The SO doesn't want to take the time to put together a character, so it falls on me to do that. She seems comfortable with being a mage, but the party really needs a wheelman. I really don't think non-VCR Adept is the way to go. The Control Pool is too important in tough situations, and you need to initiate for every skill you can Center so it takes a while before a non-Adept can best a mundane in a non-rigged vehicle. However i can see someone that can draw upon spirit powers for speed, control, and defense/offense is going to rock.

1. Spell Casting. Definately no spells that require LOS since your view of the outside world is via a wire. But can you target yourself?

2. Telepath linked spirits/elementals, you can simple action control them, right?

3. What about summoning spirits? Note that this is a -magically- exclusive action.

4. What happens if you astrally project? Your body is still considered jacked in? So you don't get jack-dump (initiative issues for entering Astral aside). I'm damn certain you wouldn't be controlling the vehicle while astral. So if the vehicle is in motion there might be some issues...unless you have a spirit taking care of avoiding a crash? Then when you get back from the Astral plane you are good to go in the rig again, right?


As always please identify any canon references, and whether it is just your opinion, in laying out the rulings you would make as a GM.

actually, you center on skill groups, not individual skills. so, for instance, you could take centering on vehicle skills, and use centering no matter what vehicle you're driving.

if you want to cast or summon while using your VCR, you're going to take a +8 TN mod to all actions. you're correct, you can't use vehicle sensors to cast spells through, but i believe you can cast on yourself. this is based on my own memory, so it may be mistaken.

You should be able to cast on anyone with a direct line to your meat body. Usually, just passengers. You also will need to use either area effect or touch range spells, because you won't be able to "aim" any LoS single target spells.

"The guy in the passenger seat" is not normally a valid magical target, but "everyone in the car with me" and "whoever is touching me" usually are (probably a GM call).

If she's not an adept, then she can't learn Centering (Vehicle Skills). Those are adept-only uses for Centering. It's in black-and-white in MitS, so you'd have to make her a Physical Mage in order to attempt it.

For my money, though, a Drone Rigger-Conjurer is a nice combo. It's like having both magical and mundane spirits to rain down on your opponents, and while Conjurers don't have any inherent abilities to boost their Initiative, one who's a Rigger can still get a lot of action done with her VCR while safely tucked away from harm in a nicely armored and well-defended base vehicle. Being saddled down with geasa isn't quite as bad for a conjurer either, especially a hermetic conjurer. Wagging your fingers while chanting loudly and using talisman left and right won't interfer with the group's stealth when you're back in your ride.

You can also initiate to Grade 3 with those 35 Spell Points (to gain Centering, Invoking, and your choice of other one metamagic technique) or trade them in for bonus Build Points to save on costs. "It's all good."

OurTeam, you do bring up a very good point about the player's involvement. I do plan to run all this past her when she gets back from her business trip then weekend. She has played a rigger for a few sessions before, so this isn't a completely foriegn concept. I'm not going to give her any drones or anything goofy like that to worry about, though i'm going to try fit in some external CCSS gear to allow her to jack building security if that opportunity comes up to see if that strikes her fancy.

Yes, it's initiative in a group and ordeal. 3 Spell Points to join a group, 9 Spell Points for Grade 1, 10 for Grade 2, 12 for Grade 3 = 34 Spell Points, leaving you one to do with as you please. The Shadowrun Companion (in the Build Point chapter under "Resources") states that you can use Spell Points as Karma for magical endeavors, including Initiation and Ally Spirit creation.

...and no, for an ally, the cost is in addition to what you put into creating the ally. You just get a reduction over the standard cost for initiating by creating a familiar. It's not a free familiar.

Look up other threads on Conjurers, Ally Spirits, and Sorcery. It's a heated debate.

I personally wouldn't allow a chargen ordeal, or for that matter allow a magical group to reduce the cost at chargen, but that's just me.

~J

In a word, no. This is why shadowrunners work in teams. Instead of trying to get one character to do nigh-mutually-exclusive jobs like rigging and magic, you should try to get a team of characters who complement each other.

The people who get their knickers in a twist about initiation at character creation just baffle me. There's nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Instead of loading up on spells and foci, they're spending their points to do something else. The horror! The game breaking agony! The... oh wait, it's never been a game breaking problem in any of the games I've run before. Go figure. Instead of having five Force 6 and a Force 5 spell, the player instead has a higher Magic rating which does him little good, a gang contact that he had to pay virtual Karma for instead of cash (yet still costs more cash every month), and three talents that are each individually balancing for the most part (Centering requires acquistion of two skills, Quickening requires acquision of spells and even more Karma, etc.). Yep. I'd rather see characters with a bunch of spells and foci any day than that craziness. Yessir. No sarcasm here whatsoever.

But anyway: Captain Dave... is that supposed to be a demonstration of why it's a bad thing? The player left the group and the group ended up being a at least temporary central figure of the campaign that affected everyone and included lots of potential storylines? Color me confused about how any of that is a bad thing.

No, it wasn't a bad thing. The chargen initiation actually didn't make a game balance change at all. The character just didn't plan to actually use his group for anything but a discount on initiation, and I saw an opportunity to have some good ol' insect fun. I usually convince players to initiate in-game, as it leaves more options during chargen. A Magic rating of 7-8 is great, but not when you have no spells. My objections to chargen initiation have nothing to do with game balance.

I beleive the initiation at chargen is 'at GM discretion' so it is allowed. It also isn't allowed. It depends who's running the game.

As for Spells, summoning etc while driving, I'd say firstly that I wouldn't allow any of it without the +8 Tn for physical actions while rigging, but if you can overcome that, then yes you could. You could then cast spells at anything you have physical, not sensor line of sight to as normal, just with a +8 modifier, making it not worthwhile.

Conjouring is going to be almost out of the question because of this - not impossible, just reeeeally hard - other than giving commands (no test needed to give commands, so I - personal opinion, not canon - would be inclined to require a willpower 8 test before they give the command because you still have to focus on the non-electronic world and send the message to the spirit. That WP8 test shouldn't be a problem for a rigger, especially not one who's a mage/conjourer etc as well!)

Astral projection? Unless you have autonav or a pilot to take over from you, the vehicle makes an immediate crash test unless you've taken steps to hold it steady. Sorry, if you're out, you're out, and nobody's driving the car!

But the thing is, a rigger IS likely to have a pilot or nav puter which could take over for you so you can do whatever, but then you start running into wierdness around initiative and how many actions do you have/get and so on. And I'm not going anywhere near that discussion because I think it would be all conjecture and unresolvable. You'd need to look up the rules for effects of returning to your body in any case - I beleive when you return to your body after going astral there is a period where you can't do anything, (and it may even be the same for jacking out) though I can't remember references. I might be wrong, but I'm sure someone will correct me if so.

Also - you don't need to cast spells on yourself while you're driving, so long as they are sustainable. There's no reason you couldn't cast them before you jack in, though I would reccomend judicious use of foci and quickening cos those modifiers will really stack up otherwise! (unless we're talking about Heal and so on which you would need with some immediacy. Sounds like that kind of help won't be too far away in any case by the line up of your group. Magic campaign, per chance?) Mental boosts and the like will actually count and help when rigging and so on, so from that point of view, you're actually quite smokin'.

In your campaign, given the level of magic evidently available, initiation at chargen would probably fit quite well. I let my players do it, and the worst anyone has done is self initiate to grade 1, and he lost out on spells as a result. Ours isn't a particularly magic heavy game, though I do encourage its use cos I like it *shrugs*.

Right, I agree with all of that. And like all of that, it's ultimately up to the GM. The only thing I even brought it up, is beacuse unlike your other examples it explicitly makes this a GM's option in the book, meaning that in this specific case it could go either way without the GM needing to house rule anything. That's why I felt my comment relevant to the rules as written, regardless of my personal feelings.

I wholly diagree that ordeals are as limited as gaesa are in the vast majority of cases. Most used ordeals in my experience are a one time act that reduce the karma cost of an initiation, while most Gaesa are something you have to deal with every single time you use magic from that day henceforth. I rarely, if ever have seen any ongoing difficulty from an ordeal someone took during an initiation.

I mean not at all to imply that your views are invalid, but only to bring forth the case that other folks views are equally valid even if you so staunchly disagree with them.

I realize that. But I brought it up originally because Blakkie was looking for actual rules, not opinions. That's all.

That aside, I don't know if I can agree with you about ordeals. There's very few of them that aren't a pain in the ass one way or the other. Oath requires you to bond with a group in such a way that breaking that oath is a bad thing that leaves a mark on your aura for a long time to come. Thesis makes your Magic vulnerable and creates a ritual sample that can lead anyone who steals it (or one of its copies) back to you. Deed is about the only "free" one, but even that one requires you to perform some significant action (which during chargen would require a really nice background the GM could work off of). And even then, you have to intersepid it with other ordeals before you can "take" it again.

But that's neither here nor there, really.

Eh, well most times my players want to go that route they make their own magical group, so they take is only to each other. No real penalty 90% of the time. They'll do meditation too, which is a one off, and they like to astral quest their first few grades before it gets actually hard. This lets them get to greade 5 or so before theyve done anything longer lasting than an oath to each other.

Had i Pc have his physad do that one, took her out of the game for a month and a half.

Incidentally Deed is NOT free. I thought it was for a long time, btu if you accept a deed for a run you did then you forefeit the karma award. That's far from "free"

It is during character creation, however, which is what I was referring to (but at least you could use that to tell a player that it's not available during character creation). Meditation is, indeed, another one. But as previously stated, it's only "free" in that you don't have to spend the time for it -- but that does come back to bite them in the ass later as they now have to take some other ordeal on their next initiation grade (and thus the restrictions that come from them) instead of just spending time making some rolls in-game.

Saying that you can't take a 'free one' again later isn't much of a bite in the ass. "Ok, you can jizz on my face now, but later we've got to do it the old fashioned way!"

Then again, I don't like ordeals before chargen at all, free or otherwise.

You didn't state that any of those things came back to bite you. So no, not at all like any of those things.

That's because I didn't think I had to point out something so obvious.

Want to increase a skill after character creation? Well gosh, you have to spend Karma, acquire a mentor or instructor chip, make a test, and/or spend time to do so. None of which you do during character creation. If you had chosen a lower Skill rating at character creation, it would be easier to do these things.

Want to buy some more EX Explosive ammo? You need to get in touch with a contact, make Etiquette and Negotiation tests, and apply Street Index. None of which you do during character creation. If you had put more into your Social Skills and/or acquired certain Edges during character creation, it would be easier for you to do so.

Want to initiate to Grade 2 after character creation in which you already initiated once with Meditation? Get in touch with your group, make sure your monthly fees are up to date, make all the tests, and then pick some other ordeal because you can't take the same ordeal two consecutive times (and sometimes you can't even take an ordeal more than once as an optional rule I believe). If you hadn't have taken Meditation at character creation, you could have taken it this time and not have to deal with any consequences outside of spending time.

etc. It's all exactly the same thing. Everything you do after character creation "comes back to bite you in the ass" because you actually have to do things to do it.

So you're saying that buying a box of EX ammo comes back to bite you in the ass because to buy more you'll have to make etiquette rolls, pay street index, etc.?