i honestly don't think that the writers put much thought into how long these beings have been around. it just doesn't make any sense--regular humans, with some effort, can reach grade 10+ within their lifetime. IEs and GDs have had many, many human lifetimes during which to do their thing; why in the world would they be only grade 10? this is, to me, another bit of fluff that i've come to completely ignore, just like i ignore the utter insanity of "all guns within a certain class use the same ammo" and "all guns are available in cased or caseless versions". these statements are so far outside the bounds of reality and probability it's not even funny. "GDs are only a little over grade 10" is the same way.

Well, that'll teach me not to post to a hot topic and come back sixteen hours later.

Uhm....so, as to my earlier comment, yes, I was being a bit tongue in cheek. I'm very aware of the original quote and its origins, thank you.

Merely trying to point out that running around spouting off about IQs was rather silly in the grand scheme of things, but I suppose it's all a moot point now...

While it is more than likely true that other interests are involved, stating that the assorted GDs and IEs would not be any more powerful after more than 10,000 years than a human can manage in one lifetime is ludicrous.

indeed. GDs and IEs may have other ways to measure themselves by, but that doesn't negate the unarguable utility of having 40 or more initiate grades to play with. that's 40 or more metamagics, 40 or more points of masked foci/sustained and quickened spells, 40 or more people who one's shielding can cover, 40 or so more meters that they can run while wallrunning/gliding, and so on.

Well, naturally the IE would be more skilled. Grade 10 with Sorcery 8 is a lot different than Grade 10 with Sorcery 14+.

And 40 more metamagics vs. Tir na Nog's national magical and military power? Or Saeder-Krup's empire? Or even just the Exolashers or Paladins and Ghosts? And thats assuming there are 40 more meaningfully distinct metamagics that the IE or GD can concieve of (and consider worth learning); giving tupilak the Fear power might be important to our northern shaman friends, but why would an IE want to learn it? Initiation isn't always the most efficient way to increase one's abilities, nor is it the only way to reflect centuries of knowledge.

And thats also assuming that Magic users don't have a set potential. Most people can only go so far before that law of diminishing returns kicks in, and all the study and effort no longer yeild signifigant results.

Why are we now comparing individuals to armies?

The law of diminishing returns is reflected in the rules by the ever-increasing Karma cost of improving.

Grade10/Sorcery 14 is well with the reach of any dedicated metahuman.

These people were elite in the 4th World. Harley was a 15th circle Lightbearer (or whatever he was that included swordsman and wizard); Aina is, IIRC the equivalent level as a Nethermancer (among other things); Alachia is at the top of the game in at least 3 seperate magical traditions ... etc. (I'm not as well-versed in ED as I should be)

Imagine trying to magically attack a Grade 40 Initiate who has 20 Spell Pool dice allocated to Shielding. Good luck getting the 29s on that Manabolt that you need to even make them have to resist it...

yes, akarenti, but initiation still gives you much, much more power. grade 40, assuming ordeals but no groups, only costs 2,540 karma. even if an IE only earns 10 karma per year, it'd still only take 254 total years to reach that grade. spread out over tens of thousands of years, 254 isn't a whole hell of a lot--in ten thousand years, an IE would spend more time eating food than that. there is absolutely no reason for an IE to not go ahead and pick up 40 or more grades of initiation, and every reason to do so.

If 40 grades of initiation are something you can't just "pick up" in about twelve thousand years, time loses a lot of its flavour in-game.

And why are they continually improving? Because they aren't stronger than their enemies, but the Scourge is far away for now. It's coming back, but they've got the time. Time is, in fact, more or less all they have.

And the only way to confront a powerful Named Horror is on its area of expertise.

~J

They seem to have done pretty well surviving the Scourge in the 2nd and 4th worlds.

Okay, I'm just going to go out on a limb and ask-- Why shouldn't IEs and GDs be Grade 40, 50, or 100?

As for 40 metamagics... Well, I've seen a list of more than 40 metamagics created as an expansion of the original six metamagics and the various new ones introduced over the last 15 years. Likewise, you have to consider what might be considered a metamagic now as its equivalent ED power, plus whatever metamagic they will introduce in the future once it's been "discovered."

As for the Next Scourge, I'm just curious. You do realize that the next Scourge will be very different than the one in ED due to technology, let alone what the combination of magic and tech will produce for both sides by the time it hits?

I wouldn't quite say "pretty well."

Either way, none of them were around in the 2nd Age.

I just don't think of IEs as more powerful than GDs, and more than one GD has been downed by mere mortals. All-wings, THE great dragon of her time, was killed by a solitary obsidiman Warrior adept (with a life span of about 500 years). Two or three were killed by military action. If it were so easy to get all that magic ability, why would the elves and dragons bother doing anything else? If your a Grade 100 initiate, what difference does it make what happens in the world? If it bothers you, you'll just blow it up and make a new one. A Grade 10-20 initiate is fully capable of everything that IEs and GDs have been noted to do in fiction, and a bit besides.

I just don't understand why they have to be grade 50. It's like all the computer RPGs were everything is measured in 100s. Just a bigger number were there's no reason for one.

kevyn668: And I will rebutt by saying that according to several ED gurus here, there has been references to at least some of the currently existing IEs being around in the 2nd Age.

akarenti: I think the problem is more with labelling the GDs with an Initiate Grade of 10-20. That is way too low to be even remotely believable.

Could the body survive long enough to do an astral quest required for initate grade 60?

Also, consider that each ED level is roughly equal to one grade of initiation, With 30 levels of initiation at the height of the last cycle (for a then young immortal), they probably have quite a few more by now.

back on subject.. I think there is ageneral problem in SR with these "mega characters"; Since way back then in sr2 , the times of FASA, the writers have been UTTERLY unable to create powerful characters, min maxing to any degree is completely alien to them.
<I am not talking about blind albine gnome mages or some such, I am talking about proper choice of cyber/bio/spells/foci/resource allocation,etc..>
point, harlequin`s back, at the time I was playing a grade 3 initiate mage, nothing hyper, no edges/flaws..I remember when the gm showed me Darke´s stats.. I went.. this is it? my char would easily win against him <he was a mere grade 6, and with VERY POOR spell choice>. Now I am perfectly ok with not min-maxing but really the big movers and shakers that are supposed to be personally powerful <as opposed to heavy resource guys like Damien Knight> should really be properly min maxed. if my sr team meets mr Darke in an alley somewhere they should be afraid, he should have the stats to back up his reputation.

so, my point is, if you need stats for these characters, take a look at them, ignore any modern canon references, see their history, what they have done, for the ies and such take a look at earthdawn magic to give them a little `something extra` in the form of spells noone else has, spells are being *discovered*, these guys know them already.
then give them appropriate karma. me , I would give say harley around 6-10 karma/year for his life during the last magic active time, and 1-2 per year for each non-magic active times as there are few horrors and such about to keep him busy, yes that would mean he would have around.. ohh.. 30 000 karma or so to play with? <assuming born halfway through lastr phase, not sure about that>
yes that number is scary, yes, people dont often want such in their campaign, and that is why they are usually left statless, however there is little point in giving stats to a harley and then nerfing him to a grade 10 initiate while saying he has lived so many thousands of years.. it is just not believable. the stats of any such being are not balanced, and have nothing to do with what a runner may archieve in a few years of shadowruns.


DS

One of the ways I've always describe the way that Harlequin or the other IEs spent during the past thousands of years was to plaigarise David and Leigh Eddings. "Sometimes hundreds of years just roll by without anything to do." Another way is to remember to apply training time and SOTA, especially SOTA. 30K Karma? He spent 20K keeping up with the SOTA for the last couple of thousand years.

you could...

you will end up with say a grade 10-20 initiate if you want..

now ask yourself, what can he do that a good sr team cannot do?

if your answer to that is "nothing" then why have him in a campaign? ies are figures for those special times in a campaign where you want to run a world spanning plotline, or when the campaign is ending and you want to pull out the big guns for the final run..

and while harley might actually spend 50 years watching paint dry what about say ehran.. or any of the others.. some are supposedly very interested in their fields.
in any case, grade 10-20 is something a sr character could actually reach in a long campaign. <btw; watching paint dry for 50 years should net you a few points of will even if it loses you a few of int >

point is: IF you decide to use these characters in a campaign then you have to decide how powerful they are to be in your world. however if all your story requires is a grade 10-20 initiate npc then why recur to a `thousands of years old inmortal ie` ?? in a world with so many mages I am sure there would be enough high level initiates running around.. initiating isnt that expensive..

DS

toturi, i've never seen a runner group that has to spend 2/3 of its karma on keeping up with SOTA, or even 1/10. i really don't see why an IE would have to.

an ie would "lose" some karma because of sota... I am sure harlequin may have say muskets 12 skill which sota definitely would make worthless.. lots of sword/knife/awl pike/halberd etc skills, some old fashioned farming skills, pig farming skills, skinning, leatherworking, smithing, old sports skills, biplane flying skills, mauri boat sailing, etc etc..
still one assumes he would devote SOME attention to his main skills, and while he arguably couldnt increase his sorcery skill in the low magic era he would still have a world beating centering skill..

DS

Even then, a lot of those would be applicable in part if not in whole today. Muskets have a lot of extra complication that isn't needed for a modern firearm, but I'd think they'd be close enough to use the knowledge at least in part. Swords/knives/awl pikes/halberds are used the same as they ever were.

~J

Oh and yes, I agree they probably would hav spend a boog chunk, maybe 3/4 of their karma on skills that aren't even relevant anymore. That still leaves them 100 times more karma than any human will see in their normal lifetime.

yes, but what i'm saying is that in ED, these characters were all insanely powerful. in SR, however, you're saying that they should only be grade 10-20, which--while certainly way above the bell curve--doesn't nearly qualify as "insanely powerful". yes, there are other means of gaining power (high sorcery/conjuring skill, etc.), but those only take you so far--just as high grade only takes you so far. given the vast amounts of power available to these characters during the ED timeline, i'd assume that they have both very high initiatory grades and very high magical skills.

right, akarenti, but none of those other mages are still alive today. nobody in the modern world has power that even comes close to approaching the power those characters had in ED. on top of which, since the time of ED, those characters have had millennia to further their magical power to even more insanely high levels.

I'm with Mercer...

to an extent, i do as well. i'm just not really touching the metagame-related aspects of the issue, such as whether or not these characters should be included in the game.

That's fine, they've had several thousand years of a world of people developing that knowledge from the last cycle that they still have access to. 99% of all the research people are doing in this cycle of magic is effectively reinventing the wheel.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'm so terribly impressed by it. Given how the manacycle got spiked by the GGD, it's looking like affecting the cycle may be much easier (relatively speaking) than we might have otherwise thought.

~J

Yeah, but the GGD did it in one spot, the Therans did it world wide (or at least all over Barsaive. and they didnt kill a hundred people to do it (as far as we know)

Hasn't it been implied that magic in general is rising unusually quickly in the Sixth World?

Come to think of it... Great Ghost Dance... Heavenherds...

~J

The Great Ghost Dance was pushing magic in the direction it was already going, and in an uncontrolled fashion. Less impressive. For that matter, who knows if boosting the magic level was even what the casters intended.