It's a situation of stats reflecting the character. I did a lot of research on Goat Foot and came away with the opinion that she's really big into the whole "everyone has rights" issue. Not only women and metahumans, but other "critters" too, such as spirits and genetically / cybernetically engineered animals, etc. She's a scholar, not a fighter, though she has enough skills to take care of herself if things go south. I wanted to reflect this in the stats I created for her.

Essentially, she's the type of person who would ask for help from spirits if she needed it (hence the metamagic), but not force that assistance via the use of summoning or binding. In fact, she's so kind-hearted that she'd even consider spirit banishment a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

So, no. She doesn't have ally spirits that are bound to her. They are free to refuse her requests. And no, she doesn't have the Conjuring skill group (or skills) because that might lead her astray from her personal beliefs. But she did develop the metamagic ability in order to find like-minded spirits who might not mind assisting her for free (or for karma) without being bound to her.

Works for me. Good to see other people putting thought into the basis of a character's personality and trying to make the stats back that up.

I think this has to be the go-to example for how many free lancers just don't understand the rules. The Ally Conjuration metamagic only lets you summon and bind an ally spirit. That's it. It doesn't give any advantages in requesting help from spirits; anyone can do that!

Really? That's the only option that's even going to be useable? There's no mystery left to magic whatsoever?

*sigh*

Yeah. What you said.

There's no mystery to the rules in this circumstance.

What's next? A mage with no counterspelling skill taking Shielding metamagic for gibberish New Age reasons?

Why not? It's her karma to spend.

It would be one thing if the character was described as doing something that her skills and abilities don't allow. If I said I had a street sammy who could throw fireballs, but had no magic rating, but I still took spellcasting, that's cheating...

But if I made a Sammy with no magic rating who took spellcasting and a few spells so that he understood how spells worked, even if he can't cast them... yeah, it's a waste of points. But really, so is taking "Artisan (Mime)" or Knowledge (20th Century Hentai)".

Points spent in the pursuit of interesting characters and roleplay opportunities are never wasted, in my opinion. It's not your play style, and taht's fine. But we're also not saying that you have to make characters this way either...

Bull

Nothing in the ally conjuration paragraph requires having skills in summoning or binding, and if you want to fluff the formula cost as the cost of research to find a like minded spirit I'm ok with this. It's a totally different situation than shielding without counterspelling. Shielding adds dice to counterspelling, which is a skill that you can't default on. If the mage lacks counterspelling shielding gives no benefit.

No mystery... To the rules as currently written and/or understood. Magic is supposed to be a fluid and constantly flowing thing that people rediscover new ways to all the time. There's Bleeding Edge SOTA to Magic just like everything else. Maybe she's got the start of something that was just hinted at now in this "Twist to the rules" that'll come out later?Not to be argumentative Bull (Who are we kidding, it's me!), but I can think of a few uses for Knowledge: 20^th Century Hentai.

Well, actually, the rules do preclude you from doing just that: "Unless otherwise noted in the description, only characters with the Magician or Mystic Adept quality and a Magic attribute of 1 or greater may take or use Magic skills." (Shadowrun 4th Edition, page 113, and Shadowrun 20th Anniversary, page 123). The Arcana skill is the only clear exception (I would leave Enchanting up to discussion).

But I agree with the idea otherwise.

Couldn't you accomplish the same by taking some knowledge skills like Magic Theory, Magic applications, whatever?
Any awakened character I make has somo knowledge skills on the studies of magic and some non-awakened had them too and it fitted.

People can disagree or not like what I did with Goat Foot's stats. That's their prerogative. But, as a writer, I wanted everyone to know that it was a deliberate choice and not a CGL error. There are so many people crying foul about errors these days that the intentional stuff gets lost in the noise and fans just assume it's an error because they disagree with it.

So, it's out there. Don't blame CGL or the line dev for that. If you want to rip someone, rip at me. I did it and I think it came out rather well.

My assumption when I read Bull's initial "not-quite-magical-Sammie" post would've been that said Sammie HAD had a magic rating at one time, then lost it -- but still had some of the skills (because it doesn't say anywhere that they lose them when they lose Magic, just that they can't use them like they used to). Or, at least, that's the progression so logical that it's how I'd justify it, were I making a character whose concept was "not-quite-magical-Sammie."

They're called Burned Out Mages, and they used to be a fair bit more common.

All knowledge skills can be put into use. And I can see Artisan (Mime) being useful. But both are going to be in very, very specific situations, both will likely require the GMs participation, and both are pretty roleplay heavy and oriented. 99.9% of the time, under normal Shadowrun gaming conditions, the skills will be useless unless the player finds RP reasons to use them. Same goes for the metamagic with Goatfoot.

And yeah, it's you. Now behave

Bull

One of the things with the current conversation goes along with another thread where folks are talking about less than optimal builds.

If I have an interesting and cool idea for a character, I will build that character, even if I'm "wasting" points. To go along with what Critias said, my original thought was actually to buy the Magician Quality, buy the skills and such, and not raise my magic level. Then as soon as I got some Cyber, *plunk* my character becomes mundane again.

Wasted points? Yes. But if I want a legitimate character who knows magic and used to study and be able to use magic, but can no longer do so, that's the most legal way to do it.

(As a GM, I would probably allow a player to forego wasting points on the Magician Quality, since this is somthing done almost purely for RP reasons. No reason to penalize them further, IMO. But, if you wanted to do it by the rules, taht's how you do it)

Bull

I haven't read Goat Foot's writeup. Is this choice explained anywhere in the text? If not, then I'm sorry, but your purpose in "fleshing out" the NPC will be lost on almost anyone who finds the odd skill and metamagic choice. The reader will then assume that the writer made a mistake. The reader will then assume that the error was not caught by the editors. The reader will then assume that the quality of the book is not as high as it could be.

Creative choice is all fine and dandy, but when you're talking about writing for a system based around certain rules, a good writer provides explanations for those occasions when it doesn't appear that the rules are being followed.

The extent of my contribution to Artifacts Unbound was five stat-blocks and absolutely nothing else. That said, 1 out of 1 of the initiated mages that I statted for this book had Centering Metamagic.

If you don't mind me asking, who is that?

I like Centering quite a bit, but find it slightly less useful in SR4 than it was in earlier editions. It just doesn't have as great an impact, it seems.

I also tend to find thinks like Masking and Shielding to be far more useful. It depends on the type of character though.

I have three magical initiates in the book (In the Artifact Rush chapter), and only one has Centering. However, one of them is based heavily on a character originally created by Olivier Gagnon for Missions, Laurent Nazaire.. I tweaked the character a little, but largely left the stats alone. For someone who is mainly a researcher and scholar, and someone who is going to be experimenting on magical artifacts, Psychometry and Shielding are far more useful. Masking is always the very first metamagic I take with a character, as I find taht to be by far the most useful ability of all.

Simon Andrews is a former Neo-Anarchist and is now a troubleshooter and specialist agent for Lofwyr. He's an odd character, because he gives off this aura of flippancy, of disregard for whats going on around him, but he's very much a fighter. His Anarchist roots run deep, and while it's not his focus these days, he specializes in destruction. Again, he has Masking, and also has Extended Masking, because he carries around foci. He likes to be "invisible" when necessary on the Astral Plane. He also has both Shielding and Reflecting, because defensive capabilities are just as important as offensive in combat. And finally, he has Anchoring, because in a pinch that lets him tie more spells into place, even if he doesn't have the foci to handle it.

Again, a very combat oriented character, and one that Centering could be useful for, and were I playing the character, one I would probably take next. But his focus is more on his ability to do his job and cause destruction or be sneaky. Again, Centering is cool, and very useful, but also something taht isn't necessary if you're careful about how you cast your spells, to watch what drain you take. If it could be applied toward your casting pool instead (or as well),. then Simon would definitely have it. Though I'm not certain Centering really fits the character anyway. He's a bit chaotic.

And finally, we have an Adept Assassin, Lin Yao Chang. He has Adept Centering, and taht's because for an Assassin, being able to remove negative dice pool penalties is a huge advantage. plus it fits with his whole zen Buddhist thing he's got going on.

Bull

My thinking is that you really don't need Centering until you've raised your magic stat so that you can cast for more than your average drain resistance without overcasting. I figure at that point you've initiated enough that you're getting tons of bonus dice, and you'll actually need them. It's really glaring when folks with double digit magic scores can't cast that high without crippling themselves with drain. What do they do with that magic score, anyway? it's nice for combat characters, but it's definitely not your first initiation metamagic. It gives you almost no value immediately, and provides a benefit you often don't need until after a few initiations. My thinking is Masking, Extended Masking, whatever you want after that. I'd probably pick Shielding if I saw magical opposition as a serious issue for my team, to help pick up the slack. Depends on the character.

(Minor Spoiler)
Joseph Ellis.
(/Minor Spoiler)

I had a blast with him.

I think this forum has a tag of some kind...

Edit: so a unclosed tag puts everything after it under its "wing"...

Seems like a well made Mystic Adept. I'm always tempted to play mys-ad, but then my characters always end up skewing really far one way or the other and I always decide it's not worth it. But I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I noticed in Threats Joseph Ellis was the CAS speaker of the house. Oh, well.

If I were Awakened and in CAS government, I'd try to hide it too.

According to Artifacts Unbound (pp. 119 and 125-126) and Conspiracy Theories (pp. 54, 152 and 154), Joseph Ellis is Speaker of the House in the UCAS Congress.

The question that as yet remains unanswered is *WHY* he's speaker for the UCAS now.

I think there's a story behind that.

Bull

"So, get this, all you need to do to get the job is to bribe the right people! It's amazing what money can do! And with Money being 'Speech', I can get as much of it as I like as long as I keep my buddies happy!"

I've been reading through AU several times now in preparation for putting together an epic(?) mini-campaign connecting DotA and Praxis, and I've found one major point of confusion: the dates.

According to Conspiracy Theories, the Rift closes on July the 18th.

However, in AU, the intro-fiction to 'All-Seeing Eye' has the Black Lodge in voting session at 1700 hours on that day, trying to decide what to do with the artifacts, which are heading toward them at that time.

'Déjà Vu' has Villiers planning the theft of the map on July 15th - a run that will likely take a few days to complete.

And, in 'Coming Full Circle', the press conference talks about the Sextant being shipped out to the Vatican in a few days and then runners hit...and this happens on July 29th...


So, regardless what the intention was, someone messed up.

Logically, the chapters would be in roughly intended chronological order - in this case that would mean that most of the dates make no sense at all.

Or, the dates in AU are right, which means the Black Lodge vote happened 11 days before the Sextant got into the hands of the vatican, and while the Villiers' fought over the map. Which makes no sense either.

Now, I know I can order things in whatever way I want them, but I prefer staying semi-close to canon since you never know what will be referenced in later books. I like having my players read something and go 'Hey, that was us' rather than go 'Ummm...this doesn't make sense...How much did you change?'

So, what gives?

I also assumed at first the chapters where in a chronological order, and didn't pay enough attention to the dates given. It appears it's not the case. As far as I understand, Aztechnology managed to steal the Sextant and moves it to Bogota after the Washington ritual. A comment in Conspiracy Theories, page 48, state things happening in that order.

Nothing in that book makes sense except the Phaistos Killer, and that only gets a pass because the guy's insane.

Hmm...so it does. I still haven't read through all of CT. (I wonder if that was written in after the fact... )

Still doesn't quite explain the tight schedule of 'Deja Vu', 'All-seeing Eye', and 'Tale of Two Princes' though. A time-line on what was 'supposed' to happen when would be very helpful.

I have managed to finish reading AU today.


The paragraph goes on to refer to Yabuku as a combat mage. Yet Yakubu's write up is utterly inconsistent with this description. He is a cybered bodyguard without Magic and the Magician/Mystic Adept Qualities.

I get it that there will be minor errors. I understand that sometimes the writers may deliberately choose to spend the character's BP/karma in ways some of us consider sub-optimal. I expect there will be some typos.

The Yakubu cyber-not-mage is not. Maybe someone screwed up and took the wrong write up of Isaac or Yabuku and put it in the book and the correct write-up is on someone's hard drive somewhere. Whatever the case may be, I am very disappointed with this. I have the hardcopy in my hands, not the pdf. The pdf may well have fuck-ups because someone had a deadline somewhen, but by the time it gets to the printers, I would expect that the book, while not completely error free, would not have such a glaring error.

For further complication, I checked the book again for dates, and noticed that T99 executives briefing Samantha Villiers on the artifacts on July 14th, in Déjà Vu introduction, page 90, refer to events in Coming Full Circle, set to happen after the July 29th press conference ("The sextant has gone completely off of the grid. The last time it was seen was in Caracas. The last ones we knew had it were pirates from the Caribbean League, but we don’t know what they did with it, or even if it reached its intended destination.").

OFFS...

Brilliant - I love it when canon-info contradicts itself several times IN THE SAME BOOK...

Just finished readinfg "Give the devil his clue" - enjoyed the overall plot, but the intoduction (written in-charcter) is sub-par writing, way too cluttered and disorganized.

Honestly, this wasn't the book I thought it would be. Now I think I get how you guys felt about WAR!