It almost certainly wasn't, though it may have been what the people who taught them intended.

Though I still hate the fact that they "humanized" Daniel Howling Coyote. He should've stayed a bloodthirsty murderer instead of becoming the tortured semi-hero.

~J

It's actually interesting how much Aztechnology's magic mirrors the Theran Empire era Heavenherd's uses of Blood Magic, esp. since they seemed keen on exploiting the GGD spike.

THE MASTER RETURNS...but not to BAIT nerds this time. I just couldn't resist.

Considering that the average IQ of Shadowrun players is around 198 ('Ray, you memorized the phonebook?' - 'I, I, I'm an excellent driver...'), I'm surprised that in 15 pages of posts nobody saw the most obvious way to compromise given stats for immortals and reasonable stats for immortals based on karma accumulation.

Theory of Relative Magic Rating:

Magic in ED/SR isn't a constant, but a cyclical force. Clearly, being around for thousands of years will lead to the accumulation of skills and magical awareness in excess to the given stats for immortals. Grade 10 for Great Dragons? Forget game balance, is there a way to justify this figure without breaking down that wall? Since only when the magic level is high are the highest and most powerful forms of magic possible, in the early up-cycle of the 6th world, magic power has a ceiling lower than the actual capabilities of immortals. So at the peak of the cycle, an immortal would be able to manifest a 20-30-50 grade. But like the downclycle, powerful magicians are limited not by their own experiences, but by the magical ceiling. A fair way to balance this is to allow immortals all the metamagical techniques they've learned (though it's likely that many will require higher levels of mana to use and so will of be no use early in the cycle), while limiting their relative magical power to the level of the mana cycle. So Harlequin can have a relative initiate grade of 15-20 early in the 6th world.

This gives mortal magicians a chance to catch up because no matter how powerful immortals may be, there is the ceiling on how much mana they can channel/manipulate/summon. World population in the billions means there are far more magically active creatures than ever before, and with the internet/matrix's availability of magical info, the opportunities to develop magical potential is also much greater than ever before. Out of this large pool of potential magicians, many will have the luck and skill to reach initiate levels that match the relative magical power of immortals. Since the magic cycle is slow and the population growth and distribution of magical data is faster, immortals are being outnumbered by magicians who can call on almost as much raw power as IE's and GD's can at the point of the mana cycle. This allows mortals to catch up and the longer lived mortals can advance along with the magic ceiling for hundreds of years. Though toward the peak of the cycle, immortals will be able to express their true abilities while mortals could never advance to equal them in a lifetime.

The mana cycle limits the power of spells as well. Since 10-15 or 20 seems to be the maximum relative magical initiate level possible at the point of the cycle, it would make sense that spells would be similarly limited. Maybe at the peak of the cycle, you could throw around Force 40 spells, but not now. In Prime Runners, Rhonabwy is listed as having Magic 25 (12 Essence +13 Initiate) with his highest spell force listed being 20. A key limitation on magic in ED is that powerful magic and spells attract powerful magical creatures, particularly Horrors. Casting and sustaining a Force 10 or above spell would create large mana disturbances and background count everywhere you went. Walking around with a sustained Force 20 spell would probably tear the astral and attract and let loose all kinds of spirits. A giant magical flame attracting all moths around - so the idea of IE's or GD's who like to hide or keep a low profile when wandering around casting and sustaining such high force spells seems pretty absurd. So, go ahead and open up the next time you see Ehren or Lofwyr.

Back to the shadows

There's something incredibly funny about 15 pages of people discussing irrelevant stats.

that depends on your campaign... some campaigns do use the ies.

as for the post above.. of course, nobody expects harlequin to be able to bottle a city given the current mana levels <not without a locus or some heavy blood magic> but one certainly expects him to be more than a rather good mage...
anyway it is mroe a campaign decision than anything else. in my case, I dont really use ies so they are statless for the few words they may utter. if I start using an ie or GD in my campaign I will fully stat them, not before.. it is way too much work. once you start using them you do need stats though, for consistency`s sake.


DS

I do use IEs and GDs (as a matter of fact, I'm currently running Harlequin and my players are in Prague with Schwarzy). I just find the idea of 15 pages of people discussing their (irrelevant) stats incredibly funny. They are plot generators, not mere NPCs.

Actually, a good portion of the 15 pages were debating wether they should be strictly plot devices or just really strong NPCs.

Good NPC's are plot generators. However, Deus Ex Machina are detrimental to the plot in my opinion. I mean why bother having PC's at all and just tell a story about the unstoppbable badass?

Did anybody stop to think that maybe you are letting your characters advance to fast and for to long? This might be a problem with the way karma reads in the rules. I never had any character advance to these levels in my game, so I don´t know. The point is that grade 10 initiates are the best in the world. If your characters get there all the time, your doing something wrong.

GM´s should cap karma at a certain point, making progression very hard. When characters get to that level of godliness they should play in the same leauge as the powerful NPC´s and be done with it. When you´re on top there´s nowere to go but down!

<<<edit>>> You could instead progressivly increase the potential of other powerful individuals in the game world as your game group´s characters advance, of course. The most important thing in role playing is that the illusion is upheld. Do what ever it takes to make things beleavable to you and your players. That´s my take on this.

Because sometimes the God in the Machine isn't messing with the story the players are on.

~J

And another thing. Initiating is more than just spending karma. It means getting some kind of INSIGHT. That doesn´t happen just because you want it to. GM's should remember that.

i don't think that's really supported by the rules, mintcar.

It is. The text is suggesting that it´s like that anyway. And it´s a good tradition in modern role playing games that character progression should be limited by role playing. If the GM thinks it´s unreasonable for your character to initiate again this session, then your out of luck even though you have the karma.

eh. i'll say that i'd be very upset with a GM who chose not to mention a stricture like that at the outset of a game. i'd work with it, if it were imposed, but i'd be quite unhappy to have it sprung on me without warning. the structure of the game rules should normally be the defining factor in things related to game mechanics.

If I was your GM, I think that it would be obvious to you at a very early point that rules doesn´t mean drekk when they conflict with beleivability or the general fun of the game (to me). A fight takes to long and everybody is bored? Screw it, forget the dice let´s improvise. And it´s a collaborating process. It´s not dictatorship. The point is that players and GM are in agreement that the illusion is beleivable. That it isn´t breached. If everybody around the table know eachother you can throw out the rules now and then, just so the mood doesn´t suffer.

I tend to agree with mfb on this one. Heck, if you wanted to follow that line of reasoning to it's extreme end, the GM shouldn't let the characters spend any of their own karma. They should have to role-play learning any new skills, and the GM would decide what was improved based on what they did during the intervening period. The only thing it actually accomplishes is to suck all the fun out of things.

[edit] I agree that it can be appropriate to adjust rules on the fly if all the players agree, but it should never be at the sole discretion of the GM. Then it just seems like railroading.[/edit]

I´ve never limited a player in that way. But if my players and I weren´t in agreement about what´s reasonable and not, I might.

<<<edit2>>> I´d just like to clairafy that I´m not talking about changing the rules at all. I´m talking about a well known praxis that is part of the rules in most modern role-playing games; that in order for a character to learn something, it has to make sense in the game! I actually have a hard time beleiving you don´t agree.

Anyway. This is leading into a lengthy discussion. I´ve said my bit, so I´ll be looking in tomorrow.

Well, I see both your points. Karma is supposed to represent that insight, is my take on it. As a GM, I try to stay out of a players' kool-aid when it comes to advancement, but I've never had a player last 30,000 years.

JKWongs point, which was brought up earlier, that the IE's were never designed to function mechanically makes a discussion of stats moot. (Setting any numerical values on the IE's just gives us a mark to beat, and IE's were designed never to beat.) They are, as Jk and others have pointed out, not NPCs but rather forces of nature.

Which is one bone of contention some have with them. Statless npcs aren't something everyone can get behind. Especially when you consider the wide spectrum of power levels that SR goes across, IE's tend to inhabit one end of high fantasy, ED/SR crossover style games where the 6th World is an extension of the problems of the 4th or earlier ages.

Admittedly, the game designers probably didn't decide to make the IE's to be supercool demigods whos only real purpose is to either show up the pc's or push them around, but if you've ever played in a game where they were misused in this fashion, it does leave a bad impression of IE's in general.

My beef with the IE's is that I think they're lazy storytelling. But thats me, and I run more low fantasy games that don't deal with the metaplots that come up from time to time (though I do like to use the metaplots for headlines in Enquirer style SR screamsheets).