Ok, our group has recently started encountering some nasty background counts and by the look of things we may have to fight under crippling background counts in the near future. Our mages can get Cleansing and then Filtering to help deal with it, but what can an adept without astral perception get to avoid becoming depowered?

SR is a game where not everyone can be great at everything. In this case, without astral perception (which the adept could buy) you would be stuck either staying out of the count or taking one of the drugs that allows you to perceive/project and then using Cleansing. Addiction sucks, but if the character isn't willing to go through one of the other methods, that becomes the price of power.

Adepts can't use cleansing, they lack counterspelling

Nothing... just ask the GM to allow you to pick which powers you keep. This is a grey area of the rules who picks which powers you lose... the GM or you. You might even go half and half... Or you can intentionally raise some attributes to the max while leaving others alone... (if you have combat sense 6... and improved reflexes 2... when magic drops from 6 -> 5... your powers at rank 6 must drop to 5... forcing those points to be spent first).

However, you can have a lot more raw magic in the form of PP than the mage can with one optional rule making losses hurt proportionally less. That requires using the optional rule allowing you to buy power points when you initiate instead of learning a new metamagic.

Really for 'pure adepts'... the option to gain PP at initiation instead of a meta is a good option. (I disagree with allowing it for mystic adepts though... spells can replicate too many adept powers and are cheaper to invest in than the powers. Also they have the pick of all the great metamagics mage or adept without restriction... so they don't suffer from the after 2 initiations I've run out of metamagics problem that pure adepts have).


But in effect it works like this... You have say 6 magic and say 4 initaitions... 3 of which you got an extra power point... you effectively have 9magic worth of powers despite only have 6 magic. You lose 2 points of magic due to BGC... you've only dropped from 9 -> 7 magic worth of powers... no big deal. More than 2BGC you start losing initiations as well.. but provided your initiate grade is 2-3 points behind your magic score this shouldn't be an issue as you would lose PP at 1 for 1BGC, instead of 2 for 1 BGC.


Another option is to request the GM allow you to 'upgrade' from adept to Mystic adept (paying 10 karma to go from 5BP to 10BP). As a mystic adept you can put 1 rank in sorcerous/summoning magic and also learn counterspelling as well as gain access to the cleansing/filtering metamagics as well. The drawback here is when you lose magic... your sorcerous ability is the most limited... so you'll probably want to lose that first instead of your adept powers... losing the ability to cleanse... also there's the problem as well that you need to buy astral perception as an adept power making this even more costly... (you're looking at 10 karma for the upgrade... more for say 2 initiate grades and 2 points of magic... more to actually buy assensing, astral combat, and counterspelling skills... all to be very weak with a minor ability to protect yourself from BGC's if you see them coming). So I wouldn't think this is a great option..



There's one other option as well... go down the path of the cyberadept....
Start buying select bioware/cyber... you won't lose the equipment bonuses going into a background count. Though your lower magic score will make your remaining magic that much more vulnerable.

If it's more efficient to get something with 1 point magic than 1 point essence... you proportionally lose a lot more when you lose that 1 point of magic since it's spent more efficiently.

A mage buddy with Cleansing and Filtering. Remember, it's a team game.

Bye
Thanee

I would allow it for adepts with the astral perception power, but only for Cleansing/Filtering. While not on the list of explicitly ok powers, it would at that point fit (IMO).

This can help, but remember to also limit how many high-rated powers you have, since Magic caps an adept's power ratings. In other words, if you have Magic: 6 with mystic armor: 6 and combat sense: 6, then those two powers will drop to 4 when your Magic drops to 4. So if you spent your extra power points on cool resolve: 6 and iron will: 6, then those powers would all drop to 4, as well.

I'd suggest asking the GM to allow you to devise a power that lets you reduce the effect of background count by the rating of the power. Perhaps with a cost of .33 or something, so a full power point invested 'insulates' three other PP from background count. (And a rider noting that the insulation power can never be reduced by background count.)

Doesn't matter, if you've maxed out 'initiation PP's' you'll be losing 2 PP per point of BGC anyhow. It's pure math... you can't have those powers at that level unless you've maxed out both. If you have 4 0.5PP powers at max... then you've spent all of your points on those powers.

6Mag, 6init PP... as you just stated you put all 12 points into 4 powers...

When Mag drops to 5... Init grade drops to 5 and you lose one of the 'cheap' PP's (initiation is a lot cheaper than actually raising raw magic attribute). You get double whammied. I covered that in my post, if you too aggressive buy the cheap PP's an initiations you get hit double in when the BGC's come calling. But BGC over rating 1 or 2 are very rare.

And quite frankly you should lose 2PP at that point... if you weren't 'cheap' and bought Mag 7, init 5 (instead of 6/6). You would have only lost 2 PP instead of 4. Remember initiations cost a fraction what raw magic does.

Where can I find the optional rule for initiation PPs? Page reference would be great, thanks!

Initiate for a Power Point isn't in any book. It's in one of the site FAQ's only.

Thanks. Unfortunately not an option at our table, as it's both not in a book and not supported by herolab (Which the player in question uses).

It's in the non-updated reprint of Street Magic (p. 31; bottom right). No idea, why it isn't in the SR4A updated version, anymore. Probably a mistake.



Bye
Thanee

Thanks, found it. Now to clear it with the GM and see if I can make it work on herolab.

Or you could use Chummer, as it has that option for Metamagic included.

Bye
Thanee

My group allows anyone to choose a point of magic (not power point but magic) or a metamagic at initiation. With it costing 35 points to take magic from 6 to 7, it just seemed crazy not to.

Looks like a copy I don't happen to have, which would explain why I've never seen it in any Street Magic.

It was in the Street Magic errata, yeah. I'm not sure if it was ever reprinted into newer editions of that book (my version doesn't have it either), but here it is:

As said above, it is in the reprint (the one with orange cover instead of blue), but not in the latest version of the PDF, which has been updated to SR4A.

Bye
Thanee

Fueldrop:
The rule is found in the street magic Errata.

http://www.shadowrun4.com/wp-content/uploa...errata_v141.pdf

So yes it is published.

Cool resolve and iron will are 0.25 point powers, so I was assuming a Magic of 6 and three initiations. You're right, if initiate grade equals Magic, background count will screw you up doubly if you use the power points for initiation rule.

The other thing I hate about background count and adepts is that it screws over adepts who have geasa or ways - a discounted power cost means that losing a Magic point hurts you more.

Well you do have more powers, though.

Bye
Thanee