I was creating an Elven Mage character for a game a friend of a friend might possibly be running since most of the other players would be rather new to Shadowrun and probably wouldn't want to bother with one of the more complex rules-heavy character "classes" (I have a decker character ready too). I decided to make him from Tir nA nOg and a follower of the Path of the Warrior. After reading the bit in MitS, it seemed pretty straight-forward. Works pretty much like a totem, gets to summong Spirits of the Land instead of Air Elementals. Fun.

Then I broke out the Tir nA nOg rulebook from 2nd Ed and started reading. Apparently, you had to be either a magical adept or a physical adept to be on the Path of the Warrior (for those who didn't play 2nd Ed, magical adept = aspected mage). Since MitS didn't mention this requirement, I was wondering if it should still hold true or not. I'll go over with with my GM (when I ever meet him), but I was curious what the board's consensus was.

And while I'm on it, my back-up in case I couldn't do Path of the Warrior was to have a follower of the Wise Warrior Idol. Where are these from and are there any special rules for them? I couldn't find any in MitS. If I can't do that either, I'll just have to come up with a "silent stalker" type Totem for my character I guess...

The Abstruse One

I would go for full mage for any Paths.

Wise Warrior? Check either Awakenings or the Germany Sourcebook. Germany introduced idol magic, although the main list for SR2 is in Awakenings. Hmmm.

I was wondering about that, as Tir Na Nog states that the warrior path is only for adepts and not full magicians. What's the ruling on that anyway?

Don

OK, if you are a full Mage on the Path of the Warrior, you get bonuses and some drawbacks just like shaman totems. Otherwise if you are a adpet, you are just another adept, game mechanics wise.

No, it shouldn't be true now and it shouldn't have been true then, either. Books like Tir na nOg and the Shadowrun Companions seem to have been influenced by D&D a little too much, thus they try to shoehorn character concepts into "classes" or "races." Don't get me started on those damn dryads and gnomes. Grr.

But as I was saying, no. Standard magicians can be just as militant and hardcore as any adept if designed as such. They don't have to wear robes because armor interfers with their spellcasting, and they aren't limited to carrying quarterstaves either. A full Warrior Path Magician is both fun and totally playable, so knock your socks off with one.

You think stranger than taking any of the metahuman variants, adding more chrome than you'll find on a 1950 Cadillac, and dropping them in Seattle?

In th context of the game world, yes.

I guess all those Immortal Elves better get off their asses and head to Tir na n'Og then. They have no business outside those borders. Stupid elves, never knowing when to stay somewhere just because they get a small bonus while they're there. The only people who belong in Seattle are people who were born and raised there, dammit! In no way should anyone go anywhere at anytime.

While we're at it, deckers should never unplug from the Matrix, riggers should never leave their vehicles, Amerind shamans should never leave the NAN, and company men should never be former company men. Bad characters, bad! <hits them on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper>

The character background (for the curious) was a TRC mage of the O'Donnell family following the Path of the Warrior. He did a Bad Thing ™ while in Tir nA nOg that basically got the O'Kennedy clan after his blood indirectly (they don't know for sure he did it, but they do know he was involved with what happened). So he was sent out to perform his "ordeal" for his initiation -- and of course he knew WHY his magical order sent him off to Seattle for his "ordeal" a good deal of time before he was ready to initiate, to get him away from trouble as well as punish him for his actions. So here he is in Seattle, trying to track down an elusive "terrorist", getting second thoughts about this whole TRC thing, trying to keep a low profile, and hoping to the Spirits that no one finds out he was the one who pulled the trigger that night...and that they don't spread that information to the O'Kennedys, who have a price on the head of the man that killed the little girl...

The Abstruse One

Lime: Way to contribute not a single thing constructively to a conversation what so ever except sarcasm that does not positively affect anything.

Abstruse, I like that background, it's like a timebomb waiting to happen =)

See my first post, then.

I was basically just trying to show that that sort of mentality is horribly wrong and completely contrary to the nature of the game. One of the greatest things about Shadowrun is that it doesn't have silly regional-only races or classes. Characters can be from any region, be anything they want, and have a blast doing it as long as you're not using any NPC-only (which I personally find distastful for the same reasons) rules, like those for toxic or bug shamans.

Path Magicians are in no way restricted from player characters. They're fully balanced (save for the Path of the King which, not surprisingly, is suggested to be NPC-only) and there's lots of ways to explain why one wouldn't be in Tir na n'Og. Just like there's reasons why a shaman wouldn't be in the NAN, or why a former company man doesn't work for Ares anymore, or any of the other countless backgrounds players can come up with.

Saying that a Path Magician can't be found outside of Tir na n'Og is identical to saying that a shaman can't be found outside of the NAN or an Ares company man can't be found outside of an Ares complex. It's silly within the context of the game world.

<just bangs his head on the desk>

Have you even read the entry in Magic in the Shadows? Yes, they, do lose some power outside of Tir na n'Og... a whole +1 or +2 dice in certain circumstances, and only in reference to a single type of spell, and it still happens even in Tir na n'Og unless they're in a very particular place of Tir na n'Og.

Whooptido.

Riggers lose some of their bonuses when they're not plugged into a vehicle. Deckers lose a ton of their bonuses when they're not jacked into the Matrix. Big deal? Those are both "regional" limitations (the last one specifically, as referenced in the Home Turf edge). Yet that doesn't mean such characters are invalid player characters. Especially since MitS -- which specifically supercedes Tir na n'Og -- states as much.

My issue was with your false general statement that shadowrun does not have limited races and classes.

It probably has more with suggested limits than without, and several with hard limits. Dryads must live in the forest, for example. An urban dryad is actually illegal. I beleive that one or more of the races in the compainon specify that all individuals of that race are shamen.

You may not like them (I don't particluarly like them either) but they exist.

Heh, another example: tir na nog path followers must be elves.

Do 3rd ed path of warrior followers have the same bonuses as 2nd ed ones? I believe they had reduced essence loss from cyberware and cheaper adept powers, for example. Quite likely they just crippled them and removed the restriction.

You'll note that I addressed the classes and races bit earlier in the thread.

But yes, Path Magicians are completely different now. They're basically Hermetic Magicians who give up access to a single type of Elemental in exchange for access to a Spirit of the Elements or a category of Nature Spirits. Otherwise, they have bonuses similiar to elemental magicians or shamans.

Thats too bad.

In the second edition way a path of the warrior adept was a total badass. In a normal campaign they would be NPC's and really scary though in an unusual campaign set in the tir you could have path charachters.

Now people can play them anywhere, but they aren't anything special. Ho hum.

Path of the Warrior adepts(I hate it when they're called physical adepts, as that's an SR2ism. They're just plain adepts, in SR3) have absolutely nothing save a philosophy that differentiates them from any other type of adept in the SR3 rules. Unless they're a magician adept, at which point they gain the totem-like bonuses and penalties inherent in the Path of the Warrior writeup in Magic in the Shadows.

Path of the Warrior physical adepts, back in the good old days of Tir na nOg, were ill-advised for use as player characters. They began with 8 power points, and suffered halved Essence costs for combat cyberware. In addition to the prevalence of custom cyberware in Tir na nOg, there was also the highly broken Boosted Muscles treatment, which was Muscle Replacement at half the Essence cost.

You could crank out a Path of the Warrior physical adept, back in SR2, with full betagrade boosted muscles(rating 4) at a total cost of 2.0 Essence base, 1.2 after betaware multiplier is applied, and thus 0.6 due to their Path. That would mean a character with +4 to both Strength and Quickness(didn't affect Reaction, but it's still powerful) with Essence of 5.4 and Magic of 7, without any grades of initiation. Add in some betagrade boosted reflexes(rating 3) for 1.92 Essence(0.96 Essence for a Warrior Path physical adept) and a betagrade smartlink-2(0.15 Essence) and you're paying 1.71 Essence(down to a pathetic 4.29 Essence and a mere 6 Magic), for a character who now has no need to spend power points on reflex boosters or attribute enhancers. Tack on combat sense at maximum rating, astral perception, and some boosted senses, and you have a real abomination.

*sigh* Good memories.

But anyhow, back to the matter at hand, I don't see why you couldn't, as the rules don't expressly forbid it, play a full magician or magician adept who follows the Path of the Warrior. From a perspective of maintaining some semblance of the spirit of the original material, however, I'd discourage allowing people to play a Priority A magician who is Warrior Path.

I think you confused the Way of the Warrior adept way with the Path of the Warrior path magician. Or maybe not. I dunno. A standard adept with the Path of the Warrior still has to have the Combat Skill of 4 or higher, even though that's not much of a "disadvantage."

Heh I think that the tir na nog soucebook was the first place where the equivalent of deltaware was available as well . It did not call it that, but said that Tir Na Nog had some special cyberware for its warriors that cost only half essence.

They also liked to equip the path of the warrior guys with enchanted armor (which I do not think was described rules wise) giving them increased defenses against spells.

Exceedingly scary.

They also had Cu-Chulainn armor, which was basically a jumpsuit that provided between 4/4(for the lowest powered) to 9/9 armor, and was rumored to convey spell resistances and the like. I just statted it up in 3rd Edition a week or so ago. Security or Military armor, high-force Fashion to sculpt it into looking pretty and ceremonial, and a few quickened manipulation spells(Armor, Astral Armor, Deflect, Catfall) make for some really nasty equipment that can be made with a minimum of Good Karma.

The 48 Good Karma version I listed as about the upper limit was 16/16 armor, 6 points of astral armor, imposed a +6 TN# on magical attacks, allowed the wearer to fall 96 meters unscathed, and granted 3 bonus dice to Combat Pool that even applied while surprised.

They also made reference to super-sniper characters that had some kind of special smartlink. They sort of implied that it had some kind of sim-rig or skillwire thing incorporated in it so that the man and gun moved together. It was all very vague.

Just for reference. The Elven Paths will be revisited in Shadows of Europe within the context of the setting (rather than the rules as in MitS). Membership of the Tir Paths is exclusively elven because whoever established them decided only Elves were enlightened enough to follow them. This is an in-game cultural restriction not a rules issue. Finally there are significant differences between 1st and 2nd Ed Path of Cu-Chullain adepts and their 3rd Edition counterparts. The benefits granted by all the Elven Paths (with the possible exception of the Path of the Righ) have been toned down, the mechanics changes are obvious in MitS and the cultural aspects will be revisited in SoE.

Synner: Any chance you could answer my question then? Does a Path of the Warrior still have to be an adept or aspected magician, or can they now be full magicians?

The Abstruse One

Even if it is, Abstruse, just use the rules and call them something else. Say it's an old Celtic tradition and go from there.

I think there was a slight blurb about human path-followers, in Tir na nOg, and how they're basically groupies and devotees, who cannot actually draw magical power from the paths, nor actually join the actual initiatory groups. It's sort of like an Indian Kharmic cycle. Those who are humans are either seeking spiritual evolution(maybe you'll be an elf in the next life and actually be able to follow the paths, instead of cheering from the sidelines) or are degenerate elven spirits who have been cursed to spend this life-cycle as a human(and thus should seek to devote their meager cursed existences to the paths in hope of reincarnating as an elf).

Either way, it's definitely elf-only. It'd be vaguely like playing a human member of the Sons of Sauron or a sane member of PETA.

Ultratech, super powerful elven-only armor and face-recognition weaponry, elven-only magic that dwarves all other magicks, and uberspy elven paladins.

That book really should be banned from being considered canon material.

no kidding.

as an aside, it's mentioned several times--can't recall where, offhand--that both TNA and Aztlan are developing magic traditions similar to TNN paths.

right. and, since MitS doesn't specifically state that Path of the Warrior adepts don't get 1/2 essence on combat cyberware and an extra 2 points of magic, that means that PotW adepts can still be the uber-badasses WK was talking about. gimme a break, man, it's fairly obvious that MitS completely re-wrote the rules for Path mages. that means the rules in TNN are out the window, not just certain ones.

Uhm, no. P. 20, MITS, under Path of the Warrior:"They gain no special benefits or penalties for this path..." Please read your books before you attempt to argue with a rules lawyer.

I'm going to be playing the character personally in someone else's group (I actually found someone in this backwater town who knows enough about Shadowrun to run a game besides me!!), so I wanted to get a feel for what everyone on here thought about it before I even bothered asking the GM (who may not even know about the different Paths). The guy's a multi-game junkie who has core books for about 30 different gaming systems...unlike me, who has every book published for Shadowrun, a solid dozen and a half for BattleTech, a few for D&D, and three for V:TM and that's it. I'm trying to make a solid character with an interesting background who isn't munchie but it also playable. I don't want to totally screw with the guy's head if he's pretty new to Shadowrun with TOO much overload...

The Abstruse One

bah, go ahead--discriminate against those of us who post from work! regardless, it's silly to expect everyone who plays to reference rules from an older-edition book that's no longer in print. there's no way that limitation still applies. "only aspected mages can follow this path" is a fairly important detail; you think maybe it would've been mentioned in MitS, if it was still applicable?

and, now that i look at it:

what, i like being right. anymage challenged my rules-fu, you can't just walk away from that. my rep on the street'd be shot, all the snot-nosed punks would be taking shots at me, it'd be a bad scene.