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tisoz
QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
I've always wondered what you could get if you never initiated, and just put all of that karma straight into sorcery and high force spells. THere would be some definite disadvantages.

By not initiating at least once, you have no easy access to the metaplanes. So no astral quests to reduce the karma for learning all those spells, and one less way of getting extra dice to help learn them.
Adarael
My current PC is a hermetic mage mathematician, initiate grade 5: Masking, Shielding, Centering, Quickening and Psychometry.

That being said, I only took the last two grades of initation to get Shielding and Psychometry. Initiate grade 3 is about all you need - anything else tends to be unneccesary. Sure, you can have a wang high magic rating, but that only factors into a few things - and having a high willpower, sorcery, and spells of high force is really where it's at.

Unless you're talking physical adepts, initiate grade is a resoundingly poor way to judge anything except karma accrued and number of metamagical techniques. Get yourself some high skills, high stats, high-powered spells and an attitude, instead.
mfb
putting all of your karma into sorcery and high-force spells is a great way to light yourself on fire when you fail a drain roll.
Slamm-O
i dont see how this could not settle this debate forever, this is from threats 1, using sr2 rules:


"mr. darke first appeared as harlequin's foil in the shadowrun adventure campaign harlequin's back. Darke is a very high-level initiate, whose power at least rivals, and probably exceeds, the abilities of the strongest mages in the awakened world."

B Q S C I W E M R
5 4 4 3 6 6 6 10 5

Int: 5+2D6
Threat/Pro Rating:9*/4
Initiate Grade:6
mfb
er, which debate are you referring to?

raising your magic is not the only reason to initiate. the main reason for non-adepts, obviously, is to gain more metamagics, but the increase in astral pool is nothing to sneeze at. for adepts, initiation is vital, as it's the best route to more adept powers.
Catsnightmare
None of my magic characters ever got past level 1.

Ace of Spades, the hermetic Chaos aspected sorcorer made his 1st initiation and was close making his 2nd with some use of the cash-to-karma rule (he had accumulated over 100,000 nuyen from previous runs) but a change of campaign/characters came up and I never got back to him.

Brick the physad, made his 1st initiation, but was still far from the 2nd due to karma spent on his centering skill. I sat on that power point for months waiting to get Brick's karma up enough for a 2nd initiation so I could get Improved Reflexes and stop going last in every combat round. This made me so wish for the old separate purchase of Reaction and Initiative bonuses from 2nd Edition..
akarenti
QUOTE (Slamm-O)
i dont see how this could not settle this debate forever, this is from threats 1, using sr2 rules:


"mr. darke first appeared as harlequin's foil in the shadowrun adventure campaign harlequin's back. Darke is a very high-level initiate, whose power at least rivals, and probably exceeds, the abilities of the strongest mages in the awakened world."

B Q S C I W E M R
5 4 4 3 6 6 6 10 5

Int: 5+2D6
Threat/Pro Rating:9*/4
Initiate Grade:6

NPC stats and Magic have had a few rules revamps in 3rd ED.

For example, in Corporate Download it mentions the average Blood Mage is Grade 8. I would think Darke would be at least AS skilled in metamagics as the average Blood Mage. I think Threat Rating 9 also kinda give the guy a power boost.

And if you factor in Potency (which as far as I know is new in SR3), you can have a Grade 1 Insect Shaman or Corrupted Mage "whose power at least rivals" a Grade 6 Initiate who isn't crazy. And I don't think there is any limits on how much Potency one can accumulate. If they stated Darke now, he would probably be Grade 8 with Potency in the 6-10 range.


Anyway, back on topic, the highest grade PC I've seen in play was a Grade 2 Combat Magician who focused on Conjuring. He picked up Invoking and Channeling for so he could channel Great Form Fire Elements for Immunity to Normal Weapons and Drain free Flamethrowers.
LynGrey
The highest i ever got was a grade 4.... but i played in a game with a seasoned vet who had been playing his character for like 4 years and there wasn't anythign he could do.. i remember he was a shapeshifting crazy old man.. and like he got shot at once and the bullets went in random directions.. i think he said he was like 20+ initiate grade eek.gif Which is a bit much.. i hate reading thru these campigns and seeing eveyrthing you fight have initiate grades or atleast tossing 3d6 or 8 points of armor.. i mean come on.. if everybody was walking around like that the place would be insane.
Smiley
QUOTE (Slamm-O @ Jan 30 2005, 05:20 PM)
i dont see how this could not settle this debate forever, this is from threats 1, using sr2 rules:


"mr. darke first appeared as harlequin's foil in the shadowrun adventure campaign harlequin's back. Darke is a very high-level initiate, whose power at least rivals,  and probably exceeds, the abilities of the strongest mages in the awakened world."

B   Q   S   C   I   W   E   M   R
5    4   4   3   6   6    6   10  5

Int: 5+2D6
Threat/Pro Rating:9*/4
Initiate Grade:6

I doubt it's just me the finds the pregenerated Shadowrun characters a wee bit... underpowered.
Endgame50
Highest I ever got was grade 3--our shadowrun groups tend to die pretty quickly. IC that is, the players are fine.

Got Masking, Shielding, and Centering.
Jérémie
QUOTE (Slamm-O)
Threat/Pro Rating:9*/4

That's just (in astral) 9 dices he can add to whatever, whenever he wants smile.gif

But for the original question, about grade 7 (bear shaman) with old rules, about 4 with SR3.
DarusGrey
Longest char I ever played was...Hmm..I don't remember how long Virtual Seattle ran for, but I played the entire duration, nearly every scenario.

Char at the end was a grade 10 adept, who was strangely underpowered for having 400ish? karma.

Other then that, had an home campaign adept for 4 years, was grade 7.
toturi
Grade 6 was the highest that I've seen in my games.

And that was a shaman. Adepts in my games seem to be only grade 4 for some reason
Grinder
A grade 5 elf mage was the highest i've seen. Personally i played an elf mage up to grade 3 as well as ki-ad up to grade 3, but the campaign slowed down after that. The grade 5 mage had at least 300 karma and had been played for 3 years i guess.
Charon
I sometime toy with the ideas of adding an additional karma cost that increase exponentionnaly past a certain point.

For example, add 1 to the karma cost of reaching initiate grade 4 or to the cost or reaching skill level 9. Then double that cost for every additional level. The idea is to justify why Rohnabwy has "only" sorcery and magic rating at 25, for example.

So a level 4 initiate would have spent 1 additional karma over what the standard cost would have been, a level 4 would have spent 3 more (1 + 2)... and a level 15 would have spent 4095 additional karma, making it immortal territory.

Never went to the trouble of implementing that houserule. If had, I doubt any PC I ever saw would have paid more than 3 to 6 extra karma due to the rule anyway. Bette to just assume that the learning curve become steeper for immortal and be done with it.

But I can now see some people here would have hated it with a passion. wink.gif
hahnsoo
QUOTE (Smiley @ Feb 24 2005, 02:26 AM)
QUOTE (Slamm-O @ Jan 30 2005, 05:20 PM)
i dont see how this could not settle this debate forever, this is from threats 1, using sr2 rules:


"mr. darke first appeared as harlequin's foil in the shadowrun adventure campaign harlequin's back. Darke is a very high-level initiate, whose power at least rivals,  and probably exceeds, the abilities of the strongest mages in the awakened world."

B  Q  S  C  I  W  E  M  R
5    4  4  3  6  6    6  10  5

Int: 5+2D6
Threat/Pro Rating:9*/4
Initiate Grade:6

I doubt it's just me the finds the pregenerated Shadowrun characters a wee bit... underpowered.

The guy has a Threat Rating of 9. That's severely overpowered (this means you roll 9 extra dice for every test he gets to make)... it's shorthand for "Uber". Edit: Man, I need to read everyone else's posts, first.
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