Err....So you give your mystic adepts the ability to cast at a force equal to their own magic rating without physical drain? So a mystic adept with 6 magic can cast force 6 spells and take 6 points of adept powers in your game? Last question: may I play a mystic adept in your game?

Half right.
6 magic, 3 devoted to adept powers, 3 to spellcasting/conjuring.

Can cast force 6 and overcast to force 12 and has 3 powerpoints, but they can be up to rating 6. Magic-linked skills use a magic of 3. This is per SR4A.

What: No Infected and no shapechangers.
Why: We've played Vampire and Werewolf in the past. Now we're playing Shadowrun.

What: No SURGE
Why: We all think it's dumb and retconned it out of existence.

What: The game effect of Emotitoys while leaving Emotitoys in.
Why: Because it was easier than explaining why every Mr. J has a Pikachu on his shoulder.

What: SnS ammo
Why: It's already easy enough to take down spirits between Banishing and the physad in the group. Also, assault rifle taser bullets that do stun but not physical damage is dumb.

What: Possession Tradition min-maxers
Why: Should be obvious.

Thing is, all of the above were collective decisions taken by myself and all of my players before characters were made. That's the beauty of talking these things out ahead of time and agreeing on the kind of SR game we want to play. Social contracts ftw!

would an email from one of the developers trump this?


Edit: Woh I just looked at my email. They used my question as the example for the FAQ

I suppose gel rounds in an assault rifle do physical damage?

haha! that's completely retarded. I wouldn't play by those rules if Dunkelzahn somehow appeared to me in real life and told me they were correct.

One little power focus and you're casting as well as any full mage, with adept powers to boot.

I'd say that if the gel round does more damage than your body after soak than its real >...> Mimics taking one in the soft part of the dome.

Well it never exactly mentions that you can cast spells at the maximum Magic Rating. It just says the very broad statement of "For all other purposes, including the determination of the maximum level for adept powers, the character's full Magic attribute is used."

While you can discern from the text that this means that a mystic adept cast spells of a Force up to the total maximum rating, it does not come out and say it. That really makes Mystic Adepts a little strong.

Oh Shadowrun 4th, you could be much tighter on your writing and rules clarity....

Better to give answer where everyone can see

Relevan part bolded.
All other purposes means exactly what it sounds like.

Never directly says Force of spells. Again, you can assume that this is true but by RAW it is really never given a specific answer. Plus that makes mystic adepts crazy.

I'll stick with the FAQ.

Under SR3, your Bought Magical Attribute for the Spell-Slinging was used for Maxium Spell Force and Drain.
Also, not being able to use improved ability for magical skills must have slipped by me somewhere . .

This. I'll also stick with the Original Email I got from Rob Boyle. I'll copy and paste the whole thing: Don't tell me made it up, I will forward it to you if you pm me your email.
text between /// and \\\ are by me. (Poster's Note: When I said spell pool I was being dumb, and was trying to say magic stat)
///
The big question I have, though, is about Mystic adept in general - Since they can split their spell pool and everything things can get complicated. there is a paragraph on the second page of the mystic adept section that says that For All purposes, including the limits of Adept powers, the mystic adept counts as his max magic. so if he's spent 4 points on Adept abilities, and only 2 on casting, does that mean he can Force 6 spells without flinching? I am going to be dealing with this character specificly because He's gone through the trouble of figuring out how to roll 20 dice for soaking drain, and he's purposefully abusing the system to cause trouble.\\\


I'm not sure what you mean about splitting the spell pool ...

Nope, basically the Magic he has allocated towards magician skills counts for all aspects of those skills. So in your example, the max Force he can cast at is 4, and anything over Force 2 is Physical Drain.



:: Rob Boyle ::
Shadowrun Developer for FanPro LLC
info@shadowrunrpg.com ~ www.shadowrunrpg.com



Follow up email:

///Allright - will this make it into errata? Would be nice to be clarified - the book seems to make no mention of that. Or if it does, where is it at?\\\


It's unclear in the book, but we're adding it to the SR4 FAQ we're working on.



======================

In closing, this is the case of Creative Rules as Written versus Developer's Rules as Intended, based on the FAQ on the site. My only real beef is that they did not address this when they updated the book for the special edition.

Back on topic: I hate the edges and flaws out of the RC.

Whats wrong with In Debt

Why would it need to, "for all other purposes" means exactly what it says, no need to get more specifig then that.
There nothing creative about that reading of the rules, the rules are ver straight forward.

The problem with In Debt is that people get pissy when they didn't consider that they actually do need to pay it back and its just not a stat on their character sheet, and how someone without a Sin could possibly get a loan and from who, and the long spiraling problems it generates for the other players. Also: kink bombs.

people without SiNs borrow money from the Yakuza, the Mafia, etc..
And in some games, 45K is cheap to payback.

That part was Rhetorical.

and its nice of you to assume that a loan from organized crime is going to be at such a low interest rate.

edited because I felt it was too inflamatory. Point of the story is that someone got a cruel nickname because they were playing a boardgame with the creator and tried to argue rules with him.

Which part are you disputing? Here I'll break my statement into two sections for you:

1.


You don't resist a flame thrower with counterspelling, I hope this part doesn't need clarification? Fireball, despite being aimed, you can totally ignore the fire by standing stock still and letting it hit you and counterspelling it away. This implies it is magical fire. A flamethrower I cannot counterspell, only dodge.

2.


This is in the book, SR4A pg 204:



Also I don't remember you quoting anything relevant at all, so yeah.

Yeah, because 10% monthly interest is such a great rate... Given that that is over 10 times higher than a real bank's interest, yeah, I'd say the game assumes it is an illegal lone.

I do agree that In-Debt is a bad quality though. It is either too good or utterly the stupidest thing you could ever do to your character.

The mob loans aren't nasty because of the interest rate, it's generally the repayment terms - as in, 'all of it plus twenty percent, right now.'

In Debt wouldn't really be so bad if starting karma on money wasn't so limited

My 2 quotes (albeit not using tags) were directly from my SR4 pdf. I'll check my SR4ALE when I get home to completely clarify that.

Also, the fire being created is "real", this is why it is a physical spell. It can set things on fire and they continue to burn, and not with "magical fire" but real fire. The counterspelling portion is disrupting the caster's ability to create said fire and direct it at you. More like making the fire less hot as it were, or the acid less acidic.

Because let's be honest, you can totally ignore a flamethrower by standing still and resisting the damage from it. If you have fire-resistance in your armor it applies equally to both "magical" and non-magical fire as well.

Where's an arc lightning cannon when i need one...

If it has 'no effect' then why institute the rule? The point is, used wisely or not a standard minimum wage security guard should not be able to handle a spirit of force 6 or higher pretty much at all. Critters of that level need anti-material level fire power to deal with, which should NOT be coming out the end of a pistol, or even a SMG.


Why shouldn't the spirit be hard to kill? What are they going to do? shoot it in the heart or brain? Drone have the 'effect' of hardened armor, what are you doing about that? Making drones susceptible to stun damage? If you don't want people carrying SnS for anti-spirit use, say what I do, if you want to harm something with a weapon, it should have a 'system' susceptible to the weapon in question, no nerves = no tazers, no atoms = no acids, can't feel pain = can't be stuned, etc.

I think the Faq makes them borderline useless.

Considering that they can get an excess of 20 dice to resist drain irregardless of this ruling says otherwise.

Hehe, irregardless...

Does this involve the use of attribute boost?

I believe so. Is there I something missed about boost attribute?

No, I was just curious if that was how it was done or not, because I couldn't think of anything else from the adept line that would help with drain. I still don't really see 20+ dice though. 12 dice from charisma tradition with an elf, extra 2 dice from each stat with attribute boost is 16... restricted is an extra +2? Don't know where else the dice come from though unless you're sinking a ton of PP into attribute boosts, in which case you'll damage yourself from the attribute boost anyway, so makes no drain kinda pointless.

Combination of that and talismans. So going off of a Human base line, How hard is it to do +3 to two stats to hit that 9 limit.

You'd need at least 3 levels of improved ability (and 6 magic for average chance) for two stats, that's 1.5 PP and two sets of 3 drain resisted with bod/willpower. That's a fair risk of taking at least one drain damage, but that isn't so bad for 6 extra dice.

Should be noted that a human won't be able to get 6 in three stats at chargen though, so you're looking at 5 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 2 = still 18

I don't know of any talisman that give a boost to drain though, and in truth only 6 of these dice are coming from the adept portion of the MA, and given that it is costing 1.5PP and generally a box of damage, I'd say it is a fair trade off.

Well for starters the Adept drain isn't coming until later...
so where does a 1 in every stat except for Magic, Your two casting stats, and body get you.
and I believe the understanding when this type of character was placed before me is that power foci are used for both. Also, apologies If foci aren't considered a talisman.

Figured you meant foci, but foci don't help with drain at all (not since 4a). Lets see, 6 magic, 3 power foci, 5 willpower, 5 body, 5 tradition stat. That lets you max out both stats to 9 on average rolls, and take no drain from the boost on average rolls. Still only looking at 20 dice though, but you are up to 8 coming from being a mystic adept.

Well I still feel that a 20 dice pool is excessive XD

I have no problem with players overpowering guards by using actual tactics. I do have a problem with them (or their spirits) just being invincible while unnoticable (ie. the problem here is the mage can walk in anywhere and play havok, unlike other things that require anti-material firepower).

And critters of that level don't need anti-materiel level firepower, they just need SnS.



Spirit's shouldn't be that hard to kill because they're a perfectly concealable weapon the mage carries with him everywhere. Drones with hardened armor can't be carried in your pocket, so they don't have to be vulnerable to small arms fire. SnS has more problems than anti-spirit use, they're generally overpowered (I have them -1DV 0AP).

I had this nice post about how to get even more dice, when i remembered atribute boost is only for physical atributes, so mystic adept cant get anymore drain dice then a magian.

Isn't Attribute boost only for Physical traits? And fetishes give a +2 to drain resistance, but you are not able to cast without the fetish.

EDIT: damn, too slow

Oh, right, forgot about the physical only. So yeah, I don't see how a MA gets any bonus drain dice over a full mage.

wewt?

Atribute boost power is only for Agility, Body, Reaction, or Strength, so cant take it to help resist drain.
So mystic adepts dont get anymore drain dice then mages.

If you munchkin the hell out of one yes. But if I munchin the hell out of a hacker I technically have access to a THOR satellite. Most are looking at ~12 dice to resist, and would have a magic of 2-3.

Of all the ways magic is broken, Mystic Adepts is more than definitely not one of them. You're a Phys Ad that can cast spells, summon spirits (maybe? I forget), and counterspell. You don't get Astral Sight unless you buy it with a PP, you don't get astral projection. Why bother gimping them further by killing the force cap on their spells when they already aren't likely to have as many spellcasting dice as a full mage in the first place?

The rules as interpreted (and that have stuck in SR4A, which means they supercede the FAQ) is that your full Magic Attribute applies to the max force of spells you can cast (in addition to the RAW stating it applies to the max rating for Adept powers).

Uhmmm, kinda, I didn't need the drone in the building because it would often have weapons capable of firing 'through' the building. I'd usually have it on the rooftops of opposing buildings, and vehicle scale rail guns have a nasty habbit of killing a guard just as well as any spirit.

Isn't that sort of the purpose of Faqs though. They give a general statement/rule. A player asks, hey does this general rule mean this. They say, doh we didn't mean for it to include that, so no.

This isn't a specific rule that is being contradicted it is a general all encompass style rule where you have to figure out what applies logically. The game designers seem to disagree with some players on what the outcome should be.

I'm not sure on the subject, Ive hated mystic adepts since the time they first appeared and wont play them. And I've never been in a game with them so I don't have any actual experience with them.

The FAQ ruling my eyeball estimate means that 3/3 style mystic adepts are utility spell casters with weak combat casting, and limited though decent phys adept power. So if you want to combat cast be more of a 5 magic/1 physical adept type. So you are roughly as good as the full mage at spell slinging, but weak with physical adept powers. And the 1m/5p types don't even really have much in utility since force 2 spells don't do much in combat, health, illusion etc. Ignoring the FAQ I'm not sure why you would do much other than 1m/5p though, sure you lose some dice but you still can throw force 12 spells and summon force 12 spirits, and a power focus make sup for a lot of those dice. Unless you are overly concerned with the GM implanting you with cyber against your will or something.

So balance wise I got no idea which is better. But the FAQ reinforces the idea that if you want to be good at magic or good at physical adepting you need to put the points into it.

Wow, you play in totally different styles of games than me. Though drones capable of carrying vehicle scale rail guns should not be something you can sneak onto a different roof IMO.

Curious though what are the dice penalties for making that shot? Is the decker there physically and he is directing it somehow like a laser targeting to reduce the penalties etc.?

Ah, but you see, said Mystic Adept with 3/3 can use all 3 of his PP to buy Combat Sense at rating 6. You know, his full magic attribute, like the book says. It never explicitly states the highest force you can cast at is capped by your magic stat dumped in casting. It does state that the particular portion of it is an effective cap on dice pools. Again, the FAQ is known to have many incorrect and totally contradictory rule calls in it. SR4A does not include this FAQ clause in it and supercedes it's rulings.

Converting from rigger 3, you can fit one on a steel lynx. So it wasn't all that hard. Put some stealth mods on a red ball express, and you're golden.
Generally the fire was directed by a rangefinder/inertialcompas/gps system from the Street Samurai's. They'd point, and click, and their 'laser sight' would registers its own orientation, position, and distance to target, relay that to the lynx, and a 20mm HV round would transect the specified coordinates in space. This sort of maneuver was usually reserved for when the shit had really hit the fan, or the wet work we were doing was specified to be 'messy'.

It would need to spell it out to demonstrate intent rather than oversight. (Oh, right... they can cast spells ... )

As far as Rob Boyle's email, no, it doesn't trump anything. RAW > FAQ > assertions of former developers. Erratq of course, changes RAW but until we see an errata (erratum?), let's celebrate that mystic adept are only sub-par.

You do realize that you'd be firing through at least 2 barriers to manage this, right? Possibly more depending on how many floors the two buildings have and what particular floor your on and where on the floor you are on. That becomes somewhat less impressive when the round dies out before it even makes it to the target.

Well, suppose it could be only 1, but only if you happen to be on a floor even with the roof of the adjacent building and happen to be right against the wall facing that particular building. I suppose it would also work if you were in a single floor building and the adjacent building was a skyscraper. Would also cause more collateral damage than is generally desirable on a run.