So, I thought up a very cool concept for our Shadowrun game that I need to know if it would work or not.

Basically, I created an Adept with Astral Perception, Blind Fighting, Perception of 10 with Specialization of Hearing, and Neurological Blindness. I walk around most of the time with a blindfold to hide my totally white eyes that can't see anything. But reading a little further, doing some digging, I don't know if this works at all or not. So help me out here, if you could.

I have a base dice-pool of 15 when fighting unarmed, 17 when I'm using Kenpo. So, blindfighting, I'm back to 15 for Kenpo. If I have Astral perception, I can make out the auras of different living being and with perception Hearing, I can hear where there are and should have good range. So, as long as I can hear a being that still has an Essence...do I still get the Fighting Blind penalty? Also, what other things do you think should be a problem? I mean, at the time, I thought that astral perception was seeing without seeing, but since the astral world is a place of emotion, I don't know how well this will translate to the real world when I need to punch dudes.

If you can find a way to become dual natured, you can lift the '-2 dice for astrally percieving' penalty. It has some downsides, but...

Honestly a ghoul adept fits the blind monk steriotype exactly. It even comes with some free enhanded hearing.

I've considered doing something similiar with a samurai, and an ultrawideband radar, so that may be an option as well.

Ghoul Adept would definitely be a good way to go for this. The attribute boosts of going Ghoul are darned useful, in and of themselves.

I've already specced him as Human, unfortunately. I don't like ghouls much...

Well, most ghouls ARE human, but ... *shrug* preference noted.

If your blindness is neurological (a problem with the visual center of your brain) why are your eyes white?

Ummm...for cool effect?

Why not skip astral perception and go with being a Changeling with Biosonar. You basically become daredevil.

Oh, and if you want to do ranged combat, note that attacking with the blind fire penalty actually uses Intuition+Skill rather than Agility.

One other potentially usefull adept power is Heightened Concentration from Digital Grimoire. If your magic attribute is high enough you can ignore the whole blind fighting / blind fire penalty.

-CJ

I also would skip astral perception. For a non-mage / mere adept it has more drawbacks than advantages. Sure you see astral beings and gain infos about magical items, aura etc, but you need 2 additional skills (astral perception and astral combat) and you are vulnerable to ranged attacks from the astral. I like Jopps idea, but i don´t know how it interferes with ranged combat. Is there a range limit for this ability?

Which means it functions like Ultrasound "vision" enhancement in SR3 P324

I cannot find anything about being limited range but I guess it depends on the enviroment. A lot of loud noise might create similarities to vision penalties but with sound instead.

Cant remember how fast sound travels but he might get a problem when something moves faster than sound (which is usually a few bullets...)

He'll have Intuition cranked really damn high to have that 10 Perception pool, so this might actually work. Not sure if using Astral Perception still counts as blind-fire, though.

@Machiavelli: I understand that I need assensing to do anything with Astral Perception, and I have that at around 12 right now as well. Makes it very easy to see things in the Astral even our mages can't pick out. Also, I was going to take Astral Combat, but I didn't think I needed to, since I'm not projecting. I am not trying to hit Astral beings in the first place. The Astral perception was more for the flavor and to explain why he can see and do things while completely blind. I understand that the Astral is no where near a perfect replica for seeing in the Material, but it gets me close enough, and understanding where someone's face and chest is, my hearing and awesome does the rest.

Plus, I didn't think you needed Astral Combat to attack Astral beings so long as you had a weapon focus. Maybe I'm wrong? :O

I can always see if I can fit in Heightened Concentration rather then any of the other powers I have on now. Or is that a Metamagic? I've already initiated once to get Centering, and I only need one more initiate grade to completely cancel out the blind fighting penalties.

Astral combat is essential for astral perception. Switching the perception is a simple action and most astral beings are quicker than you are and mostly have more IP´s. So if you get attacked AFTER your last IP, you cannot simply "turn it off" and are a simple victim for a astral combat attack or a manabolt. And if you are really out of luck, he will act first in the next round and can attack once more and if you have to full dodge, you lose your chance to turn down astral perception again...and so it goes on, and on, and on....until you are dead. Not funny. Astral perception is dangerous.

I might have missed in this thread, but in Street Magic, p. 114, it indicates that Blind Magicians can astrally perceive without penalty.

"Other Senses
It is important to remember that assensing is a psychic sense. Though it is often referred to and experienced in visual terms, it is not entirely the same as physical sight (which is why blind magicians and ghouls can assense without penalty)."

Just throwing that out there since the -2 penalty was mentioned.

Also, when Astrally Perceiving (not projecting) you can use your Physical Stats and Physical Combat abilities against an astral being if they are within melee range on the astral since you are dual natured when perceiving. Only Mana based spells can be cast at an Astral Being when perceiving, and are the the only possible ranged astral attack. You would use an unarmed attack if you didn't have a weapon focus.

Astral Combat is used when you are astrally projecting. If you cannot Astrally Project, then Astral Combat is unnecessary.

That -2 penalty mentioned is what a magician takes to actions in the physical world while using astral perception (note that this is not astral projection, something rather different). That part from Street Magic just means that regardless of any reduced senses astral perception works just fine.

Interesting concept, but depending on how the GM runs things (are there rampant spirits all over just waiting to manabolt a foolish magician?) that power point for Astral Perception might be better spent on Improved Senses (and obviously nothing vision based).

I think you are wrong. Astral combat is needed to fight entities in astral space, because the very nature of this environment is so different that you cannot use your mundane skills. Astral beings are quicker and have free threedimensional movement possibilities, so astral combat is made to deal with this problem. It is not only for combat if both fighters are completely astral. And only if you have the power of "natural weapon" or you are a dual natured critter that lacks the astral combat skill, you are able to use your mundane stats instead. Becaue there is not astral equivalent of dodge, you could dodge the whole time, but if you full-dodge (which you would need to, because you usually (except you have the adept power etc.) don´t have armor etc.) you have the problems again i described above.

Ok...wait a second. I was never under the impression that Astral Perception made you vulnerable in the Astral. Time out for a second.

As I understand it, Astral Perception is just another form or Perception. You 'look' into the Astral and see what is there. I understood this as being a simple check and you didn't actually have to turn it on or off. Knowing this, Astral Projection seems very pointless all of a sudden. When playing a mage, if I can manipulate and interact with the Astral plane by simply perceiving it, I'll just do that instead of leaving my body and getting it jacked by someone or something. And if you're saying that I need to have Astral Combat to punch into the Astral, then I could do better with another weapon rather then a Weapon Focus.

And, to top that off, I take a -2 when I'm Astrally Perceiving. I did not know this either. I was attributing the -2 in combat for when I'm fighting blind, since I have Blind Fighting to reduce that from -4 to -2. If that's another -2 on top of that, that cuts down on what I can do and makes me want to use Astral Perception even less.

Somehow, this makes my monk ten times less cool and I now need to think of something else.

SR4A, p191; section "Astral Perception", last sentence of first paragraph:

A character using astral perception is considered dual-natured, active on both the physical and astral planes simultaneously.

Therein lays the vulnerability: Astral Combat could be used to attack you, whereas it's useless against Joe Mundane over there.


No, it's not cumulative. It replaces the usual penalty for fighting blind. Talk to your GM, having Blind Fighting and Astral Perception might be good for a -0 penalty.

As for Astral Combat, it's only necessary for opponents who lack a physical body. Against a Manifested spirit, you would still use your normal, physical skills. However, with Astral Perception, and the Astral Combat skill? You could go after non-manifested spirits (and projecting Mages) ...!

Such tests would use your [Willpower]+[Astral Combat], and yes, you get to add your Weapon Focus dice to that (you can even Specialise Astral Combat in "Weapon Focus"). Damage would be based on Charisma rather than Strength (using the usual code for your Weapon Focus, just replacing STR with CHA where appropriate).

Well...that's a bunch of crud. I'll look into my monk a bit more and see what I should do instead. I liked the idea of him being blind but always astrally percieving so as to be a kick-ass blind monk. I guess if I was dual-natured I wouldn't have to worry about turning it on or off. Sure, spirits can easily hit me in the astral, but I can hit them back. What sucks now, though, is that I have to divide my points between Physical and Astral combat to defend myself effectively. I'll have to look into this a bit more and see what I can do with the points left.

Well, let's see.

Go with Human, and Adept. Body 4, Agility 4, Reaction 3, Strength 3, Charisma 3, Logic 3, Willpower 4. Edge 3, Magic 5.

Adept Powers (Unarmed Combat version):
> Improved Reflexes 1; +1 Reaction, +1 IP.
> Motion Sense; with a Perception+Magic test, reduce the penalties for Blind Fire by 2 dice - threshold is 3 for cat/dog/etc, 2 for dwarves of children, 1 for other metahumans, 0 for larger than metahuman.
> Multi-Tasking; "Onserve in Detail" is a free action, and are functionally immune to most sources of distraction (loud nightclub, for example).
> Critical Strike 4; +4DV for unarmed attacks ... yes, including against Spirits.
> Penetrating Strike 2; AP -2 for unarmed strikes.
> Nerve Strike; can apply damage from unarmed strikes to your choice of Agility or Reaction (half effect vs critters).

With 245 points spent, the DV for unarmed strikes is 6S (AP -2), or 7P (AP-0) against spirits. You can Observe in Detail every single initiative pass, you will probably suffer zero penalties for fighting blind, and you can beat the crap out of anything this side of a Dragon. Spend points on Unarmed combat specialised in Martial Arts, one or two Martial Arts styles (I suggest Kung Fu, 10BP, with "+1 DV Unarmed" and "+1 melee dodge" for advantages, then "Watchful Guard", "Blind-fighting" of course, "Vicious Blow" instead of Killing Hands, and "Kick Attack"). Maybe add "Aptitude: Unarmed Combat" and jack that skill to 7.

Agility 4, Unarmed 7+2 --> 13 dice to attack. Room for improvement yes, but stil quite good to be getting on with initially.


^_^
He's not going to be "an ancient Master", no. But he'll be well on the way towards that end, for certain!

there is a long discussion on this forum about fighting blind and how to ignore the modifier. There are several adept powers, and MA helpin to that. most effective is obviously adept centering.

What you want is not astral perception but this:

Blind Fighting
Motion Sense
Way of the +intuition power
High intuition (9+)
Good perception (Specialize in Hearing ofc)

This gives you only -2 most of the time to your blind attacking test, and even that will be gone with adept centering in a short while.

Also, now that all fighting skills use intuition for you, there's barely any reason to have an agility > 1 - basically the only one is infiltration. If you can handle being not so sneaky, skip on agi and save yourself some points. Makes even sense fluffwise, because you cannot see where you step and so will probably end up walking over those crisps someone left on the floor a lot of times.

Then add whatever you need to shoot or punch to your liking.

What I want is astral perception. The issue is that it causes too many problems to be fully effective. I can make the monk a few different ways and, as you guys have pointed out, it'll be a lot easier to make him with a few other powers then Killing Hands and Astral Perception. What I wanted was a guy that 'mystically' saw. That he overcame his physical blindness with the power of his mind and soul. That, to me, is the ability to understand the world around him in a different context. I just didn't know that I had to impose myself on that context to actually do anything.

I'm going to take some of these suggestions, though, and see what I come up with. My idea was not to fully max something out. It was more to have the flavor of a pure martial artist. Thank you.

Other than for fighting ... what do you ant the astral perception FOR?

Maybe we can find a way to cover those not-fighting uses with other things, so you get the same net effect, but without the vulnerability.

I want it for flavor. It's be funny to be the next Daredevil, but that's not what I want. What I wanted was a character that could fight very well hand-to-hand like a kung-fu master, but could only percieve the world in the Astral. I would assume he'd have had this his entire life, so he would have had 28+ years to hone how he's using the third-eye thing he'd have. Seeing without seeing. Mind and spirit over the physical. That's not just using hearing. That's tapping into the living essence of the universe and using it to traverse the world. That's what I want. And I can't have that without being dual-natured. Which is fine. I think what I'm going to do is just put myself dual-natured by default (through being a shifter) and take the Astral Combat I need to protect myself.

You can't protect yourself with astral combat from the manabolting projecting mages hovering meters over your head.

Basically, being dual natured means you are dead really soon.

Eh. So you buy a Spell Knack (Manabolt), and fire back at them.

And again we've got people under the assumption that the astral world is full of hostile spirits and magicians just waiting to pop the first dual-natured 'whatever' that happens to come along. If that were honestly the case then shifters and dual-natured beings and critters like ghouls and naga wouldn't even be a footnote in history they'd be extinct so badly. The sixth world isn't so plagued by these things that everything from a megacorp's HQ down to your local Stuffer Shack has Force 12+ wards on it.

Well, there's also Assensing (which can let you see if someone's got cyberware/bioware, is sick, their mood, and maybe even a technomancer), you can identify people by their auras, see if there's any spells cast on a particular person or object, and identify foci (and maybe their owners). I'm sure there's more, too, but there's a fair amount you can do with these.

Oh, and if the rabble rousers actually make you paranoid about the "projecting magician waiting to manabolt you at his first chance", just upgrade to being a mystic adept, take a few ratings in Spellcasting & Counterspelling (with specializations in Combat spells), and take the manabolt spell yourself. If said magician can manabolt you, you can manabolt them right back (and better defend yourself with counterspelling at the same time). Honestly I think this is a waste of points and a lot of worry for nothing, unless this will fit the theme of a character, and I don't think this mystic adept angle fits the character CrystalBlue is trying to flush out.

BTW, you can't take the Spell Knack quality if you've purchased another magical quality (like Adept). It's also an extremely limiting quality (one spell and no more, Magic 1 and no increasing, and counterspelling only works for your one spell). You'd be well better off doing the mystic adept deal I just mentioned in this post just above.

I second the sentiment that the astral world is NOT chock-full of entities waiting to murder anything dual-natured that comes along. Such entities would need a reason to attack those dual-natured beings in the first place.

CrystalBlue, I just want to remind you one more time that a ghoul adept is very very good for what you're going for. Like, really really good for it. But if you're sure that you don't want to go ghoul, I'll give you some other tips for working around being dual-natured that work well for ghouls but can apply to anything dual-natured.

• If he has been blind and using assensing for almost his whole life, it should be completely fine to just ask the GM for the removal of the -2 penalty to physical actions while assensing. Dual-natured critters don't get this because they've grown up living in two planes at once, so you shouldn't get it either.
• To deal with hostile astral forms without needing Astral Combat, you'll want to focus a little bit on being mobile. Spirits and magicians will commonly try to snipe you with powers & spells in midair. To defend against this, you'll want high Agility, many ranks in Great Leap, and potentially Distance Strike.
• Carry those astral smoke grenade things as well, and anything else to try to obscure LOS to the attacking astral forms. Try never to let yourself be caught out in the open - closed spaces are your friend.
• The ability to create wards will make you very good at meeting attackers on your own turf. Charged wards, polarized wards, trap wards: these are your friend. Remember, you can pass through your own wards, while attackers cannot - a personal maze of wards will give you a strong advantage against attackers.
• You may also want to try a different tactic for warding off astral attackers: the less-common uses for Masking coupled with Intimidation specialized in Astral/Magical. Use Masking to make your magic rating appear more powerful than it actually is, and use Intimidation to convince hostile magicians and spirits that they do NOT want to attempt combat with you. This requires that you have prior information on the astral entities you'll be dealing with, e.g. if you're breaking into a security compound and you know the rough Force of all the spirits on patrol. Obviously it won't work on especially powerful magicians and spirits.
• A Spirit Pact might work well for you as well. A Power Pact would grant you the use of one of the free spirit's powers (I think the top picks for you would be Movement and Astral Armor), and a Magic Pact would let you enhance your Magic for brief period of time once a day (therefore temporarily enhancing your Adept powers with lots of free power points).

I just want to make sure it's clear that YOU DO NOT NEED TO SPEND POINTS ON ASTRAL COMBAT. Don't even worry about it.

I actually made a blind swordsman once. It was a very similar idea to this one.

You don't need astral combat. That's for projecting mages to attack things without using spells. Because your dual natured you'll be using nothing but your physical meat stats and skills to attack things in the astral. Like wise, assuming you'll be in a big city, you can always just take cover and avoid any nasty thing trying to kill you from the astral. They can't cast a spell at that which they can't see. Once you force a spirit or projecting mage in to close quarters, you can hit them with your fists or weapon foci. Just try to break line of sight to force them to come to you. Like wise, you can always just turn off your astral perception and then no longer be dual natured, and just avoid them altogether like that.

Also the reason astral perception gets hit with the -2 dice is for the same reason thermal vision takes that hit. Everything becomes a blurry mess. So you won't need blind fighting and astral perception...unless you need to turn off astral perception...hm...maybe you should keep that... for emergencies...

Anyway, its not that bad. Unless you have a GM that loves wide open areas and filling the skies with projecting mages and spirites. But that doesn't seem very likely.

Just so you know, ghouls can't turn it off. That's not an option they have unless they burn out. In which case it goes off forever.