Do you have to activate the Improved Reflexes adept power, or is it always active? The description in SR4A states, "This power increases the speed at which you react, just like wired reflexes." The description essentially indicates that Improved Reflexes works the same as wired reflexes, and wired reflexes can be turned on or off.

If Improved Reflexes is always on, does the adept move unnaturally quickly, or is the adept able to control his movement so that no one can tell that he has the Improved Reflexes power?

we've always given the adept no social negatives due to the increased cost, and "its magic" feel, they are simply faster have always been and are naturally able to adjust when needed. it turns on and off but its not a "switch" like the mundane version and they do not have to have an action that round in order to activate it, similar to the synaptic accelerator.
I don't have any page references this time as this is the feel of the game rather than the RAW.

Thank you for your input, djinni. That sounds reasonable to me.

I always kinda imagined that for a an adept with the power, it was that they did have the control to keep themselves from being herky-jerky while the world around them appeared to move in slow-mo in accordance with what level of the adept power they had. I get that feel from how I read movement rules, where even if you have more IPs, you still move the same distance, unless you use the free/simple action and roll the dice, and just divide it by the number of IPs you get. (ex: 3 IPs, 10 m, 3.33 m per IP) I get the impression the amount of time used stays the same too and gets divided up by number of IPs as well. They must look like all of a sudden they hit the nitro or something.

I hope I got that right.

You sounded like you did... then you mentioned nitro, which makes no sense.

Two given characters will move the same distance regardless of if they have 1 or 4 IP. Even if they burn action sprinting they will move the same distance. The person with 4 IPs only increases his movement speed for that IP. Next IP he has to burn another action to keep a higher speed, otherwise he drops back down to normal movement speed.

The short version is IPs have no benefit in regards to movement, and often make you slower in a way, because someone with 1 IP moves 10m an IP, but someone with 4 IPs only moves 2.5m an IP.

Edit: Oh, and to answer the original question, I have to agree with the others. It can be turned on/off at will, but turning on happens so fast that it occurs as a non-action and before initiative is rolled, even if the character is surprised.

You can turn it on and off at will, but there's no real point in keeping it off. Adept powers are effectively a natural part of you. You have no more trouble controlling yourself with Improved Reflexes as you do with Improved Strength or Improved Sense: Thermographic Vision. It's not a piece of foreign hardware that's boosting your natural reflexes, and it's not some drug making you twitchy. For all intents and purposes, your Reaction and Initiative scores are that high naturally. Which, incidently, is why you the Karma cost for improving an attribute boosted by an adept power at its improved value. If you have Agility 3 and Improved Agility 2, you count as having Agility 5 and have to pay the price for Agility 6 when you go and use your Karma to improve your Agility 3 to 4. The reason is because as far as everything other than the semantic notes on your character sheet, you really do have a natural Agility of 5 that you're improving to 6.

Looks like a consensus, so I'm definitely going with what everyone said. Thank you, everyone, for your input.

The point of keeping it off is otherwise you're trailing an astral signature everywhere you go. It'd be like smearing a line of paint behind you to anyone with Assensing.

Er, how can I have it make sense... Distance / Time = Speed, correct? So, we know the distance covered and the amount of time, the one clear variable to me is the number of simple actions a character gets out of their IPs, so the more IPs when a the sammy or adept starts taking actions, the faster those actions appear to be in comparison to fewer IPs. So, one second they appear act at 1 IP and the next thing you know they are doing x2, x3, or x4 that, it strikes me visually in my head as suddenly things get a bit blurry like you just hit the nitro in Need for Speed Underground and Fast & Furious or that now their dodging or shooting looks like something out of The Matrix or Wanted. *shrug*

I also imagine various matrix actions and stuff get this sorta sudden boost to them as well, at least in my imagination while visualizing IPs.

Spells leave an astral signature that can be tracked but most adept powers do not. You can trace a fireball because something was left behind. The mana in the area was altered to create that ball of fire so a mage traces it back to the caster.

With say Improved Reflexes. Nothing if left behind the effects were always on you. A foci for example can't be used to track you unless the tracker finds you foci. If you look under Astral Tracking you'll notice adept powers are not listed.
In addition astral signatures last for a number for hours equal to the force with adept powers last.
An Adepts signature only comes up really in two cases. (not counting mystic adepts). One someone finds your foci. Its linked to you thus they can track you down with it. Second the mage is looking right at you. Thus they can memorize your astral signature and identify you later.

Nah, adept powers leave an astral signature when used, too. The adept is still manipulating magic, they just do it innately whereas magicians do it overtly.

Actually, no.

SR4 Pg. 182:
"Magical skills and abilities produce an astral signature on anything affected by them, which is detectable using assensing."

Adept Powers only affect the adepts themselves, so are only visible on the adept.

Also, to directly counteract your statement that they are simply manipulation spells on the adept:

SR4 Pg. 182:
"Spells cast upon an individual show up as a separate aura surrounding that person for the duration of the spell. Once a spell has been rendered permanent, the aura is no longer present."

Adept powers would be considered permanent, since they can't be dispelled and are not being sustained (granted a spell that an adept is sustaing via the Living Focus power would be visible because they are spells), and thusly would not be visible within the adept's aura.

To add to Triggers comments.

An Astral Signatures only last a number of hours equal to the force of the effect. Adept powers even ones that affect others directly such as voice control or commanding voice, have no force. Whats no x force.

Now an Adept still has a signature which can be used to identify him. This is where a adept can benefit from Astral Chameleon or Flexible signature by making their signature harder to detect or show up differently. They don't gain as much advantage as a magician out of those perks but they still have their uses.

This is true as long as the person does not take free actions to sprint. There is no rule limiting this use to one per turn. Thus someone with more IPs can do this more often and so increase his running distance per turn.
And yes I know even unaugmented dedicated sprinters are ridiculously quick.

No, because what happens is that, lets say that you move 10m a combat turn.

With 1 IP you do a sprint, roll your dice, get two hits (or whatever) and increase it to 12m a combat turn. You then move 12m in your IP which is an entire combat turn.

If someone with 2 IP decides to move and sprint, then his base speed is also 10m, then he sprints in his first IP which raises his movement to 12m a turn until his next action. So he then moves 6m on his IP (Because each IP you move (movement/IP)m), and then his next IP comes around and his movement drops back down to 10m a turn. He then has to sprint again to move another 6m this IP instead of only being able to move 5m. So in the end, even though he uses more sprint actions, he moves the exact same distance.

And yeah, he does kinda go nitro as far as how fast his trigger finger, his sword arm moves, and how quickly he dodges are concerned. When you said nitro I thought you meant like running.

Could you show me where in the rules it says that it works that way? AFAIK you can increase the distance travelled in a combat turn by using a simple action to sprint. Each hit on the test increases the distance by 2m. There is no mention of dividing this distance by the number of IPs the character has.

Alright, page 138 SR4. Should be somewhere in the combat section under movement for the SR4A folks.









So, we have the fact that you have to declare your movement type every single action phase, meaning that it resets every single action phase. We then have that to find your distance moved in an IP, you take your distance moved per turn, and divide it by the number of IPs you have. Then we skip down and find that running rate (achieved by using a free action to run) is a distance moved per turn figure.

Then we go back up to point 3, which is that using a sprint action increases your running rate (Distance moved per turn, not per IP) by 2m per hit.

So with 2 IPs, on your first IP you declare your movement type (Walking, running, or standing still) if you run you may spend simple actions to increase the running rate by 2m per hit. Because you have multiple IPs, to get your per IP movement rate, you take your per turn movement rate and divide it by number of IP (2 in this case). You then move up to your per IP movement rate. Then you get to your next action phase, and your movement is reset. You then have to go through the whole process again.

So basically you go: Okay, I'm spending a free action to run, thus I move 25m/turn. Then I'm going to spend a simple action to sprint, and I got 2 hits, so I move 29m/turn. Then I have 2 IP, so I have to divide (29m/turn)/(2IP/turn) = 14.5m/IP. I then move my 14.5m and am done with my IP. New IP comes around and I get reset to null movement. I then have to spend a free action to run again, bringing me to 25m/turn movement. I can then either not spend actions to spring and thus move only 12.5m this IP, or I can sprint again, get two hits, and move 14.5m again.

The point is that By RAW the Movement Rate is divided by the IPs not the actual speed. Any speed above the Walking Rate is considered Running and thus whether someone sprints in a certain IP or not does not change his movement mode and as such the division does not apply and each hit adds a full 2m to the distance/turn.

Good points to suggest otherwise have been made, however i would still rule (as a GM) that you get the standart running rate, and then you can use a simple action each IP to try and get a few meters ekstra in that initiative pass.
Cause whatever the rules say, wired/synaptics/whatever allows you to move your limbs faster, and the biggest hamper on running speed is how fast you can move your legs.

You need to stop using a word that doesn't exist in the rules. There is no 'speed' in the game. Per turn movement rate is divided by number of IPs you have, sprint increases your per turn movement rate, and thus is divided as well.

And no, nothing in the rules says it allows you to move your limbs faster, it simply allows you to react faster, that is the time between something happening and you doing something in response to it goes down. So you can shoot more because you can react to the previous shot having happened faster (In other words, you can't take your second shot until you've taken your first, which means you have to wait for confirmation of your first before you can pull the trigger for the second. When you have increased reflexes, the time between the first shot being fired, and your finger reacting to squeeze the trigger a second time goes down.)

So unless you can find something that says that anything that increases your IPs makes you physically move faster, it shouldn't cause you to be able to out jog a world class sprinter.


Not "Where she moves twice as fast as before"

I do not aggree here, an experienced shadowrunner knows exactly how long it takes to fire a shot, likewise, you can do other things, like reloading your gun, throw a grenade and fire two shots in much shorter time than other people, those things are not nessecarily reactions, they might aswell be "planned" from the start of the combat round.
Now I am not saying that you are wrong, it does indeed seem that the rules wants you to devide sprint aswell, however i find this strange considering how they seem to allow quicker movement of limbs. As such, I still allow players to do the simple action each initiative pass, without deviding their nethits.
This also makes for less math without all that deviding.

I agree, there is some oddity in the increased reflexes if you don't consider it meaning to actually move quicker, but I think you underestimate what the world seeming to move in slow motion means. Imagine what it would be like if every second felt like 10. Even if you couldn't move any quicker, you'd be able to consider every action for 10 times as long and be able to aim 10 times as quick.

I'm sure that you -could- throw two grenades in 3 seconds for instance, but it would be horrendously inaccurate because you wouldn't have nearly as much mental time to consider the throw or aim it or anything.

There are several adept powers that affect something other than the adept herself, and therefore can be considered to leave an astral signature outside of the adept. Here are some:

Animal Empathy
Commanding Voice
Distance Strike
Enthralling Performance
Inertia Strike
Killing Hands
Kinesics (?)
Linguistics
Living focus (but other effects may be more noticeable)
Missile Mastery (?)
Nerve Strike
Pain Relief
Penetrating Strike
Power Throw
Quick Draw
Smashing Blow

I'd have to disagree with some of those.

Linguistics only affects you, as does Kinesics. And many of those others could be viewed as either affecting the user or the object. Like nerve strike could just be an advanced ability to aim for nerves as opposed to doing anything magical to the target.

The description of Nerve Strike states, "This power allows an adept to inflict a paralyzing attack, temporarily crippling an opponent, by targeting vital nerve clusters." That sounds more like you become able to target the nerves, rather than you are now able to affect the nerves by magically altering the target. So, I agree with Karoline.

I also say that Quick Draw does not affect an object, but rather it affects only you. You become able to quick draw a larger variety of weapons. You do not magically alter those weapons so that you can quick draw them.

Actually they don't the target of the powers is the adept himself. He himself however affects the world around him with enhanced abilities

Animal Empathy: give the adept an affinity for animals
Commanding Voice: makes the adepts voice commanding
Distance Strike: the magic allows the adept to strike foes without touching them. The magic does not strike them, as with a manabolt.
Enthralling Performance: Makes the adept enthralling
Inertia Strike: as distance strike
Killing Hands: as distance strike
Kinesics (?): allows the adept better control over her nonverbal and subconscious communication
Linguistics: Increases the adept's affinity for languages
Living focus (but other effects may be more noticeable): Aloows the adept to sustain a spell. The sustained spell however is a different story
Missile Mastery (?): allows the adept to throw better. the missiles are unaffacted
Nerve Strike: as distance strike
Pain Relief: possibly this is the exception. the description talks about channeling mana into the patient.
Penetrating Strike: as distance strike
Power Throw: see missile mastery
Quick Draw: allows the adpet to move his hands quicker to the weapon
Smashing Blow: as distance strike

With the possible exception of pain relief, the adept only affects himself with his powers. It shouldn't be that way. That adepts can only affect their own body with magic is the main distinction between them and mages.

Keep in mind I did say MOST adept powers but most of what you mention don't possibly qualify. Did you even bother to read half of them?
They make the adept faster, stronger or otherwise boost him up in some way.

For a few examples
Animal Empathy
*A social skill booster for animals. The skill effects the animal and the skill is boosted by the power. No signature
Kinesics
*No different then any of the other adepts skill boosters they give the adept a bonus on something, You read body language
Linguistics
*Once again only effects the adept HE can learn a language by simply hearing it.
Missile Mastery, Power Throw
*Enhances the adepts throwing power. It does make the knife magical.
Killing hands and most other unarmed modifiers turn the adepts fists into magic weapons
For comparison A weapon foci has an astral signature but it does not leave a signature behind on those it strikes.
Quick Draw
*This is little different then improved reflexes it lets the Adept do some things in a much shorter amount of time then normal
Living focus
*The foci is is the adept and not another target. The only astral signature that could be traced is that of the Magician who cast the spell. Which would lead back to the magician.


So the ones you mentioned that could possible leave a signature outside the adept.
Commanding Voice, I already mentioned this one as directly effecting others
Enthralling Performance, true
Pain Relief, true
I'll throw in voice control as I mentioned that one before.
The problem with ANY of these is they have no force, and signatures only last for hours x force.

So for everything on your list, the no force=signature lasts no hours applies. Lets say for the sake of argument Smashing Blow does leave behind a signature. It lasts for a number of hours equal to the force. Which is nothing. The signature is gone after the Adept has punched the wall.
The signature from enthraling performance is gone the moment the adept stops using the power

Now when you said Animal Empathy you may of been thinking of the initiation power Empower Animal which should leave a signature on the animal that can be traced back to the adept until the power ends. In which case lacking a force the signature is gone.

Guys. I threw these out for discussion. Beat the logic to death if you want, but there is no need to poke sticks at me.

Yes, the Force or lack thereof is an issue. My point is simply that adepts are magicians too(in the original sense as AncientHistory recently pointed out elsewhere), and they manipulate mana. That manipulation should leave traces. If those traces exist only on the adept herself, then still they exist. Some adept skills can be argued to leave an effect outside the body of the adept. Argue away. Or just ignore me.

If the definition of astral signature is based on Force, then we either throw out the idea that adepts leave signatures at all, which is really an important bonus for them, one I think is usually overlooked, or we interpret around yet another oversight in the rules.

Where did you guys get the notion that magic had to affect someone else in order to leave a signature? One is left any time a magical effect is used regardless of whether it was cast on the caster or some third party. Is Improved Reflexes boosting your abilities while you're fighting some guy in a bar? Guess what; you just left an astral signature by doing so. Using Kinesics to smooth talk that corporate secretary? You just left an astral signature. Those signatures aren't left on the people you're fighting/schmoozing. They're left in the area as a result of your manipulation of mana. Which you are doing every time you use an adept power. Adept powers aren't just a variation of Karma advancement. They're magic. Hell, forensics magicians don't even know what kind of an effect you used when spotting one unless they get a critical success (5+ hits). Signatures are purely the result of using magical skills and abilities.

The only exception might be powers that have no rating/equivalent Force. Linguistics is an example of that one. Personally, I think they should be treated as if they were Force 1, but I don't think that's backed up anywhere in the rules.

We, or at least I, don't think that the adept powers don't leave signatures. But the point is that they only leave a signature on the adept himself. So the assenser is probably better off scanning the adept than the possible signatures on him.

The other problem is that no adept power has a Force. Some have levels or ratings but not Force.

Where did we get the notion? the rule book
"Magical skills and abilities produce an astral signature on anything affected by them, which is detectable using assensing"
SR4 Rule book, page 182,(192 if using the 20th Anniversary edition)
Anything affected by them not the area where the spell was cast.
Invisibility leaves behind an astral signature either because it affects the minds of the subject.

So according to the rules signatures are left on the things affected by them. Most adept powers affect only the adept giving him some kind of bonus to his dice pools or some enhanced/new sense. The definition of the adept is he uses magic to enhance himself so that is where almost any signature would be left.

The only adept power I've found that has a force equivalent is magic sense. However the affect is once again on the adept granting him the ability to sense magic. The signature would be on him. A few initiation powers however do have active effects outside of the adept that would leave a signature and could be used to track them such as EMPOWER animal.

Oh, I see what you're trying to say now. Apparently they've changed it so that astral signatures are only left on the subject of a magical effect rather than the area the effect occurred. Time for a few house rule I suppose. Certainly makes that aspect of Cleansing (which erases the astral signatures in an area rather than a subject) useless.

Well that change must have happened sometime between 3rd and 4th edition as the exact line is in both editions of the SR4 book.

And Cleansing the area still has plenty of uses. A fireball affects the entire area everything it touches. A direct combat spell used to kill or knock out a dozen guards at once would leave behind astral signatures on every affected by it. A dozen guards to be exact. That be one dozen signatures to erase one at a time. Cleansing affects the entire area so the mage could erase the signature from every guard at once instead of one at a time.

Here is how I would rule it IMHO, adepts leave astral signatures, only those signatures are on themselves at a force equal to their magic attribute ... but here is the funny thing, I think it wouldn't really give anyone assensing them anything, since they are probably going to sense they are magical anyways, unless perhaps one of their powers had to go off recently but even then that would be really hard to pick up specifically what in their aura was used recently. *shrug* Of course, I could be totally misreading things in my SR4A.

Astral signatures are like fingerprints, and fingerprints you don't even need to make a test for (I think, this may have changed) once you successfully assense one. They're a very bad thing to leave behind at a crime scene for that very reason. So yes, it does give someone assensing them something more than 'they're magical.'

Sorry, I guess you misunderstood what I was trying to say. From my limited understanding (due to lack of experience playing) when you look at people when you are astral, all you are seeing is their aura and that is based on emotions, essence, and magic. So, if you are trying to see a magical signature on something magical, I would think it was akin to looking at a powered flood lamp looking for a glow stick hidden in it. Hope that makes some sense.

Every magician manipulates magic in their own way, and those telltale differences are called an astral signature. Your aura reveals all kinds of other information, too, and the more skilled the observer, the more information they gain. If you score enough hits on your Assensing Test (I think its 3 hits), you find the signature and will recognize it whenever you see it again in the future. Forensic magicians revolve around this practice in the Sixth World.

It really is like finding a fingerprint on a vase. You just don't have to dust to find it or match it up against a database.

You don't have to dust it, but you still have to match it to your (internal) database. Also there is no correlation between the signature and the aura of a magician, just like there is none between a face and a fingerprint. So unless you witness a suspect casting a spell the signature at an earlier crime scene is useless.

I just found out that by RAW adepts (mystic or normal) cannot erase their astral signatures. In case of the former this is a real problem, in case of the latter it may be because their signatures vanish instantly anyway.

Not quite Dakka, if the magician carries any foci (and plenty do) that have their signature on it. And of course should you have a magic lodge that to would carry your signature.

This only proves that the magician who cast the spell is the same that owns the foci and/or magical lodge. It does not prove which magician that is.

Eh? Any magician who has access to astral perception can erase an astral signature. Any astral signature, not just their own.


It's enough just cause to ask them to cast a minor spell or otherwise leave an astral signature to compare it to. Which is no different than taking someone's prints. And that's purely for organizations that give a flip about the law. A group of security mages or mages in the employ of a criminal organization are going to be less worried about such a trivial thing and just blast you to oblivion if they have a reason to, or otherwise do whatever the hell they want if they're even moderately sure you're the culprit.

The point is magician, not adept or mystic adept.

Yes taking the prints is ok but the magic has to come from the magician himself. In most jurisdictions there are laws against self-incrimination.

They don't even need signatures.

Well it kinda does prove it. If you have a foci bonded to you and it carries the same signature found at the scene of a crime.
Its anidentifying mark.
Then of course you have astral tracking. If the investigator finds your signature he could trace it back to you.
It is however difficult at it requires a Extended Assensing + Intuition (5) Test (interval: 1 hour), With the threshold growing by +1 for each hour sense the link was active.

When people are arrested its standard procedure to finger print them. Given how in most places awakened people are required to register themselves as awakened. Compelling them to show their signature isn't out of the question.

...

"Magician" is a general term for adepts, mages, shaman, and everyone else who can actively practice magic.

IIRC the link between the focus and the magician, who bonded it, is only apparent when the focus is active. As with spellcasting a mage cannot be forced by law enforcement to activate a focus that is allegedly bonded by him.

@Dr. Funkenstein: Interesting interpretation. AFAIK being a magician, adept or mystic adept is mutually exclusive. What is interesting as well, is that wards can be created by any awakened creature with astral perception, not only by magicians.

<bangs his head on his desk>

Offers the number of a place to get a better desk

AFAIK anyone who can astrally precieve can erase a signature. It is just that most adepts and mystic adepts can't do that.

Also keep in mind that most adept powers are going to be similar to permanently sustained spells, as opposed to anything that is 'cast'. Improved reflexes for instance is basically always on, but you only need the bonus sometimes. Same for Kinesetics and power throw and all the others. Only one I can think of off hand that would certainly be 'cast' is that temporary attribute boost power.

Nope.




The wording should have been "awakened characters" if the intention was to allow all characters with a magic attribute to erase signatures. It could have been a simple mistake by the developers however.

Adepts can take the Astral Perception power for 1 power point. See SR4A, page 195.

That still doesn't make them magicians.