Out of curiosity, does a latent techno get set to 1 resonance regardless of any existing essence loss?

Does it allow a character to undergo augments without affecting their ability as a technomancer that emerges in the future?

Yes, same Latent Awakening/Dracomorphosis.

So the latent quality allows a character to in essence (or lack there of) explore an alternate path later in their life? with no pain to their resonance the way a starting character has from augments and general essence loss?

Correct. You start bio/cyber or whatever with no Magic/Resonance. When you Awake, you gain Magic/Resonance 1 and then start your new career, keeping all your old things. Just make sure you have at least 1 point of Essence left otherwise you'll never be able to Awaken.

EDIT: Note that your Natural Maximum is certainly affected; it's just that, with a complete lack of the actual attribute, it cannot be lowered.

But in both cases, the natural "limit" for magic and essence can essentially be bypassed with initiation and emerging.

As normal, of course.

EDIT: That's why it's important to keep at least one point. If you have that one point you can go to infinity, and beyond.

Just double check with your GM about the karma costs in raising an impacted Resonance attribute. Had a player once try to convince me that at -3 Essence and a latent awakening that he could go from a Magic 1 to Magic 2 by paying only 10 karma after awakening. Some GMs might be fine with this, others (like myself) will say something like 'hell no' and require you to pay the higher karma cost.

RAW? Going from a 1 to a 2 does cost 10 Karma. No matter when, and no matter why.

If you start with Essence 6 and Resonance 4, then burn 3 essence on Augmentations? Raising your Resonance back to 2 costs 10 Karma.

By he RAW, anyway. Aught else is Houserule Country.

Then it could be argued that an awakened or techno character could leave their Magic/Resonance at 1 during character creation, spend no more than 5 essence in cyber/bio/etc still during character creation, and simply claim an awakening after getting their augments and pay nothing in BP/karma towards Magic/Resonance (had that argument presented to me by a player as well).

Now I wish I could recall where I had read about the modified karma costs for improving Magic/Resonance. Anyway, like I said, it depends on how a GM does the karma costs here. My own decision could've been flavored by a player (same guy) trying to push me, like claiming a mystic with magic 5 and 4 power points could overcast a spell at force 10 without foci (AFAIK, force 2 would be the overcast limit). Never had an awakened player otherwise have any cyber/bio/etc at all, so it's never really come up otherwise.

It depends on the GM as to how they deal with latent awakening. As Spellbinder says, if a PC were to take Latent Awakening as a way of cramming lots of 'ware in their bodies and not pay BP/karma for the Resonance/Magic, the GM is entitled to charge karma equivalent to buying up then reducing the Attribute to 1 based on how much 'ware the character has when the character awakens.

A lot of GMs will also charge the difference in BP between the Latent Awakening quality and the awakened type x2 karma to make the awakening (i.e. 20 karma to become a mage or technomancer, 10 karma for Mys Ad, 0 for Adept).

If you are the GM, you should decide what you want to do about the above. Also note that the GM decides when and how the awakening takes place - if you think a player is trying to abuse the rules to get lots of 'ware for free, you could delay the awakening until late on in the campaign, although you should warn the player about this before you approve his character sheet.

Thats why a GM should roll the dice on the question as "what" you awaken!

Technomancer is not that bad, because the complex forms cost as hell. But yes, a SAM-Adept is really bad...

So if you have players insisting on RAW, the GM should insist on RAW too and determin the quality. Period.

@SpellBinder

Well, lets put it like that. While this is (in my opinion)technically correct, most people tend to disagree.

Except that, well, they can't. It's pretty clear in the rulebook that that's not how Latent Awakening works. It's not up to the player when they Awaken, what they Awaken into, or even if they Awaken. That's all up to the GM and the story they're telling, and there's a full page description of the Quality that makes that all pretty clear. If it's an argument at all, it's a pretty weak one.

If a GM lets someone just toss in 5 BP and claim to be a "formerly latent" Magician, Adept, Technomancer, or whatever, so that they don't lose their Magic/Resonance? Well, at that point the GM might as well just admit that they're hand-waving it and house ruling in lighter Essence costs (instead of even labeling it as something to do with Latent Awakening at all, by that point).

I'm familiar with how the Latent Awakening quality works. Mind you that I made no reference to that particular quality in what you quoted from me, which was also to be taken to be as completely within the Character Creation period (as in the player is still creating the character, claiming an awakening after buying cyber/bio/etc). Maybe I should've been more clear about that in my previous post (thought it was).

Given that the thread itself was about one of the Latent qualities, and that you weren't quoting anyone in particular in your post, I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page (and apparently we weren't, which is certainly my fault as much as anyone's). I just hate it when I hear about players trying to pull that sort of fast one, and I wanted to clear the air about how the Qualities works.

No, that is not possible. Essence and Magic Loss is only calculated after you spent BP. So this character would have ESS 1 and MAG 0. He burned out at CharGen.

By RAW this is absolutely correct. What the FAQ says is in fact a houserule.

Note that this is not *completely* true: "If the character’s Essence is less than 1, she has lost any chance to become a drake." The same goes for other Latents.

Wow just wow spellbinder. You haven't even thought any of this through.


You're way off in houserule territory. You don't even have mystic adepts rules right (and a power focus has absolutely NOTHING to do with how much it takes to overcast!. A power focus does not add to the magic rating, it adds a dice modifier to magic tests. Even aspected background counts don't add directly to magic, only add dice to tests involving magic and drain).

The PLAYER has no control whatsoever over IF/HOW/or WHEN they latent awaken/emerge.

If the player is abusing the quality... then you're fully within your rights as a GM to NEVER EVER awaken them. They wasted 5BP... small change in the big picture view of things.

What makes the latent qualities so neatly balanced is how big of karma sinks they are. You can't have magically active skills. Technomancers *USE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SKILLS* than normal deckers (so no cramming in tons of cyber/bio decker... then latent techno to reuse the same skils). Magical characters can't even learn magical skills unless they have the right quality.

So what happens to your pet street sam if I as GM decide to him as a full mage. He awakens with a magic 1... and suddenly with a 20karma debt (buying up the 5BP latent awakening to a 30karma magician quality). He has absolutely NO skills whatsoever to use that 1 point of magic. Once he burns his way out of that hole... he now needs to start actually buying magical skills (say spellcasting, counterspelling, summoning)... getting those to rank 3 is another 45 karma right there... then you're worried that it's going to cost them 25 more karma to get their magic up to 3? And spells are still 5karma each and he knows none! If I'm feeling 'generous' I might slam them with a aspected magician negative quality as well (and not for something useful, but say aspected to assensing & astral combat or enchanting (-4 to anything that's not a enchanting or arcana check!).

Same goes for a techno... the techno has no skills. He needs to relearn his electronics and cracking groups with technomancer versions, as well as learn that new one to compile/register sprites of his own. You don't think 3 skill groups starting at 0 isn't a lot of extra karma as well. And if not that, then lets not forget that he knows zero complex forms... those are going to end up costing more than even spells cost a mage... (rating 3 complex == 1+2+3 6... more than the 5 and it's still going up farther). Really.. techno is one of the FEW cases where it's actually worth considering a resonance of 6 starting because of all the karma it saves you on complex forms (6 karma per complex form for 1BP each...).

In both cases... we haven't even got to the mental attributes yet. Both classes put a huge premium on mental attributes. Did the character remember to raise them up accordingly in chargen... how about now in play.. 20karma for wilpower 4. 25karma for 5. 30 for 6. Did you remember you as GM control the awakening exactly which tradition they come out as? If they've used charisma as a dump stat... you're fully with in your rights as GM to awaken them as a shaman... (10karma more to actually pay for the mentor spirit which goes hand in hand with shamanism, especially one with a nifty negative... like say horned man... -1 on all social tests as well now, or sun mentor... they now need to spend 2 edge to downgrade glitches!!! (starting out those pools aren't very large!)).


My opinion... the qualities are fine. A GM is fine to leave the quality dead if he feels a player is abusing it and never awaken them. If he does chose to... the awakening is anything but cheap to do and it'll be 100-200 karma before the character is able to do much anything useful with his newfound powers (and he still won't be anywhere close to someone who started as one). And stop and think what an actual player is doing with that 100-200 karma who started as such... they'll be up into higher initiatiate grades and more spells/skills as well.

Is this actually in the rules? I had forgotten. It's certainly the case for drakes.

It's true that these are only abusable in 'charop context' (assuming the stupidest GM possible, and lots of karma to fix everything). In a real game, all it does is (at best!) make you massively weak for months as you try to get karma to fix everything.

The above are correct.


You can't recall where you read about it because it is incorrect and does not appear in the books. Even if it does it may be a sidebar for more difficult games or the like, and would be O-RAW/House-Rule, not RAW.

As always, though, it doesn't matter if those are 'correct', because they also can't possibly happen. There's some logical incorrectness here, though: Hehe. Luckily we know what you meant.

Yes, that's exactly how it works, by the RAW: if you start out Latent (5BP), but packed with 'ware ... when you do finally awaken, you have a Magic of 1.

Of course, when, where, how, and precisely as what you finally do awaken, is entirely in the GM's hands. And of course, that awakening comes after the campaign starts.


Someone's houserule, posted somewhere on the vast internet.


There's two schools of thought on that, both of which can claim to be proper interpretations of the RAW ... which are woefully vague on the subject.

On the one hand, you can treat each sub-rating of Magic as separate attributes, so in your 4-1 split, they really do have only 1 Magic for spellcasting.

On the other hand, their magic rating is 5. That produces all of the CAPS associated with both Adept powers, and Magician actions (spellcasting, conjury, etc). Their split sub-ratings only determine (b) how many PP they have, and (b) how many dice they get for spellcasting and conjury tests.


It's not uncommon for human mages to at least ponder sacrificing one Essence (and thus, one Magic) for a few minor things - For example, well-loaded R3 Cybereyes (VisEnhance R3, Low-light, Thermo, Flare Comp, Eye Light, VisMagnify, protective covers), R2 Cerebral Booster, and an alpha-grade R1 Synaptic Accelerator. (For non-logic traditions, dump the Booster for a second level of Accelerator). Pricey, but: exactly 1 essence, gives excellent see-in-the-dark-ness, and boosts a Drain attribute for Logic-trad mages.

Maybe they won't start the game with all of that - maybe they'll just get the Eyes to begin with. But eventually? Yes, a very light touch of 'ware is an attractive option, when you really think about it.

Explain?



Ok, I'll do the long version:

I am certain that I have never read that in any book or in any errata anywhere. On the incredibly small off-chance that I am actually wrong on this, it is most likely due to this "rule" being in a sidebar for Optional Rules or (more likely) a very common House-Rule (which is not RAW at all). In either case (O-RAW/House-Rule), it is not a part of RAW and therefore has no place in this thread without a disclaimer that it is, in fact, either an Optional Rule or House-Rule, and is not part of the legitimate Rules As Written.

Neraph:
The player is free to CLAIM whatever he wants. The rules are quite clear to the contrary.

If he does buy the quality... get it at 1... AND DOES NOT BUY IT UP. When he cybers up it goes to 0. He loses it all and can't ever mutate into a pretty butterfly again. He's free to pay say an extra 20BP to raise it to 3... then watch it drop back to 1... then claim it's because he awakened late and did nothing with it. But he's not free to spend those points elsewhere.

If he buys the latent quality instead. Then he gives ALL CONTROL of the details of it to the GM. The GM determines, if, when (if ever), and how it happens. So no, he doesn't come out of chargen with a magic of 1... simply because he took the latent quality... then bloomed after chargen but before play starts.

These two are not mutually exclusive. In the above 4-1 split you have 4 PP that you can spend and are limited to R5 in any one Power and 1 die to add to your Spellcasting for casting up to Force 5/Overcase Force 10.



EDIT:

What if he buys his cyber FIRST and then magic stull LAST? If he did this, then he DID NOT HAVE that Magic/Resonance when he lost Essence, and does not suffer because of it. Can you prove this either way?

No Pax... the mages holy grail is repeat after me... the 'pain editor'. What ignore stun!!! I'm all there! You mean I even get +1 willpower while activated!!! (the -1 int might suck if you're intuition tradition... but hey, *ignore stun*... drain drain drain drain.....)

Especially if the mage wears a fair amount of armor so they regularly see their damage downgraded to stun from physical.

You misunderstand me then.

One option is exactly what you describe.

The other option is to treat the character as having a Magic Rating of 4 for everything Adept-related - rank limits, not just PP. And then to treat them as having a Magic of only 1 for everything to do with Spellcasting and Summoning - including limits on Force and Overcasting.

The first says "you have magic rating 5, with 1 die towards spells and 4PP towards Adept powers". The second says "You have magic rating 4 as an adept, and magic rating 1 as a magician."




During Character Generation? No. Doesn't work. Everything in Character Generation is considered to be simultaneous. No matter what order you write things down in.

Further, what about Ghouls? Ghouls lose 1 point of Essence but get 1 point of Magic at the same time. By the above logic that should make them burn out (gain 1 Magic, lose 1 Essence, lose 1 Magic) unless you also pay 10 karma to raise the 1(0) to a 2(1).

In short: incorrect.

EDIT:


Which is kind of my point, and the point of what I said above.

Eh, no not really. I'd rather get the +2 Logic (for Logic traditions), +1 initiative and +1 IP, and ability to see in the dark multiple possible ways.

Remember, a Pain Editor lets you IGNORE stun damage (and physical); it doesn't make the damage not happen. And what's worse? You don't even get to know how injured you are, while it's active. You also don't gt to roll your own Drain Resistance tests - the GM does all that. So you could suddenly up and fall over, unexpectedly and without wrning, mid-fight. Maybe just unconscious, maybe DEAD.

One alternative option I forgot to mention would be a Trauma Damper: reduce all Stun incoming by 1; even, translate 1 box of physical to Stun (useful for overcasting). Now, that would be supremely useful

Read Spellbinder's post again. In that one he talks about Awakened or Technomancer Characters. Someone with Latent Awakening/Technomancer is not such a character and thus it does not work that way.

It does not work that way. You only calculate Essence loss after you used all your BP. Look at the CharGen Summary on p. 97 of SR4A. You can no longer buy qualities or Attributes once you got to the "Finishing Touches" stage.

Nope.

You don't lose an essence because you've become a ghoul. It's the other way around: you become a ghoul, because you lost that point of essence (to the correct strain of HMHVV).


Except, with a LAtent Awakening (etc) ...? He really DOESN'T have a Magic or Resonance attribute when the cyber is put in. He really DOES get that 1 point later.

(Note: I'm not talking about munchkinisms like taking BOTH "latent awakening" AND "magician" during character creation. That sort of thing is pure nonsense, period.)

It is also explicitly forbidden. You cannot take any of the other qualities for awakend/technomancer characters, if you took latent Awakening/Technomancer/Dracomorphosis.

CharGen Ghouls do not lose essence, they start with ESS 5 MAG 1 (Runner's Companion p. 77)

Pax... pain is only .3 essence. Nothing stopping you from getting other junk with it. Also it only allows you to ignore stun... physical damage still hurts and penalizes you. (and the not knowing bit is easily handled with a biomonitor)

We only apply trauma damper or platelets AFTER damage is soaked though (when we're actually checking off boxes). (IE: start at 5... soak it down to 1... no help). Also one of them is incompatible with the the pain editor... think it's trauma.


Neraph:
I can't argue with someone who willfully ignores the rules. Everything in chargen is considered to happen at once. You're free to CLAIM it happens in whatever order you like... but you still need to pay the points. The section on essence loss in the book immediately points you at page 177. Search the archives even Synner confirmed this is the case way back before jmhardy took over the shadowrun line. There is no 'order of events' in chargen. It just is.


You know full well ghouls are a special case with special rules... For RC chargen ghouls... they START with an essence of 5. (they don't lose a point of essence, they start with essence 5 and magic of 1). In the case of an infected PC... the disease rules specific to ghouls state that they lose .1 essence... (and magic accordingly if they had it). When they hit 1 full point of essence loss... they transform into a new character a ghoul with a magic of 1... blah blah blah.

He was not trying to push you...BY RAW, in SR4A, that is exactly how it works.
The character has a Magic Rating of 5 For Force Limits on Spells and Summoning, regardless of whether he only allocated 1 Dice for Spellcasting/Summoning Magic.

I put the words "Latent Techno" into Youtube and got this.

I have no idea.





-k

I need to go checking through the books myself but i'm pretty sure there's a limitation on max initiation/submersion that's figured on something about your essence or something?

The maximum Initiation grade you can achive is equal to your Magic rating.

Your maximum Magic rating is equal to your Essence plus your Initiation Grade.

...

IOW, nitherone really has a permanent, absolute maximum. Just a "raise the other one first" speed-bump.

Meaning: you start out with Magic 5. You can initiate 5 times. Now you have Magic 5, Initiation 5, and Essence 6. Your maximum Magic is 11. So you raise your Magic to 11. Now your maximum Initiation grade is 11. So you raise it to 11. Now your maximum Magic is 17 ...

Etc, etc, etc.

You're probably thinking about the German Karmagen thing. Which was a fuckup on catalyst's part that they never fixed because catalyst doesn't do that kind of thing.

Possible, though I can't recall having read that. As apparently fragged as my brain seems to be I very well could have.

So I've noticed. All things considered (beyond the quality of clarity in the books) it's making me want to pitch this game and setting altogether.

I don't read German, so if that is the case that's why I've never read it.

If you feel you must then go ahead and go. The books do not lack clarity enough for the three tables I play in, comprising of nearly a dozen players, who are all in consensus.

@Falconer
The point is Neraph is right here. For you to be right there HAS to be a certain order, in which things are done. First buy magic, then buy cyber.
Even if you are very strict and say, that qualities need to be taken at the beginning(No real rules for that but anyway), there is nothing stopping you to first increase magic by one and then cyber up. Right, in BP it does not make a differance. (Thats the reason the order DOES NOT MATTER in BP-GEN)

In Karma-Gen the order DOES matter. There is not way around it.
Magic, cyber, magic cyber magic is cheaper than magic, magic, magic, cyber, cyber.

You're still describing *an* order, Irion. If everything is simultaneous, then magic and cyber happen together, and there is zero order effect. There is no way to 'cheat' the numbers. The result is indeed similar to 'magic, then cyber', but that's only because that's the non-cheating order.

@Yerameyahu
If you do it simultaneous, than there would be no magic loss at all. They would not interact.
If I do it all at the same time, I have a no magic, when the essence is reduced. (Because it happens at the same time. And I can only use information available before. aktion->reaction)
You can't take the date at the end. So, yes for your "non-cheating-way" you need an order.



You say it has to be like that, and I get why. But there is no reason for it. As a matter of fact, the rules do contradict it. (Because inplay it works differently)
You use an "imaginary" magic raiting, which can even go below 0.

No. You buy a certain level of Magic (X), and Essence Loss stacks up a certain level of non-magic (Y). When you end chargen, you instantly get X-Y. Any tweaks you make before then are pre-resolution, and don't interact (… until the end instant). If you buy cyber 'first', you still have this Y value, which just vanishes if you never get any Magic. It's simple. Money (even though it has a flat cost) works the same way: you buy X Nuyen and spend Y Nuyen worth of gear. If you alter one of these numbers, you don't get a nuyen debt, you just have an error to fix before ending.

Whatever RAW (which is always stupid) says, this is what works. It's also how everyone does it, AFAIK, unless they're cheaters. (That's the right word for it, in case anyone's delicate sensibilities are offended.) I understand the point of numeric charop exercises, but that's all they are: math puzzles unrelated to the game.

In-play has nothing to do with it, cuz this is chargen. (Though there's in-play abuse attempts, too: someone once argued they could lower their stats with drugs before buying them up with karma.) Yes, the rules could have been much clearer, much better, but since when is that news? I get why you're saying it *doesn't* have to be like that, but there is an obvious reason for it: this works. This method doesn't allow two characters to spend the same resources on the same things and come out of chargen with totally different results. Everyone can agree that's not the desired function of the chargen.

BACK TO THE ORIGINAL POST:

By RAW: Is there precedence to...

A: Be a latent technomancer
B: Through character Gen/game play, have your essence reduced by augmentation (not below 0)
C: Have your latent power awaken. And begin to explore that path? If so does it start at 1?

Don't shout! Yes, that's how it works, assuming you meant 'Essence not below *1*'. The GM shouldn't worry about it at all: the amount of karma required to do anything with a Resonance 1/Skills 0 Technomancer is huge.

Read the description of the quality. This works but the minimum is ESS 1, as per the description.

Jeremiah: Answered again... All this is in unwired p37.

A. yes (unwired)
B. yes (though not below 1.0 essence)
C. yes, The latent quality is VERY EXPLICIT, you start with a resonance of 0 and it goes to 1 later (with 3 complex forms at rating 1). Then it is completely up to the GM *IF*/WHEN/HOW/and all the particulars of how you emerge. (so it may be never, it may be soon after play starts, he may pick your stream of techno and all the details... even forcing you to pay for extra qualities if he feels so inclined (examples, paragon, wild techno, etc.)).

D. SR4a big book... technos use different versions of the skills than normal deckers. You'll need to relearn any hacking/electronics group skills you already have a second time for use with technomancer abilities. Just like Yera says... prepare for that vast sucking sound as loads of karma leave for the border.

Moreso, the GM is supposed to pick all this out without consulting with you... so if he feels you're abusing it. He'll probably pick a stream that isn't optimal, and maybe even force a paragon on you like '01' if he's feeling particularly brutal. (pay an extra 20 karma... and need to spend 2 edge to negate a glitch).

The 'GM chooses' part is why I don't understand latent qualities, really. Either he's going to do something the player doesn't want (which means total failure), or he's going to do what the player wants (so why bother?). The only way to make it workable in the human equation is to be totally random; then the player knows he's gambling, but gambling 'fair'. Maybe you can spend karma in-play to bias the gamble? Even then, I feel like the player will just make a new character if the result is 'bad'. Latents are a bad solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Yera: I think it simply is a good way to enforce good behaviour. The ability to pack in a ton of ware in chargen... without paying the extra BP costs to keep your resonance is worth a lot to a min/maxer.

If the player is well behaved and roleplaying well as opposed to simply powergaming for everything he's worth. Then the GM can be benevelont. If not, well you can use 'wish wording' to twist the players choices into a black hole he may never escape. If it's in between... you might simply do things like pick an unoptimal stream (like say a "networker" on someone who used charisma as a dump stat).


For example... I could simply build a super-bad ass decker right out the gates... then take latent techno. When I awaken yeah I'm a lousy techno, but I'm still a badass decker. What do I do after this... I simply take echoes which enhance my already formiddable abilities (like say multitasking, the one which makes you immune to psychotropic, etc.), and only focus on say compiling and registering sprites (something I couldn't do before as a decker). As my abilities improve... I could eventually look at replacing my decker skills with techno skills... and still benefit from both the techno bonuses and all the 'ware.

I agree, but I'm saying I just don't see any outcome that it more acceptable than them just buying Techno at the beginning. It seems like what you describe is the only thing the rule adds to the game.