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Curator
this is more a question for future stories of fiction i'm working on and not so much for game play, since it seems more complicated as it's more theory then rules, although it is obviously related in theme

Let's say a character started getting cyberware before they were a matured adult, so if they had a chance of ever becoming awakened, it was shunned by essence loss. fast forward a couple decades and the character is even more cybered out with some bio ware. he's married to a powerful magician who loves to probe minds and practices in the meta magic skill of divining or soothsayer, basically able to see the past and future. she claims if he never got any cyber enhancements, he would be a powerful wizard too. He's been around enough magicians & shamans to basically understand the process of how magic works.

If this character took deepweed, would he astrally percieve?
If he had a powerful enough foci on him, with an extreme situation happening, would he be able to still form a spell, even if out of his control? could it be a common thing that happens every few years?

thanks mighty members of dumpshocked
may all your runs end in cred sticks of major nuyen
Umidori
Deepweed is described as only working on the Awakened, and if you aren't expressing some variety of magical power (in mechanical terms, if your Magic score is 0), then you're not Awakened.

It doesn't matter if you were Awakened and then became a Burn-Out, or if you never Awakened in the first place - if you aren't currently Magically Active, Deepweed won't make you perceive. (Contrast with the Magical Compound "Shade", which forces even Mundanes to not just Astrally Perceive, but to actually Astrally Project, even allowing them to go on Metaplanar quests - sounds more like what you'd want.)

Foci face a similar problem - you need to Attune them to yourself for them to be of any benefit, and you can only Attune a focus if you're Awakened.

The best way I can think of to represent someone being able to cast a single spell from time to time with very little control would be to give them the Spell Knack power, and just keep their Magic and Spellcasting scores low, forcing them to rely on Chance (in the form of extra dice from Edge) to be able to cast magic. Of course, at that point they're technically Awakened, even if they don't understand their powers or have any real control over them - if you can work Magic at all, in any form, you are no longer Mundane.

~Umi

Addendum: Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure "Divination" and predicting the future or exploring alternate pasts is essentially impossible according to SR magical theory. I seem to recall it's either flat out not doable, or so absurdly difficult and limited as to be pretty much worthless.
Ixal
QUOTE (Umidori @ Apr 13 2014, 04:14 PM) *
Addendum: Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure "Divination" and predicting the future or exploring alternate pasts is essentially impossible according to SR magical theory. I seem to recall it's either flat out not doable, or so absurdly difficult and limited as to be pretty much worthless.


Divination not doable? There is a full guild about it in Europe which, for example, tipped Lofwyr off about the "end of the Matrix" (Crash 2.0).
Umidori
Well, never said my memory was infallible! nyahnyah.gif

I need to read up on it I guess. Point me in a good direction?

~Umi

Addendum: A quick search of SR4A directed me to Street Magic, which describes Divination as only ever giving vague hints at things. Are there are more complex forms of this metamagic in some other book, perhaps?
Ixal
QUOTE (Umidori @ Apr 13 2014, 04:28 PM) *
Are there are more complex forms of this metamagic in some other book, perhaps?[/i]


Not that I know of.
The rules for Divination should be in Street Magic. Information about the guild are in Shadows of Europe, Loose Alliances and they also play a part in System Failure by predicting the Matrix Crash and selling this information to Lofwyr.
I think this guild does a huge divination ritual once each year where the whole inner circle participates and then sells the gained information off to the highest bidder.
Curator
Shade, hmm interesting that does sound like something that could pertain. looks like i've got some more diving in old fiction and find this

i understand the problem facing the deepweeed issue, the character would need to have a rating 1 and be a aspected magican to actually use it. so i'd need to counter every lost point of essence to get a magic rating of 1.

QUOTE
Street magic pg 56 4E
DIVINATION TABLE
Divination question was Threshold
Vague (Are my old enemies catching up to me?) 1
General (Will I get hurt if I go on this next shadowrun?) 2
Specific (Will Mr. Johnson take a bribe from Yakashima?) 3
Very specific (Is Mr. Johnson picking up his bribe this evening?) 4


that's just a threshold example there's more to it. i'm not applying this to any tabletop games, more like a 50 year old elf professor. i know meta-magic is deep and it's not applicable to 5th edition yet. but it is a form of magic. and i have no doubt that anyone who could see into the future could see into the past.

also with the foci, can it be attuned by another magician? or if it's a heirloom, same blood/material link. the character kellan colt in the novel born to run #1 of the 2nd edition of printing received her mother's amulet which helped her abilities become awakened.

and i can't seem to find the reference but there are rules of what you can't do. one is clone someone, and another is bring someone back from the dead. there's more but i'm sure peering into the past and future isn't one of them.

thanks for the input chum!
Cochise
QUOTE (Umidori @ Apr 13 2014, 05:28 PM) *
Are there are more complex forms of this metamagic in some other book, perhaps?[/i]


Street Magic also will give you Psychometry which can be as precise or vague as you (as the GM) want it to bee
Curator
meta-magic is gnarly hahahaha
SpellBinder
Yeah, divination's good for the rather short term, and of course events can either change to make a prediction null and void, or actually set you down that very path you might have hoped to avoid in the first place.

And just to clarify, to me there's a distinct difference between attuned and bonded, with attunement being a metamagic feet for adepts & bonding being what awakened do with foci. While the attunement does not look like it is limited to a single adept (but is prohibited to foci), only one may actually be bonded to a focus; as soon as someone else bonds to that focus, the previous bond is destroyed. As for awakening to magic, there are [intentionally] very many various possible triggers to one becoming a magician, adept, or whatever.

Pages 159-160 in Street Magic outline what magic cannot do, and IIRC has been reprinted from previous magic splat books without change.
Umidori
QUOTE (Curator @ Apr 13 2014, 10:56 AM) *
Shade, hmm interesting that does sound like something that could pertain. looks like i've got some more diving in old fiction and find this

Shade is statted out in Arsenal, on page 78. wink.gif

It and the other Magical Compounds are difficult to make, but oddly inexpensive to buy compared to the effort that would otherwise go into producing it yourself. They also have a shelf life, so you have to get it made relatively fresh.

~Umi
Umidori
QUOTE (SpellBinder @ Apr 13 2014, 11:12 AM) *
And just to clarify, to me there's a distinct difference between attuned and bonded, with attunement being a metamagic feet for adepts & bonding being what awakened do with foci.

Yeah, bonded, that's the one.

My bad, sleep deprived. Insomnia is a pain.

~Umi
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