Just want to make sure I'm reading this correctly.



First off - when they say "if an adept wants to attune a different item" they mean "if an adept wants to attune a different type of object", yes? Or in other words, if you want to be able to attune both Blades and Pistols, you have to learn a separate attunement technique for each. You'd think they'd have just kept the prior sentence's word choice for clarity, no?

Second - when they say "the adept may only attune a number of individual items equal to her initiate grade", this time they actually mean individual items and not individual types of object? This seems odd. Why would you need to limit this? If someone has two dozen pistols that they want to attune to themselves, why shouldn't they be able to? You're already limited by the karma cost per item, so why the further limitation?

Third - when they say the adept "may not receive benefits from more than one attuned item in a single action", do they again actually mean individual items, or are they back to meaning individual types of object? It kinda-sorta of makes sense to say that if you're firing your attuned SMG while riding your attuned motorcycle, you only get a bonus for one of them, but to say you can only benefit from the attunement of a single item per action? What if you're dual-wielding attuned katanas? Only one benefits you?

Because if so, this seems like something of a waste of a metamagic technique. It's a dice pool bonus that only equals half your intiate grade, that applies only to specific items, which costs karma, which also turns the items into material links to your person, it doesn't stack with itself, it only becomes efficient at high ranks of the technique, and it isn't a prerequisite for any Advanced Metamagic?

The only real usage I could see for this is Attuning a weapon focus for a sort of "double bonus" with restrictions, but I don't see many people bothering to put enough ranks into this for that to do much.

~Umi

You can't attune foci, actually. 4th paragraph.

To answer your questions:

Yes.

Yes. I have no idea why.

Yes, that's correct.

Item Attunement is an OK metamagic. Where it pays off is that it has a flat karma cost, but scales with grade. If you're a grade 2 initiate, yes, it's not very good and you should have taken a power point instead. If you're a grade 7 initiate, then paying a power point (the opportunity cost of not taking a power point instead of Item Attunement) and 10 karma for +4 to everything you do with your favoritest item is totally worth it.

It's actually much less worth it for melee adepts, who could use a Weapon Focus instead. If Martial Arts are in, though, they can use TWS and mainhand a focus (getting the bonus to hit) while offhanding an attuned item (getting the bonus to block) which is not bad.

I'm really not a fan of attuning vehicles just because manual driving is a side-thing you pick up because you have a high reaction and dumping a ton of points into being good at it is bad. Item Attunement is solid for gun users, and some other good uses include attuning tools: for example, Attunement (medkit), Attunement (workshop forge).

Much obliged. Interesting points.

~Umi

I wonder about Attunement (HE Grenades) or Attunement (Plastic Explosives)

I see no reason why you couldn't do that...

A couple of rather massive reasons why you would want to not do that, but none for why you couldn't...

~Umi

so, you agree, once I attuned to a HE grenade I just bought, I can use it, wherein it gets destroyed and then I by a new one, for which I will get my bonus as well?

So far, melee adepts can use foci, gun adepts can use Attunement and Smartlink, but Throwing Adepts didn't have a way to get more dice.

You can attune a boomerang ^^

not a bad idea RAW you can throw, do damage and catch in one combat turn , just because it isn't explicitely stated otherwise

Technically, you'd have to pay the karma cost for every grenade, individually. You wouldn't have to learn a new version of Attuning for each new grenade, but as each one was blown up, you'd have to shell out (again and again) to attune to the new one(s).

So, uh, yeah. Probably not a great idea.

But then again, I generally feel that way about Attunement anyways.

AH! Just found, that a Demolitions Toolkit needs to be used for setting/preparing explosives. I can definetely attune that!

If I recall, having more dice for demolitions doesn't do much for you - it just makes you less likely to blow yourself up, rather than increasing damage. I think.

And you COULD attune a FlashPak, and not have to replace it every time...

~Umi

SR4A p.325
if one used the simple core book rules instead of the very long Arsenal replacement rules. Those do have similar tests, though.

It's kind of a funny rule. It does almost make sense, but only for actual demolitions (the process of designing and attaching charges to bring down a barrier), not just making a better grenade to throw later.