I'm making a magical character for the first time, having done all cyber-powered characters before. I'm playing former trog street samurai who SURGE'd into a Buffalo man (think Native American version of minotaur, allowed by my GM) PhysAd (yes, my background involves rejecting a fair chunk of cyberware when I SURGEd). Now, I have a few Edges/Flaws I can still take if I wanted to, and I was really considering dual-natured.

Advantage: Astral Perception

Disadvantage: Cannot be turned off - translates to any astral entity (including projecting mages) can bitch-slap you whenever they feel like it, & unless they are in melee range, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it (unless you are also a mage - in which case you have spells). You also will trigger any ward you walk through, & wards physically bar your presence (you must push through to pass them).

Being Dual Natured is a bad idea.

My GM was saying something about dual natured providing some kind of bonus in astral combat. I'm confused myself; some of the other players and the people here talk about dual natured being a bad thing, but in the books a lot of the more dangerous and powerfull creatures are dual-natured entities.

Let me put it this way. The only advantage to being Dual Natured is the ability to perceive without the -2 to Physical actions.

The disadvantage is the same as those for other perceiving characters, except you cannot turn it off, ever. You will be physically barred by all wards you encounter, & will trigger any you manage to push through. You are a sitting duck for any astral creature that decides it doesn't like you.


Dual Natured is roughly equivalent to a 20-point Negative quality, & like all other 20-point Negative's, should only ever be taken for character concept. Doing otherwise simply fucks you over.

Yes. It's a major limitation that defines the character. It's got all the negatives mentioned above plus, unless you have masking, you'll be impossible to disguise against the astral. There are cool things that NPCs can do with it, but it's a serious limitation to runners.

We had a player that tried it and he bailed on it because he didn't realize just how painful it could be. The rest of us had fun with the character and worked around the issues, but he found it crippling.

If you go into it understanding this you could have fun. I'd also say it's underpriced at -20, but that is the case for a lot of the limitations the books offer.

It's awesome. You can shoot at people and say you were aiming at the spirit hiding behind them.

The thing about the dangerous and powerful creatures that are dual-natured is that they are dangerous and powerful. They are dangerous and powerful enough that the limitations of being duel-natured are only a minor problem for them, if it is a problem at all (Masking, crazy high magic, etc) or they are a mook type monster which the limitations don't really matter (Demon Rat, Ghoul, etc).

For a PC on the other hand, they are no where near powerful enough in most cases to get away with ignoring the drawbacks. They are also far more important then a mook type since they are run by a player and thous directly tie into a major story arc.

To make it work (just work, not make it less painful for a player) requires careful thought by the GM and can actually restrict the whole party. Going on a sneak in mission where they have a high probability of having to go through Wards? Can't take the D-N character along. Going anywhere with lots of ghost/spirits around? Chances are you don't want the D-N character along.

Well, having the DN around may be useful in that he'll see the ghosts & spirits whereas the normals won't until said baddies pop in physically.

Any magician or adept with astral perception could do the same, but they could then stop being vulnerable to the astral to force those baddies to materialise instead of getting torn to shreds without being able to do anything about it.
As a DN, you should either be a full magician or glue yourself to the back of a good one. Everything else is really, really dangerous.

At the very least try and get the GM to let you take counterspelling using your innate magic. You're not likely to encounter anything in a normal campaign that you can't handle without initiating - or at least defend yourself against until the Magician takes care of it.

I'm playing a fox shifter magician, and being dual natured is really tough. Until you get masking(by the way, you're getting masking with your first 13 karma) you stick out like a sore thumb in the astral, which is annoying, but not a huge deal once you get masking.

The real problem is wards. Wards suck, as they act as a physical barrier to you. You have to push through them(thus alerting the creator) or deceive them with masking(which requires assessing the creators aura, problematic when the creator is in the ward). You are going to have to talk with your GM to overcome some of these issues. My GM allowed me to take a homebrewed spell that fools a ward into thinking I am allowed into it without alerting the creator while it's sustained(but has some nasty drawbacks if the spell ends while I'm in the ward), you could also talk with your GM about somehow allowing you to suppress your astral form, something like you can suppress your astral form for a number of minutes equal to your magic + your hits on a body+willpower test, after that you start taking 1 unresistable stun damage for every minute, and force you to rest at least an hour before you can pull that off again.

Any attack on a mana barrier or attempt to break through is immediately felt by the creator. - p185 SR4.

There are no erratas to this line. My question is simple then: If the mana barrier eg. a ward is disrupted, without being attacked, would the creator know?

I would say that the maker would feel this, as the above implies an astral connection between the maker and the ward.
Thus as the connection looses its anchor in the ward, it would snap back at the creator, who will feel this.

Next question, What will happen to a ward if the maker dies?

Wards don't require their creator to be alive to be around. They last until their duration expires, they are destroyed, or a background count is established that is equal to or stronger than the ward.

Wait a moment. Did I just see mention that BC can disrupt wards? (In my defense, I've never played an Awakened.) Anyone got some numbers of SURGE and the probability of SURGing with Hazing? It just might be socially acceptable to accidentally knock down the warding on a building.

At least YotC, SURGing is tremendously unusual, and becoming dual-natured even less so. The number of dual-natured surgelings is probably less than the number of dual-natured GIANT MAN-EATING MONSTERS, which in turn is probably less than astrally sensitive people who are idiots and forget to shift out of astral perception between walking into magical walls.

Depending on the locale, you can imagine security will react on the assumption a given character is a normal awakened, but sort of dopey, with the possibility of his being up to no good. They'll definitely harass him, though. If the character can get a doctor's note (preferably attached to his SIN), he might be sorta kinda okay, like the guy with a metal plate in his head who can't pass through metal detectors.

If the guy actually has astral hazing and causes the entire ward to fall, he may be financially liable for it though. It is a very, very poor idea for him to enter into a warded building if he has a tendancy to do this. That's a good way to get sent to jail.

It's also a good way to get manbolted by the spirit who's job it is to keep people from knocking down his wards.

If you cast mana static to disable a ward, would the wards creator know?

Is it "any attack on a mana barrier or attempt to break through"? If not, why would the ward's creator know?

Is it damaging to the Ward in question? Yes, it is "any attack", & the creator would indeed know.

But it is not actually damaging to the ward. There has been no attack. The spell produces a Background Count, the result of the Background Count causes the ward to be disrupted.

Is weakening a wall's support to the point of collapse any less damaging than forcing that collapse with a sledgehammer? Reducing the Ward's force is very much damaging it - just a different type of damage.

Weakening a wall's support is not attacking the wall. It is attacking its support. Even so, in this situation, no actual attack(insofar as "attack" has been generally defined in SR4) has been made.

I'd likely rule that weakening the support is no different than attacking the wall itself. After all, the wall is damaged/compromised directly by your actions against the supports. Seems like it'd be too open to abuse otherwise.

Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't wards that go down due to background count pop in again once the count is gone? Or restore themselves, or whatever, like Quickened spells?

"Damaged" Wards will repair themselves. Disrupted Wards no longer exist - you cannot repair something that is no longer there.

You're wrong . And quickened spells don't do that, either, for that matter. They pop back up if they were only reduced in power. If the power drops to zero, the ward /spell / spirit / magic twinky is disrupted and won't come back.

EDIT: Why didn't I get the second page of the thread with Muspellsheimrs post before posting myself? Ah, well, treat as a 4 hours late "what Muspellsheimr said".