I wasn't saying it's not powerful, I was saying it's *lame*.

Agreed.

Astral reconnaissance is a fantastic tool, not to mention all the other little things you can do with astral projection. Which is no more worse or dangerous than doing anything on the physical realm. For every single astral threat you can name, I'm sure I can name multiple ones of equal or greater danger in the physical realm. So I have no idea where you guys are coming up with that malarkey.

Everything in the physical realm you have your entire team to back you up for. And great for reconnaissance really? Where are people reconnoitering the stuffer shack? Because every adventure I've seen published and home made has anything useful behind wards or in plain view so a pair of binoculars and astral perception is fine. I've rarely if ever needed anything past astral perception which you can pick up as an adept, though it is a bit pricey.

What are the other little things you can do with astral projection? Not being snarky, genuinely curious here.

It's been fairly useless for pre-mission recon in my short experience with it, but once you've inside the ward and on the run proper, hopping out and checking around corners or through walls can be handy if your GM isn't going crazy with multiple layers of wards and awakened ivy, etc. everywhere.

Beyond that I've only used projection to take out para-critters by hovering above them, raining down stunbolts and during downtime to go to a nightclub on the astral plane located at the north pole that I made up The idea is the whole thing is run by a magic group looking to foster inter-tradition camraderie, the establishment proper had been carved out of glacial ice by a few spirits so that there are actually walls and floors if you want to use them and the entertainment is provided by illusionist DJs looking to make a name for themselves. The rule book mentions astral sex (and even sex with spirits...) at one point but I haven't had the nerve to bring that up, lol

But yea besides beating up poor dual natured suckers and roleplaying fun, what else can you do with astral projection?

Uh, what? They only use Force for attributes on the astral and many of their combat powers are Physical only, like Paralyzing Howl, Engulf, Energy Aura, Elemental Attack, and Noxious Breath. About all they get out of fighting as a purely astral form is an extra initiative pass. That's good, but all told I'd rather cancel out those powers and spot a pass than fight a spirit while also worrying about mundane opposition. Hell, on one run where we were bug hunting I ended up tearing up a small hive from within a rigger cocoon equipped Evo Orderly. Drive past the ward, secure a perimeter, go limp, pick on their dual forms, wash rinse, repeat. Astral Projection is a situational tool, but when you -can- use it, it's a game changer.

Plus, it's the same old matrix vs. the rest of the game problem. Meat is where it's at. If you're phoning it in (or projecting), lame. It's not a question of power.

Projection doesn't require it's own weird subset of rules that are baffling when compared to the rest of the system. That's why VR hacking is (and always has been) a pain in the ass to incorporate with the rest of the group. Not because it requires a bit of extra time to add a brief description to what the rest of the team is seeing, but because of all the associated work and completely different 'world' description required. That's why they added AR to 4th edition in the first place, which is far closer to what an astrally projecting character experiences. The VR equivalence is metaplanar questing, of which you can bring the rest of the team with if you really want to. (And in which they can actually contribute, as opposed to sitting and watching the hacker do all the work in VR.)

Yeah, see, I don't really use Astral Projection to just wander off on my own all the time. It's usually "I'm going to look past this door, brb," kinda deal. Then if the wetwork target is on the other side I just pop back and we all shoot through the door together.

Sure but they usually go first if more than a force 4 spirit and many things like fear are not physical and the only thing that stops fear from being a I win button is usually you have the rest of the party there to deal with the spirit while you run away. Add in most mages are not up to snuff in astral combat and you generally just get your butt kicked and quick. As for your biug spirit thing, that would have just got me killed. Sure some of the bugs will be flesh forms and easy pickings if you can stay out of reach, but plenty wont be and they will kill you.




While that is cool things like clairvoyance and astral window with astral perception handle a huge range of these benefits so losing projection is not a big deal in fact its only 10 karma of a deal for much of it.

Not really. Once you understand the situation, and realize where the devs fucked up, its not hard to apply a fix.
Another way to look at it is to see 4th and 4A as two different editions. They're similiar, yes, related, yes, but there's a ton of stuff different between the two. Why would you apply 3rd editions faqs and errata to 4th edition? That's just stupid and headache inducing. Ditto for 4th->4thA.




Funk has the right of this one, and I have to agree with him. Being able to walk through walls, move at the speed of thought, spot hostile cyberware(assensing lets you do that), and recon the real world(manifested) without showing up on any form of technological surveillance is a scouts wet dream.

Yes, buildings are occasionally shielded against it. But that doesn't mean its not useful. And, really, as a good runner, you should be trying to set up situations in which you can make use of -all- your tools.

I don't think anyone's arguing that it's not useful. I'm just arguing that it's not cool or fun. And that it's not much of a sacrifice for the Mystic Adept to lose.

I'm arguing that it is not a big loss, not that you can't find a use for it. Spells like clairvoyance and basic astral perception cover so much of what it can do I have not found it that big of a loss. Of course a lot of this is table dependent, how often is the astral security heavy enough you can't really scout much in your games etc.

Astral initiative is Intuition x 2 versus Force x 2, and Psyche is a cheap and relatively safe option for boosting Intuition. So unless you're treating it as a dump stat for some reason you can still be pretty competitive in that area up to Force 5 or 6. And to be honest, I'd rather scrape some stats away from Willpower and live with one or two less drain dice than take a hit to Intuition, since it governs Street knowledge, Assensing and Perception as well as meat initiative and your Astral Defense pools. Anyway, it is in large part a table thing. I just think Astral Projection and Astral Perception is a great value added thing in favor of Magicians relative to MystAds, and I can't really take the suggestion that Astral Perception is really about as good with a straight face.

go go double post.

I dunno, I'm pretty good at taking anything with a straight face. It's a gift, I guess.

Pardon the confusion: is the thought here that the FAQ only applies to 4th (and not 4A)?

There was a FAQ for 4e.
They had some new FAQ material for 4A.
They stuck the new 4A material in the 4e FAQ, without deleting the parts of the 4e FAQ that were no longer relevant due to changes between 4e and 4A.

Where to get thoses FAQ, SR4A especifically, pls.

http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/faq.shtml