Because my friends and I always thought that rule was really lame. Considering how dodge tests can be extremely important in combat, the idea of suddenly getting a significant number of new dodge pool dice just because of the Athletics skill seemed strange and unbalancing. I remember when we first read about that rule, we were like, "Uh...NO!".

That also strikes me as being unbalanced. The original Combat Sense power gave you 3 combat pool dice at the high cost of 3 physad power points. The last time I made a house rules physad power that was in effect a cut-rate version of Combat Sense which could only be used for dodging everyone lambasted me for destroying game balance. I tried to balance this power that I made up here by forcing you to waste a complex action to get a less than 50% discount on the cost of the 3 dodge pool dice.

But now WizKids just goes ahead and publishes the .5-per-level dodge pool power.

IMHO, that ranks right up there in terms of being too powerful with the power that gives adepts an imitation smartlink.

I would remind you that originally the only way to directly rachet up combat pool was at a 1 dice per 1 power point rate with Combat Sense.

Other than that, you had to try to raise it indirectly with Attribute Boost or Improved Physical attribute.

Going with Improved Physical Attribute, it was .5 per attribute boost, so the rate at which you could raise your combat pool by boosting Quickness was still 1 dice per 1 power point.

For years I took this to mean that FASA did not want you just giving yourself lots of extra dice for dodge tests without a very serious cost in terms of power points.

But now WizKids just turns out a new sourcebook which *halves* the cost of boosting your combat pool and which makes Combat Sense and Improved Physical Attribute more pointless than they were before?

I feel like just giving away dodge test dice for .5 power points seems to completely go against the spirit of the original physad power rules, where raising combat pool by just 3 points was a significant committment in terms of physad powers. (Sort of like letting physads take a smartlink-like power without even needing to worry about essence loss or geases...)

I'm aware of that. And now I'll remind you that that boost to Combat Pool includes your ability to engage hostile forces, added a huge bonus to Surprise Tests, and allowed you to use those bonus dice for anything Combat Pool could be used for.

Side Step, at only half the cost, lets you use those dice for one thing only. Dodging. No Damage Resistance Tests. No augmentations to your Combat Skills. No bonus to Surprise Tests. That, alone, makes it one-fourth as powerful as Combat Sense, but yet it's only half the cost.

Hardly broken.

I have to agree with Funk here. O.5 Power Points for 1 extra die exclusively for Dodge Tests is not overpowered. Not considering the framework of existing rules including the Athletic Dodge from CC (which doesn't reflect simply using Athletics to get out of the way faster but instead the act of bobbing and weaving while diving to get out of the way).

Also, to the best of my knowledge there is no adept power in any of the books that provides an "imitation smartlink". At the very best there is the Attunement metamagic (as in Initiatory metamagic) which gives a player a bonus similar to a customized weapon or laser sight.

Really? I thought some people on this board were saying that there's a new physad power that is very similar to a smartlink.

...and their combat prowess is the primary reason why. Dodging is right up there with Athletics and Melee Combat and is completely within their area of expertise.

Now if they had a new power that gave them ungodly numbers of dice and/or target modifiers to something like Social Skills (<coughs>), I'd agree that it was inappropriate for an adept and overpowered compared to the rest of the game. But a hefty pricetag for some extra Dodge dice isn't a problem, especially since they had the option all along but had to take all the extras that came with it (ala Combat Sense).

There's a metamagic technique (the one Synner described) that grants a -1 target modifier if you have the appropriate B/R skill and want to blow the karma on it (and it only applies to that single weapon), which when combined with a laser sight grants the same TN bonus as a smartlink. There's also another adept power that lets you do things like switch clips as a free action.

That rule is tagged as "optional". Therefore, from a logical standpoint, you cannot assume that it applies in all shadowrun games even if those game conform to all the official rules.

I agree that powers that would add dice and subtract TNs from social rolls are too powerful as well and are completely out of left field. I blame people who tried to get "creative" with the direction of the game.



I see your perspective, but I still think that the reason that the combat pool dice was bundled in with lots of crap that you don't really need in Combat Sense was precisely to make that power less cost-effective. In all my years of playing physads in shadowrun, I often wanted to get more combat pool dice, but it kept bringing me back to the point that sacrificing half your starting power points to get only 3 combat pool dice was stupid. I also wondered why the capped the number of combat pool you could get at 3, isntead of theoretically letting someone blow all 6 points on 6 combat pool dice.

My conclusion was that combat pool dice, especially when applied to dodge tests which in many cases amount to a portion of your damage resistance test that is done at a cut-rate TN, are very dangerous and powerful and FASA was trying to make sure they didn't get out of hand.


EDIT: Just to clarify my point about the relative power of physad powers, look at the advanced physad powers in MITTS. Most of them are both expensive and yet hideously weak. Physad powers, based on these as examples, should be subtle and powerful in certain contexts but not as overwhelmingly powerful as the effects of cyberware or bioware.

Counterstrike....for .5 a level, you get +1 dice, but only to defense.

The obvious question is, "Why should I pay .5 a level for dice that I can only use on defense when I could pay .5 for Improved Ability and get dice that work for both defense *and* offense?"

The answer is that while Improved Ability can't give you more dice than your base skill level, counterstrike has no such restrictions. SO you could get 3 points of both Counterstrike and Improved Ability on Unarmed Combat and roll base 18 dice, if you can goad someone into punching you.

Not really blatantly powerful, very limited, but incredibly hilarious if you can figure out a way to force someone to attack you in melee combat. But the power is *only* useful once you have already gotten the maximum possible number of Improved Ability points, and so the way in which this power can be useful is quite subtle.


Iron Will - okay, so this is like Improved Attribute, except it boosts willpower. But wait...it dosen't help your combat pool, or help you soak stunbolts....it just specifically protects against mind control. Great! We get 1/3 of an attribute, in effect, for the same cost as raising a physical attribute in all of its aspects by 1 point. See? Low key and subtle is the way to go...you'd have to build a character based around resisting interrogation or something to make this power worth even taking.

Missile Mastery - for 1 point of damage you can do L damage with thrown objects, basically. Very under powered in terms of raw statistics, when you could just take a sniper rifle with 12 dice behind it. Once again, this is something you have to build a character concept around for it to be useful...the power is low key and subtle.

Nerve Strike - my favorite! Reduce 1 point of quickness for every 2 successes, and dosen't even work so well versus non-humanoids. It's like a less effective version of Unarmed Combat that you have to pay 1 physad power to get the priveledge of using. Even reducing someone's quickness to 0 is going to be harder to do and keeps that person incapacitated for a much shorter amount of time than just plain old M stunning them to sleepyland. Theoretically it could be useful against someone with a really really high BOD, but this attack is still borked by even a small amount of impact armor, since impact armor is added to your TN when rolling this attack.

Once again...a physad power that is seemingly useless. You could make it useful with certain character concepts, but you'd have to think of a way to make this power work well and create the circumstances for it ot be effective.



So my point is that by and large physad powers are not obviously useful and require a lot of thought and strategy centered around them to make them very useful, combined with a lot of dice from your Improved Ability. Going ahead and giving something incredibly useful like dodge pool dice for only .5 power points a dice is on a much higher power scale than these example official powers.

Brutally powerful utility ability there. Makes it so that anything you throw can be a weapon. Out to dinner with a mafia don whose head you are supposed to reduce to a pulpy paste of red goo? Unfortunately you were thoroughly frisked before the meeting, so your desert fork will have to do. The power isn't as good as having a gun, but it makes you dangerous unless you are stripped naked (assuming you have the strength to bust a button off of your pants. Coupled with improved ability (thrown weapons) you can have a scrappy li'l adept who is never without a weapon. This is the L killing hands of thrown weapons.

They still can't have a power higher than their magic rating, so their max is +6 dice at chargen. +9 if they get 3 levels of combat sense also.

Actually the answer is that Counterstrike works with all melee skills and not just one, not to mention that it stacks with Improve Skill and Side Step (when using Full Defense).

[edit] In fact, Side Step and Counterstrike are almost exactly equal in use and limitations, both at .5 per die.

First, you can blame whoever you want and though these powers may "come out of the left field for you", it also means you haven't been following references to adepts skilled at artistic, mental and social abilities (such as bards) which date as far back as First Edition. The background has been there from London all the way through to Awakenings and MITS, it was just given mechanics. Whether you agree with the form of those mechanics or not is another issue. This may not match up to what your personal understanding of adepthood, but don't confuse that with what canon has long implied.

Second, I'll take you comments for what they're worth considering you apparently haven't read the actual powers and their effects/limitations. As can be seen from your post on a "smartlink power" this can be the source of misunderstandings. Also note that in general Social adept abilities are still much less effective than spell equivalents that have been around for ages (ie. Commanding Voice effects are nothing compared to Mob Mind or Influence).

For reference, the "new" social powers are:
Commanding Voice - if you can't see the built in limitations to its description, I won't bother telling you.
Cool Resolve - Better name than the the original we had ("unflappable"). Helps resist (and only resist) Charisma-linked skill use.
Empathic Reading - Human lie detector, allows adepts to intuit and pick up clues in body language and visible biometrics.
Enthralling Performance - probably less social and more artistic but again the effect is a distraction easily broken if reality intrudes.
Improved Ability: Social Skills - Note this improves 1 social skill only (god knows how many times I've had to repeat that since the book came out). This is the main gripe many people have off all the powers listed. I was of the opinion that a further 0.25 per level would have been appropriate, but playtesting results showed no adept actually bought more than the ubiquitous 6 dice because the players believed beyond that it would box their characters in cost wise (although popping 3 pp into one skill is what people do with combat adepts). I've since run these rules in two different games (one a magic intensive campaign) and the results bore the playtesting results out.
Kinesics - at a very high cost per level (and a max. level 3), the adept can reduce their social target numbers. Given correct use of social modifiers and base target number of 4 IMHO this is far from overpowered at the cost.
Linguistics - makes it easier to pickup new languages
Voice Control - allows mimicry and a basic form of ventriloquism.

So the end result is yes, you can make a specialized social adept that should be able to beat a trained face/Johnson/negotiator, but the costs of these abilities stack up and he will be a one trick pony during a run. I would also note the important fact - that in the vast majority of face adepts - one of the biggest drawbacks to the character is the low resources they begin with, and hence fewer contacts, as compared to a mundane face. In playtesting 5/6 of the Way of the Speaker characters I've seen begin with three or less contacts as compared to the mundane Face average of 12. This is doubly important because of the way canon social modifiers quickly stack up when characters interact with non-friendly sources.

Mileage will inevitably vary, but I suggest people having problems with IA:Social Skill in particular, simply raise its point cost in game to 0.75 or 1 pp. The other ability people seem to have a major problem with is Kinesics but even level 3, I personally don't see it being much of a problem since it eats up 3 power points that would be going into other useful things.

Last but not least, the power levels and limitations of the abilities of Way of the Speaker adepts are in line with their rarity in the canon universe. Way of the Speaker is one of the less common ways among adepts (much less common than say Warriors, Athletes, Artists and even Invisible way adepts), which already only represent a fraction of the magically active community. Whether this is reflected in your individual campaigns is always the the GMs call.

Good call, Kanada.

The only two powers that are unbalanced are Kinesics and Improved Ability: Social Skills. The main reason they're unbalanced is because adepts are the only ones who can match those effects and because those effects have a profound effect in the game. Very few Social Skills are countered by other Social Skills, too. That means all those dice with -5 to their TNs are still being countered by the same raw Attributes they always were.

Considering there's no other way to gain a -3 target modifier with all Social Skills that doesn't stack with Kinesics, coupled with the fact that only a dedicated Face would even really consider going for the full brunt of the power to begin with, then 3 Power Points (2.25 Geased) is hardly a major investment. Especially since said character will almost assuredly have Good Reputation 2 and that it's the exact same price as IA 6 (while noting that a TN modifier is much more powerful than extra dice). But now, POOF! Every Availability in the game has just dropped by five points (and in some situations, even lower) for the character, who can use that advantage for everyone in the team.

* Avail 7 (easy) for a rating 6 Maglock Passkey.
* Avail 9 (moderate) for APDS Ammunition.
* Avail 11 (slightly challenging) for AV Ammunition.
* Avail 11 (slightly challenging) for a Panther Assault Cannon.
* Avail 11 (slightly challenging, at least until they get it installed) for Cultured Tailored Pheromones 2.
* Avail 13 (somewhat of a challenge) for Hardened MilGrade Armor and Helmet (hardened 9/8).

What's more, Improved Ability: Social Skill of Choice 6 is way more than a dedicated Face would ever need. No wonder nobody bothered getting more; no one else other than a social adept or some insanely powerful character with no stats at all has a chance of getting even remotely close to matching that power.

"But now they're a one-trick pony!" Pfft. No more than a Face was before SOTA:2064's creation. In fact, Adept Faces now get to blow even more of their mundane abilities and resources on non-social endeavors. Other than two or three Social Skills, one or two cheap Edges, a good Charisma and Willpower, and a bunch of Contacts (and even that's arguable since they can always just take a handful and use the other PC's contacts), they don't need anything else to excel at their job. That low Attribute and Skill demand means you can place a higher priority on Resources, too. That, in turn, means lots of cyberware/bioware, extra contacts, tons of weapons, and/or magical foci.

For non-Face adepts? Of course they're probably going to skimp on Improved Ability: Social Skills. It's not their bleeding speciality. And for stopping at IA 6? Duh. That's par of the course even with melee adepts; once you have an insane number of dice, you don't need to make it any more insane (especially since it's almost never an opposed Skill roll anyway). You might as well diversify your talents as you initaite since you're already a grandmaster in your field. Hell, I doubt if I would go higher than IA 4 (1.5 PP geased) for both Etiquette and Negotiations. Thus I could snare IA: Etiquette 4, IA: Negotiations 4, Kinesics 3, and still have 0.75 Power Points leftover for fluff abilities while simultaneously being unstoppable as a starting-level Face.

If playtesters are pussy-footing around with the rules and characters, FanPro/WizKids needs to recruit new playtesters who aren't afraid to challenge and push prospective new rules especially since that's the entire point of the process. (And no, I have no desire whatsoever to be one.) Anyone can make a sub-par generalist of a character and claim the rules they used were only meh. You don't need playtesters for that crap.

Now on the good side, a power like Commanding Voice is an excellent new addition for (social and non-social) adepts. It's unique but doesn't completely cripple other options in the game. Same goes for Cool Resolve, Enthralling Performance, Facial Sculpt (which I think is overpriced; 0.5 would have been better), Linguistics, Melanin Control, and Voice Control. Most of these powers are great because they add something new to the game that was never really addressed before and which fits the flavor of the adept nicely; disguise and impersonation. Characters could still rely on a touch of magic (which is hard to Mask unless you have a high Grade; adept powers are more difficult to spot and easy to Mask), plastic surgery, some minor implants, and/or a Disguise Skill and get the same end result, but the (social) adept could do it faster and with less fuss (but not necessarily superior ability). That's good game design. Kinesics and Improved Ability: Social Skills, however, is not good game design because they can destroy other aspects of the game. I'm also not thrilled with IA: Performance Skills either (especially when combined with Enthralling Performance and Virtuoso which, as an aside, I wonder why a huge fuss hasn't been made about them in the game world since they're using magic to artifically modify people's opinions of their music), but that has to do more with the philosophy than the impact on gameplay.

I don't know that one can run up a wall 6 meters without magic. Even better is combined with Gliding (and maybe Missile Mastery) one can now use a spool of thread and needle as a grappling hook and cord.

I might just remove the distance limitations of Gliding and make it Traceless Walk 2.

Agreed, though I'm not sure why Virtuoso shouldn't work for a mage as well.

Which is why you give it a decent base target number (say 4 to 6) and then require an Athletics Test with each success allowing you to do it up to one meter. Only adepts or anyone else with a highly augmented Athletics score would be able to do anything phenomenal.

Or combined with Great Leap or Traceless Walk for additional effects.
Running up 6 meters of sheer wall should be beyond even the best athletes in the world, that's what makes Wall Running magic. Of course there are other solutions. Assuming 2 nearby walls people could use multiple Great Leaps to bounce back and forth between them on the way up, Wall Running (like Gliding) is more than partially inspired by traditional legends.

That was considered but it was decided the effect was in fact quite distinct.

These are newly established metamagic techniques - afterall the book is called SOTA . There's nothing to say that in a couple of years' time some of these might not become available to mages.

I can see cases made (and have made a case) for Animal Attunement (less so for Item Attunement since this has a lot to do with physical control) - especially for aspected Enchanters -and to a certain point, Virtuoso. However Cognition (like Infusion and Somatic Control) reflects the adept's Inner Magic being channeled into a particular aspect of his abilities (in this case mental abilities). With a magician's abilities directed towards external manipulation of mana I don't think this particular ability crosses over easily. Though right now it is limited to Physical Magicians it is possible Limited Astral Projection might be opened up to aspected magicians later down the line.

Regarding the playtesting comment Funk. People weren't given any limitation in character design except to make characters that would function and contribute to a runner team. This meant most people didn't go all out in one direction and prefered to make well-rounded characters. Will there be people who make ultraspecialized negotiatior adepts? Of course. Just like there are people who play massively skillwired sams. It doesn't make it the norm. I don't believe it is a problem but I guess we'll have to see. In a few months time I'm hoping to do a poll to check out how people feel about the new abilities and the new magic in SOTA after they've had a chance to test them in play (rather than the kneejerk reactions you always see when something new comes out). We'll see how many people this has actually been a problem for - and if necessary I'll work put in my vote towards getting some errata out.

Regarding Kinesics especifically, I believe the -3 cap (for a whopping 3 power points and the minimal target number of 2) keeps it in check. In most of my games most target numbers during legwork and negotiation (using canon modifiers) vary in the 7-11 range (I also modify them for the player's actual roleplaying of the scene), so even a -3 isn't going to have that detrimental an effect on play. If the player spent his other 3 pps on 6 Negotiation dice it might begin to have an impact, but then again none of my 4-5 man teams really wants that kind of one trick poney on the crew - great for the negotiation and the legwork then a liability during the run. Again, mileage varies, I admit I might be wrong but we'll see in a few month's time after people have put it to the test.

A specialist can be as well-rounded as a generalist. The last two threads I contribued to speaking on this subject included two different examples of a well-rounded specialist, one of which was an adept Face.

Sure, because someone who's general TNs will be in the 2-6 range (using your average range) for social skills who can get the team anything they need on a whim AND who also happens to be blazing hot in a firefight (Pistols 6 with a Smartlink-2), quiet and stealthy (Stealth 6 plus the possibility of a Ruthenium outfit), and still has tons of room for other or different abilities is someone nobody would ever want on their team. What a useless sod. Especially considering the worthlessness of the aforementioned legwork and negotiations phase of the run -- screw that, let's just go in with guns a-blazing, baby!

I also have no idea why you try to pass off specialists as "one-trick ponies." I hate to break it to you, but most good teams do consist of specialists who have a few minor skills that overlap. Do you turn away a Sorcerer just because he's no good with Conjuring or Astral Reconnaisance? How about a Decker because the only thing he can do is surf the Matrix? Or how about that Rigger who you couldn't pry out of his vehicle for all the tea in China because rigging is the only thing he's good at? Do you find the Weapon Specialist worthless because the only thing they have going for them is their weapon skills?

One-trick ponies are characters who have had *everything* about them focused on one particular talent. Melee adepts with Edged Weapons 6, Martial Art 6, Three Combat Maneuvers, high Strength, Quickness, and Body, Ambidexterity 3, Improved Ability: Edged Weapons 6, Counterstrike 6, Quick Draw, and Strength Boost 2, and a Sword Weapon Focus is an example of a one-trick pony. A character who only needs two good Active Skills that everyone should have anyway (just not as high), a decent Attribute, a single cheap Edge, a few Contacts, and most of his adept powers revolving around them is not a one-trick pony because he has a ton of other resources and abilities to assign to other interests. The melee adept doesn't have much of any room leftover.

That said, a dedicated Face is a valuable asset for any team worth their reputation. They can get the team things they wouldn't normally be able to get without shelling out insane amounts of cash (assuming the use of the optional rule for lowering Availability with cash). They can charm their way past obstacles that you would normally have to blast your way through. They can get information out of people faster and with minimal difficulty than anyone else could (possibly short of a mage with Mind Probe). Most importantly, they can get you a killer contract each and every time a job comes to the table.

Say you have a meet with a strong Johnson (Negotiations 6, Willpower 6) who has a baseline deal where he's offering 100,000¥ a head for a extremely major job. With a dedicated Face adept with Negotiations 6, IA: Negotiations 6, Kinesics 3, and only Good Reputation 1, he'll be increasing that payday to 150,000¥ a head easy. In fact, he'll almost always be increasing the pay for a job by about 50% from what's offered. In truth, the difference is even greater since the Johnson will almost assuredly walk all over anyone but a dedicated Face in such situations.

First of all there's no such thing as an aspected Enchanter. Second, are you trying to suggest that anything that revolves around "physical control" is the sole domain of adepts? That's probably one of the silliest things I've read in a while. If magically bonding with an item is enough to limit something to an adept, you might as well restrict all foci (and not just Weapon Foci) to them, too. Same goes for Fetishes, too. Hell, that even goes for their creation as well; that includes Enchanting, Talismongering, and Anchoring. Go ahead and scrap spells like Fix and Vehicle Mask while you're at it.

Which is just absurd. If anything, adepts (including adept magicians) should be the last people to gain access to Astral Projection. At least aspected magicians can use Astral Perception by default. Adepts have to go out of their way, and through great personal sacrifice, to gain that ability alone.

Doesn't it imply that some traditional witches are exactly that? And then there is the Alchemist paradigm. Both would make a good basis for such a class, though I haven't made it to the Game Mechanics section of Old World Magic yet and it brings up the question of what they can actually do in terms of enchanting.

Dodging bullets.
I will remind you that we are talking about dodging bullets as well here.
An arrow, ok..I can see that.

Bullets? With 100% meat body due to super in-tune mind and body? That's streching it just a bit.

I know we can say, "But the Sammies can do it!!"

But I like how the Adept Sourcebook (presently a small group project in the works) keeps fresh in their minds (and I have to strongly agree with it)
Adpets are not just mystical street samurai without the cyber.

They are an entire field unto themselves.
Cyber offers the possibility of moving so friggen fast that one could dodge a bullet on the rare occasion.
But really, GMing should be strongly presenting some intersting side-effects from that much cyberware.

With Adepts...you don't have any negative side-effects that are serious health risks.

SOTA's format for seperating flavor text and game rules leaves something to be desired, but from what I've managed to read so far, they're implying that witches use charms (hardly a European-only concept -- let's hope they don't continue to typecast rules in the future) and Earthdawn-style magic (ie, spell matrixes), but they're otherwise just another flavor of shaman.

Dunno about that, either. But a specialist in Enchanting is still significantly different from an aspected Enchanter.

I beg to disagree but that's my perrogative as it is yours. By my definition a specialist is specialized in a particular area and not well-rounded.

I would appreciate you posting a character which has those abilities at character generation which isn't crippled by gaesa and I might agree with you. Not that I'm doubting you can do it, just whether or not it'll come out a munchkinized specialist or the kind of well-rounded addition I've seen everybody else produce when presented with the new rules.

Posting a character will be helpful in illustrating your point. I'll reserve further comments until I see it.

And a character/fixer brought in to negotiate and handle legwork isn't a one-trick pony? I'm not questionning his effectiveness (although you should slap phermones and any relevant edges on the Johnson if he's a pro) just players interest in playing that character and hence the times he will be appearing in games. There's a long way between something being possible and being commonplace.

Apologies, my MITS is on loan so I went from an apparently faulty memory as should be obvious I meant aspected magicians.

Nice, intelligent argument and like so many of your posts so obviously open to other people's interpretations and opinions.

Now when you finally get round to actually reading what was written, you'll probably be surprised to notice I was talking about Attunement. It went without saying that Attunement is not Enchanting. Attunement is imparting part of your Inner Magic into an item or animal (in mechanical terms through a karma expenditure). Something mages, whose powers are directed towards manipulating "external" mana, cannot (at present) do - just like they can't tap it their Inner Magic to function like a Living Focus. The process by which this is acomplished is also called bonding but that's where the parallels end - the item or animal is not inherently magical (like most products of Enchanting) and in many cases it won't be. The comment regarding "physical control" has to do with the way Attunement (especifically in Item Attunement) is described as acomplishing what it does - the item feels as if it were an extension of the adept's body, and in the case of an animal its senses become an extension of the adept's own.

The current Limited Astral Projection is specifically geared (including integral limitations) towards magical adepts (and only them). IMHO Whether or not a type of Astral Projection Metamagic for aspected magicians might be introduced (or not) is not the point since the limitations (if any) should be significantly different.

If you're referring to the Dude and Woodchuck's Adept crew on Underworld93.com (I'm not sure since there's been at least two more adept projects I know of), you might be surprised to know Dude and Damion, the "surviving" members of that team, are my co-authors on the adept chapter of SOTA64 and a fair chunk of the material introduced in the book was developed and tested on the Adept SB project.

Fine, especially since I don't consider most geasa crippling. If you instead intended to say "without using any geas whatsoever because I don't like them despite them being a fundamental part of the game," well, that's your perogative. But I'm not going to ignore a basic and perfectly acceptable rule just to make you happy. Regardless, and for the third time, here you go...

Barebones Concept: Human Face.
Build Points (125 BP): Magic 25, Race 0, Attributes 60, Skills 28, Resources 15, Edges -3.
Edges & Flaws: Bad Karma (representing depression and lack of a zest for life), College Education, Dark Secret (funded through college by the Mob), Good Looking & Knows It, Good Reputation 2.
Attributes: Bod 4, Qui 8, Str 2, Cha 6, Int 6, Wil 6; Rea 8, Init 1D6(2D6); Ess 4.7, Bio Index 1.4; Combat Pool 10, Karma Pool 1. Average Initiative 15.
Active Skills: Athletics 4, Etiquette 6(10), Negotiations 6(10), Pistols 6, Stealth 6.
Knowledge Skills: Acting 4 (Improvisation 6), Current Events 3 (International 5), English 4 (Proper English 6, Reading/Writing 2), Japanese 4 (Reading/Writing 2), Psychology 4 (Criminal Psychology 6), Security Procedures 3 (Bypassing Security 5), Rumor Mill 6, Underworld Politics 4 (Mafia 6).
Adept Powers: Improved Ability: Etiquette 4 (Talisman: Lucky Charm), Improved Ability (Condition: Establish Eye Contact, Magic Loss Offset), Kinesics 3 (Talisman: Lucky Charm), Linguistics (No Geas).
Implants: Boosted Reflexes 1 (0.5e, 15,000¥), Cybereyes (Image Link, Eye Light Systems, Low-Light Vision, Flare Compensation) (0.3e, 12,800¥), Enhanced Articulation (0.6b, 40,000¥), Muscle Toner 2 (0.8b, 50,000¥), Smartlink-2 (0.4e, 3,200¥).
Contacts: 50,000¥ worth plus two Level 1s.
Equipment: Vashon Island Actioneer Line (Ruthenium Polymers with 8 Scanners) (51,650¥), Form-Fitting Full Body Armor (Thermal Dampening 4) (8,000¥), Savalette Guardian (Upgraded Smartlink-2, Personalized Grip, 2 Spare Clips, Concealed Quick Draw Holster) (1,635¥), Pocket Secretary (2,000¥).
Remaining Resources: 17,365¥ + 3D6*100¥ in Starting Nuyen.
Specialties: Social Encounters, Stealth, Ranged Combat.
Weaknesses: Melee Combat, Damage Resistance (yet quite better than average).

Note that one or two numbers may be slightly off; I did it from memory rather than looking everything up. Not gonna waste my time going through and triple-checking everything for something that doesn't mean squat.

First, no, I do not consider them a one-trick pony. I consider them a specialist. He'd be a one-trick pony if, in fact, he could only do one thing. Second, the adept face can use Tailored Pheromones just as easily as the Johnson can. And you know what? He can actually get his hands on Tailored Pheromones thanks to Kinesics, not to mention hooking up with Delta Clinics and anything else that's normally really difficult to get your hands on.

And note that against ordinary Johnsons, the Adept Face will completely obliterate him on the bargaining table. That's why I included a gifted Johnson earlier... because even against a powerful Johnson, that Johnson doesn't stand much of a chance unless he, too, is an adept. And voila, there's the crux of the my issue with these rules.

I'm well aware of what you were talking about. But, as often seems to be the case around here, you guys like to use logic that only applies to one particular thing. You simply can't do that. If you're going to argue one bit of logic for one particular aspect of the game, that logic has to apply across the board or it is the faulty logic.

Funny, sounds like a form of enchanting and bonding to me.

Nope, but it has a magical tie to its master/creator. Much like foci do; they're not magical, they just house magic. If the magic is destroyed, the vessel continues to function just fine; the magic itself does nothing to the focus, only the one its bonded to. Same essential difference.

I still see little reason as to why that would be a purely adept ability. I'm sure magicians feel the same way about their foci. Why shouldn't a hermetic druid who has a huge amount of his essence tied into his staff (a combo Weapon/Power Focus) be able to do the same thing?

And my point is that it should have been introduced first. In fact, there is no reason whatsoever that it should have been limited to adept magicians only in SOTA:2064. It's like all the metamagic techniques therein were restricted to adepts simply because it was a chapter on adepts. That's like saying that adepts should be banned from learning Psychometry because that was introduced in a section of SOTA:2063 revolving around traditional magicians rather than adepts... nevermind that nothing about it is purely magician-based.

Yeah, I caught some word about something like that over there at underworld.

Something about getting a little somewhere, but I haven't paid close attention like I should be.

I love those adepts. I just hope they get their dues someday.

Glad to hear that they're getting their stuff out there!

Well, I agree that the *idea* of dodging bullets in the sense of dodging them when they're already in the air is absurd, whether you're a sammie or not. But that's an overall issue with the game system that allows x dice for dodge tests in the first place. Consider that even perfectly normal non-magical and non-cyber guys have combat pool and can theoretically dodge a bullet.

And indeed, that was kind of my initial point. My initial point is that adding to dodge pool tests is very powerful and that I disagree with letting people do that for only .5 power points per dice.



As far as the health risks from cyberware are concerned....I've never ever ever encountered a single GM who actually applies that. When I GM, even though I'd like to apply that, it's just too many details. When I have to create 5 hours worth of gaming material and keep track of a plethora of rules I just don't have the mental capacity to also track health effects for each and every piece of cyberware the party has. Moreover, the people I play with tend to take different characters each time, so it's not like I'd just have to keep track of a particular group of characters. There are different characters each time and the timeframe between missions is very ambiguous precisely because it's essentially different PCs each session.

The only book that I own that you have mentioned is MITS, and I've only been playing since 2nd edition.

Just to clarify, I wasn't commenting on what canon should or shouldn't be. Yes, I realize that MITS was overflowing with lots of references to artistry and stuff like that, but I never thought that someone would actually want to go ahead and *make* an artistic adept. I figured that Stephen Kenson just stuck it in there because he's verbose, and he's an author, and he has a personal interest in magic so he just crammed it as full of personally interesting details as possible. I honestly didn't think that anyone else would actually be interested in all that artistic stuff.

Geeze louise, my point was NOT to comment on SOTA 64, which I do not own and wasn't planning on using. My comment on the smartlink power just came because of a few mentions on this board, and I thought, "Gee, that sounds mighty munchkinous".


Really, the whole entire point of the conversation that I started to get into was: I think that .5 points per dodge pool dice is too cheap, considering how in SR3 they seemed determined to not let you get more pool for less than 1 pp per dice, and furthermore how a lot of the powers in MITS like Nerve Strike are much less cost effective than something like .5 pp for more dodge dice.

Furthermore, I wanted to point out that using Athletics to dodge is tagged as an optional rule and so it is incorrect to assume that it would be present in any game that follows all the official rules.

So what was the point of the power that I wrote initially? To let people get more dodge dice at a rate that was worse than .5 per dice but slightly less expensive than 1 per dice in the context of a game that does not use the optional rules for athletics helping you dodge.

I mentioned the stacking. The fact it applies to all melee skills is a good call, though.

I still think it would be funny to have a troll physad with a dikoted magical claymore with Counterstrike and Improved Ability teamed up with a mage who could cast Control Thoughts and force all the mooks to attack the troll in melee combat.

I don't intrepret dodge actions as literally dodging bullets, except possibly for Adepts in cinematic moments ("Woah.").

Instead of using the combat pool to do all the random nebulous stuff that somehow makes you shoot better, you use it to not get shot. You happen to weave just the right way to throw their sights off. In a running firefight you move behind cover just as the trigger is pulled. You catch a brief glimpse of steel in the Corp Goon's hand, think "Ohmygod HE'S GOT A GUN!" and duck faster than the gunner can react, your brain barely missing its chance to become part of the wall paper.

It may not make sense for anyone to dodge a well aimed bullet, but even Joe Sixpack can duck. When you add that combat is a chaotic, rapidly moving dervish of activity rather than two people standing still and taking pot shots at each other, being able to make a concerted effort to not get shot makes sense.

hmm...I remember something in the book somewhere about that, but it's not in here now when I'm looking. Maybe it was in SR2.
I thought I remembered an area that explained that the target was attempting to make it more difficult for the shooter by adding modifiers to their shot.

[Dodging as a given, in my opinion, is a bit broke. Not because of what you can do to dodge, but because of this.
Slow guy has 2 passes, fast guy has 3 passes.
Fast guy uses first pass and shoots at slow guy who chooses to dodge.

How is he dodging? He, according to numbers, can't even react yet. He hasn't gone yet, he isn't using any actions yet. Nothing. Dodging is handed out like a semi-free action that would otherwise be at least a simple action (moving around or leaping to make their aim harder).
If you have 3 seconds of time in which to do things, and you spend part of that time dodging, weaving, and ducking, and you can only move normally at 2 simple actions per 1.5 seconds (or one simple action in 0.75 seconds), then how are you squeezing in another action like you are moving at 1.2 seconds per pass? (or 0.6 second per simple action)
This kind of always bugged me, but I just always let it go...
Like I said, my latest concept for initiative solves that problem]

The thing is, you're dodging from the beginning. You start dodging the second you realize what's going on. Not being able to dodge == being surprised.

Which does mean that realistically dodge pool should be allocated at the start of a combat turn, and definitely before an attack test is rolled, but it's up to the GM whether they want to make it a more lethal game.

~J