I am currently GMing a game with an aspect gator shaman. He increasing is saying that he wishes he had choosing to be a full mage when creating his character. Would it be possible to use karma somehow to fully awaken him? If so what type of things would he have to do in the game to fully awaken himself?

I think the usual way to handle something like that would be to have him eaten by a Megladon (especially apropos in games set in Denver) and then create a new character.

There are no game rules to cover that kind of conversion, so pretty much, whatever you feel is appropriate. I might think his totem would be a bit pissed at getting the cold shoulder though.

An alarm clock might help.

So there should just be a basic retreat to his lodge for like a week or two where his totem teachs him stuff about conjuring in the game?

You could deal with it that way. You could also have the mini-awakening happen because of a traumatic or inspirational event. The mechanics and fluff are up to you, depending on how you run the rest of your game.

Just in case you missed it, Senior Drekface, such an awakening is specifically against the rules. So if you want to do it you can pick anything and make it a house rule.

One option would be for the team to learn during a run that someone claims to have discovered a technique or ritual for such a full awakening, say in Amazonia or Aztlan. If the team decides, on their own (no pay) to go and help their groggie (half-awakened shaman) team mate go through the ritual you can make a run out of it. It should have an appropriate level of challenge for the character to achieve something that is against the rules. Typically, in such a run, the team mates earn Karma, but not the groggie, much like for an Ordeal.

As Shadowruns often have unhappy twists and turns, you can have the first technique they discover include some sacrifice they are unwilling to do, but they might learn a rumor of a different technique in Germany or Japan or Louisiana. (The player might very well make the sacrifice, and if so -- that's his choice.)

The Becks character generation system charges 90 karma for a full mage and 60 for an aspected one, so 10-15 karma is probably too cheap.

Of course, they could have to eat kittens to prove their worth, or something instead.

Eating kittens? How gross. How about a requirement that they sacrifice a player character who has earned more Karma than themselves (minimum 90). That way they don't have to rip up their character sheet to become fully awakened -- they get to rip up someone else's.

It isn't a matter of fully awakening as much as it is a matter of trainning. The only difference between an aspected magician and a full magician is that an aspected magician focuses his training in one particular area.

However, the reason that you can't turn one type of magician into another is one of game balance. It isn't exactly fair to those who spent BP to make full magicians just as letting nomal adepts buy magic power isn't fair to those who spent BP to be a Physmage. Then again, it isn't necessarilary unfair to them either.

I would require that the person initiate, either self or group will. If you want, a tramatic or stressful event can be used for fluff, but they should certainly be made to pay the karma cost. They could not gain a metamagic or a magic point for this initiation and would only gain one new ability.

Sorcerer could initiate twice using this rule to gain both Astral Projection and Conjuring. If it were me, I would require ordeals, as well, but not give any karma reduction for them. For a Shaminist, I'd allow him to by projection this way but not buy off his totem restrictions without a very good reason and even then I'd limit it to one catagory restriction at a time.

I probably wouldn't require the initiation levels (full mages at the beginning of the game don't have to pay initiate costs as if they were 2 levels higher), but I would charge a hefty Karma fee and require some very significant training, probably from a free spirit or an Initiate with a really good Teaching skill to represent the difficulties an established mage would have learning from other mages.

There should be a 15 karma charge, bare minimum. Aspected sorcerers get 10 more magic points which equates to 10 karma, and they are 5 build points cheaper to bring it up to 15. A sorcerer switching to full mage is going to end up paying a lot more for conjuring than a freshly built full shaman, though, so I think that perhaps the minimum might be right on the money.

I vote 15 karma and an ordeal.

My 0.02 : It is not entirely unprecedented within the Shadowrun universe for a magician to find that they have a greater range of abilities than they were aware. It is extremely rare, however, and involves at least one and sometimes a sequence of experiences that jar them out of their mindset or help them overcome their mental blocks.

Sorcerors focus on spells and astral combat because that's what they can do, not just what they think they can do. Conjurers focus on calling and banishing spirits because that's their magical talent, not because they have the potential to cast spells but never had the chance or interest to learn sorcery as well.

If you're going to allow a magician to expand their abilities, it should not come down to a codified ritual and expenditure of karma. Giving power a subject cost cheapens it, and your magician will not have earned or appreciate it. The ideal solution is to have the player roleplay their character's attempts to expand their horizons...to keep from interfering with the game, I suggest private one-on-one sessions.

Also, by all means be stingy. Research, meditation, self-discovery, teachers, astral quests and the like are bread and butter for this sort of thing, but it doesn't need to come quickly or easily. I highly suggest the character's development be graded by aquiring magical edges, which can illustrate how the character gains or masters their new skills one-by-one. Award very little karma, if any for these individual sessions.

Always, there should be a catalyst for the player's character attempting to learn the new skill. A sorceror encountering a spirit in combat, perceiving auras in an astral shallow, being ridden by a loa. Remember that the PC should start out as if they were unAwakened when learning the skill at first...make the character painfully aware of their own limits before you let them overcome them.

's my 0.02

Hmm...considering some of the things certain powerful free spirits have been known to do in canon material, the character might have to seek out one and get it to perform the change.

I would rule it this way: If you allow mundanes (street-sams, etc.) to awaken into groggies, by all means allow groggies to awaken to full mages.

If you as a GM dislike the idea of a street sam becoming a mage later in the game when he has plenty of karma to burn, think about why you don't like it - and think about how it applies to groggies.

As someone pointed out - the difference between an aspected mage and a full mage is more than just training. The skills are bought separately. The difference is simply raw ability - much like the difference between a groggie and a mundane.

I personally am in favor of the gator sorceror attempting to become closer to Gator by getting eaten by a giant awakened gator. (Juggernaught? Behemoth? I don't use big beasties much.) If he survives being eaten, then by all means, awaken. Or make a new character.

Now for other ways to go about it - some sort of dangerous ordeal, a permanent sacrifice, + loads of karma would be the way to go. I'd say 30 karma, minimum. why? well, look at it this way - Assuming that the character is a sorceror, how big of an 'edge' would you say conjuring, astral projection, and the like are? the Companion's point based system treats a 1-point edge or flaw as worth 10 karma in game. 30 karma are probably too little, in fact, if you compare the abilities the character would be getting to most of the edges.

For one variation, you could keep dangling possible ideas for fully awakening in front of the character. The Player will probably jump at them. The truth could be, however, that none of them actually work. Sometimes character goals are not achievable - sort of like the .05 essence street sam who always wanted to be a mage... In this case, I would not charge any karma, as that would be just stupid and mean.

Here's m two cents.

If he wants to awaken to a full mage, that's fine. But it should be a part of some other signifigant change in his life. Perhaps he undergoes SURGE(YotC) and takes on more alligatorish features as well as awakening. Or maybe he gets blasted to hell and back, survives, loses a magic point, but awakens with a deper understanding of magic. Basically, if you're going to break the game rules, do so with a lot of style

An actual mechanic for the conversion would be the following:

RE-AWAKENING

An Aspected character can attempt to re-awaken his magical nature and move from a an Aspected mage or shaman to a full Mage or Shaman. This may only be done once a character initiates or increases his initiation level. Make an Intelligence and Willpower test. the TN for both tests is: Twice character's Essence - Initiate level. If both tests succeed, the character has opened his mind to the formerly locked secrets of magic or summoning. He does not gain spell points or karma to instantly buy spells, but may learn spells as any other casting mage or shaman [Note: I'll leave what happens if the character fails these tests, or god forbid botches these tests to GM's who would be a lot crueler than I could. ]

The character must undergo a period of adjustment to his magical abilities equal to his essence in months(remember, this is a drastic, life altering change to how the character sees the world) During this time, the character may now cast spells and summon as a full mage. However, the jarring alteration to his astral signature and perceptions of reality imposes a TN penalty equal to (Character's essence - initiate level) on all magical actions including drain and metamagical feats. This penalty reduces itself by one every month until it reaches zero, at which time, the character has come to terms with both sides of his newfound power and is now considered a full mage for all rule and game purposes.

you might want to consider using a gradual approach as well....

for instance, instead of going from Aspected Shaman (i'm assuming he's a Sorcerer??) all the way to Full Shaman in one step, have him gradually gain the abilities as he spends his karma or whatever method you use to progress - have him first able to conjure only those spirits that his totem grants a bonus for...then later on he can get all spirits as a full Shaman would. Maybe have him gain astral perception/projection before this step...kind of like Initiating and learning a new metamagical ability, you're having the character slowly learn new aspects of becoming a full magician instead of flipping a light switch and going from half to fully awakened in one step...

First, I'll admit that I'm not at all familiar with the Earthdawn side of things, so, I'm not sure if Aspected magicians used to exist of if it's a side effect of the 6th world ... either not enough mana for everyone to fully-awaken yet, if standard that most aren't full mages (Remember that there are ten adepts for every mage!) or something else.

There's talk that 'Magic is magic, having a method is just a crutch'... if this is true, all an aspected mage would have to do is *realize* this and they'd be able to do the full magic suite.

Me?

I'd make it cost, but make it doable.

First, I'd count this massive of a change as his 'Hand of God' ... no need to blow Karma (That goes away in a minute), but, his Godcall's done and he can't do it again. This is what I call "Red Wraithing it" ... He got to be an Otaku, at a cost. Same thing for Gatorboy (Starting to like the idea of getting eaten by a behmoth for this... Chomped, swallowed whole, sloshed around a bit, then spit back out, covered in 'Hemoth spit and having a religious experience as it shuffled back off to the swamps). So, he's been Saved and sees everything in a whole new light.

Now, you can call if HoG and be done, but, I'd also make him have to practice by Initiating. Keeps the karma cost fair and makes it a better roleplaying challenge. He learns how to cast a full spell suite for one Initiation grade, the next grade he learns how to call on any Spirit like a nromal shaman. Two initiate grades to go from Adept to Full Shaman.

Makes for a *great* story, and, well, story takes precedence over rules, I say.

-- Johnny Reb

Spectre. These TN´s you are proposing will make it rather easy for a cybered aspected mage to fully awaken. That is kinda wierd. Doing fool things to yourself (such as installing cyberware or bioware) should only make it harder.

So I propose:
Whenever you write TN:

Essence - Initiate grade (or 2x essence - Initiate grade)

Instead make it:

Essence + 2x spent essence (round up) - Initiate grade (or 2x essence + 4x spent essence (round up) - Initiate grade).

Actually another thing that should probably be done if do an astral quest after you've done the "search for the way to learn conjuring" thing. Have Gator lead the guy through the Quest teaching him the pitfalls and advantages through the trials.

*shrug* My two cents.

Starting with what AH said, I believe that I'd say something like this:

It's gonna cost you the differential amount of 'points' between being aspected and not. Wether this be Karma (through BECKS) or Character Points (point system from Companion). If you don't have the 'points' available, free them up. In the case of Character Points, the difference is something like 10 points. Have the character take a loss of 5 attribute-points, or give 20,000 to some charitable organization ("Black Market Karma Dealer", WhiteRabbit?), and then 'super-initate'.

In-game, this could be akin to overcoming a mental block to magic. Perhaps your character has been in consulation with his/her totem, which has said essentially "You're better than this, you can become more", yadda, yadda, yadda. He overcomes his mental block (does battle with the Guardian) and emerges from a ritual trance, capable of the other half of magic (the half they didn't know), but not skilled in it. They then have to spend karma to learn the other skill (Conjuring or Sorcery) just like any other skill.

It's one heck of an ordeal, it should take days, if not months in-game to do, and should not be an instant thing. Falling under a bus is much easier for the player to do, but if you think it'll be balanced and over the top, go right ahead.

I'd not do it, but that's just me. I can come up for an excuse for anything, positive or negative

BaronJ