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Niallan Zheng
I'm working on a new character that in his past attended MIT&T. I believe I would be able to manage this myself if I had the books, but I don't (the last Shadowrun book I set my hands on was SR2, and that was years ago), so I was wondering-what kinds of spells would an awakened character recieve training in while attending a school such as MIT&T? I know that spells over Force 2 wouldn't exactly be common (can't you get permits or something of that nature for them, though?), but not much more than that since I only have what I can glean from these boards, memory, or the Nsrcg3 to go by. Short descriptions would be very helpful, and if you're really that bored, I wouldn't mind learning about the kinds of initiations one could go through as part of being a student at MIT&T.
Backgammon
You'd learn a lot of Magic Background knowledge skill. You'd also learn specific industrial use spells, since they would train you to be usefull as either a researcher or a project leader or high-level project analyst. Totally boring and non-shadowrun stuff, basically.
Ancient History
As a large college, the formulae for a great many spells would abound, but anything over the legal limit would require a permit.

I'd be willing to say that any formulae except the Corps Cadavre spell would be available; possible other exceptions include the Slay, Slaughter and Death Touch spells.
Jason Farlander
QUOTE (Ancient History)
As a large college, the formulae for a great many spells would abound, but anything over the legal limit would require a permit.

I'd be willing to say that any formulae except the Corps Cadavre spell would be available; possible other exceptions include the Slay, Slaughter and Death Touch spells.

You could also probably rule out control thoughts, influence and mindprobe, as those spells have very few legal applications.
mfb
you can get pretty much any spell you want. one of the first things you'd learn would be the spell design knowledge skill; from there, it'd be difficult to keep you from researching and creating just about any spell out there.
Eyeless Blond
I'd also think that Control Manipulations would be heavily regulated in a classroom setting; taking over your teacher's brain would be a definite no-no. biggrin.gif Other than that and the weapoinlike spells (Elemental manipulations, Combat magics other than StunX, maybe the Wreck spells?) almost anything would be fair game I think, and all would have their uses. Illusions would go well with an Art double-major, telekinetic manipulations would be useful all over the place, etc etc.

Further, I'd say a degree from a place like MIT&T, since you'd probably need a SIN to attend in the first place, would either require or allow you to get permits for any level spell. As for interesting flavor, I'd go as far as to say that the diploma could be a bonded Power Focus of some kind.
Kanada Ten
I imagine the Disciplinary Committee is one nasty group of magi...

That gives me an idea for an magic group. Two actually. One is the Alumni, which all graduates can join though they'd require the Thesis and probably Oath. The other... The Disciplinary Committee. Mindprobe is just one of their tricks. Agonizing Pain, another...

Can you imagine having a low force Agonizing Pain quickened to you? With a tattoo no less? Talk about marked for life. devil.gif
Niallan Zheng
Thanks for the help, but that's not quite what I wanted-perhaps I should've aimed my question in a different direction.

The legal thing-well, it won't matter much by the time in the character's life that he'll be played, since all sorts of law enforcement folks will have been made aware of the 'crimes' he committed. Any of MIT&T's resistance to teaching a student more dangerous spells would've been lubricated with some cash from daddy.

Anywho, the main point of this post would be to try to figure out what sorts of academic spells there are-stuff a runner or person of 'active' lifestyle might be interested in, but which also might have an academic/learning bent. I'm not exactly sure what's out there (and won't be until I get my next paycheck and can buy some books), so I needed some help with that.
Lantzer
I'd say mostly moderate-to-low force detection, illusion, and T-K manipulation spells. Some health spells may be available too.

Any others would be considered ethically too hot to handle. A character in a law enforcement or military training program might get combat and Elemental manips. A military training program might also teach mental manips.

Primarily the courses would consist, not of spells, but of instruction in the fundamentals of magic (hermetic at MIT&T). In other words, Sorcery skill, magical theory, sorcery background, assensing, benchmarking, etc adnauseum.

The easiest way to look at the various skills and spells taught are: What sort of jobs are available for mage graduates?

Illusionists can get hired for special effects, entertainment, & advertising.
All sorts of jobs are available using T-K - big and small scale.
Mage employment for detection and analysis of people, resources, equipment, etc. would be viable.
Security/military is a big field.
Magical healing is legal with a medical degree and a special liscence.
I can see some mages working in tailoring, physical training, spas, comfort industries.
Pest Control would love low-force specialized combat spells (Slay Rodents- F-1)

Then of course there's the jobs for conjuring (assuming elementals) - including:
security, construction, rescue, firefighting, pest control.

It's quite possible that a mage might graduate knowing just a few actual spells of more than purely academic use (Midterm Exercise F-2). I could see a mage heading off to his new career in Quality Assurance with his proudly-learned repetoir of:

Detect Crack -2
Analyse Defect -2
Magic Fingers -2
(plus NoDoze -1 which he used to keep awake during finals cramming.)
RangerJoe
I agree that more skills would be taught in the classroom than spells. It is possible that you'd have to design a spell of some kind for a "Spell Design" class (Ah yes, all freshmen think they want to take Mana Control and Dynamics 23-1031.... sigh. Then some of them still become econ majors....).

Of course, given the fraternity lifestyle at MIT today, you can bet that a number of initiatory groups and private libraries will exitst in 2063. Although the "wreck:panties" spell always livens up a party, I bet serious thaumatological fraternities would spring up, creating their own powerful schools within the school.
RangerJoe
For reference, though, I have a character named Dmitri Zacharov who attened MIT&T as a deckermage. He walked knowing the following:

Name: Force
Stunbolt 4
Clairaudience 1
Clairvoyance 1
Analyze Truth 3
Detox 2
Heal 4
Analyze Device 2
Laser 3
Stealth 3
Magic Fingers 3

Detox being a must....
RedmondLarry
IMHO

All students must have a SIN at MIT&T.

Any student who wants to learn Stun Bolt, Stun Ball, Barriers, Stun or Slay Spirit spells may do so at any level for self defense, and get classroom credit for it.

Undergraduate students take a wide range of theoretical classes, including spell design, but rarely take a practical course and are restricted from the Graduate Library (containing 1000s of formulas for spells developed as part of student Thesis projects over the years) unless they are working on a project under the guidance of a Professor. Undergraduate degrees in Sorcery, Conjuring, Ritual Magic, Spell Design, and Enchanting are available.

Graduate students have complete access to the Graduate Library, except for the Restricted Shelves, for any background research they want. Graduate degrees in the above topics are available, plus Astral Planes, Magical Threats, Metamagic Techniques, and in the Ethics and Management of Magical Activities as a joint degree with the Political Science department.

The Restricted Shelves may only be accessed with permission from the head of the department.

A few people from the UCAS Military or Spook organizations come for advanced theoretical training, and anything is open to them.
Lantzer
QUOTE

Stunbolt  4
Analyze Truth  3
Laser  3
Stealth  3
Magic Fingers  3

Hope you've got a permit for those, chummer. Or we'll have to confiscate your brain.
(This guy apparently had a very exciting college life - what's the body count?)

QUOTE

Heal  4

Um, there's a large gentleman here from the AMA... He says it seems you forgot to apply for Med school or a MD's liscense. He says he's here to help you with your applications.

(Does it seem odd that the spells he's best at coming out of school are the sorts you'd expect from a combat mage? Maybe he was a Criminal Justice major.)

I'm really not trying to pick on you, Ranger Joe. I just like to point out how different your average runner is from Joe Wageslave. They seem to be extremely violent and antisocial people, from the very beginning. And it's usually for metagame reasons. Face it, players want characters who are good in a fight, whereas your average Joe wageslave will be pretty useless. A really believable college grad might not be much fun to play with, for many players. So we rationalise/justify/sneak in all sorts of odd things. I've done it myself - I think one of my characters had to have been the most dangerous patent attorney in North America.
Rev
I think telekinetic manipulation, and some transformation manipulations would be easily permitted as well.

Quite likely if you learn a spell as part of an approved curriculum the licencing is wrapped into it so it goes very easily.

One of the nice things that a student or professor would have free access to is very high rating magical libraries and circles.

For graduate students and professors the university itself probably should be an initiatory group with the equivalent of luxury+ resources and a big patron with all the material benefits that go with it (such as reduced material costs).
gknoy
QUOTE (OurTeam)
The Restricted Shelves may only be accessed with permission from the head of the department.

And of course it's an unofficial task of every freshman at MIT&T to find a way IN to such places. Considering that MIT was one of the birthplaces of hacking (in its original form), and has a very strong culture among the students of "the campus is OUR playground", i would b e very surprised if thaumaturgical students were unable to get in to some of the provate libraries. And as somene mentioned, I bet the student groups [underground, etc] probably have their own libraries. Most of the people that get admitted there for magickal study already have some skill and aptitude. Most new students, I'd imagine, will find resources in other students (such as the seniors down the hall...) that teach them things far more useful to the running life (since that's very much what current MIT students do IIRC) than their profesorrs would teach them.
Talia Invierno
QUOTE
All students must have a SIN at MIT&T.
- OurTeam

Doesn't mean that identity is retained after having left.

Adding to the list "Detox" and its variants, quite probably at mid-high Force. What with the incidence of hangover, that has got to be one of the most commonly shared illicit student spells around.
Quujquux
QUOTE (Niallan Zheng)
What kinds of spells would an awakened character recieve training in while attending a school such as MIT&T?

Not a single spell.

The easiest comparison is to consider MIT&T's possible future magic curriculum against MIT's current computer science curriculum. How many programming languages does MIT's computer science department teach their students? None.

That's not to say that a programmer graduating from MIT today has no programming skill. Rather, the teaching of a specific language, such as C, or Java, or Lisp, is entirely incidental to the education process. Any MIT graduate is probably going to have at least passing familiarity with half a dozen different languages, or else they wouldn't've passed, but it's unlikely that more than one or two days were spent in any given course teaching a language.

When you're looking at what a graduate would know, look at the theory likely to've been taught, not the specific spells. For example, an MIT graduate might likely end up knowing one spell to cover every possible design rule in the spell design table. Most of their spells would likely end up being force 1 or 2... just enough to demonstrate knowledge of the subject for the class, and only a few, either in the student's specific area of study, or spells they took extra time in working on, would be any higher.

The philosophy is that the lesser level of practical skill (ie, many low level spells instead of a few high level spells) would be made up for by high knowledge skills (ie, high levels of spell design, or whatever knowledge skills are relevant in SR3), so a graduate could learn whatever they ended up needing in their future career quickly, regardless of what career they end up in.
Herald of Verjigorm
Any spell that requires a willing target and stunbolt. Your spells above force 2 will be registered with all relevant officials.

Those are what's available in the classes. What people actually learn will be much more varied. You can expect that some prankster will get ahold of a magic fingers formula and share it with his friends to cause some mild trouble. Same with illusions and intrusive detection spells.
Students with spare time may also research and devise their own versions of any other spell and not tell anyone if it breaks the accepted thaumergy policies.
RangerJoe
Zacharov's spells, a brief explanation:

Stealth-- No self-respecting MIT&T hacker (the real kind, not the decker kind) is going to be without this spell. Probably taught by a hacking guild to interested members (groups within groups within groups!)

Magic Fingers-- For getting a beer from across the room. Maybe a little too high a force, but acceptable if you consider a desire to type on a keypad or write on a blackboard from across the room.

Laser-- A sustained version of the spell which has effects comperable to the tool laser cyberwear. Sorry for the confusion. Now, you can cook vamps with the spell, but "honestly, officer, it's for soldering."

Analyze truth-- I really see this as a kind of bullshit detector for colleagues and dates. Zacharov probably picked it up after getting involved with some shadier elements, but it's no where as "abusive" a spell as mindprobe (for example).

Heal 4-- make love not war? I imagine the Red Cross would teach the awakened public moderate force heal/treat spells in the same way they teach CPR courses today. Just a conjecture.

Niallan Zheng
Thanks for all the advice everyone-I think I might go another route with my character's history now that I've been educated on the kinds of things MIT&T would teach. A private tutor or two or three (perhaps from DIMR) hired by his corporate president father would likely be better. Thanks again!
Eyeless Blond
I don't know if your GM will go for this, but really there's nothing in the rules that says that you can't use fettish- or exclusive-limits to bring a spell's Spell Point cost down to zero. Since most very low-Force spells are almost useless anyway, it might be good to have around seven or eight spells with such limits, to simulate learning such low-level magic at school. In fact, I'd say that using fettish limits to make spells easier to learn would be the norm in a college system. It's similar to the way many students have particular rituals that they follow--sometimes unconsciously--when finals time comes around: special pencil sets/arrangements, lucky charms, specific kinds of food and schedules, etc etc.

But yeah, knoeledge skills would be a big, big deal there, so much so that if your GM allows cultured bioware you might consider taking a hit to Magic on character start to pick up a cerebral booster 2 and Mnemonic Enhancer 1. Unfortunately you're not allowed by cannon rules to take a Geas to get back that Magic point, but your Spell Pool will actually increase as you boosted your Int. Remember though that if you do this you'll be really hard-up for cash, so a shaman's better for this as they're much more nuyen-friendly.

As a side note, it's actually kind of odd that you can take Geasa for Magic loss due to Essence loss, but not for Magic loss due to bioware index. You're still losing effective Magic rating, so I really don't see the difference other than the guy who loses his last point of Magic due to Essence becomes a mundane while from bioware you just really suck at magic.
RedmondLarry
@ Eyeless Blond,
In M&M printing 4 the rules for Magic Loss for Bioware were clarified so there is no longer a "Virtual Loss" due to Bioware, and you can use a Geas to get around such loss. See the update to p. 78 in M&M Errata. Note that Bioware now causes only HALF the loss as before, and it is combined with the essence loss of cyberware before determining Magic Loss. A .5 essence loss and a 1 Bio-Index loss results in losing only 1 point of magic.

I don't know any GM that allows unlimited zero-cost spells, but some might allow a few. Our team doesn't allow them at all.
snowRaven
I also think the 'zero cost' thing would be the way to go for university teaching, except for maybe a few special courses. Maybe allow Intelligence or Willpower number of them for a graduate, and half that for 'lower education' mages?

As far as healing spells go; yes, certain organizations would probably teach these spells, but I doubt it'd be over Force 2 (maybe 3) simply to avoid mages trying to heal wounds out of their caliber. Most such courses would probably come with a certification and a point or two in Biotech skill, or come with a Diagnose spell.

Apart from that, many people would probably learn spells useful in everyday situations: Light, Alter Temperature, Create Food, Magic Fingers, Entertainment, Cataloge, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Fix, Fashion, Makeover, Treat, Clean Water, Nutrition, Healthy Glow, Translate, Mindlink. Depending on the area you live in or your own situation etc, maybe Ignite, Slaughter Insects, Perfume(opposite of 'Stink'), Alleviate Allergy, Stabilize, Oxygenate, Cure Disease, Detox, Antidote, Analyze Device, Detect Enemies and Armor.
FlakJacket
QUOTE (Talia Invierno)
Adding to the list "Detox" and its variants, quite probably at mid-high Force.

Ah, the Holy Trinity of the morning after spells. Detox to help get you over it, Makeover so that you'll look decent and Healthy Glow just to finish off. Possibly Heal as well to take care of anything needed. Now you too can crawl out of a hedge after waking up the next morning and be better in minutes.

Slight tangent- what would college's think about spells like Increased Attribute: Intelligence? Would paying someone to slap one of these on you before finals to help study and for the exam be allowed?
Niallan Zheng
Wow. I just noticed it was MIT&M (Mass. Institute of Technology and Magic), not MIT&T (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Thaumaturgy) as I thought. dead.gif

Oh well, so much for first impressions. nyahnyah.gif Hi, I'm the new person. Heh.
Kanada Ten
Actually, it is MIT&T, but someone screwed up in one of the books.
gknoy
QUOTE (FlakJacket)
Ah, the Holy Trinity of the morning after spells. Detox to help get you over it, Makeover so that you'll look decent and Healthy Glow just to finish off. Possibly Heal as well to take care of anything needed. Now you too can crawl out of a hedge after waking up the next morning and be better in minutes.

All the more reason to get drunk while NAKED -- that way when you wake up and detox/heal/un-steamroller-self, you will have a set of clothingthat is (hopefully) NOT vomit covered and wrinked. Then you too can go from an all-night booze-fest straight to a meeting with a prospective Johnson. . . ;D
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