Hello all.

Shadowrun was my favorite RPG for many years until life circumstances changed and I couldn't manage a regular tabletop group anymore, around mid 3rd edition. So now I'm increasingly longing to get back into a game, particularly with all the online tools available now but I've got several questions when I read over 5th Edition.

My favorite part of Shadowrun was always the magic system, I was that guy who played a magician 90% of the time. Reading over SR5 magic and the Street Grimoire, the basics seem solid enough (well, at least after the Street Grimoire errata) but some areas just seem confusing or incomplete.

1) Enchanting materials. Specifically, reading Street Grimoire there seems to be very little use for Refined/Radical Reagents, and especially Orichalcum. In RAW I can find that some rituals need Refined reagents rather than raw (Atonement) and a Radical reagent is needed to make a spell fetish but that's about it. No general use in aiding enchanting as existed in SR1-3. And Orichalcum is extremely resource heavy/difficult to make and seems to have NO use in RAW. Am I missing something? Is this gone into further in any other supplements or adventures? If not, are there any good house rules for uses here?

2) Geasa. Mentioned as an initiatory ordeal on Street Grimoire page 142, but I can't find any other references in the rules anywhere. Obviously I know what they are from previous editions, but how the heck is a new player supposed to know what they do? For that matter, where are the rules for which Geasa 5th ed uses, and are there any ways to get them in play besides initiating or shed them?

3) Astral Quests. LOTS of fluff in 5th edition on these, but almost no rules that I can find. Just page 140 in the Street Grimoire, which says to do a ritual equal to the astral quests force in order to purify yourself to go face the Dweller. From there on it seems to be pure GM Handwavium. Am I missing something? I always liked astral quests, but as a player and GM I also liked having a quick/random astral quest resolution mechanic when needed rather than needing to do each one as a full on mini/full adventure. And I can't find rules for that anywhere, even in the eBook about the metaplanes. How do people handle these outside of extra adventure/GM Handwavium?

Apologies if this has been covered before, but I wasn't paying attention to the forums when SR5/Street Grimoire came out and my search skills on internet forums are rather weak.

This is what happens when huge parts of a new edition are just copy/pasted from a previous edition.
!)I'm sure orichalcum is supposed to aid in enchanting but you know, some one just forgot to paste that section in.
2)Same goes for geasa. Forgotten copy paste.
3)They haven't had that chart since 3rd edition. If you like it, just use the one from 3rd ed. You'll need to tweak the damage codes a bit. Basically it would seem in 4th and 5th ed, Astral quests are supposed to be something the GM writes up for the player to go through. Each one is supposed to be a mini adventure and with the right spirit power or drug you can drag your friends/allies along. Otherwise they get to go as avatars and while the player can play his character through the quest with your magician, he gets no karma nor can his character actually die. The added fluff on meta planes is supposed to help the GM write these little mini adventures by telling him what some of these places are like.
So in answer, they don't handle astral quests outside extra adventure/GM handwavium. The GM is supposed to write all those out. Cuz he doesn't have enough on his plate already.

[quote name='Mantis' post='1320362' date='Apr 16 2016, 01:50 PM']... Astral quests are supposed to be something the GM writes up for the player to go through. Each one is supposed to be a mini adventure and with the right spirit power or drug you can drag your friends/allies along. Otherwise they get to go as avatars and while the player can play his character through the quest with your magician, he gets no karma nor can his character actually die. The added fluff on meta planes is supposed to help the GM write these little mini adventures by telling him what some of these places are like.

Would that that were true... You can die in an Astral Quest (you can take physical damage after all) if you are crazy enough to take on a quest well above your capabilities.

I'm talking about the avatar of a non magician character being taken along here, not the actual magician doing the quest. The avatars can die but it doesn't kill the character they represent. The magician of course, has no avatar and can die on an astral quest. That's why he is supposed to get karma for the quest while the avatars do not. This is covered in the side bar of pg 132 in Street Magic for SR4. I'd point to a similar page for SR5 if such a thing existed, which is one of the problems OP is running into, that lack of rules.

Got you... Must have missed the Connection to the Avatar...
I do agree, it is pretty explicit that the Avatars do not die.

No worries. It's always a challenge between being so explicit there can be no confusion versus being concise and short enough that someone will actually read what you wrote.