Hey, all. I have a couple of questions to which I can't find satisfactory answers in canon.

1) Does a Background count have any effect on adepts? Would it be appropriate to give a +BGC mod to any test made with adept modified skills, just like magic tests are modified? If it's not canon, how does it sounds as a house rule?

2) Are adepts trackable by use of their powers through astral space? For example, would use of Killing Hands (D) show up on an astral investigation about twenty minutes after the incident?

The background is that recently my players were on a run that involved subduing all the guards at a compound and stealing their hard copy (or at least their datachip files) payroll data for the last year. Everything went fine until the adept was spotted and fired upon by one of the guards, but he managed to easily drop him with one well placed unarmed strike. Then, after he was unconscious, the adept used his killing hands on the guy's throat and let him bleed out on the street. The team was kind of upset, since they had gone to the trouble of not killing anyone. The sniper had a mix up, too, and knocked one guy out and into the water off a dock near the building, but that was unintentional, and he's roleplaying his frustration with his stupidity. The adept is only mad that the team won't let him try harvesting the organs of the sec guard. I'm trying to have his "evil" actions have consequences, and I'm kind of out of ideas to do it. Help is appreciated.

1: Background count doesn't mess with Adepts, as their powers use their internal magic and its connection with astral space. Does it work? I think you're strengthening the background count rules, which work okay the way they are. Also remember the background count for everyday places.

2: The fiction in the 2nd ed did mention that the mage noticed the traces of killing hands when he healed his buddy. In theoy, yes. Also opens the option of trying to change one's power signature.

I don't think, however, these measures are for what you want to do. Getting tracked down because he did it; that's what you want. Making the background count stronger hurts everyone; consider what you're trying to accomplish.

Don

I'm not a rules fu master like some on this board, but I don't believe cannon gives obvious answers to this. Either rule seems like a reasonable house rule, though.

When my PCs kill somebody, I secretly roll 1D6 (-3), and give them that many points worth of enemies (i.e. if I roll a 5, then 5-3=2; they either get a secret level 2 enemy or 2 level 1s.) This is supposed to represent the family, friends, corp, contacts, etc of the victim who might want revenge.

The survivors are usually not in a position to do anything about it, but they did once kill another group and end up with someone putting out a contract on them.

If you want to be mean...

Let him sell the organs.

Then at the meet, hit him with a narcoject or simular.

Then tell him he never wakes up.

Organ leggers aren't exactly friendly. And they aren't exactly picky either.

Background count 1-5 does not affect adepts. Once background count gets in the 6-10 range it becomes a mana warp, and that does affect adepts.

Any use of "magical skills" leaves a magical signature that can be assensed, including powers like killing hands. ref SR pg 172.

Killing Hands only uses a "magical skill" if you're using Sorcery (Astral Combat). Otherwise, only mundane skills are being used.

Your perogative, but Magical Skills are pretty well defined in the game.

I cannot see how the Delayed Damage power can be anything other than magic performed at a distance. Given also that your body has magic coursing through it to generate the power and hardness of the Killing Hand when you contact your victim i'm not sure exactly how you don't think this will impart a tracable magical aura any less than a Fling spell.

I'm not offering my opinion. Just going with the canonical sources. "Magical skills" are not used with most adept powers.

Clockwork:
Do you also rule that Aura Reading leaves an astral signature?
(not being a jerk, legitimately curious)

Again, it's not my opinion or how I handle signatures. But if you somehow use Aura Reading in a fashion that would cause it to (such as using Psychometry on an object), then yes it would.

Likewise, if you used a guitar for your Centering (Stringed Instruments) skill, your signature would be left on the guitar. Anything you make with Enchanting would have one, too, until it wore off. Divining (Tarot Reading) would leave a signature on your Tarot cards. etc.

But if someone grabbed their Sustaining Focus that a mage was stupid enough to give them and used it to whack some guard on the head using Clubs, by the rules, no, that wouldn't leave a signature. Nor would using a Weapon Focus. Those are closer to an adept using Killing Hands than anything else mentioned thus far. You could use Aura Reading to tell he was using Killing Hands, but it only affects him and the accuracy of his attack. It technically would not leave a signature on the target unless he was using Sorcery (Astral Combat).

Using Aura Reading will leave a signature on you, yes, because it's only affecting you. It will not leave a signature on an area. The same is true of most Detection and Indirect Illusion spells.

Even if you want to go against canon and state that Killing Hands leaves a signature, it will only be left on the adept. Killing Hands doesn't affect others. It affects the adept, who then affects others. Again, just like most Detection and Indirect Illusion spells.

Of course the rules for "signatures" left on an adept are already covered by the Assensing Test to determine what powers they have activated. So it's a moot point.

For handling the adept, make a Johnson offer the team a sensitive run with high payment. Before finishing the deal, make the Johnson recall some talk on the streets about this adept who's endangering the team's success by being unnecessarily brutal. He turns the deal down, saying he's in need of _professional_ runners.

The adept or the team don't actually get fucked up, but it might get the adept thinking, or the others to make him behave. You might also want to give the adept the Bad Reputation flaw if he doesn't learn his lesson.

I agree with Jebu.

Let it fly for now, don't make it look like he's being specifically punished. Maybe mention on the news (and make them see it) that the family are bereaved, his six year old twin girls are bawling, etc.

the Johnson turning them down for something -- that is a GREAT way to get their hopes up, and have his player/character learn that sometimes discretion is better than mayhem. Professionalism, basically. I like it.

As for how t o deal with the repurcussions of killing THIS guard ... you might have his widow start a support group, and from donations of other guards, start a fund . . . which she uses to find information looking for Him. Maybe even hire hunters. Or just a decker to leave a tip at Lone Star. This would be a great way to rationalize the Hunted flaw that he'll have (what Apathy suggested, basically). Or, give him a break this time, have the news article be the warning (hey, there are survivors/widows that aren't happy when you do this), and then NEXT time they do it they earn a hunted flaw.

Yeah, I'd just let him know that his actions had repercussions - have the widow win the lottery and start a fund, but not to go after the runner. The fund pays out money families of those sec guards who are injured or killed in the line of duty.

If he keeps it up, well... he probably left fibers and hairs on the first victim. Maybe even fingerprints. Once this keeps happening, the corp and/or cops will build a profile and a case. They'll do what they can to track the perp down, and eventually someone will slip up or a contact will spill the beans... Above-mentioned fund can also go in on it by offering a reward to anyone with information about the killer, start at 20,000¥ and go up from there - eventually, maybe his own team-members will rat him out...

As for the killing hands, I vaguely remember some kind of flavor text which stated that what the adept was doing was channeling mana into the aura of the victim to do more damage - kind of like what is done with delay damage - anyone know of this, and better yet, have a reference?

Purely medically, there would probably be some kind of indication that hte perp used killing hands or similar magic, strictly from the style of the wound. But it all depends on how you describe the effects of each character's killing hands, I guess.

well, it obviously involves channelling mana; otherwise, it wouldn't negate Immunity: Normal Weapons. that doesn't leave an astral sig, though, and i don't think there'd be any other sure way for forensics to say for sure that killing hands were used. my adept manifests his killing hands as punches and kicks that are simply harder and faster than they should be; i've got another char, though, who manifests it as cells on his gloves which explode when he makes contact with a punch--or, in conjunction with distance strike, as any number of different effects: lasers, energy blasts, etcetera.

Ya, it's negating Immunity: Normal Weapons and stuff that says to me that Killing Hands is more than making you fists go faster, that it is a magical force that contacts the target. *shrug*

In any event Luke, maybe tell the player he should rent and watch the movie The Limey...as foreshadowing.

"Tell him i'm coming. TELL --HIM-- I'M F@#$ING COMING."

And, once again, just like Detection and most Indirect Illusion spells -- despite being resisted and vulnerable to Spell Defense -- don't leave a signature on anything but the subject of the spell.

Forensically Killing Hands would have absolutely nothing like it. Nothing else in the game universe causes drastic physical trauma with simple hand to hand contact. Even for a mundant forensics investigator the difference between a normal unarmed strike and a hikking hands strike would be brutally obvious. The type of damage dealth that way is totally different.

yes, but the basis for the damage can completely differ from adept to adept. you're saying some forensics guy is going to look at someone sliced in half by my second character's laser beam and say "this must've been done by an adept with killing hands and distance strike"?