Since nobody else has posted, I'll do a quick skim:

And sorry, I'm not debating the merits of the mage camera, I am simply noting it's presence in the book.



None of them are really, really scary - but considering I play goofball adepts anyway, I have way too many choices now.

Oh, a Geas for all you melee types: "Berserker". Apparently "Shamanic Mask" can also be a geas, but it isn't specifically spelled out in the text.

The spy gadgets include rules on "Disguising" gear, such as the hollowed out book trick, the pen transceiver, a brief case rocket and so on. Other fun toys include low-light contact lenses, a "null" suit which is amazingly incompatible with armor and gecko climbing gloves that cannot, under any circumstances, get wet. Which means you'll never see them in Seattle.

Lessee...photo manipulation software, infrad film and yes, a cellular trigger for activing things with a phone call. "Reach out and Touch Someone" takes on a whole new meaning.

As for the shock section, I haven't read it yet - I was drooling over all the new toys, the fanboy that I am. I will, however, endeavor to read the section tonight.

-Siege

Edit: My roomie is demanding his copy back at very large knife point, but I did skim the shock section.

The whole "Ork tusker popularity" craze left me cold and the "gangsta" rap parallels were a tad uninspired, but the rest seemed quite entertaining. The "Top Ten" lists were highly amusing and great plot hooks if any GM is so inclined.

The Corp Culture notes do add a depth of role-playing options that usually aren't explored particularly thoroughly, but now you have a use for that "wardrobe and fashion" knowledge skill.

The Gambling was a tad large for the amount of impact it will have on most games, in my humble opinion.

Just to be an ungrateful bastard, any chance of adding a quick explanation of what the powers are/do? Some of them are fairly obvious, some I can take a guess at but others less so.

I would think not at this point. I think we can wait until they're all loaded into the NSRCG in a few weeks.

these sound fun.

I wouldn't mind, but I think that's treading a little close on "Incoming! Angry author(s) inbound!"

Most of the powers are self-explanatory - just because I am a surly bastard.

-Siege

Edit: Although the "Aid Spell" will turn adepts into a mage's best friend.

Okay, this rocks, I'm definately snagging this book, especially as adepts are my fave chars.

What is this nasty rumor I heard about social adepts. .??

Smokes, a guy. . so cyberware, no skills higher the 4
"When the going gets tough, I like to smoke the whole pack at once."

A more general note about adepts and Paths - a number of Paths are mentioned, but game mechanics and adepts behind these Paths are a tad lacking.

Is this a deliberate omission?

For example, the "Path of the Invisible" gives vague descriptions, but there isn't a thorough mechanical evaluation of the pros and cons of these roughly-sketched out Paths.

And my roomie noted the book is a little light on solid mechanics and instead focuses more on fluff, which isn't necessarily bad - but more numbers would be useful to balance the fluff.

-Siege

Adepts now have options for impacting things other than massive sneakiness or walking quisinarts o death.

They can buy IA: Social skills at a steepish cost and certain adept powers are now geared towards human interaction.

-Siege

infusion, hahaha, infusion focus, hahahaha, hahahaHAHAHAHA, HAHAHHAHAHA! I HAVE THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!

dont you mean that, by the power of greyskull, you have the power?

i will pretend for a moment that i am not too mad with power to concern myself with your petty mortal concerns, mortal, and answer your question. in a word: no, my utterance was correct. i have the power of greyskull. it is in my pocket, and i call it George.

Infusion is pretty bad-ass, especially if you throw in a couple of Infusion Foci.

On the subject of Foci, the Adept Focus is cool, but it might open a whole can of worms in regards to magic loss. Hmmm...

I dislike the whole idea of Improved Ability: Social Skills! I can see a case being made for some of the individual skills, but not as a blanket rule.

Multi-tasking...Mmmm, munchie goodness!

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned Living Focus?!?

I'm not too thrilled about Penetrating Strike, but it costs a lot.

Side Step...hello Dodge Pool.

If someone combined a few (or even not-so-few) of the more social powers and abilities with a couple of the social edges it could result in a very scary and potentially unbalancing character.

whoops, you're right. missed that sentence. and, yeah, that's the crux of the whole argument--"it's been paid for with essence, so it interacts with magic" seems to only be true if the effect in question is unwanted by the person with the cyber.

No, it doesnt actually invalidate the point about it being unprocessed. ultrasound is layered over normal vision, so you are still getting unaugmented visual LOS in all cases except those of full darkness and invisibility - circumstances under which, as you mention, ultrasonic vision does not grant LOS. SO the argument against digital manipulation still holds strongly.

Put another way - lets say youre holding up a little screen displaying a digital image of a person who is standing in front of you. You see both the digital image and the person standing there. Simply seeing the digital image does not negate your existing LOS to the target... but if the target were in a different room and you ONLY had the digital image, that image could not provide LOS to the target.

it invalidates the point about it being unprosessed by the very fact that the text lists a prosessor that turns the echo into visual images.

and one small problem with your post is that the same text says that its what thermographics allso does (put stuff on top of the normal vision). so does that mean i cant use thermographics to target someone with magic in complete darkness? or can trolls and dwarfs (that have it naturaly) do so but not others that have to get by cyberware?

ok so it can be brushed to the side by saying that the ultrasound stuff was someone that had not fully read up on thermographics or that thermographics is still a nonprosessed effect but gets overlayed by the fact that its plugged into the same optical nerves that normal vision goes into (it just uses passive sensors that react to heat, not normal light).

hobgoblin. Thankyou. I new there was a point in MM that suggested that untrasound vision was no good to mages. I had considered a teem of runners all with ultrasound vision (eyes, goggles or scopes) firing of ir smoke grenades like nobody’s business but I ad considered it would have to be a no spell caster team and was beginning to think I had it wrong.

This tells me that US will not ever grant LOS but will not interfere with LOS achieved with a different vision system.

I want back with my books. Well we there tomorrow.

My take on the “if you payed essence it works with magic” is that it only applies to things that can be natural. Speed, attributes, hearing sound and seeing with light and IR are all cybernetic enhancements of natural things. Ultrasound vision is not an expansion of a natural sense it is an entirely new sense that the brain has no natural way to process so the technology overlays it on the visual sensors.

If you where to implement it in a way more closely aligned to a bat’s sonar (a procedure that would probably require cultured biowear to give the brain the ability to proses object locations threw the hearing centres of the brain) you might be able to use it to target spells.

Witch brings up an interesting point, can you shape change into a bat and use its sonar to target spells, do you even get its sonar.

Edward

ok, now this is getting messy to say the least. and it all started by a comment about a camera being able to see the astral

So in conclusion,
State of the Art 2064 is like crack.
It drives everyone crazy and if you don't have it then you can't possibly understand.
And in some states it will be outlawed.
Excellent work!!

--------------------------------
TheBlackDwarf, Decker
"Fear me Renraku. . . I am PAIN"

well, two more books to my must buy list i guess. sota64 and mrjlbb. gah...

I've not read it my self per se, but one of my players has his and we talked about it. The null suit is said to "make the wearer immune to thermograpic vision" but only applies a +2. This seems kinda weird but I suppose it's suggesting that the thermo is integrated with other vision modes.

And for the canon explaination of the astral camera, the text says that it works using silvered plates like in the olden days. Apparently, the old technique picked up astral images back then but no-one knew them to be astral images. It's definately not real time either, it's more a forensic thing.

One thing about the culture shock section - what are the sports scores?!?! It mentioned sports, but doesn't say who won which championship. I thought that info in SOTA 63 was a nice inclusion and both I and my player are a little miffed it hasn't been included in this one.

why would you EVER use the null suit when you can just use thermal dampening?

How does a character use thermal dampening???

Also, the null suit protects you against "most motion detectors".

i don't really like the idea of mechanically-defined paths, at least as-written. as it stands, they just saddle adepts with one more hurdle to overcome; luckily, the paths don't list powers, so you can make an "invisible path" adept with six points of IA: Heavy Weapons, if that fits your character concept. now, if you wanted to list paths that have 2pp worth of 'related' powers and 2pp of 'unrelated' (+/-25% cost, respectively), i'd be more amenable to the concept.

It is my understanding that Synner and the rest of the adept crew are compiling those for inclusion on the SR website at some point in the not so distant future, but I'm not 100% sure about that plan or the timing of same. I do know that it was pretty thoroughly discussed, though, since there was a lot of stuff that a lot of us hated to see go by the wayside.

Awesome...

applying rules to ways are silly as a way is not similar to a difference between a shaman and a hermetic. a way is just a theme, and the ways listed are the most usual themes you will run into. a person locked in his way so firmly that he cant see when his way hinders his development he is brittle like a block of concrete rather then flexible like a banch. a brick wall may stop you but will take damage in the impact. a branch will flex and come right back at you

a way is not a cage, its a map

As a note on the "Aid Spell" Psyad ability. I don't think that power should be allowed unless the Psyad has the ability to see Astral. It may be stated in the book but then I don't have it with me at the moment.

The other ability in question is the "Penetrating Blow" I can see this as costing to low for what it can do. Can we say free called shot ability that no test is needed for? With the ability listed the way it is and what powers it can't be combined with fails to address how it would affect drones, vehicles, barriers etc... if it is able to bypass armor and such.

I will check this again when I get home and have the book infront of me.

Ways
If it's just designed to be role-playing fluff, that's fine. But they get mentioned a lot in canon material and I was curious to know if they had any relevant impact on the mechanics behind the fluff or not.

Fortune:
IA: Social Skills: I read this as per specific social skill and not "all social skills possible". Much like the description of IA: Firearms - you can buy IA: Handgun, but not IA: All things Bullet-laden.

Which, to my mind, makes the price a little steep, but not impossible to live with.

Penetrating strike is like icing on the cake - if you can kill people with your bare hands already, PS will nudge the odds in your favor but not so much so it'll make a massive difference. My GM argued the price was too low, but then he's used to the Troll Adept, more commonly known as the "Purple People Eater."

Social Unbalancing:
Combine an edge like: "Good Rep" or even "Knack: Ettiquete" with the enhanced dice or Kinestics (sp) and you've got an adept with some seriously modified TNs, particularly if he's a gear acquisitions specialist.

The flip side is - he'll still get owned in combat if he spends all his points on things social. Unfortunately, NPCs don't have the same worries when the GM is making them.

Mage Support
It used to be the Troll and the mage playing choo-choo train. Now it's gonna be the Troll, the Mage and the mage-battery Adept.

-Siege

Edit: If anyone rolls a Social Adept into a game, the GM had best make a cheat-sheet of all the social interaction mods to keep the player in check. Using straight numbers, a good face adept could have a fair shot at talking his way into acquiring military-grade hardened armor and making the Fixer pay Faceman to take it off his hands.

Ok, that's a little extreme, but future GMs will have to keep a sharp eye on what the face adepts are doing and be prepared to say "no" even if the rules might suggest otherwise.

I refer you to the earlier thread regarding concerns of adepts buying aircraft carriers...at a discount.

Edit 2: SimpleRunner - Astral Perception is not required for the Aid Spell power, although arguments could be made either way.

And knowing some of the players in your crew, it wouldn't be a bad requirement to have in place.

As for the concern about "penetrating blow" rendering called shots obsolete - I don't see that as a major concern because:

• It only applies to melee attacks and possibly only to bare-hand attacks, but I'd have to check the book
• It doesn't apply to ranged combat of any sort
• Non-adepts won't have the option of penetrating blows, so they will still have to use called shots
• And let's face it, the Purple People Eater will ignore armor for all practical purposes anyway, short of a MBT

-Siege

I built what amounted to a null suite already. How dose this comparer with what 64 has.

Start with your choice of armour, I used a rapid transit jumpsuit add ruthenium polymers with the maximum number of sensors thermal dampening at half that rating and the highest rated ultrasound detector emitter I could get.

Edward

Ps Jason Farlander I was not meaning to say that I thought you said we where disagreeing. I was commenting that I had not been certain of the meaning of your previous post. Unfortunately speech inflection dose not translate well into text.

Just wanted to let folks know SOTA64 is up on Stiggybaby at long last... and at 17.50, it makes wallets happy....

(That's nuyen, for all y'all who thought I meant real yen. it was a joke... sort of....)

EEP! double post... misclicked... sorry.