I had a concept rattling in my head of a mystic adept. One that would take advantage of the faq's ruling on shapeshifting into a human and having maxed improved reflexes.


Gunfighter type guy with some real minor spellcasting abilities.

My understanding is that with 2 of my magic set to spellcasting I could get 4 successes max on any spellcasting test (cast at 2, upped with hits at most by 2). This sounds like I can get some easy stat bonuses and be an identity shifiting killer

Being that the spell is only force two, it should be easy to resist drain and cast as well I think.

Am I wrong? And If I am right, are there any other spells that work at low force well?

Thanks as always guys.

talk to your GM, what stats your "human form" will have. average would be 3s, which become 5s with a successful spell.

also fun at low force: Levitate, all passive detection spells, Magical Fingers

also you can always cast F4 spells and resist some low physical drain.

Okay if you are using the FAQ and 2 of your magic is devoted to magic then you get 2 dice to spellcasting from your magic, and however many dice you have in the spellcasting skill+specializations+mentor bonuses+focuses to determine how many dice you roll with a max force of 4. If you cast the spell at force 2 the max number of hits is 2, since hits are capped by force. If you follow the rules as written and don't use the faq change, interpretation, clarification whatever you choose to call it is is basically the same but force is capped at x2 your total magic score not what you devoted to magic. It becomes physical drain at the point it exceeds your magic attribute/score.

Other than that yes you can apparently change into a human form(but not any metahuman forms) and get easy stat bonuses. It is effing retarded so I don't allow it, but whatever.

By the rules in the actual books, you can cast spells up to twice your total magic.
The "clarification" in the FAQ isn't supported at all by the book.
So no need to limit yourself to low force spells.

I thought hits were maxed at Force. EDIT: Oops, late.

for many sr groups and players this "clarification" is just a verification of their interpretation of the rules. otherwise mystic adepts are pretty powerful

You're going to have to overcast to get 4 hits in your case, and that's 3P drain to resist, so you're running the risk of some damage before the fight starts.

If I were GMing, I would not let you use (Human) Form to shift into more than one specific type of human... otherwise, you'd be getting Mask for free.

You might be better off going all Adept and taking Agility Boost or Increased Agility, along with that one power that helps with disguise.

Don't forget about the penalty for sustaining spells... if you try this approach, you'd want a sustaining focus, or you'd lose some of the combat benefits that the shapeshifting grants you. And watch out for barriers and the other things you can run afoul of.

As Makki said, sensory spells are quite useful at low Force, extended ones especially. Extended Clairvoyance... look 40 meters in any direction, from any spot. Keep the spot right in front of your eyes when you're not peeking other places. You can't target people with spells with it, but you're going to be targeting them with guns, so no problem.

Yeah it seems like mask + for free to me as well which is why I won't allow it. As for detection spells etc. If it is a spell that wont be resisted like some detection spells or wont be resisted in how it is intended to be used in many cases like levitate low force is fine. Force caps hits not net hits, so low force vs resisted spells can make a spell weak enough that it does not work at all or works very poorly. Some detection spells tell you a decent amount on 2 nets hits but 1 net hit tells you very little. On the other hand the clairvoyance spell mentioned is unresisted and tells plenty on 1 hit. For a ganger campaign I had a mage who had clairvoyance and magic fingers with a specialization in his pistols/automatics for being used with magic fingers. The levitating gun of mildly wounding people was kind of cool.(it might have killed people at a higher level campaign)

If one is playing with Magic Fingers that way, don't forget the Grenade of Total Accuracy (If you're carrying it over to someone with magic fingers, is it even a Thrown roll?) or the Remote-Controlled Monowhip.

Knight Saber, 'Human Form' is already every attribute spell for free; why not also throw in Mask?

I kind of regret the way SR4 made Force 4 or 6+ a practical requirement for all spells, but I appreciate the attempt to balance magic a *little*. Hmm.

Mäx has a particular hate for that bit of the FAQ.



-k

Nah, i have a hate for most of that glorified house-rule collection.
There are so many parts in it, that have no basis on the actual rules in the book, this has happens to be one of the worst.

Indeed... what more need be said?

Yeah, this stinks of cheese. Sorry I even brought it up

That spell is nuts as is.

It would be cool if they could write rules that actually said what the developer meant them to say. But that would require real playtesting, and having people involved who are not ass-kissing yes men. "Of course the hacking rules are perfect! Anyone who says anything else is just jealous of your perfection."

I suspect not all playtesters are ass-kissing yes men. But like most playtesting chances are not every playtester gets everything, and comments are sometimes ignored.

The "ass-kissing yes men" bit wasn't about the playtesters. You have noticed that most of the writers who asked the hard questions have bailed? What we have left is Mr. "My hacking rules are perfect" and similar.

Not worth it. -2 Penalty per spell sustained. At best you break even. Even assuming you always overcast everything at Force 4...

Had this come up recently with a buffing-based troll mage (Magic 5) who wound up in a Aspected Toxic Background Count (3) zone for the climax of the campaign. It fucked his day pretty hard.

Do not recommend.

Sustaining focus?

This is also the interpretation I use. There's no reason to limit them to their "magic for spells" max because mystic adepts are already trying to spread their butter to thin.

Well, they are getting almost all the benefits and saving BP to boot. It depends on your game.

Not having astral perception or astral projection are huge limitations.

can you be a mystic adept that's 6/0? with no points towards spellcasting? Thus getting astral perception and projection? while still being an adept?

I said, 'almost all'. And that's as it should be: god forbid they make a sacrifice to get the best of both worlds.

What do you mean, sabs? You can't get Projection, period, and you have to buy Perception.

This.

In theory, a Mystic Adept can do all things better than everyone else without upper limits on anything.

In practice, they are rather underwhelming, because specialization wins Shadowrun, and they aren't good at that.

You don't get free Astral anything as a Mystic Adept.

You can take Astral Perception for the price of 1 PP (as a PhysAd or MystAd), and you can get Astral Projection for the price of an Initiation metamagic (again, as a PhysAd or MystAd).

Well, with 2 points towards casting spells, do you really think that F6+ is going to do a whole lot of good? You're still only throwing 6-8 dice at it.

I played a mystic adept split 2/4 and I didn't cast ANY spell above F3 for two damn good reasons:

1) Hits/net hits. I usually only got 3 hits.
2) Drain. The spells I did have* were pretty drain heavy. Above F3 I couldn't reliably soak most of their DV.

*Camouflage, improved reflexes, mind net. IIRC

I thought for some reason that Mystic Adepts got Projection and Perception.
Looks like I was.. incorrect.

Well that depends on your build, most of my mys-ads throw 15+ dice for combat spells(their all combat characters)

Yeah, the "clarification" in the FAQ is a 2006 ruling for shadowrun 4. Anniversary edition changed the ruling in the meantime, and nobody took the outdated FAQ down when it was updated sometime in 2010.

Way to throw the game back half an edition, catalyst.

Also, to address the OP's question

This Thread may be of use.

I'm currently playing a 3 casting/2 powers MysAd with one point in Cyber/bio.

I'm limiting myself to overcasting to Force 6.

I do notice that with 8-10 dice to cast my success is often limited. A Power Focus is very high on my list of things to get.

Things of note:

Increase Attribute sucks: You need to cast it at a force equal to your current attribute. So if your current augmented stat is anything over 3, then you're basically fucked, even with a sustaining focus.

I have
Resist Pain
Heal
Shatter
Magic Fingers
Levitate
Improved Invis
Fix
Increase Reflexes

I use edge-cast Increased Reflexes to get 4 passes in a Force 3 focus. We have another mage who hopefully will prevent the focus from being attacked in astral.

I'm actually still a fan of Attribute Boost for a guy like this: It's slightly erratic, and you keep having to drain 4-5S, but it's cheap, and I only need three successes anyway to reach Agility 9.

But man is this guy a karma grave. There are so many corners you need to cut to make an allrounder like this (even in Karmagen) that I could basically drop a few hundred karma on him and not be satisfied. My best bet at maximising my effectiveness is getting Channelling ASAP. I think that's a big bonus of a mystic adept, that you can actually summon spirits, albeit weakly.