I'd very much like your oppinion on the following question:

Which type of character is generally more useful in an initially 400BP game. The Magician or the Mystic Adept?

The reason I'm asking, is because I'm sitting and trying to create a character for a new game, and I'm having a bit of trouble trying to decide whether to go for a Mystic Adept, or a full Magician. Basically I can't decide right now if the access to the astral space is worth an additional 5BP, and the loss of access to the Adept Powers. What are your oppinions on this people? And why?

The game starts tomorrow evening (June 11th), so quick replies are needed.

[Edit: SR4A rules]


/Kyrel

Whether mystic adepts are useful in the first place depends on whether you use the SR4A or the SR4+FAQ version of how they work; namely, do they use Magic for everything but determining PP and the dice pool on Mag-linked skills, or do they check caster magic for all purposes related to Magician-only skills (max force, overcasting, etc) and PP for everything adept-related (max ranks in powers, etc).

The first version makes Mystic Adepts a potentially good option on par with Magicians. The second makes them suck.

Assuming the first version, it really depends what you want to do. Mystic adepts are not half magician, half adept (well, they can be, but those guys suck); every effective way of making a mystic adept work is going to be using magic to enhance doing something. For example, a mystic adept face who uses Kinesics + Heightened Concentration + Increase Charisma, or someone like the Transhuman Mystic (see the first link of my sig) who uses spell buffs to enhance physical combat.

Magicians are generally a lot easier to make effective, so if you are on a short deadline I would definitely go magician.

I prefer Mystic Adepts to the point where if I play something with magic, I play them. With the proper drugs or metatype options you can get Astral Perception and Projection without issue and save yourself 5 BP doing so.

If you can only have one, a Full Magician because of the ability to go astral.

Honestly, it seems so incredibly inconvenient to get fake Perception or Projection (via drugs or metatype options, ugh), compared to 5 measly BP to just get the real thing at the beginning. I feel like the real tradeoff isn't BP, but adept powers. :/

This is as it should be, though: the point of mysads isn't to have (all) their cake and eat it too. That's not fair.

I think the system could do a better job letting people choose (and pay for!) the various magic powers they want (summoning, casting, adept powers, perception, projection, etc.). SR3 did a little better, for example. Instead, it seems like mysad is just the tweaker's option, as opposed to a real fluff choice.

More often than not, I choose Mystic Adept over the True Magician. Seems to fit my concepts much better, though not always.

in addition to being personal preference, in my opinion the biggest question is unanswered: what are you trying to do with your caster?

This is not as straightforward a question as it might seem. There are dozens of caster roles, from non-combat support, to spirit specialist, combat mage, investigator, etc. And some have a better long-range outlook than others in terms of maximum potential.

There are VERY few adept abilities that cannot be simulated or matched equivalently with a spell. So, the things that may matter the most: You CANNOT Astrally project as a Mystic adept without drugs. You also have to spend 1 full adept power point for the sole purpose of astrally perceiving without taking a critter or dual-natured race setup. So, your magic will likely be gimped.

Mystic Adepts have the long-term possibility of using adept powers to augment themselves in play without having to sustain a spell. Sustained, or even quickened, spell upgrades can be dispelled. I prefer mystic adepts for this reason. Don't forget you can Initiate and use your meta-magic pick to gain another point of adept powers. For this reason, Mystic Adepts can play an in-your-face game (obviously) much better than magicians. And never ever forget the WONDERFUL power Mind-Over-Matter. Best Mystic Adept power ever.

In my opinion, Mystic Adepts have the best long-term outlook because they can pull from both worlds. They are hampered short term by some inability to do what magicians can without careful planning and creative thinking. Magicians cannot permanently buff themselves nor select from adept powers.

As it sounds like you may (sorry for assuming) not be completely familiar with the magician vs mystic adept system, I'd recommend a mage. There is little drawback, especially short term, and IMO mystic adepts require some careful planning and playing to keep up with mages.

Mystic Adept always made more sense to me because I never really cared about Astrally projecting.

Indeed...

Thanks for the different comments people. I've ultimately ended up deciding on going with the Mystic Adept. There are a couple of Adept Powers that I want long term, and ultimately the changes I would have had to make to the character, in order to get the BP to add up with a full Mage, would have been a worse fit, with regards to the character vision, than with the Mystic Adept. The loss of Astral Projection and Astral Perception (short term) is unfortunate, but I'm willing to live with that.

Is that its actual name? Can't seem to find it.

It's in the forbidden book - "War!".

*shudders*

Basically it lets you use a single Mental Attribute in place of a single Physical Attribute (per the Astral Attributes table*) for any tests.

*(Charisma to Strength, Logic to Agility, Willpower to Body, and Intuition to Reaction.)

~Umi

Basically, it's absurd.

A pixie with Body 1, Willpower 12, and Mind Over Matter can shrug off hits like a troll AND resist magic of all kinds.

~Umi

Both. Neither. Either or.

Key question to ask your GM is, how does he handle maximum Adept ratings, and Spell maximum Force ratings, with the "split" magic attribute?

Some will say "A 3-3 split works like 3 magic, for either one". This makes Magician-Adepts suck, and you shouldn't play one.

Some will say "A 3-3 split still has a Magic Rating of 6 - they just only get 3 dice towards spellcasting from it, and only 3 power points too." This makes Magician-adepts competitive enough that it becomes purely a matter of taste and style.

...

As for access to astral space: you could always play a race that is Dual Natured, or gets Astral Perception for free (i.e., Pixies). Or burn the Power Point getting it as an Adept ability.

...

A Pixie with a Charisma tradition and softcapped drain attributes (Cha 7, Will 7) is very very good at resisting drain. Gotta be careful overcasting (limited Body), but otherwise ... ZOOM.

… It's clearly not 'neither'.

On the contrary - it can't be both.

Yeah, Jesus, that's insane.

Thanks DS for perpetually reminding me I don't want that book!

Depends on how you handle the thing with the split magic attribute.

If you count the full magic rating for everything, than mytic adepts are great, espacially if you use the optional rule for getting one powerpoint for every initiation instead of a metamagic technique. (Knowing that most metamagic techniques only get really good, if you have a high metamagic raiting. +3 Points to draintest is good, but +6 is an other level. Same thing with masking. Yeah, masking is nice, just does not help shit if everybody looks through it)

It is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

Aerospider, that's not 'on the contrary', though. It's clearly not neither… *and* it cannot be both. Hehe.

I agree. There's a lot of good things out of it, like submersible aircraft carriers and submersible supertankers (tee hee - still love that misprint). But no, MRSI, battle rifles (to a degree), the spell-smartlink, and other things make it a good buy.

MRSI is one of the exemplar *good* things?

Well, MRSI exists today. It should exist on a battlefield. So its inclusion in WAR! makes a bit of sense. What does not make a lot of sense its its inclusion for use on the personal weapon scale. *shrug*

Sure it is. 'Neither is generally more useful' works fine, right?
As a sentence at least ...

You didn't read. It *can't* be both, but it *clearly is not* neither. To most people, a mage or mysad is certainly one of the more useful options in a normal 400BP game.

Yeah, TJ, you know I care about balance, not realism. Hehe.

Indeed... And to fix the balance issues of MRSI, just do not allow Personal Scale weapons to use it. Useful only for Naval Bombardment, Artillery, and possibly Mortars. You know, Battlefield weapons... those things it was actually designed to work with.

Look at who is saying it...

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
The problem is, that it is neither balanced nor realistic. The problem is, that every rule has its gray areas.(Where it tends to get out of touch with reality)
And MRSI tends to strike exactly such a grey area and makes it worse.

What am I talking about?

If you are sitting in a bunker and one arrow does not penetrate, two at a distance of 5 cm WON'T neither.
As it is, they will and hit you bad.

Travelling time and ballistics is generally ignored in SR. (Yes, I know there is a rule in RAW, but well...)
The whole precission issue tends to get ignored.
You shoot, you hit end of story. End of story?
No, after raw not. Bullets still have no traveling time, but a cannon mounted on a truck (opposed to an assault cannon) does have.
As a matter of fact, it is impossible to hit a moving target, if it is more than 1000m away (not using a Laser ).
Even guided missiles do really suck.
(Even driving just 60 km/h means you are 50m off after one CR. )

So you see, most uses of MRSI would just suck, normally. You would miss all the time (unless fired at a stationary target).
But wait a second... You could just fire at a target less than 1000 m away. Getting around those annoying traveltime, while still having the bonus effects of travel time...
So the whole application of MRSI (outside from strict use to bombard bunkers or camps) is trying to get by using the ambiguous wording.

Ah! Granted. It did seem out of character for you to be semantically incorrect, I should have known better.

I assume that you are talking Game world here, and not real life. I can assure you that in real life, it is not impossible to hit a moving target at greater than 1000 Meters with modern weaponry sans LASER Guidance... I have seen it done on more than one occasion.

But yes, there are many things about Combat that are either ignored or have only a small amount of representation in the game. To do otherwise would make the game fairly unplayable. Shadowrun is an RPG, not a combat simulation.

In game, much of what makes a battlefield dangerous is completely waved away. In Game you can survive impacts from weapons that IRL would leave nothing but a pink mist. This is for a reason, in my Opinion. It really sucks to be minding your business, driving down the road and then all of a sudden you are dead from the RPG that just blew your car away, and you with it. So, there has to be a relaxing of the real world for your characters to actually be playable. For this reason, Direct Fioore Rocket/Missiles/Grenades were given a lot of scatter to help compensate. They went overboard. Now such weapons are laughable. However, if you go to Direct Fire Rules (Success means impact/detonation), and only use Scatter for missed shots, you make the game much more deadly (even if it is realistic). Game play vs. Realism. Which side do you fall on?

I think we need Battlefield rules, for those that are wanting to operate in such a theatre of conflict. Unfortunately, if you try to keep it realistic, you get a lot of ugly results. For MRSI, I think they went WAY overboard because it is NOT designed for Individual Troops with Personal Weapons in mind. It is designed for Bombardment of areas (and primarily for pinpoint accurate Bombardment of haredened targets). That is where they should have left its utility.

And yes, you are also right that if they are going to double the damage potential of the MRSI aided fire, they also need to double the Armor for the target (or triple if you allow 3 round MRSI, etc.). to reflect that no matter how good a shot you are, if one round will not penetrate, then it is likely that 2 or 3 will not either. It is a tough decision, really, because if you err on the wrong side, you get crazy results. As you can see with the Combined Grenade Damage Rules and MRSI implementation. Additionalliy, on a battlefield, some things just do not need stats, and I was disappointed to see stats for some of those things. I guess there was a demand for them, though, even if I would have let the story dictate some of that rather than stats. *shrug*

Hopefully I did not ramble too much.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
The problem is, if you add additional rules (instead of modifiering existing once) you get a lot of areas where rule A is not really kept "in check" by rule B, because the standart rules are used, which did not account for A.

So basically I agree with you on the matter at hand.
I just wanted to point out that I think it is not the problem of "special" rules but the "methode" in general. If my "rules" just support one projecile at a time it is hard to simulate shooting two projectiles which hit at the same time...

As it now stands hitting a boat with a guided missile is a question of luck. If the scatter points in the right direction you will hit dead center. If it does not...

No doubt...

Yeah, you have to remember it's only on actual tests, it doesn't count for stuff that you don't roll dice for.

Like how much armor can you wear before encumbrance, etc. would not be affected.




-k

Indeed...

Not like a Pixie typically wears armor anyways... and with their small size making them harder to hit and their focus on agility and reaction, you're supposed to be avoiding damage to begin with.

~Umi

odd...sooo...someone with a 2 reaction 2 intuition and a 7 willpower, with that abillity, would have an init of 4, but roll 9 dice?

Second Skin, Securetech PPP forearm and shin guards. 4/3, on a Body 2 pixie. so at least, when a bullet finally DOEs find the wee thing, it isn't instantaneously rendered into pink mist.

That, and your 10-12 points of hardened armour at Chargen should ensure your survival.

One of my players has a hard-on for Tiger Shapeshifters but hates Pixies. Go figure.

So a combined body and armor of 6 versus a straight effective body of 12?

Yeah, I'd still go with Mind Over Matter and maxed willpower.

~Umi

No, their Initiative is a 9 (Reaction + Intuition) not a 14 (Intuition + Intuition), since you are not rolling Intuition for Initiative. You are rolling Intitiative. As such they roll 9 Dice.

Um ... what???

Yeah, I was a bit stymied by that one as well... Here's hoping we get an answer...

More possession silliness?

...what? Both of you are talking nonsense.

The power only affects tests, and it only replaces attributes according to the Astral Attributes Table (which I explained in my initial post a page back, seriously I wrote it out for you in full.)

The hypothetical character's Initiative Attribute is their Reaction + Intuition, or 2 + 2 = 4. The Willpower does not replace either Reaction or Intuition, it replaces Body. But even if it DID replace either Reaction or Intuition (which, again, for clarity, IT DOES NOT) it wouldn't affect the base Initiative Attribute.

When you Roll Initiative, you are rolling a number of dice equal to your Initiative Attribute. Your Initiative Attribute is determined by combining your Reaction and you Intuition. The test is not based on Reaction and Intitiative, it is based on the Secondary Attribute derived from Reaction and Intiative.

In the above case, the hypothetical character has an Initiative Attribute of 4 and rolls 4 dice and adds the hits to determine their final Initiative Score.

~Umi

Let's ignore MRSI's use by archers on the battlefield back in olde tymes then, shall we?


I can think of SURGE and Drakes, but I don't think they stack (and they'd only add up to 7 and pixies can't be drakes). Maybe a mis-read of Vehicle Armor and a Horseman of the Apocalypse®?

Well any player who tried to abuse shade like this would find themselves dead simply due to the full power of the RAW. (or most likely end up badly addicted after a single dose)

Great your powergamed mystic adept projects.. the drug forces you out of your body for essence + 1d6 hours... how high is your magic score?

Did you remember evanescence? Your magic reduces by 1 per hour if you can't get back into your body before this happens you die leaving your body in a comatose state. (p192 SR4a). You're drugged with something which FORCES you to project... The authors didn't quite think that one out... while under effects of the drug you're forced out of your body...



Here's my only issue with MRSI... it makes sense for grenade launchers even bows... but the way they chose to stage up the damage is completely broken. Every other case only gets a +1DV yet they fully stack the damage. I fire two arrows I get double... I fire two rounds out of a PJSS at the same time I only get +1DV.

*IF* I took two HE grenades and duct taped them exactly where I wanted and set them off at the same time... I would only get +1P increase in damage per the rules... yet if I use MRSI I magically get double damage?! This runs contrary to all the multiple round rules (+1 per round after the first), and demolitions rules (more explosive requires a lot more to get a bigger bang).

Even the demo rules aren't that effective... if you substitute them for the wimpy +1DV of two nades since it's based on the square root of the amount... so you get a root 2 (1.44x) increase in effectiveness for using 2 HE nades duct taped together instead of one.



I like mystic adepts... but they should never be a subsitute for a pure mage. They make great combat mages if you're not concerned about projecting at all. They also make great niche specialists. They suck royally if you try and be everything for everybody and do everything at once though.

Though I would NOT allow a mystic adept to use 1PP for initiating like I would an adept... it's too easy to cheese out their adept powers and magic, while STILL learning metamagics for the cheap price of 15karma each w/o initiating. Similarly unlike a pure adept... they have no shortage of useful metamagics to learn... while pure adepts quickly run out of metamagics.

Falconer, the Shade ruling specifically states that it allows you to retain your astral form longer than usual, and you only die if you fail to return before the duration of the drug ends, not the standard projecting duration.

As for your complaints for MRSI... well, what do you expect from a book like "War!"? It's chock FULL of absurd bullshit, most of which is either badly written or poorly thought out, or both.

~Umi

… Except it didn't let them do what MRSI does in SR, at all.

First off, it's at worst a Threshold 4 Addiction, which is manageable. Secondly, if you fail your Addiction Test you gain a Mild Addiction - remember, it's incremental. Lastly, Shade states that you must project and it lasts for up to 12 hours - it does not state that you must be projected for the whole duration. In fact, the second to last sentence implies that as long as your astral self is near your body you can end projection at will, like Astral Projection actually is.


Overlapping Grenade Blasts is DV = Highest dmg + 1/2 other DV; so two HE grenades would be a 15P blast not an 11 (page 140, War!).


So they're not as good at generalizing because you won't let them be generalists in your games. Also, your reasoning against it (so they can't take adept powers and still get metamagics) is also solved by not using an Optional Rule.



Semantics.

No, it's based on actually seeing it abused badly and how badly it skews costs.

In a game I'm in the mystic adepts are allowed to buy a point of magic, initiate for a PP, then buy a 'metamagic' for another PP for a flat 15 karma for each point of magic they have. It's ludicrously broken. Also things like background counts aren't coming into play to lose 3 points each...

Basically what happens is you end up with... say start mag 5... initiate up to 5 times for power points... buy the metamagics for flat 15 karma each... compared to a straight mage who initiates for metamagic (and to increase effectiveness of those metas)... and has to pay 5x new rank each time instead of the far cheaper flat 15 or initation costs.

A mystic adept should never be a substitute for a full mage.


NB: all those rules were written when it was MORE expensive to initiate than raise magic... so their costs are badly off I suspect and being in a magical splatbook... never got an update or looked at again is my suspician. As it stands now 10+3Xnew is a lot less after discounts than 5Xnew. And the higher karma awards mean that 15karma then is like 25karma now.




Prior to War:
the rules for multiple grenades were +1DV... nice to see that they got that more right in War though.. It makes it fall neatly in line with the demolitions rules in arsenal for quantity of explosive. (double the explosive... roughly 50% more boom).