Can you take Magic E, and then spend your Special Attribute points on Magic?

For example, taking Troll Metatype at B gives you 0 Special Attribute Points, forcing you to take A,C, or D to get any Magic rating at all. If you could instead take Troll A and Magic E, you could spend some of your 5 Special Attribute Points on Magic, and have a different set of remaining, unchosen priorities to take for the other categories.

This would also allows Magicians and Technomancers to start with less than 3 Magic or Resonance if they wanted.

~Umi

Can you take Magic E, and then spend your Special Attribute points on Magic?
No You can't
MAGIC E = NO Magic !

For example, taking Troll Metatype at B gives you 0 Special Attribute Points, forcing you to take A,C, or D to get any Magic rating at all.
thats why You don't create a Troll mage with the Priority System but with Karma or with BP (and thats why You have to wait for Running Harder/Faster/Whatever)

Hough
Medicineman

Troll Mages work fine with the priority system. Magic A, Troll B, Skills C, Attributes D, Resources. E. B 5, A 2, R 2, S 5 C 3 I 3 L 5 W 5.

Reaction to 3 with 15 Bonus Karma. Free Magic skills and the whole 9. 10 Bonus Karma for 20k, then grab some more via -Qualities. Works perfectly well, and arguably a Troll mage has an easier time taking Attributes low than other races. Or you can go Troll A, Magic B, and use those 6 SA points to boost Magic to 6 and start with a pretty fat Edge. (Starting with 4 5's, and some 3's with a 2 after bonus karma are some good stats.)

But yeah, you need to essentially take Magic A through D to have any rating at all. E is the same as saying 'Mundane.'

Where is this limitation spelled out in the rules? Because I can't find anything actually saying that Magic E = No Magic.

It could just as easily be argued that Magic E = No Free Magic from their Priority Level, thus necessitating the spending of Special Attribute Points (meaning you have a lower Edge) or the spending of Karma (meaning you have less Karma to spend elsewhere). That opportunity cost should be plenty balancing.

~Umi

It says Magic E: --

So, if you look up what type of Awakened you can be with priority E ... there is nothing.

You have to be a Magician, Mystic Adept or Adept, in order to have Magic.

Bye
Thanee

To be fair you have a magic score of 0 not - so you could increase it. However you would get no benefit from it (unless they reintroduce latent awakening in which case you case if it triggered you would start with a higher magic than otherwise).

Bolding mine for emphasis.

Doesn't exactly say you're expressly forbidden from buying a Magic/Resonance attribute if you want one anyway.

True, but by reading the chart, you cannot be a magician (full blown) without taking Magic C in the priority. To be an aspected Magician you can take D. What can you be with E? I say nothing.

This is really no different than if 4e where you had to have the 15bp quality Magician to have access to a Magic rating to cast spells. Here you have no rating in Magic with priority E.

I see it quite differently. It's apples & oranges in this part between SR4 & SR5. SR4 was quite clear in the qualities; from SR4a, page 91, "A character with this quality is a magician and starts with a Magic attribute of 1." for example. It states quite clearly that without the quality you're not a magician.

SR5 is a bit ambiguous here. True it doesn't specify one way or the other, which usually leads one to believe you can do it because you're not expressly forbidden from doing it. In the priority system, The Magic/Resonance is pretty much the dump choice for players who aren't going to be awakened/emergent.

For what it is worth, the IMO it is clear that if you pick Magic E then you are a Mundane.

In 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions when they had Priority Builds you had to take Magic A (and then later on allowed you to pick Magic B to be an adept) but if you picked it lower you were a Mundane.

SR5 just gives you more options to be an awakened character - but Magic E means you can't use Magic.

It's spelled "Don't be a dick"

let's suppose for just a moment that we're going to be completely insane and assume that if the book doesn't say you can't buy up your magic, you can do it (which is a stupid assumption, but for the sake of discussion, i'll consider it possible).

you then take human A, for the sake of argument, and boost your magic to 6.

but you're not a magician, or an aspected magician, or an adept, or a mystic adept... you don't actually have anything whatsoever that you can do with the magic. you have a magic 6, but absolutely no abilities based on magic. the only effect is that now should you lose essence, you lose magic... but since your magic has no effect, it doesn't matter anyways.

Wow, way to take offense to a simple, entirely legitimate question.

~Umi

Yet another reason to dislike Priority, then. No flexibility, no capacity to produce characters that fall outside of "expected" ranges.

Under this system, you can't play a Magician with a Magic rating of only 2 or 1. Why? For balance? What if I want to play a hedgemage, or someone who has only recently Awakened and not built up their Magical powers yet? Or what if I just want the option to have Magic later on in my character's career, but at the start I'm more concerned with other skills, like combat or hacking or social? Why can I leave chargen with literally half of my Attributes as 1s if I want, but I can't leave it with my Magic at 1?

~Umi

Not a perfect solution but for your hedgemage/newly Awakened you could just put C into Magic and then pick up one cheap piece of cyberware. I always had the impression that some level of augmentation was common enough that you could just imply that your character got his datajack/implanted commlink before he Awakened.

Take a datajack.

The main problem I would see is by implying that Magic E = No Free Magic, that implies a Magic/Resonance state of 0 which is different than simply mundane and that this 0 state still counts as magical/resonating, since you are then shoving points into it to bump it to the 1-3 state.

However that would also mean there would be potential for every single person who took E and left it at 0 to somehow build that Stat post chargen. Granted it would be fairly difficult and I do not believe this is what you intended, but I would be willing to bet at least one player would look at this and go, okay.. a 0 now, but how can I get it up? I would not care to think it would be possible to initiate as a 0, but with a spirit/ spooky ghost in the machine type summoned/compiled by another helping through the process, who knows?

It is a good thought, but could be more of a headache down the road.

Mundanes have 0 Magic.

If you don't have 0 Magic, you aren't Mundane.

~Umi

Mundanes don't have 0 magic, they don't have a magic score at all. Minor difference.

Depends on how you look at it.

Mundanes do not possess a Magic or Resonance Stat, period. You have it or you do not since it is an additional stat that only exists when you put priority/karma/cocopuffs (yes the cocopuffgen system keeps characters crunchy even in milk) into it.

Look at any non-magical/non technomancer character writeup of the stats from Street Legends or similar, and you wont see Magic 0 or Resonance 0, because it doesn't exist within them. They do not even have the base stat itself. That potential just isn't there to even quantify a zero state for it.

Do you use a hammer to get a screw into place? Do you then declare your dislike for all hammers because they don't have the flexibility to hammer in pieces of metal "that fall outside of 'expected' ranges?"

Seriously, priority is designed to produce highly skilled, but narrow in focus, specialists, who are designed to work together in a group of other specialists who cover for their weaknesses. Yet your surprised when it breaks when you try and force the system to specifically create a character who's primary role is their weakness?

Because that's not what the system was designed to facilitate. Talk to your GM. Compromise on an alternate way of creating characters. Use Karmagen if that floats your boat, or just assign stats with whatever stat you feel would best mirror your character and don't bother with a character creation system at all.

If you want a RAW answer, take magic at the lowest possible priority and don't put any other points into magic.
Or talk your GM into using your interpretation of the E slot for that campaign.
Or use a different (or no) system to create characters.
Or wait for the expanded magic and/or runner companion books to come out

Because it assumes that you're trying to build specialists that are at least passable at their role, and if you want one of those roles to be Magic, you should have a passable rating in Magic. There's no way for the system to put a check on all Sammies to make sure they start with a passable Body or a Face with a passable Charisma- but if it could, it would have them as well. The system assumes that if half of your attributes are at 1, the others are all damn near maxed, which means the character should at least be passable in at least one role.

Priority is not broken or bad or whatever when you purposefully attempt to use it in a manner it's not intended for. To (ab)use the popular gaming terms, its gamist in nature (and only slightly removed from a class system) and yet you're overlaying your simulationist expectations and becoming frustrated when it can't meet those expectations.

While it's not explicit it's pretty heavily implied that you can't do what you're suggesting. When you think about it, given the choice of being able to put points into edge or magic, wouldn't you always pick magic? A re-roll or the ability to cast spells, summon spirits or turn people into fruit punch with my hands?

That just seems like a no-brainer.

...and nvm the fact that it's pretty much impossible to get ANY attribute at a 0 (unless under the effect of a spell or critter power, and even those are temporary).

Plus, it's been fairly obvious before that if you got any attribute at 0, that essentially meant that you don't have it.

So not sure why you're getting the idea of boosting Magic at 0, if you technically don't have the attribute to begin with.

EDIT: Reading through again, it says that if your Magic hits 0, but your overall Max is still above 0, you could still raise it back up with karma. But if you let the Max hit 0, they you're done; no more magic for you.

You act as though I chose the hammer, instead of having it forced upon me without being given any other options. So your analogy is total bunk.


I am the GM, there is no Karmagen in 5E yet, and bot the RAW and RAI are ambiguous. I'm trying to figure out the system as it exists, not make up my own. If I want to play a different system, I'll go play a different system. Your advice and suggestions therefor amount to "shut up or GTFO", and are not only unhelpful, but actively toxic.

Why do you even care, anyway? Did my comments really necessitate leaping to the defense of Priority the way you did? I don't like Priority gen, and I'm stuck using it, so I'm entitled to my displeasure at this situation.

~Umi

Except that we're talking character generation here. If I want to play a Mage, I'm gonna play a Mage. Choosing an E Priority doesn't somehow change the end results, all it does is change the way in which those results were achieved. Instead of getting X amount of free Magic and skills and spells to get to the level of Magic I desire, I instead spend X amount of Karma.

It's not like buying up from 0 Magic somehow cheats the system, or gets me free Magic, or does anything unfair. All it does is offer a slightly more flexible way of assigning the exact same amount of character "resources".

~Umi

I see no problem with taking Magic E and using bonus points to then increase your Magic attribute. However because you HAVE to take Magic at D or higher to get Adept, Mystic Adept or Magician (any flavor) you will have no way to access that Magic Attribute that you spent your points on. You can do it, but it won't do your character any good. It's about the same as having the active skill Neptunian Xeno-Botany in Shadowrun. If your team never goes to Neptune (or finds plants from Neptune) the skill was a waste of points, can you take it... Sure feel free.

Why this fixation on "having to take D or high to be Awakened"? What reason is there for forcing that?

This is character generation. The point is to be able to build the character you want, by spending the appropriate "resources" to "buy" the stats you want. If you want to play a Mage with a Magic of 1, you should be able to. It's not like you're cheating the system, or not "paying" the full amount of "resources" to get that Magic. So why the senseless restrictions?

In Shadowrun, having a Magic attribute means you are Awakened. This is the case in everything. If you have a Latent Awakening, you gain a Magic Attribute when you Awaken. If you get turned into certain of the Infected, you become Awakened and gain a Magic Attribute. And if an Awakened person ever loses all of their Magic Attribute, they become Mundane.

So if you concede that someone should be able to buy up their Magic Attribute independently of receiving free Magic points from a Priority Level choice, then you must also concede that someone buying up their Magic from 0 should likewise become Awakened!

~Umi

They are awakened, but they are the part of that 1% that has a magic attribute but can not access it... They should be happy that they are not the part of that 1% that went crazy when they got their Magic.

Or you could wait to create a truly unique build until the optional points/karma build systems come out.

It's still a no brainer. Almost every shadowrunner would be a magician because why the hell not?

If you're allocating something to priority E, it's your dump stat essentially. You shouldn't be able to dump an aspect of a character and still benefit from it. As the rules are there seems like there isn't enough to stop deckers and riggers also dabbling in magic without being able to dump magic and buy it with special statistics. If you really want to play a magician with a magic rating of 1, pick D and drop a point of magic, or burn it out. Is there really any roleplaying difference between a magic rating 1 or rating 2?

In the end it's your campaign, do whatever you want. Hewever, If you're looking for justification from the community I don't think you are likely to get it.

Except that same argument could be leveled against SR4, and it'd still be wrong. "You can be an Adept for 5 BP, an Aspected Magician for 5 or 10, a Mystic Adept for 10, or a Magician for 15? That's a no brainer! Right?"

By your logic, every Runner in SR4 would be Awakened, because why the hell not? Except that's clearly not, and never has been, the case.

As for your mentality of Priority E being your "dump stat", I find that kind of thinking in general distasteful, and I find your argument about not being able to benefit from your Priority E choice to be flawed. Every other Priority E choice gives you a small amount of free resources to allocate how you choose, and which you do in fact benefit from. You can also then go above and beyond that base level and upgrade via Karma to compensate. Why not so for Magic?

As for your naive question about the difference between picking E and buying up and picking D and spending down, what if I want a character who isn't augmented? What if I want to eventually, slowly develop a character's magic to it's full potential and don't want the Essence loss, but I want them to start out weak? Or maybe I just want to roleplay a character that refuses to "sully" their body with machines?

Hell, what does it even matter why I want to have a Magic 1 mage without augmentation? Here's a better question - why are you so keen on denying it? In what way does allowing someone to pick Priority E and then buy up their Magic with Karma affect you or the broader balance of the game? How is it unbalanced, overpowered, or unreasonable? In short, why am I wrong for wanting more options, while you're right for wanting more limitations?

~Umi

Well, how would you think it would work? What kind of Awakened do you think you'd be able to be?

Yeah, except you're conveniently forgetting the fact that you had to buy Magic as well. In 5th ed you're suggesting that instead of starting with 6 edge I might choose to start with 1 edge and 5 magic. I'd argue that that's no trade off at all.



I never said you had to take cyberware. I stated take priority D and just drop a point. just write 1 on your sheet instead of 2. That's why I asked the question what's the difference because I'd argue that a mage with a magic rating of 2 counts as weak?

This essentially boils down to the same argument about negative qualities. People hate not being able to take more than the alloted maximums but if you say to them that they can take it (but just not get any extra karma/BP) they miraculously get over it!

To the rest I'll respond again:



I'm not looking to restrict your game. I just said that if you want to do it go nuts, but you're looking for a community sanctioned justification.


To the intent:



What unspent points? I've got a magic of 0 to raise!

Edge and Magic have exactly the same costs in both SR4 and SR5. Next.


Then I'm overpaying for the power I get, which is pretty much just as bad as underpaying.


People want what they pay for. If I walk into a bank and hand them a $100 bill and ask for change in $5 bills, they can't just give me $5. "But you wanted a $5 bill!" they say. "Yes, but I also wanted the rest of my money too!" I reply.

Forcing someone to withdraw their money in $100 increments is absurd. Likewise, forcing someone to pay full price for a minimum of 3 Magic, of which you suggest they should just throw away one or two points, is equally absurd.


Actually, I'm not.

I was looking for some detail or aspect of the rules that would clarify the matter, that I had somehow missed, but that someone else in the community had not. Alternatively, I was looking to receive some sort of comment from the SR5 writers and developers, or at the very least to offer feedback on an aspect of the new book which I hadn't yet seen covered in this particular way before.


As you yourself quoted, "Any unspent special attribute points disappear following the character creation process." So if you pick Priority E Magic, you don't instantly lack a Magic rating, you have a temporary Magic Rating of 0, until after you are done with character creation. In the case of the Street Samurai you cite, they are referring to his character sheet, which is something you fill out after character creation.

So I'm really not sure what you're arguing here.

~Umi

No it official, at least when playing in the Missions adventures, and should be a universal applied rule:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1203480...ons%20v0.99.pdf


What you are trying to do, is breaking the obvious rules, and that is "Being a dick".

Perhaps I missed it four times in a row, but I can't seem to find anything pertaining to my specific question in that document. Would you be so kind as to cite an exact entry, ruling, statement, or similar which addresses my specific query? Without such, I cannot credit your argumentation in any way.


Actually, I was asking what the exact rule was, since it is entirely unclear to me - and hence not obvious - and I can't find conclusive supporting evidence either way in the RAW. I hardly think that making polite inquiries qualifies as "being a dick", even if you personally don't like the nature of those enquiries.

I am a newcomer to the Priority system, and I'm confused by how restrictive and unwieldy it is compared to the systems I used in SR4. If this was a BP system, I would have the flexibility to create the character I want, exactly how I want, and it would be entirely legal for any sort of game. You're trying to paint me as some sort of insidious rule-breaker when all I'm trying to do is find out how to build a character that would be unquestionably legal in any other build system.

If anyone's being a dick, it's you by jumping to conclusions, suspecting the worst in others, and casting down vitriolic judgements like some self-appointed deity hurling bolts of lightning. So maybe get off your high horse and realize that not everyone who interprets rules differently than you is the scum of the earth?

~Umi

Umi,

To help you out a little... The Priority system very much lacks the flexibility you are looking for. Consider the chart as "if it doesn't clearly say 'yes' assume 'no'." Under that philosophy you'll be able to build legal characters all day, just not necessarily the exact ones you want.

In the character creation arena Karma Gen is the scalpel, Build Points is the Chef’s Knife and Priority is the Chainsaw. Each will get the job done but some are more precise that others. Of course some are faster than others, that’s the trade-off.

The special attributes are Edge, Magic, and Resonance;
if you want your character to have a high rating in one
or more of these areas, make sure you select a row with
plenty of special attribute points. Technomancer characters
need to ensure they can have a high Resonance,
while magician or adept characters will want a high
Magic rating.
Edge starts at the value for each metatype listed in
the Metatype Attribute Table (p. 66). Magic and Resonance
start at 0.
Edge, of course, is beneficial to all characters. Special
attribute points may be spent entirely on Edge if
the player chooses not to play a magic user or a technomancer,
or they may split these points as they see fit
between their Edge and Magic or Resonance attribute
ratings if the player so chooses. These Special Attribute
Points may only be allocated on Special Attributes. They
may never be used to raise Mental or Physical attributes.
Any unspent Special Attribute points disappear following
the character creation process. If the player chooses
an option that provides 0 special attribute points, don’t
worry. Players may elect to spend the Karma given to
them during the character creation process to raise
these special attributes by following the standard Character
Advancement rules (p. 103).

You may note it says may be spent entirely on edge and says you may split between them as you choose i.e anyone can raise their magic (except technomancers) it just does nothing.

This: followed by:Completely boggles my mind. Is CGL going to break down the door to your game and force you to use the priority system? No? Then your table always has a choice and therefore the analogy is apt.
So? Extrapolate from SR4, the systems are not that different. Hell, I'm pretty sure you could use BP almost unaltered.
Then go play a different system, because you obviously don't want to use the priority system. No one is forcing you to use it. I promise.
I gave you several options: 1. You could use the priority system as written and just deal with its quirks. 2. You could change the priority system into something that wouldn't leave you with your "displeasure." 3. You could use some form of alternate character generation, from Karma, to extrapolating SR4 systems, to just putting down whatever numbers "feel" right for the character. 4. You could wait until additional sourcebooks come out and hand you an alternate character creation system. I'm sorry if you perceive that four different solutions to your problem is in some manner unhelpful or toxic, but my advice certainly doesn't amount to shut up or gtfo.

However what has become clear is that you don't want any help with any "problem," what you actually want, is for your personal opinion to be validated by the RAW. I can't help you with that, I'm pretty sure no one on this forum can help you with that, and I'm not sure the SR line dev could help you with that, even if he wanted to stop the presses and retract the corebook in order to print your personal changes.
I was honestly trying to project the idea that you always have options, and there existed solutions to your wailing if you actually cared more about solving them than pouting in the corner about how evil the priority system is.
If you're sitting down at a Missions game, I suppose you're stuck if you want to play at that particular table. The rules are there because they set consistent levels of expectations across different tables. You don't get to play by different rules during a Missions game...

But the super sekret is that all those rules don't mean anything in a private game. Your table is free to do whatever the hell it wants because there are no other tables, and there will never be any Gaming Police there to stop you, and you will never be stuck using any system or set of rules that you don't want to.
Not when there is a simple and easy solution for your petulance.

Well done and well played Shortstraw... Questiuon Answered and Canon as well. Magic "E" gives you a Starting Magic of Zero (0), and can be augmented from there with Special Attribute Points. At that point, the Player chooses how that magic manifests. So say we all...

I think the best way to look at it is in comparison to the Race column of the chart.

If you pick Race A or B you are either a human, troll, ork, elf, or dwarf
If you pick Race C you are either a human, ork, elf, or dwarf
If you pick Race D you are either a human or an elf.
If you pick Race E you are a human.

In other words - if the race you want to be is not listed in the Priority that you chose - you can't be that race.

For Magic

If you pick Magic A, you are either a Magician or Mystic Adept
If you pick Magic B or C you are a Magician, Mystic adept, Adept, or Aspected Magician
If you pick Magic D you are either an Adept or an Aspected Magician
If you pick Magic E - you have none of those to choose from, so you are a mundane.

Similar to above - if the type of magician you want to be is not listed in the Priority that you chose - you can't be that type of magician - and since Magic E has no choices, you can't be one.

Otherwise are saying that if you pick Magic E and then spend 2 special attribute points, and the player "chooses how that magic manifests" you can be a Mystic Adept or Full Magician - whereas if you picked Magic D you couldn't be one?

I will grant you the rules probably aren't explicit enough - but they copied the table (with a few minor modifications) from SR3 - and in SR3, if there was a "--" in the spot where your magic priority was, you weren't awakened.

To each his own, obviously - but with the priority system as is, Magic E is mundane is to me, the clear intent of the rule.

Yeah, even if you have a Magic Rating of whatever, if you're not also a Mage, Mystic Adept, Adept, or Aspected Magician, what can you actually DO with that Magic Rating?




-k

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=39214

oh hey look, it's a karmagen system that's almost been around for a full month already, and took all of 30 seconds to find. there are probably others already being worked on as well somewhere, and possibly even a BP chargen system that someone is working on for all i know - i don't really feel like priority gen actually has a ton of major problems, so i only know of stuff that i vaguely noticed being on these forums in the past.

but instead of bothering to look for any possible house rules that could help me as the GM do what i want in my own game, i'm going to pitch a fit over it. i'm sure that will somehow magically fix all my problems, because everyone knows that throwing yourself on the floor and screaming and yelling and flailing your limbs is an effective solution to all of life's problems.

i mean, i can *somewhat* see complaining about this for a missions game. since, after all, a missions character can't just change whatever they want to make the system work how you like.

but if you're the GM in your home game, and you're throwing a temper tantrum over the fact that the rules weren't written specifically to accommodate your super-niche character? get over yourself. they're not going to rewrite the books for one person. they shouldn't rewrite the books for one person. and the thing you're complaining about is trivial to fix. in fact, had you decided that instead of throwing a fit, you were just going to fix the problem, you could probably have only taken about 5 minutes total on this, and instead of complaining about it for days, you could have introduced something like a new homebrew negative quality that solves the problem for people to use if they want in their own games.

Ok seriously guys.. so much arguing has been done about something so obvious. Of course you need to select a high priority for magic, it's just a matter of balance! A full magician pays a priority A to C in order to be allowed to cast, summon and enchant, as well as project. That's a lot of good things you get for that price, which is that you have priorities D and E to be filled by two of the other four categories. Game balancing. Forced specialization of the priority system. All of that.

And now for a very easy rebuttal of the OP and its rambling. In RAW terms:



I must say, though, the "Don't be a dick" comment was spot on.

Thank you Chrome Head. So to recap, the answer to the OP is no you cannot because if you choose Priority E you have no Magic attribute (per pg 278) and therefore are not awakened. To have any Magic Attribute, you must choose A-D for magic.

And don't forget you can potentially take the Latent quality in the Runner's book so you can 'awaken' in game and get that 1 Magic down the road.

This is going nowhere. There have been conflicting rules citations from multiple other parties, and I'm still no closer to being able to figure this out, so I'm gonna leave off on this question for the time being.

~Umi

I agree that the topic is closed: I provided the quote that was really needed to clear things up regarding RAW. There is nothing conflicting in the rules that I have noticed in the quotes made in this thread. And I fail to see what you still need to figure out.

The quote you apparently miss is this one...



Seems to me, Category E in Magic/Resonance PROVIDES AN ATTRIBUTE OF ZERO (0). See, That is the ONLY way to get an ATTRIBUTE of ZERO, since ALL OTHER ATTRIBUTES have a minimum value of 1.

My bad sorry. Thanks for the explanation.

The only way I see to reconcile the RAW is far-fetched: Magic section says you have no magic unless you get some through the priority system. p. 103 says you can raise them anyway. So that would only apply to Resonance then?

This interpretation is crazy. We need an errata.