to them and what they drain attribute is. If a possession tradition is taken, the character would be advised to invest in some vessels. A character who chooses Spirit Knack (Watcher spirits) and a possession tradition, for example, would be advised to ask the GM to implement the corps cadavre/living doll rule to make the most out of her spirits. Any of these minor magicians could chose an appropriate Mentor Spirit, with their GMs approval as well. This can require a bit of judgment, as in many cases this equates to "All bonus and no downside."

Knack magicians and the Sighted are generally limited in the foci they can bind - no more than one, no more than Force 5. Other than that (and the restriction on weapon foci that applies to those with the Astral Sight quality), the options are open. Many players instictively go for power foci, and this is understandable, although generally unneeded. At the Forces available to them, a character with Magic 1 and Appropriate Magical Skill 5 (Specializtion + 2) will have eight dice to throw at the spell before foci are added. Most spell or spirit foci, while seeimingly natural choices, are even worse - what good is a banishing focus if you can only use Banishing on Spirits of Beasts to begin with? Instead, characters can bind a focus that adds to their character's abilities - a knack magician who can cast a sustained spell might take a sustaining focus or an initiate with Masking might take a masking focus to add the Force of the focus to their Initiate grade. While none of the minor magicians can use the Enchanting skill, they can still use some of the magical goods it creates to good effect - a spell knack magician could use a fetish, and any minor magician can use a talisman or get more use out of a magical compound. Minor magicians can also gather reagents - in fact, spirit knack magicians who use the optional Aid Enchanting rule can become very good gatherers. Minor magicians can also create and maintain mana lodges of any Force, which can be very helpful.

The immediate problem with Spell Knack is the low Force of the spells; this makes it hard to affect unwilling targets and the effects are easily dispelled. This generally limits the spells from being gamebreaking - a Force 2 spell is still a Force 2 spell even if the character has Spellcasting 7 (That Spell +2), Power Focus 5, and +2 Mentor Spirit bonus. More generally, I find that spell knack magicians make excellent contacts and allies - for ritual spellcasting! Spell knack ritual magicians aren't great leaders, but they are terrific support with their high Ritual Spellcasting ratings - provided they know the spell in question. Indeed, an NPC with the Great Ritual metamagic can be a real asset, even when conducting geomantic rituals. Theoretically, a group of initiate spell knack magicians who know the same spell and the Great Ritual metamagic could get together to cast a spell with a Force higher than 2 - which might make for an interesting group of NPCs to throw at a runner group.

When the Spirit Knack comes to mind, my first thought tends to the Ally Conjuration metamagic. While a major investment in time and Karma, the benefits of an ally spirit to a minor magician are tremendous, not least of which is that for an appropriate investment of Karma that spirit will scale with the character - she can even increase the spirit's Force above twice her Magic rating! However, knack magicians worried about losing their precious ally spirit would do well to invest in a very high Binding Skill. Since a magician's limit on bound spirits is based on their Charisma, it generally behooves spirit knack magicians to focus on this attribute.

Characters with Astral Sight have a number of options to chose from, metamagic-wise, but generally lack the outlet of a spell or spirit in the same way as knack magicians. Besides Assensing and Astral Combat, however, these characters can also take advantage of the new rules for magical medicine introduced in Augmentation.

Spirit Pacts are highly tempting to all minor magicians, and with good reason: they can give some of the abilities that such groggies typically lack, including access to the Astral and metaplanes. Binding a free spirit isn't easy, even for a spirit knack magician - the GMs adjudication is called for here, as to whether the spirit knack magician can actually use their Conjuring group skills for a free spirit not of their persuasion, though of course if they happen to match there is no conflict - and the end result tends to be a slightly more powerful (if dangerous) version of the ally spirit situation mentioned above.

Of course, no discussion of minor magicians would be complete without that very rare occurance: the character that has two Knacks (spell and spirit), or a Knack and Astral Sight, or even two Knacks and Astral Sight. The reason this is earnestly advised against is that the character is paying out for what amounts to very little extra ability due to the lapping restrictions. A character with two Knacks (or a Knack and Astral Sight, etc.) is still limited to Magic 1, with all those inherent restrictions. In addition, the character suddenly has to divide their Karma between developing more skills! If a character does pick all three, they're essentially paying three-quarters of the cost to play an extremely gimped full magician - which they can do if the gamemaster approves, but as that point I would suggest the player look at playing an aspected magician.

One thing few GMs consider is NPC minor magicians who follow the dark paths. Such characters make very good low-level threats on their own, but become progressively more difficult the more assistance they receive. A spell knack magician with the Sacrificing metamagic, for example, could be little more than a mad serial killer - but the same character becomes much more dangerous as a vice president of Aztechnology with access to all the resources of that position and with the hidden reserve of magical powers available when cornered. By the same token, a spirit knack insect magician is a weird and different sort of adversary than the insect magicians most characters are used to opposing.

Okay, that's all I can think of for now.

Thanks AH, interesting extrapolations from RAW.

Although it's rare as a PC choice, the Shadowrun world as most writers conceive it includes people with knacks, and an appropriate scattering of NPCs should have knacks. (Just as there should be elves with CHA 4, even though they're generally not PCs.)

What spells are most useful at low Force? Some Divinations, eg Mindlink/Mindnet; Detect Enemies, even without detail, is better than no warning at all; Levitation at Force 2 is still darn useful (it beats some Adept powers such as Walk Without Trace and Wall Running); Magic Fingers (enough to direct a grenade, pick the guard's pocket and float the key through the bars, etc.); what else?

A minor mage might be jealous of full mages, and turn to dark paths out of spite. A backstory motivation is generally better storytelling than "Oh, one day she decided to go Twisted just 'cause she was bored".

While such characters could make interesting NPCs, those qualities, as written, are worthless to any player character due to the restrictions they place - any augmentations, & you loose your abilities, & you can never become "more" awakened. The only player characters that could ever receive any real benefit from them are the awakened critters (Infected, Pixies, etc.), because they would then, at least, be able to increase their Magic. Still, Astral Sight is strictly worse than Adept, meaning Knacks are the only ones that would be taken. Then, while not strictly worse than Mystic Adept due to the lower cost, for an additional 5 Build Points, a character may obtain the quality without any restrictions - they may learn any spell they please, can summon & bind 5 different types of spirits, & may increase their Magic at will.

I fail to see why they where ever included as Player Character options as written - they are beyond worthless, & until changed, nothing you can say will be capable of changing that fact.

In conclusion, while they have potential as Non-Player options, they cannot, in their current form, be used with any benefit by players. As such, I suggest the following House-Rules alterations.

Astral Sight
Cost: 5 BP
Characters with this quality have the ability to view the astral plane. Such characters gain the Astral Perception ability, & may learn the Assensing & Astral Combat skills. The character does not gain a Magic attribute, and as such, this ability is not lost by anything that would reduce Magic.

Characters with this quality may not take the Adept, Magician, Mystic Adept, Technomancer, Spell/Spirit Knack, Latent Technomancer, or Latent Awakening qualities.


Spell/Spirit Knack
Cost: 5 BP
Characters with this quality have limited magical ability. Such characters select a single category of spells (Combat, Detection, Health, Illusion, or Manipulation), & gain a Magic attribute of 1, which may then be later increased. Such characters may learn skills from the Sorcery & Conjuring skill groups, may learn & cast spells of their chosen category, & may conjure spirits of the appropriate category (as determined by their tradition). The Banishing, Binding, & Counterspelling skills may only be used on/against spells & spirits of the appropriate category.

Characters with this quality may not take the Adept, Magician, Mystic Adept, Technomancer, Astral Sight, Latent Technomancer, or Latent Awakening qualities.

astral sight would then become almost mandatory to any otherwise strictly mundane character O.o
you can never see enough . . especially when in Shadowrun, there are thigns you CAN unsee . .
astral perception gets rid of most visibility modifiers, so shooting would become easy as hell . .
if you become dual natured due to this, your average samurai will smack around spirits of force 8 with their bare hands
and if i remember correctly, such things as wards will shatter too . .

-2 to all Physical actions while astrally perceiving. This means that the total modifiers for firing might be slightly lower than those of various vision enhancements, at the cost of -2 to dodging as well. Not a trade-off I would usually take.

Being dual natured does not allow your natural attacks to bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons, & attacking non-materializing spirits requires them to remain in melee range and an investment in Astral Combat. Finally, that is the only way I can think of to make it viable compared to simply taking Adept with Astral Perception.

yes, of course, but if you are a sammy with astral perception, are you going to pass up on the opportunity to show up the adept in his specialty? *g*
if i were a sam, i would SO take astral combat with that . . because spirits are my one main problem most of the time <.< . .

Why would you take Astral Sight, ever?

For the same price you could take Adept and spend your one free Power Point on Astral Perception.

'cause with his house rules, it'd be more fun for me, as i love cyber/bio and don't deal well with the magicrap . . so any way to defend MYSELF from magical means without having to rely on magicunts is very much appreciated ^^

There's already ways to do that without relying on those incredibly sketchy and not-thought-out-enough house rules.

yes, and if i get to play, we usually play SR3 anyway so all of this is purely academic.
and if we were playing 4th, we'd probably not do that too, because even in my eyes, that makes my good samurai too strong

That's a bit harsh.

Perhaps you could be specific about what you dislike about them?

Please explain. Is this a balance concern? I completely lost faith in your ability to balance anything with Runners Companion. Are they not polished enough? This was simply a quick type-up on changes I have thought about for a while.

As for Astral Sight, as proposed, it is not a must have, but is a viable option for mundane characters - I would only take it if it was character concept, or I just happened to have 5 spare points not better spent elsewhere (unlikely). I do not see how it can be unbalancing - as I pointed out before, astrally perceiving does not grant you the ability to bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons. With proper vision enhancements, it would at most reduce attack modifiers from -3 to -2, at the cost of -2 to everything else physical (including dodging). If you wish to engage astral entities, you must still invest in Astral Combat, & hope they stay within melee range. Compared to the Adept quality, it has the advantage of not being affected by Essence loss, & the disadvantage of never being able to Initiate or gain other magical abilities.

The only other viable option for this quality would be to simply remove it entirely.


Spell/Spirit Knack, as proposed, is 5 BP less than Mystic Adept (or half the cost, if you want), for a full 80% reduction in ability, not including the potential Adept powers. Compared to a full magician, 66% reduction in cost, but in addition to the previously mentioned 80% reduction in ability, you also do not gain Astral Perception or Projection. Honestly, as I have it, it should be renamed to Aspected Magician (insert type), to go along with much needed changes to how that quality works.


As these qualities are RAW, they are beyond crap. Even if you allow them to increase their Magic attribute, they are still beyond crap. Unless you can provide some hard mathematical evidence or play test data of how these would be overpowering as is, refrain from bashing them, & maybe even post a few suggestions on how to improve the "polish", or alternate ways of making them viable.

Could someone please tell me where to find the part in bold in the sourcebooks?

The only location I have been able to locate that particular rule is p.85 & 88, SR4. As it is not listed anywhere else, such as the Focus section of The Awakened World chapter, I have always assumed it was a character-creation only limitation. Because you cannot obtain a Force 6 focus during character creation, there really is no point to it.

Hey, I didn't write the damn things. And yes, your house rules are crap, for many reasons. We're not going to go into your language, which is deplorable, but let's just look at these things:


Let's see...no Magic! Well, that flies in the face of every precedent we've ever tried to set, including the logical framework of the world. Oh, and it means that you're SOL on any Assensing or Astral Combat test that requires Magic - there's more than a few of them - not to mention it means you can't make any use of foci whatsoever or learn any metamagics. Yep, what a great quality, you're paying just as much and getting even less - all so your street sam can peek at the astral and see exactly how worthless they are at astral combat and assensing. Better hope nobody is foolish enough to count these guys as magicians, or else they're in real trouble.


Oooh, a single category of spells. Not at all moving away from the original intent there. You're basically looking at retarded aspected conjurers and sorcerers, not people with a 'knack.' Of course, the language is such that it is ambiguous as to whether the character with spell knack gets access to Conjuring and vice versa, but we'll chalk that up to your language issues and torrid love affair with the ampersand. The volumes you leave unspoken are what really makes this a shite write-up, however: can you initiate? Are you treated as a magician? Can you use Enchanting? Et bloody cetera.

<pant, pant> Seriously Muspellsheimr. You have been, and continue to be, one of the most incredibly belligerent posters here and you have nowhere to talk. You and HappyDaze are like Dumpshock's official hecklers at this point.

I'll give you that having no Magic rating for Astral Sight deviates from the standard. However, the whole fucking point is that you can perceive - no metamagics makes sense. Also, do you mind pointing me to a single Assensing or Astral Combat test that uses Magic, outside of the forbidden metamagics? You also seem to imply the quality is crap - it is not a great quality, but it is viable, & a shitlode better than RAW.


The entire fucking point of my alteration to Spell/Spirit Knack is to make it usable as a Player Character option - reduce the cost on the RAW version to 1, allow me to increase my Magic, and I might take it. Spell/Spirit Knack is okay for making a few NPC's interesting, but nothing more than that. As for what skills it allows you to take, it says quite specifically. As for the poor writeup, I already told you that this was basically a sketch. Yes, they would be able to initiate, & that would be included in any final writeup I do. No, they do not have any other magical abilities (perception & projection).

If you want to play a character with only one spell, or only able to conjure a single spirit, go right ahead. Nothing in my writeup prevents you from doing so. Even take the Magician quality if you want - nothing about that requires you to learn more than one spell.

As for me being warlike, I do not go out looking for fights. If someone posts something I disagree with, I will disagree & state why - what the fuck else should I do? If someone argues against one of my posts, I will support it until they provide something other than opinion on why I am wrong, in which case I will take it into consideration, altering my position as needed, & possibly even conceding the point. The only time I recall ever before having come close to an attack is once pointing out that I never thought I would be agreeing with Cain. That is a lot more than I can say about you.


You seem like a good writer - something I am not particularly skilled at. Your ability to judge game balance, however, is shit, & I can say with certainty I am significantly better at it. I certainly do not expect to obtain balanced results every time, first try, but I frequently come a lot closer than a significant portion of you published work. Because I do not believe I am perfect, I occasionally post idea's here for opinions, playtest them when possible, and adjust them as needed. You endlessly argue the perfect quality of your work even when proven wrong *cough*Karmagen*cough*


Now, once again, show me mathmatically how these are unbalanced, or provide playtest data. I am honestly expecting them to be slightly underpowered; they still beat the shit out of the RAW you are supporting.

Wow. I hadn't even posted on this topic, and I really don't have much interest in doing so, but...

Eh, nevermind. Ass Hole Ancient History can have this one. I doubt he's really qualified to declare 'official hecklers', but his work could only benefit from listening to the criticisms of others.

Your stuff doesn't work as written. They are not clearly and concise. And yeah, I do think it important that you mention initiation with the Astral Sight knack, because the skill is restricted to magicians for a reason. Magic is restricted to magicians for a reason. Essence reduces Magic for a reason. The balance of the game, which you feel you have such a high understanding of, is based on understanding how these things work and how players abuse them. Trust me when I say I don't care for the Knacks and Astral Sight quality as written either, but they do at least function and make sense within the fictional and rules context of the game.

Has it ever occurred to you to think about why things work out the way they do? Have you never considered why all qualities are multiples of 5, for example? Did you ever compare your quality to other qualities of the same cost to judge how powerful they are relative to each other?


I didn't say Karmagen was perfect. You do blow the whole thing out of proportion, though. Its not a big deal, and there were reasons for it, and it works. You don't like it, and I accept that you don't like it, but it doesn't make the rules shit.

Like I said in a previous thread, I'd prefer the qualities if the Magic 1 rating they grant was independant of your Essence at the time the quality was gained. If taken during character creation, it's applied at the very end. Meaning even if you have Essence 0.94, you still get a Magic of 1. Then from that point on, any change in your Essence affects your Magic normally. Thus if you later get a Datajack and your Essence drops to 0.84, bam, you just lost a point of Magic.

Hell, you could even put a limit to how far it stretches, such as "up to a minimum Essence of 3." Just give them at least some room to be viable and balanced characters.

Considering it's only a single ability, I really don't see the harm in doing it that way. Sure, if you sit down and crunch numbers you can whine and complain about how it's "unfair" to full magicians because you gain the equivalence of X amount of free Karma/BP. But considering it's not even really comparable to magicians, I find that to be a pretty moot point to make. Doubly so considering that if they want to make that ability even remotely decent, they're going to have to invest a lot of Karma to see it happen.

It's current incarnation simply doesn't make much sense as player character quality. Yes, lots of NPCs might have the quality as described, but they're not PCs. PCs and NPCs have a few separate rules for a reason.

That's mostly do to the hangover of calculating Magic loss after final Essence at chargen. Not a problem when everybody starts at Magic 6, but leads to the situation of buying more points of Magic just to lose them in 4th edition.

SQUIRRELS!

Actually, AH, neither of these abilities work at all. The only thing that I can see being used is Spirit Knack (Watcher) and that would be by a hacker who is COMPLETELY unaugmented. Sure you can have a viable hacker without any 'ware... but lets be honest, he's sucking in the hacking arena. He has 3 IP if he goes hot-sim and other hackers can have FIVE! Also if that hacker is in the field then he's almost worthless as he's slow as hell.

Now let's deal with Spell Knack. A Force 2 Mana spell is a joke... a Force 2 Physical Spell is an episode of criminal stupidity. Let's not even talk counterspelling.

The Knacks were, I think, put in so that GM's could have something for NPC's. A normal character is going to spend his 5 pts on something else... like Ambidexterity or Will to Live (level 1). Those are MUCH more useful and are not impacted by 'Ware.

I think that is precisely AH's point though. They do work, just not well. Just like using a multitool instead of a tool box. A character with such Qualities may suck at what he does, but at least he works at his low level. He may be looking at Threshold 1 or people with low resistance pools but he works. Force 1 or 2 spells are weak but they can work within their capabilities. The only time when they don't is when you try to make them work beyond their capabilities - which can happen with regular Awakened as well.

They work about as well as wiping your ass using a pair of chopsticks to manipulate toilet paper.

So? At least you can wipe your ass. The end effect may be such that you might as well not have done it but you have the choice to do so. And if your chopsticks-fu is strong, there'd be no problem.

Yeah, these three qualities aren't particularly usefully IMO. Thus, we use the following house rule tweaks.

Astral Sight: Characters with the Astral Sight quality can raise their Magic rating by expending build points or karma as normal magicians do.

Spell Knack/Spirit Knack: Characters with the Spell Knack or Spirit Knack quality can raise their Magic rating by expending build points or karma as normal magicians do. Also, characters with the Spell Knack quality can choose to gain the ability to cast one additional spell of choice (subject to gamemaster approval) instead of gaining a metamagic technique when they Initiate.

Keep in mind these are tweaks to the existing texts, not replacements - knacks still can't learn any skills normally couldn't. The clause for more spells under spell knack is intended to work thematically (ie a character with Magic Fingers learns Clout, Blast, etc) and vaguely mimic the idea of a mutant (ala X-men) evolving his/her powers.

It still helps, of course, if the player cares more about style and story than the character being nerfed.

The thing is, available character options do not equal optimized character options. It's like the thread someone brought up about removing fingerprints. Sometimes there are several ways to do something, and one is clearly superior (or inferior) to the others from a mechanics stand point.

So what?

Is life fair? Especially in the shadows?

The more options the devs provide, the wider variety of characters we can make. Someday you may want to make a character who can see astrally, but is otherwise mundane--now you can. Will he match up to casters? No. But that's not what you're building.

If the game was stripped down to only the most optimized options, you'd only have a handful of character classes to choose from (complete with pregenerated gear lists) instead of a flexible character creation system that lets you build the character you want to play.

Maybe your character got suckered by an advertising campaign and bought X piece of ware when he could have done it this way for cheaper/better effect/whatever, maybe you're a poor kid from the sprawl who can see the astral, summon weak spirits to scout/watch your back, or posses you for a little boost (little being a relative term here), or maybe just cast one weak spell that nonetheless helps get you out of shit sometimes.

Fiction is full of characters like that, normal dudes with one minor power that sets them apart--and occasionally proves useful. Some people might want to try that without resorting to house rules or building a full mage and just never using the abilities they didn't intend the character to have. Other players would rather have a specialist with a 22+ dicepool. To each his own. But having more options is never a bad thing.

Personally, I wouldn't ever take Combat Paralysis, but I'm glad it's in the book for the people who do.

[edit] This post isn't really directed at you, NightmareX, I didn't see your post when I started typing. It's more a general rail against the "not optimized = it's bad and you should feel bad" sentiment I see around here alot. [/edit]

I've pretty much already addressed this point.

Basically, the options for designing a player character -- especially things like qualities that are there predominately for player characters, as opposed to gear which is often used by both NPCs and PCs -- should all be viable for designing a player character. Yes, there'll always be some that are too good to be true and some that are only all right, but when you have some that are pretty much only useful for NPCs, and then largely only for rather crappy and unremarkable NPCs, you have a big fat failure on your hands from a design point of view.

These qualities are examples of those types of failures. They should be viable for standard player characters, not page fillers.

Correction - these are supposed to be so uncommon that they are actually for rather crappy and remarkable NPCs.

Yes, thank your for noticing.


That's pretty much my point on these qualities - they are options and you have the choice to select them, but they are pretty much worthless ones in almost every sense and you can do better in almost every case by selecting adept or mystic adept with aspected magician instead.

No, that's what GM fiat is for when creating NPCs. They don't follow character creation rules. Player characters do. Those rules are for PCs and should be viable for balanced and standard PCs.

That's not always true. Sometimes, as a GM, I'll still use the creation methods for PCs to produce an NPC, but usually only to determine if something is possible, not for adding up all of the fiddly points. I guess the GM Fiat is in the whole, but I use the same pieces as PCs do (so no human NPC with unaugmented Logic 8 and a rating 4 set of Wired Reflexes). I know that I'm not necessarily required to do this, but it's not wrong to do it either.

That said, the qualities we're discussing here are crappy pieces that I'd never use on an NPC - there is always a better way to get the results. My point in saying that characters with these were 'remarkable' was sarcasm to point out what a waste it would be to have such a crappy bit of 'wow factor' mechanically speaking.

Since when is shadowrun creation balanced? The same rules that let you make the ungodly troll combat monster also let you make elf librarian with no combat skill.

The "groggy" qualities are in the book for one reason, because groggies exist in the 6th world, and the option to be one should the player wish needs to be there. Being groggy isn't an optimal choice, it isn't even advisable, but if you want to play the street kid who can summon water spirits, go ahead, but you'll never convince me that being a groggy has advantages over being awakened(heck, adept costs the same as the astral perception one and you can pick up astral perception with your first magic point.)

It's a 10 BP (1 point of magic) vs 5 BP, (Astral Sight Quality) thing, but yeah, you get more overall for going adept.

They do have an optional rule on pg. 31 to power up knacks. To be fair, knacks and latent awakening were qualities that people were clamoring for. Unfortunately, they were so concerned about "sammies who can cast a killer fireball" (never mind that you can get exactly that with a cybered mage and enough initiation...), that they gimped the quality to near-uselessness.

Truly, a knack is exactly what its name implies, a knack. This is not a quality for either an awakened character or an augmented character. It is for someone who wants an uncybered mundane who can do one single minor magical thing. It is best if you treat it as the minor thing it is, rather than trying to pimp your dice pools for this anemic 5-point quality. Take spellcasting or summoning: 1 with a specialization, and be done with it.

But be sure you want a character without magical abilities or augmentations, though, because this piddling little quality effectively closes off both of those doors.

Actually, you get a Magic rating of 1 simply from picking the adept quality, so they are both 5 BP.

Huh, you're right.

Similar to the 2nd-hand Alphaware quandary: "You mean I can get my 'ware with a reduced essence cost and availability, for the same price?"

The only reason not to do it is if it doesn't fit your character.

The tweak that my group uses, that makes the knack advantage useful, is simply that you take the advantage, finish character creation, and when the game starts, you have a Magic of 1 (so long as you have at least 1 Essence).

I actually have a character who uses Spirit Knack. He has a guardian spirit 'partner' who he summons to watch his back (he summons the "same" spirit each time).

I think they would be useful, if you could begin play with a Magic of 1 (like Latent Awakening grants you a Magic of 1 once you awaken). And maybe the option to "buy up" your Magic if it's about to drop, so that you can maintain it at 1. It would be kinda a cool fluffy thing then.

(And some spells don't need alot of hits. Like the one that gives you extra IP's. Or some of the defensive spells. An extra 2 dice versus attacks is kinda cool.)

Eh, you're better off going with a spitit knack and a possession tradition than an Improved Reflexes spell limited to 2 hits, but you're right that some spells can get by pretty well at low force--and there's always foci.

@Ancient

You've told Muss' that Astral Sight functions and makes sense and in the very next breath you've told him to judge whether a quality is broken or not by comparing it to other qualities of similar cost.

Seriously?

You only have to compare RAW Astral Sight with Adept to conclusively prove that it does not function or make sense.

If a quality can be replaced with another with no loss of functionality and with all of it's unique limitations lifted it is flat out broken.

Astral Sight as it stands is indefensible and you are doing yourself a disservice by even pretending to support it.

Well, I don't know about removing fences, but the fact that a few of us have been defending it proves it is defensible.

Whether it's worth taking or not is another matter.

Personally, I probably wouldn't use it--I'd just go adept instead--but as I pointed out there are times where you pick the less mechanically sound option for role-playing reasons.

Is standard-grade cyberwear broken because you can get second-hand alphaware?

Several of you confuse the word "functional" with "viable." As written, Astral Sight does indeed work. It's horribly stupid and utterly useless to a player character, but it does work if you want a subpar character for no particular reason other than just 'cause.

No, but it's completely viable. In exchange for more Essence, you get a substantial cost reduction. It also doesn't stop you from actually getting numerous other benefits and abilities that keep you competitive. These knacks do nothing of the sort.

No prob - I agree with your rail largely anyway But this is one flame war I'm staying out of other than what I already did (ie post my group's preference on these qualities in case anyone would be interested).

Eh, I'm tired and bored so I'm sticking around a bit longer.

The biggest problem I see is a lack of creativity. A lot of people here seem to be of the attitude that you have to be an optimized specialist that fits into one of a few categories to be viable. When I posted the build for the first character I ever played, everyone screamed at me that he was too much of a generalist and would get hosed in combat.

In fact, he's routinely done better than some of the min-maxed combat builds at our table--partly because of how I play him.

While he's definitely a melee fighter, he's not a "superdicepoolrunupandfrag'em" type. Offensively, he's very weak, but makes up for it with smart use of tactics, gear, and playing to his strengths, which are speed and defense. He'll lose in a straight fight, but knows that straight fights are for chumps, which is why he didn't even get hit until our 6th session, (and then only by a lucky roll, despite constantly taking fire) while our team's minmaxed bioware adept orc blender died on the third run.

It's true in real life as well as in games: You can outperform guys with much better stats if you find a smarter way to go about it.

So instead of viewing characters with these qualities as dedicated magical builds (they're not), you find a creative approach that makes the character viable. Offhand, you might try giving the face or infiltration guy Astral Sight, then have the mage focus on healing/buffing your party with spells, while the guy with astral sight takes over the role of assensing. Have a couple bound spirits on hand for magical offense, and the rest of your party can focus on hacking/rigging and meatspace combat.

It may not be quite as awesome as an uber-mage, uber-hacker, uber-face and uber-sam, but it can be interesting to have team dynamics and tactics allow your team to take on challenges that are out of their league as individuals.

This is also a staple of fiction, and can make for a much more interesting game. On the other hand, applying these tactics to a team of optimized builds can help you reach new levels of awesome that make your GM cry.

It's all a matter of how you like to play, so don't say it's useless just because you can't find a use for it.

You have conveniently missed the point here.

Firstly trying to defend something does not make it defensible if failure is inevitable. The Alamo, Rorke's Drift etc....

Secondly, and more importantly (so I don't expect anybody to address this point), the premise was that Ancient had attacked Muss' proposed changes by stating that they were 'bad' (i.e. non-functional or non-viable) if they did not compare well to other Qualities of the same cost.

The same can also be said of RAW Astral Sight => It is also unacceptably broken (by Ancient's own logic).

What is good for the Goose is good for the Gander.

This discussion descended very rapidly into unacceptable name-calling and flat-out rhetoric from the moment Ancient attacked Muss' proposed fix with the colourful phrase "sketchy and not-thought-out-enough."

You started this Ancient. Re-reading Muss' original post I don't see any personal attacks on you. It was certainly inflammatory but it did not warrant such a personal rebuke.

Clearly hostility from other threads is bleeding through here. I recommend we all go back to the top of this forum and re-read the sticky before anyone gets sent to their room.

For the record I neither totally agree with Muss (on many things) nor approve of his debating style or use of language but in this thread he merely responded to unabashed Flamebait.

What you've just said is:

"It isn't underpowered/overpriced enough to require fixing/house-ruling if I want to use it for role-playing colour."

Why is the corollary not true?

"It isn't overpowered/underpriced enough to require fixing/house-ruling if I want to use it for role-playing colour."

Clustered Rating 6 Emotitoys all round.....

That isn't at all what I've said. Of course, you've been trolling since your first post in this topic so it's understandable.

This thread is about finding uses for these qualities, not saying "they're worthless, do [x] instead"

In fact, whether or not they're game-breakingly underpowered is beside the point: If you can over-power a mechanic through optimizing as an intellectual exercise, why not apply that to a rule you think is underpowered in an attempt to make it viable?

1. Sorry, but no. You don't have to be an "optimized specialist" to be a viable character. I've never once said that.
2. Not everyone screamed. I don't even know what you're talking about, so quit making generalizations about everyone, especially since you're obviously too close-minded and prejudiced to see the forest for the trees. I, personally, hate overly specialized characters with a passion.

You also apparently think a character with cyberware or magic is an OMFG OPTIMIZED SPECIALIST MUNCHKIN OF DOOM! Which is not only patently false, but a pretty fucking stupid thing to say. The simply truth is that viable characters in Shadowrun are either one or the other. They're either augmented or magical/technomancery. Not a single sample character in the main book is an unaugmented mundane. Not a single one. There's a reason for that; the game was designed on those expectations. If you're not augmented or magical, your character is a pretty much a hindrance.

Can you make an unaugmented mundane character? Of course. Will they be able to hold their own against another standard character played by someone with an equal skill level? Most likely no because you have, in fact, created a severely gimped character in comparison. Hide behind the fact that you call it "good roleplaying" all you want, but roleplaying has fuck all to do with your stats. The fact that you play with complete morons doesn't change a thing. Give any one of them your character sheet and then build a real character and wow, look, you're still outperforming them. Amazing!

Just because you created a shitty character, that does not make you a brilliant roleplayer. It makes you a shitty gamer with a shitty character.

And a player character designed with these knacks as written is most definitely a shitty character. Especially when there's an equal option that's superior in every single possible way, as is the case with Astral Sight.

Just because people are sadly trying to defend it for whatever bizarre reason they have in their heads, that doesn't mean it's anything actually worth defending. It just means you're arguing a foolish point for no other reason than to do so.

Care to support that assertion with evidence? The fact is, that is exactly what you said. The corollary may not be true but you have comprehensively failed to address that part of my post.



Hmmm, Ad Hominem and not supported by evidence. I wonder what sort of baseless accusations and character assassination I could fling in your direction if I lacked the wit and imagination to debate like a rational creature?