I am becoming more and more frustrated with my current magical tradition. I created my mage-character before the possession traditions had been known and now i see in every run how much better some of these aspects would fit. We all know that awakened persons can lose their magic if they don´t follow their tradition, but shouldn´t it also be able to switch the form of magic if you gain another side of view, e.g. through some real life-changing happenings?

Talk to your GM. I'd rule it was possible, but only if you relearnt Sorcery either completely or picked a reasonably similar tradition and spent some karma to re-align yourself. This is what your character *believes*, and that belief is what causes pissed off humanoid rocks to coming storming through the walls like the wrath of god. There had better be a damn good reason for his change or crisis of faith - perhaps a geas moment.

What is your tradition, and what do you want to change to? Is it only because you want better spirits?

hermetic tradition, and yes, it is basically because i want the new spirits.^^

Then you'd better find some sort of spiritual awakening. Or wait until he gets a critical fumble, takes a geas test if you use the rules, and then roleplay a crisis of faith and a swift kick in the teeth from whoever the grand poobah of your desired tradition is, like the Qashmallim or whoever. Just discuss it with your gm. Or better, play out until he dies. Then make a new mage.

SR's approach to traditions basically is "belief makes reality", so if your character has a religious conversion moment why not? Technically I'd handle it like an initiation session, including the 10 Karma cost (hey, nothing is free in life) but without the usual effects of it, just the "deeper insight into the universe" thing.

However you handle it, the magician should disengage all his current magical endeavours as almost everything the magician's learned and achieved has been with a specific understanding of magic. At the very least this would mean the dismissal of all spirits (bound and unbound, whether of a type accepted by the new tradition or not) and the magical lodge will need to be replaced completely.

All grades of Initiation would have to go along with the metamagics and Magic limit increases (losing Magic rating if applicable). A generous GM might allow a karma reduction for re-initiating for the lost metamagic techniques.

Foci and spells could probably be kept.

If the character has a mentor spirit then there's a lot of roleplaying ammunition right there: either the mentor will punish the magician for his lack of dedication (though not necessarily prevent the transition) or perhaps the mentor is the one who made the decision and will guide the magician through the process.

Unwired has an echo for TMs to learn the compiling of extra sprite types beyond their given five – perhaps your GM can be convinced (as I could be) to allow magicians to do the same. The two drawbacks are 1) this won't allow for possession spirits and 2) the new spirit type would have to be without a spell category and therefore unable to assist where spell category is relevant.

I agree with Hagga that the magical community would generally look down on someone doing this. At the very least they would cast suspicion on his commitment and magical competency.

It might be easier to convince your GM to allow your character's twin brother, who has always followed a possession tradition, to suddenly show up Traditions are a big deal and switching would basically mean re-writing everything your character knows about magic. I could be done, but the cost should be pretty darn high. I think Aerospider summed up the potential costs pretty well.

There is no way too officially do it. The best you can hope for it just talking with the GM, I know many GMs who allow respecs when the player is unhappy with there character.

Ouch. Nerf-bat hard much people?

I think a fair compromise would be this: You have to complete a Metaplanar Quest tied to the new tradition without the aid of your Magic at all. No spells, no conjuring, no spirits under your explicit control - just you and your non-Magic-linked skills. Arcana, Magical Theory, Negotiations, Etiquette, Assensing, Astral Combat... Basically no spells.

After that you'd be able to change tradition and keep all spells, foci, Initiations, and similar things. I'd say you lose your spirits and you have to change your Magical Lodge (if you own one), but that's about all.

EDIT: Think of it like an Atonement spell from 3.5.

I think the costs and penalties are too light. A magician changing his tradition is about as likely as a preist changing religions. The tradition that each mage follows is fundamental to their view of how the universe works. This should be a huge event in the character's development.

Without getting into theological debates too deep, this actually occurs more frequently than people would think.

Of course it's a huge event: that's why he has to do a difficult task without any use of his magic whatsoever.

I agree that keeping out of the theological end of the pool is the right way to go, however I don't think that preists, ministers, Imams, or rabbis change religions often at all. I am not talking about moving from a sect that thinks you need to wear red hats on Tuesdays vs dark orange hats on Tuesdays, I mean a complete break with their current beleifs and taking up a new route.

I don't see people who are wholely committed to a beleife system the way religious leaders tend to be changing their outlook (about that beleif system) in anything but the smallest details.

I know that scientists run into the same thing with paradigm changes.

Again, I don't think this is the proper forum for this, but it does in fact happen fairly frequently. Plenty plenty of people convert their beliefs, and many of them are teachers themselves - whether rabbi, pastor, preacher, imam, or another name, teacher they all are.

In any event, there are no recorded Shadowrun mages changing traditions. Although the conceptual precedence is there. Toxic and Blood mages certainly seem to devolve into those states, although one can argue that Blood magic is simply a template placed onto a magical belief system. Toxic magic, however, definately has its own spirits to summon and its own listed sample Tradition.

Traditionally Toxics were Shaman's who went down a dark path so it was a template. I think in 3e they decided it was unfair that shamans got a bad rap and had mages pick it up as well.(lame IMO, mages had there own issues). I think in 4e it is supposed to be the same thing but since it is unavailable to players they just stat it out a bit differently. And besides the different spirits, really are just toxic versions of what they could summon before they went toxic.

As for the main topic. You can't change it by the rules.

If your GM allows it he can do whatever he wants to allow it. Whatever the cost if any should not be more than the cost of just bringing in a new character from scratch. For example if you can bring in a new character and he has the same karma as the rest of the team for balance reasons why put any cost at all on this beyond fluff. If a new character being brought in starts off from scratch I can see a rationalization for some cost, but really do you as a GM want the players playing characters they want to or characters they are not happy with. There are obviously limits to what you should allow but this seems more like a re-skin than anything else with no real effect. If someone tells me they wish tey had made there character a native american now that they think about it and they would have used this background instead I don't ant to be a pain in the ass over it, fine we retconned things move on. Also retconning in changes due to new books seems reasonable to me as well.

I don't think it would be easy, whether you allowed it or not. Perhaps afterwards, your magician has some negative quality, such as aspected which can be paid off normally, to represent the effort it takes to accept that magic works differently now.

You could always go toxic.

My GM wouldn´t let me. I already thought about learning blood-magic but i got a big NO from my master.^^

Have you tried Insect Spirits? I hear they're all the rage in Chicago.

I will have a try.^^ Everything is better than the spirits i can summon at the moment.^^

Learning blood magic puts a big 1 million nuyen price on your head, and the team would almost certainly collect. Maybe even by telling you they're taking you to Saeder-Krupp Disneyland, putting you in the car with your little suitcase and then driving through the front door of the Draco Foundation before your childish glee falls flat and you realise you are not going to Disney Land, but a realm of test tubes and electrodes without any rides.

Why? :wpbble:

My first theology professor warned us on the first day of class that each of us would lose our faith at some point in the process. Most find their way back, but a few do not...those would be the people who change denominations or even belief systems. You're not really challenging your beliefs if there's no chance you're wrong.

I can certainly testify to a perception of a lack of commitment, though. Not in the magical community, of course, but the ecclesial community is startlingly less forgiving than one might expect.

Although perhaps I've led us too far down the side track...

This is actually one of the most reasonable ideas I've seen on this thread. Possibly changing your Tradition and getting a Geas which you'd have to buy off normally, like the description of a mage with a trial of faith or whatever in Street Magic.

Exactly. From what I've read, a tradition is your character's way of saying, "Magic happens like this." Any change in tradition would have to somehow acknowledge the fact that another tradition works just as well. Changing from Hermetic to Voodoo, for example, would leave the magician with the understanding that magic is a universal energy, and also a power that comes exclusively from les invisibles, who has handpicked the magician. So are you summoning loa or elementals?

What this means for you, is that your GM will ultimately have to decide, but don't expect it to be an easy, "Now I can deliver a different flavour of kick ass." What it will mean for your character is, "Now I live in a different universe. The old one doesn't exist."

Personally of all the reasons to want to change. "I like the spirits in the new splat better." Has about the least ring to it thematicly.


I will be the first to admit that the core book spirits are a little behind the times compared to Guidance, Guardian, and the pur ghouda that is task, but that's something to talk about optional powers with your GM. Otherwise it sounds like you just want your mage to take a level of vodoo to go with his three ranks of warrior.

Suddenly, having one of my Player's make a Jedi Magician seems to hurt my head less.

... I know how to build a Jedi/Sith character, complete with a working lightsaber. Kinda.

Free Spirit character with Natural Attack to look like it.

It was asked by another poster, but *why* do you feel the current spirits are so vastly worse than others of other traditions?

Personally, I've played hermetic mages and never found myself wanting for other abilities, but then again I may not be missing something simply because I've not used the other spirits before.

If you like other types of spirits so much...why not simply hire someone of that tradition to summon one, then Bind it to you? Seems a heck of a lot easier than any of the other options, and it fits the personality/world view of Hermetics ("Spirits/Elementals are tools to be used.")

Of course, the hard part would be finding some sucke...er, kind soul willing to let you Bind one of their ancestors/gods/whathaveyou.

A lot of the power of the new spirits, particularly Guardian and Task, is the ability to do just about anything you need them to do. So, on the fly they're really powerful; if they're already bound with their powers set, not quite so much.

They aren't really lacking, but the element based spirits seem to kind of duplicate each other in ability quite a bit. Sure each one is a bit different, air has noxious breath for example but they don't give the same ability spread as the new spirits. Still a pure hermetic is perfectly fine spirit wise.

You know, if a Mage wants spirits, they just need to go to the liquor store and...

I got confused again, didn't I?

One thing I've thought about adding is the Technomancer metamagic(forget what TM metamagic is called) that allows access to one more sprite. The mage and technomancer duplicate so much in form a mage version of that metamagic would fit IMO.

Yeah, I have a metamagic house rule that does that as well. One extra spirit type per.

I've been meaning to go back to hermetic. I've done a lot of Black and some Shinto, but the Int (as in intelligence - I have to remember to say Log for my audience here) caster's calling my name again.

What would solve the problem to some degree without massive cheese of going "You know, magic isn't an ordering of the universe. It's African gods who ride people around for sex rituals," is if mages had the equivalent of the Sprite Link TM Echo. Take an Initiation or a 15 karma metamagic buy to get access to the spiffy new things.

Technomancers get all the best rules..

See perhaps I'm in the minority but I've always felt that echo was a bit overpowered for technomancers. Sprite link's only saving grace is sprites are a LOT less useful then spirits are. I think giving the exact equivalent to mages would be a mistake.

Well, it's fairly powerful for any non-voodoo tradition I suppose. But I guess that's the point for me, I would rather have this option instead of "roll voodoo or have gimpy spirits". The marginal benefit of this power over some of the other potential metamagics really isn't very high. (Of course, I ix-nay the whole "buy a metamagic for 15 karma thing" so that may have some bearing)

See this is where I have confusion. The only reason other spirits are "gimpy" is because you can't use them to directly turn you into a juggernaut. Which really, if that's your thing, go for it. To each their own.

IMO it's just not fun playing unstoppable characters. Sure it's cool for a couple of sessions, but once you run over the opposition time and again, why continue. May as well just handwave each encounter at that point.

Actually, I don't do possession spirits; I've never liked the flavor. And my players seem to agree with me, since we've never had a possession tradition mage. But even as materialization spirits, the new ones are superior. So, first point set aside, there's no such thing as an unstoppable character. If you find yourself running over the opposition, your GM needs to be doing a better job.

Power is a relative thing. If NPCs have access to the new spirits (and mine do) it seems fair to allow my PCs some way of getting them that doesn't involve re-rolling/playing a tradition that doesn't fit their concept. I suppose I could just ignore them entirely, but that seems kind of weak - it's not like I don't let my street sams use gauss rifles.

I'm kind of coming to the opinion that given sR4s deviation from summoning differences between traditions that maybe they should have just left the spirits blank and let the player pick 5. No matter the traditions you can come up with an argument for why X spirit fits, and with the ability to create traditions it is better than hermetic but with X spirits traditions coming up all the time.

Street Magic Spirits can Counterspell.
That's a very significant thing.

Having access to that means that you can send B&E Sam to do his thing with astral CSpelling support while the mage tries to Face his way through a different checkpoint, hook up the Hacker's signal repeater so he can break the sensor field on that hallway Sam needs to slink down.

Well, an Easy Fix would be to add Magic Guard to all types of Summonable Spirits as an Optional Power. I think that this would work out okay, without being too overpowered. Any Opinions?

If not all spirits then at least some of them, air and earth are good thematic candidates in my mind. Man would make sense but is already pound for pound one of the best spirits out there.

Sure, I could get on board with that reasoning... Makes a lot of sense to me...

If spirits in fact did weigh anything.

Also, I think it important to mention that the new Spirit Powers are expressly stated to be possibly available to existing spirits. Just ask GM.

Yep, you have plenty of options to get the new spirit powers with the cooperation of your GM that don't mean you're trying to "directly turn you into a juggernaut". I like the metamagic one mostly because when I'm a player, I enjoy the roleplay of interacting with spirits, and the idea of learning new types to summon is full of win - that's not to say it's the best or only way though.

And if none of these ideas work for you, then why not use the rules for Calling Spirits in Running Wild (Pages 174-182). They just may fill the void that you are wanting to fill. Just do not expect them to fill it in the way that you imagine.

I love the Calling rules. The next mage I play is probably not even going to have any of the Conjuring group - only Arcana, Enchanting, and Negotiations.

With one of my characters i created a completely new magical tradition that fits my requirements. He can call 4 fixed types of spirits and one kind that comes random. this way, he can virtually call anything without being broken. Maybe this could also be an option?