I'm AFB at the moment and cant for the life of me remember the details can someone help me out with this one

Scenario is a Elf Adept (M4) gets ccaptured by a banshee with the intention of turning them as general I'm a bad person and now I'm going to make you my bitch for ever kind of thing

His team are going to try to get him out in time (mechanically this is for suspense pkus the if they dont get there in time will they just kill his ass kinda thing)


Worst case scenario they dont get him and he turns what happens? I cant remember how it goes down properly

- Banshee drains his essence to 0 and uses his infection-power on him
- he turns into a Banshee himself and feeds immediately on the first human being he can get
- he has to pay tons of karma for this change and cannot spend it for other improvements until his "debts" are paid off (120 Karma for the race costs of 60x2)
- he immediately gets the benefits and drawbacks of being a banshee (powers and weaknesses)
- if he had the "magician" quality, he has to take care for his magic. Special rules apply. Don´t have them in mind.

Well, the character is infected with HMHVV I, which means that, once their Essence is drained, in about a day, they wake up as a banshee themselves.

If you decide to give the character the option, you need to decide whether or not you're going to charge the character the karma cost for the "race", (65 BP, or 130 karma) or just let them have it.

So, character's Essence is Drained; as their Essence drops, their Magic drops with it, meaning that at Essence 2, they're going to be a Burnout. At Essence 0, the character "dies" and is infected with HMHVV I; they need to make a disease resistance roll against an obscene disease Power (basically, the only way you actually manage to resist it is if you decide to burn a point of Edge and die in peace; don't be afraid to give the player that choice). Once they fail the disease resistance check (if they so choose to do so), they fall into a coma for (30-Body) hours, and then wake up as a Banshee with Essence 1 and Magic 1 (possibly with Magic 4 if they get their Essence back up high enough if you're feeling generous; otherwise, they have to buy it back up, and it doesn't go back down unless their Essence drops too low; even then, it's only a temporary drop).

As a new Banshee, the character gets a +1 to their Intuition and Willpower and +1 IP, as well as the following powers:
Powers: Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Essence Drain, Fear, Immunity (Age, Pathogens, Toxins), Infection, Mist Form, Natural Weapon (Bite: Str/2+1P, AP 0, –1 Reach), and Regeneration.
Weaknesses: Allergy (Sunlight, Moderate), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Blood), Essence Loss, Vulnerability (Silver), and Vulnerability (Wood). Banshees are hemovores: like vampires they cannot hold down normal food, and alcohol induces nausea (see Vampires, p. 294, SR4 ).

The character will still be an Adept.

Hope that helps.

Hmm, if he can get essence from other HMHVV(and why not?), first point of order:fight bastard who did it to you, drain him dry and kill him or die trying.
Furthermore, as an awakened, your magic goes up and down with your essence, you do not burn out, if i remember correctly.
As a normal mage, this is less problematic than as an adept though, so i am not entirely sure how to handle this version of it.

Ok so the way i'm reading that is that they lose magic during the process but could get it back again post change without cost (If I'm being very kind, if not they have to buy it back again)


Mechanically (karma cost and all that) seems abit mean to make someone have to pay for the change and pay for upping magic again.

This may require much more thought as a idea for a NPC (save the person or not kind of thing) it sounds good lots of risk and moralistic questions but for a PC it could be abit harser then I first thought

@Lansdren
The permanent Magic loss from loosing a point of essence is a problem in many occasions.
It leads to the simple fact, that your magic score is quite independent from your Essence score. (Latend awakening adept or for more cheese buy the adept quality in chargen AFTER you bought your ware. Yes the second is seen as illegal, but actually it isn't because the way you may build your character is absolutly up to you.)

It is always the same problem: Something makes chars stronger in avarage and everybody likes it. No matter it causes a bunch of problems if you take a closer look...

It is not up to you. You can't just 'buy Adept' after 'ware.

If your GM allows it, you can do it - but no sane GM would approve of this XD

On the ware then adept thing you cant,

the creation rules specifically does the qualities before the gear and ware

@Yerameyahu
The rules say, I can....

@Lansdren
Nope, you may change everything in the end again...
Thats the reason you should never implement anything which depends on when it is chosen. It just fucks everything up.

Of course no sane GM would let you do it. But on the other hand the first thing a guy how was making the GM at our table said the same thing about this rule in general. No sane GM would use it.

No, the rules "don't say you can't"; that's totally different. If something is insane, it's wrong.

@Yerameyahu
The rules as they are written "are" insane in this case, thats what I am saying.
Because it is somehow strange to call something during chargen "insane" but during play it is "normal"...

And I'm just agreeing with you. No one would ever do that; I understand if you're mentioning it for novelty/'awareness' purposes, of course.

Irion, you are just plain wrong about buying Adept quality in CharGen after 'ware.
Show us the quote where it says you can.

The only situations i could think of in which i as a GM would allow to make a roll if and how you awaken after the game has started without having the latent awakening quality would be really invasive event such as becoming infected (fluff says many infecteds awaken during the process some get the appropriate qualities by RAW), naming done by great dragons/immortal elves, activating an 4th world grandartifact made for this purpose or special pacts/rituals performed by really powerful spirits (force 15-20+).
Basically every man has a more or less tendency to awaken as time passes by and the manalevel raises more people will awaken anyway but this is a process of centuries.

Long story short - after you burned out buying adept again?
Sure - go into the spirit pact - otherwise go ask Lofwyr if he got spare time.
Sorry but this reeks of cheap powergaming.

only think he's wrong about is in thinking that the order in witch you take stuff in chargen matter.
You quite definedly can build your character in what ever order you want, its explicytly in the rules.

You can powergame and cheese a lot of things - it doesn't mean the GM has to accept them. Fiddle with the order you're doing things and with enough BP and disadvantages you could end up with a surged - infected - cyberzombie full mage. which is a skyscraper-high pile of chesse.

@Midas
First off all, I would like to know where you get the idea that there is an order?
If you look in the core book, the qualities come AFTER the attributes. So if I had to stay in this ORDER, a mage would only be able to have magic 1.
And on 85

So I can change any choice at any point...
This is acutally not really a problem...
It becomes a problem if the RULES are inconsistant.
(Like they are with magic and essence or metahumans and attribute boni) (The later is not so problematic in BP-Gen...)
@Hamsnibit
So latent awakening is also cheap powergaming, unless the GM rolls out what quality you get?

@Manunancy
Not really. All you can do in BP gen is save up to 40BP...

You can build however you want, but you still have to settle up at the end. Your Magic and Essence don't get 'locked' at any point, as opposed to in-play; if you lower your Essence earlier or late, you still have to make the corresponding change to Magic.

@Yerameyahu
Why don't they? Why is it different than in game?
It is quite a streatch, if you ask me. (I totally get the cheese in it, do not need to tell me)
It is more of a general thought.
Why is it resonable to assume that things work different in chargen, when nothing is mentioned..

Because chargen is different from in-game. There are any number of examples of this.

You might as well suggest that you can buy spells, then remove the magician quality and keep them. If you allow things to 'lock in' at any point, everything gets silly.

@Yerameyahu
Why would this be silly? You still have it, you just can't use it anymore.
For example you lost your magical abilities due to an though sickness. Or something like that.

No actually, quite few things get silly...And that has nothing do to with the locking.
And I am actually not talking about locking stuff, just alter the sequence.

If you stand on the position that everything has to be made in the sequence it is mentioned, you would not be able to raise magic.
You would be further unable to raise an attribute to 7 using the exeptional attribute quality, since attributes are mentioned before qualities...

No, it normally does not get silly, unless the rules are fucked up to begin with.

Hehe, that's my point. In-play, it *is* possible to create a burnout mage like that. In chargen, it is not (in the example I gave, you'd actually not have Magician, while technically burnouts keep the quality).

No, my point is that there is *no* sequence; you can get Exceptional because it happens at the same time. You're the one who's requiring a sequence, because otherwise you can't lock in changes at each step.

I never said the rules *weren't* broken to begin with.

@Yerameyahu
You always have a "sequence". There is no way around it. You can't do everything at once.
And for magicloss it is important what cam first. THIS is the flaw in the rules. Essenz loss does "LOCK" the attribute.
Because magic is not weakend by low essence. Magic is lost if you loose a point of essence. Thats just silly to begin with.
(And I guess that one of the major reasons why people say mages are too good. This is never said about pure mages or pure adepts. Or quite rarly. In those cases it is the lack of astral security)
The only question is, am I able to pick gear before skills and attributes.

In Chargen we would not like it that way, because we know you could save a lot of Karma.

But whats about not spending all the Karma in Karmagen?
Should be possible and it would be a good thing for new players. (Oh, I need perception. Well, I buy it now.)
But it is not possible, because Karma out of Chargen is quite worth more than in Chargen.

My point is that it's different in chargen. In chargen, everything is simultaneous. Magic loss is based on how much your Essence is down from where it should be. No sequence, no locking, everything affects everything else. AFAIK, it all works fine that way.

You're free to spell 'sequence' that way, but why are you quoting it that way? Are you quoting yourself?

Yes, it would be nice if chargen and in-play were seamless. They're *not*, they're different, but it would be nice. Many things would be nice.

@Yerameyahu
I agree with you, that it SHOULD be like that. (And it also should not matter outside of chargen, when I loose magic)

The problem is: It IS the other way around.

(@Sequenz: It is the german word for it and I use google to check on my spelling. And this was what google changed my word into... But I guess thats happening if you use google.de...)


My point is: Where is the rule saying so. I know WHY it has to be different. (Because this way you prevent at least the fullcybered adept.)
But I lack the rule to prove it. RAW it is up to the player when to do anything.

Actually it is quite the opposite.

Essence cost is calculated in the capter about getting cyberware. Not in FINISHING TOUCH. (Here it is only mentioned how cyberware affects the "normal" attributes.)
So if there is no negative magic, it works! They are using the SAME rules in and out of chargen (in this instance).
I would be happy if you could show me some hint saying it is not ruled this way. But I doubt there is any...



This is used for chargen and in game...

Oh, I thought you were quoting *me*.

Everything is a 'finishing touch'. You have imaginary points of 'magic loss' floating on top of you character until the instant you step into play. There's no other way to interpret it. There can't be a set chargen sequence (in which stats get locked in), specifically because this kind of thing results (and many other weird effects: acquire items, and then take away the BP you spent on the cash? Hehe.). And it's why you can't get things in chargen using your Face skills, or start with hand-modded guns or hand-coded programs. The whole chargen is a single, stateless, live-updating 'document', and every change you make has to be in harmony with all the rest.

That's how everyone plays it, not because they sat down and had this discussion, but because that's what the rules said to them. If that's how everyone interprets it, that's how it *is*.

For it to work your way, there would have to *be* a rule saying that you can do cyberware first, then go buy Magician, then buy Magic. There's not, so it's all simultaneous. You're saying that there's *an* interpretation of the rules that ruins everything if you squint your eyes just so, and 'hey, isn't that weird?'; but all the while, there's a perfectly functional majority interpretation right there.

@Yerameyahu

It is SAID otherwise. The second you take cyber, you loose essence. If you have magic at this point you loose magic. Since Magic is set to 1 if you take one of those qualities, it does not matter if you have lost essence before. (Quoted the rule above)


This is all mentioned in the rules. Which gear you may buy, which you can't and so on.


They do. I quoted them. You do not have to follow any sequence. So you can just choose to have learned to shoot with your shotgun, than you though it would be cool to be an ork with an cyberarm(at this point the rules say you loose magic, quoted above) and then at your 16th birthday you awakend to be an adept.


This is not a majority interpretation of the rules, it is just using different rules ar chargen. Because what is if everything happens simultanious? Would I loose magic points then? Actually I would not! Because in order to loose magic I NEED to have magic BEFORE I reduce my essence loose it.

And my interpretation is also totally functional. It is even consistant with how everything works ingame! It just makes some chars incredible powerful.

If under finishing touch it would say: Take the essence loss from Bio and Cyberware and reduce the magic of the character by one for each started point, than your interpretation would be correct. But this is actually done at the point you install cyberware (by RAW).

"You do not have to follow any sequence." But I'm saying there's not a rule saying you *can* follow *any* sequence.

I agree: the chargen rules make it impossible to model a character 'history'. You can't get cyber and then awaken, even though that happen in the game world. Sorry. I didn't say it *was* possible.

It is clearly the majority, because everyone manages to use the chargen rules without creating full-cyber adepts. It's only if you stop and look for an alternative interpretation that this happens.

Because everything is retroactive, you *do* have magic to lose, if your final character does. It's only if you choose to believe that your Essence effects are 'locked in' that this issue emerges. During chargen, there *exists* no point in time where you installed 'ware. Everything is stateless until you leave chargen.

THere is no BEFORE OR AFTER in chargen.

@Yerameyahu

The rules say otherwise.
I am not saying you should play after those rules. I just stated what the rules are saying...


I guess nobody lets a mage start with magic 2(1 in BP) and Spellcasting 6, Summoning group 4 and very good attribute scores and a very high lifestyle and all the extra-karma he might pull out of Chargen... Espacially not if you let your players have 50 in game Karma.
The point is: The trick works the same way in and out of chargen. And I guess a lot of people also frown at latend awakening quality. Rightfully so. Because it is actually the same cheese.

In chargen it would just works so good, nobody would really let it fly. But also in game, it can make easy a differance of 30 to 40 Karma.

No it's really not, awekening in game as a mage with magic 1 and no spells or needed skills, isn't gonna do you much good in a long while.

No they dont.
What he said is the basic principle all point build chargens like this work.

Well, we disagree. The chargen rules seem stateless to me. And that view has the benefits of being better and more common.

@Mäx

Make it an adept...


And the rules in Shadowrun tell me, that my essence decreases as soon as I buy myself the cyberware. Not at the end of chargen.
Yes, everybody runs it like that, to stay out of cheese.
This does not make it written in the book.

It does decrease 'as soon as' you do it. The problem is there's no point in time. Everything happens at once, when you leave chargen.

And what if the GM (who chooses your form of awakening) takes astral sight for you? Or Adept with the incredible ability of "Pain Relief" or "Power Swimming"

@Yerameyahu
The problem here is, that this does not hold any information.
The point is:
First magic than essance loss->Magic loss
Essence loss and afterwards magic->Only reduced maximum
Both happening at the same time: No information available (because it can't happen at the same time)

This is what the rules tell us.
Since most of the stuff has to be handled in any kind of order the question remains in which order it should be?
The order it was chosen in Chargen or a given order.
This is the reason you try to avoid abilities, of which the price depends on stuff the character allready has.


@Mäx

Not really.There is no system which works "all at once", because there is no way to handle it.
The point is, in most systems it is made sure (that at least at chargen) it did not matter in which order you did stuff.
(Or this order was given in the rules or both.) Shadowrun did neither.
@NiL_FisK_Urd
What I said, no sane GM let it fly.
(And it having an adept with Essence 2 and Powerswimming is not that bad. You can just increase your magic attribute...