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Tyro
I've been playing around in chargen with cybered magicians (trauma damper, cerebral booster, synaptic accelerator, etc.) and adepts (synaptic accelerator, muscle toner, etc.) I'm running into a major hurdle (for someone like me, anyway): Background.

Why would a magic-user cram tech into his body? Not just a little, but not someone on his way to burning out either. In other words, I want an IC reason for OOC twinkery.

The best I've been able to come up with so far is someone who was latent (like the quality latent awakening) and awoke after he'd gotten the cyber. This works best for cybered adepts, who I can just say were sammies before they woke up; why would your average person have a cerebral booster and synaptic accelerator if he didn't have sensitive system? How would he afford it? That shit is EXPENSIVE!
Dumori
QUOTE
In other words, I want an IC reason for OOC twinkery.

easy IC twinkery. They crammed the wear to get better at the cost of some magical power. Other than that may it was installed forcefully for a reason. Though depending on the bilud the awakedend after cybering works quite well if the wear hits his old life.
Dumori
QUOTE
In other words, I want an IC reason for OOC twinkery.

easy IC twinkery. They crammed the wear to get better at the cost of some magical power. Other than that may it was installed forcefully for a reason. Though depending on the bilud the awakedend after cybering works quite well if the wear hits his old life.
Tyro
QUOTE (Dumori @ Nov 14 2008, 01:33 AM) *
easy IC twinkery. They crammed the wear to get better at the cost of some magical power. Other than that may it was installed forcefully for a reason. Though depending on the bilud the awakedend after cybering works quite well if the wear hits his old life.


Considering the rarity and value of the magical gift, while I won't rule that out entirely as an option, I'm specifically looking for other stuff, especially "I was this, this is why I got the ware, ooh I'm magical now!"
Dumori
Its quite hard to do but ask what dose the ware do that magic can't then thats why they got the wear for that edge witch in there mind is worth the lost power.
Tyro
QUOTE (Dumori @ Nov 14 2008, 01:40 AM) *
Its quite hard to do but ask what dose the ware do that magic can't then thats why they got the wear for that edge witch in there mind is worth the lost power.


Point.

Okay, we have one good reason. Any others?
Muspellsheimr
Depends on tradition. For the Shamanic traditions, it would be difficult for me to justify, & I honestly am not even going to bother trying (although I am certain I can). For the Hermetic traditions, it is pure calculation.

For a small decrease in overall power, I can get Cerebral Boosters, Trauma Damper, & Platelet Factories installed, all of which make it easier to channel mana - a trade off of power for endurance. Further, I can get other useful tidbits, like a Sleep Regulator or Cats Eyes.

In the case of Adepts, the same logic applies - I can get a greater/more versatile increase in my abilities with augmentation in comparison to the magical abilities I would loose for it, so why not? I will use my magic to focus on skills augmentations cannot duplicate, & use augmentation as the more efficient method for everything else.
Tyro
Chaos Magic (from Street Magic) was MADE for mixing 'ware and mojo ^.^
DTFarstar
Don't forget that the more calculating traditions are completely aware of their ability to initiate and regain their former power level(or an even higher one later on if they can live that long). It's all about survivability. If it provides an OOC benefit that is significant, then IC your character can understand that too, they just have to be a calculating son of a bitch to work through it.

Chris
Tyro
QUOTE (DTFarstar @ Nov 14 2008, 01:58 AM) *
Don't forget that the more calculating traditions are completely aware of their ability to initiate and regain their former power level(or an even higher one later on if they can live that long). It's all about survivability. If it provides an OOC benefit that is significant, then IC your character can understand that too, they just have to be a calculating son of a bitch to work through it.

Chris


And let it never be said that one of my characters was not a calculating son (or daughter) of a bitch grinbig.gif
Ryu
The character does not pay karma. The character does temporarily loose some magic power. If the player saved up karma beforehand, the impact of the ware might not even register for the character. The purity mindset will always survive, because getting magic up is the ultimate way to power. There are different options.

Unless your magical tradition calls for absolute purity (and a Pueblo Corporate Council combat shaman will not), you´ll see the same benefit from ware as mundanes. Except that you have some additional mental training (karma cost) in front of you.

If your magic is weak, some ware might be more efficient than your untouched (and unremarkable) magical potential.

If you have magic 6, but willpower and drain attribute 2, massive implants won´t do much harm.
Uli
I'm playing a latent mage who is a former nanomechanics scientist with decades of experience (elf) and a faible for skillsofts. He lost one of his lower arms in a combat to escape his former employers and was patched up with a synthetic limb in a shabby clinic. When some triad killers tried to blow his brains out for being in the wrong place at the wrong he awakened and fried them. That was last session.
I balanced the ware so that the character only loses one essense/magic point. Although becoming a full mage is tough regarding the karma costs, the skillwires (rating 3 - Unwired softs prohibited) help to develop his mundane skills without karma investment.
Drogos
Any former wage mage will likely have ware thrown in to supplement their spell casting. If a corp knows that a mage can cast more if the throw a few pieces of bioware into them, they will be insistent on the process (or at teh very least encourage them).

My street witch got his first implant to try and fit in the Tir. He quickly got addicted to the power that ware provides and he has since picked up a few more pieces to make him much more deadly.
Shalimar
My character has 2.2 essence worth of ware and latent awakening. She was in a car crash that put her into critical condition, and her brother had new eyes and ears installed to replace her damaged natural eyes and ears. He got her a synthacardium and some toner and aug as well as rating one synaptic boosters. During her treatment she surged into a changeling (was an elf) picking up Glamour, funky violet hair, a really delicate build (impaired strength), and an incredibly realistic set of butterfly wings tattooed into her back. The ware is the reason she didn't awaken at the same time she surged, but eventually she will awaken into hopefully an adept since she is pretty much entirely a face (Influence 5).

I think thats a fairly realistic example of why an awakened being would have ware, because they weren't awakened when they got it, or it was done as part of an emergency treatment.
paws2sky
Just a couple ideas...

If you haven't had any significant magical training before getting your implants, you might not realize just how badly the implants might affect you. Some slick street doc might con you into thinking his "hot new ware, straight from Chiba's most cutting edge clinics" won't affect your magic. Or if it does, it won't be as bad as people make it out to be.

Maybe you're impatient and spoiled. You've spent your life getting everything you've wanted on demand. Now you have their "gift" that requires actual effort. Imagine how frustrating it would be to sit down with a damn book and read up on how to do something for yourself... For someone used to skillwires, linguisofts, and knowsofts, that's got to be about the most boring thing ever!

You might feel like you've hit your magical "ceiling" and have limited advancement potential. Rather than waste time grinding your wheels with this magic thing, you might as well branch out and augment. At which point you realize that your glass ceiling just got a little lower...

Or, like the burned-out mage of 1st edition, you might already feel your power slipping as you age. Drain becomes harder to handle, the spirits stop listening so closely, you lose faith in your powers... Its mostly psychological, of course, but once you start getting 'ware implanted, those losses start becoming more and more tangible. Eventually, you find yourself balancing on the razor's edge, a misstep away from losing your power altogether...

In short, I think a lot of magicians who go the augmentation route probably do so out of either laziness, disinterest, ignorance, loss of confidence, or some sort of psychological hangup.

-paws
KCKitsune
Sometimes, Mages will get augmentation because it's just easier to have that commlink in your head than to always worry about carrying it around with you. Convenience is a much a factor to a Mage in 2070 as it is to anybody else.

Also some 'ware does things that gear can't replicate. Specifically find ANY gear does what cyberear dampening does and do include Pages numbers please.
Riley37
My PC started play with Magic 5 and no augmentations. After running alongside some other PCs with augmentation, he saw that they could handle Drain which he could not. So he got Platelet Factory and Trauma Damper installed, and though he hates losing a point of Magic, he figures it's better to be able to do a lot of casting and conjuring at Magic 4 and be able to handle the Drain of overcasting at Force 6-8, than to have Magic 5 and never dare to overcast and flinch at the drain of casting, say, F5 Mana Static.

I wrote him with a twinked Elvish Shaman build which aimed at having a) Magic 5, b) the Spellcasting DP to routinely get 5 hits, and c) the Drain pool to handle F5 drain (Willpower 5 plus Charisma 7, plus Fetish on a few spells). Alas, I didn't also get enough BODY to take P drain in stride.

Not to mention the benefits of Platelet Factory and Trauma Damper for surviving *other* kinds of damage, such as people shooting him in the face for money. As someone else posted, he can regain his previous Magic stat with time and experience... if he survives that long.

He also installed Symbiotes, which help heal any damage that the augmentation didn't stop, and Sleep Regulator, which gives one a lot more time for things such as binding rituals. All for just under 1 Essence total. (If he gets enough cash he'll swap out the Sybiotes for a Mender Endosont.)

He's gonna try Summoning an F6 Spirit of Man, so it can have two Optional Powers of Innate Spell. Sure, *he* now takes P drain from casting at F5, but he can survive binding a spirit which can do most of his spellcasting for him at F6!
Ravor
I;m going to have to disagree, Awakened without cyber should br the rarity, in the very least most Mages should have tricked out cybereyes, datajack, and a few other goodies, if your Mage is a combat specialist then he shoudl strongly consider burning a second point of Magic to get his extra IPs from bio instead of having to worry about the nonesense that magical IPs brings. (Personally I've never been a big fan of Increased Reflexes, not only do you glow on the Astral, you also have to worry about either sucking drain or tripping every ward you run across.)
Malkcntent
I played a street mage that had his hand cut off in a gang war. When it came time for a replacement, he said 'screw it' and put in a cybernetic hand with a gyromount - made his accuracy with his SMG that much better. Augmentation is huge in 2070 and the reasons other folks give here are good ones for having an awakened character with some augmentations.
KCKitsune
I have a Chaos mage with Trauma Dampener, Synaptic Booster 1, Cybereyes (w/ LL, Thermo, Flair Comp, Vision Enhance 3), Cyberears (w/ Dampener & Audio Enhance 3), and a Cyberhand with Commlink (5/5), Biomonitor, Datajack, and Reusable Auto-injector with 6 Extra doses.

I load up the Auto-injector with 2 doses of Savior Med Nanites, 2 Trauma Patches (in liquid form), 1 Cram, and 1 Psyche. With the Biomonitor I don't have to scream for help, the 'Ware does it automatically. Also if I *REALLY* need to go fast I have Cram. No need to blow Edge all the time.
Stahlseele
technically, just rules wise, the late awakening is fuck all stupid for cybered characters . . if you don't house rule, that it only reduces your maximum magic and not your actual magic so as long as you have essence of >1 you can still gain a magic of 1 . . and if your essence is still >2 you can gain one magic and initiate your power way up . .

in all other aspects, that has been missing for so frigging long . . 'cause usually mages awaken during puberty and the availability of most cyberware to kids should be a "<sarcasm>yeah, sure!</sarcasm>" thing . .

my one shaman who has a cyber-eye with light-systems in there got it because of his bad karma and cursed karma together . . basically, one of his spells went nuts and a stone splinter more or less cut his eye in two and he could not afford a cloned eye(SR3 character) so he got one cyber with a little casemodding(Pentagram visibly shining in different colours when he activates the light system) and the light system, because he is about 90% of his time that he spends awake somewhere underground digging tunnels and the such . . and because i had allready started the one essence point he got a smartlink and boosted reflexes level one, both on alpha, to help keep him alive early in game . .
Doc Byte
About 5 ½ years ago I created an Odin / Wise Warrior nordic magican. The base idea was that the warrior codex was perfect for a street sam. I ended up with a heavily cybered magican played like a street sam with some extras. Whenever a technical solution is possible, it’s his first choice. Why use a stunbolt if the light cybergun with stick-n-shock will do the job without risking a headache? – Which doesn’t mean he never learned that spell.
When I recreated the character for SR4 I optimised the synergy effects. There are things that tech can do better than magic. Like cybervision and –hearing. Other effects like flying or becoming invisible are left for the magical part. But why learn the oxygenate spell when nanotech is available? – See the pattern?

Of course the example isn’t perfect because I see an play the character as a sam with magic and not like a magican with ware. I guess you can see the original inspiration if you take a look at my avatar. wink.gif

For the statistics, at the moment I’m playing with an Essence rating of 2, a Magic Attribute of 4 and an Initiation grade of 3 which’s IMHO okay at nearly 450 Karma points. But I’m expecting to hit an Essence rating of 1 someday. - Oh, not to forget I’m using high grade ware.

The character saw a lot of character development over the past 5 ½ years (being my sole active character) and I still love the perfect blend of my favourite archetypes. I never seriously played anything else than a street sam or magican in 15 years of Shadowrun.

I have absolute no problem with cybered magicans. There are a thousands of reasons to chose this path. In “my� case (speaking IP) it was born out of the wish of a late teenager to physically keep up to a hard business after being shot for the first time and definitely not liking it.

I guess the scene feels familiar. biggrin.gif
(drawn in color by Sabine Weiss for me)
Ten Suns
In our quasi-The Shield (i.e., the PCs were all corrupt Lone Star detectives) game that just wrapped up, the Wolf shaman that I played used to be a heavy stimulant addict, since the Star hands out Jazz like candy to keep its officers street-ready. When the PCs saved up enough and made their break with the Star to become full-fledged shadowrunners, the genetic treatments he got in order to go into hiding cost him .2 Essence. He then took advantage of the opportunity to kick the habit and snagged a synaptic booster 1 to make up the difference (replacing one addiction with another, perhaps? Time would have told, but the game's done with now).
kzt
I had a character who was an adept with bioware for the IPs. He was an ex-IJN combat swimmer/SDV guy and the government gave it to him so he could kill people more effectively.
Fortune
QUOTE (Ravor @ Nov 15 2008, 09:14 AM) *
I;m going to have to disagree, Awakened without cyber should br the rarity ...


I was going to say pretty much the same thing. I find it harder to justify a 'pure' magician or adept in the context of the Sixth World than I would one with appropriate augmentation.
Cthulhudreams
For mages that expect to see combat, cyber is an obvious choice. Eyes in particular give you a huge advantage in adverse conditions, and trauma dampers are an obvious choice for someone who injures themselves on a regular basis.
kzt
Cyber is pretty easy to detect. Bioware + masking is pretty damn hard to spot unless they can strap you down and run you through a medical scanner. In which case you have already lost.
DTFarstar
Yeah, the group I GM for is about to assault a really well defended S&K facility to steal some stuff for a guy they foolishly let capture all but one of them(then he didn't try to bust any of them out when he had the chance and handed over his blood after he found out they had all had theirs taken and the guy threatened to use it if he didn't and kill his friends)[Lofwyr is dead, the world is crazy, 600 BP game], anyway, they are about to assault an S&K fortress to steal some of the items from Lofwyr's will(one of which is supposed to go to Harlequin but they ALL failed their knowledge rolls to figure that out from the title given in the will). Anyway, we have one "pure magician" in the group who is going to be hosed because he has about 14 or 15 dice to cast his spells and shoot his bow, and with all the visibility penalties he'll be taking(to my knowledge he doesn't even have contacts or glasses*sigh* I've told him more than once.) he will be largely useless. The other mage in the group has cybereyes with everything in them and should be mostly fine, though I think she will probably get herself hosed down with a flamethrower from a HTR team because she has been itching to summon a high force spirit and possess herself and wreak havoc, which she will till the HTR shows up, the mage spider throws down a Mana Static and then they set her on fire. I've been using kid gloves on them for awhile, so this will be their first real lesson in tactics, I think. I have a feeling it's going to be a CHAAARGE! OH SHIT! moment. Anyway, just saying that not having cyber is going to completely fuck that one mage over because the security knows it's mage/ranged combatant procedure.

Chris
Tyro
I generally prefer goggles/helmet/contacts to eyes; I'd rather spend that Essence on something else.
Stahlseele
doesn't help with casting though . .
Tyro
I'd forgotten about that.... though you CAN get optical vision mag, thermo glasses won't let you target spells with it
Stahlseele
does the vis mag even help with spells?
they don't have any range categories like short, medium and long or do they?
Tyro
Good point... I guess it wouldn't. Low-light/thermo/etc would, though.
Ravor
No, but I'd imagine that most DMs would allow someone with Vison Mag to snipe at people with magic from alot further distance. Still, might as well just get your vison mods from cyber, they are legal and common so it doesn't matter if people realize you've plucked out your natural eyes in exchange for chrome.
Meriss
My current Social Adept/Face character in T-Town simply didn't know he was an adept. He was always talking and schmoozing his way out of trouble before his Awakening, then he simply got really good at it. The cyber was installed to deal with his previous cruddy vision and so forth. He simply never ran into any mages to actually Assense him till the day he got busted.
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