It seems that most initiates have Masking. The ones I write as NPCs do. My players all do. In fact, my players always take Masking as their first Metamagic technique. Is this true for everyone? I know there are some other nice "first technique" choices out there, but it does seem lucrative as the first one. Agree or no?

I'm glad there's at least one panda vote.

Your fault ... you added it as an option!

In my experience 80% of Initiates take either Masking or Shielding before any of the other options (and in most cases these will be the first two metamagics taken).

The Panda metamagic is uber. You can turn all the people targeting you into Pandas.

Actually Centering would be my first choice.

Play mostly shamen, so I snag Invoking. Then centering or channeling.

What's so great about masking at grade 1?

You can appear to be completely mundane to the average look over, an attempt to break masking requires 'targeting' somone specifically. In addition, non-initiates can't attempt to break masking (iirc).

CLEANSING!!!!!
Backlground COunt is so diffused in Shadowrun WOrld taht without Cleansing normal or low-level spelcasters cannot do anything useful!!!!

Being as I currently soley GM for my group and i`ve never had a magic char in previous games that lasted long enough for me to initiate. I`ve had to base my answer off my groups actions. (which was a NO btw) . Centering seems to be their favorite, especially when it comes to our Gun Adept (who`s just hit Grade 2) and can now Center for his pistols..which is pretty nasty.

I rarely have seen characters chosing anything else than centering at first grad of initiation. Only one chose masking first. Didn't make it to seond grade... grenades are not good for human mages

Depends on the character. One mage was a former Shasta gypsy, and chose Divination as her first metamagic. Masking is a popular one, but only to hide some of the big-ass foci that the mage lugs around. Centering is usually a 2nd grade choice, only because it takes Karma to build up a Centering skill.

I've never seen a single person take masking. Why bother? If somebody sees you and you're not supposed to be there, it doesn't matter if you're a mage or not, they shoot you anyways.

Our physads tend to take centering first, although we also have a houserule that you can skip a metamagic and get astral perception as a metamagic on your next initiation. Some people go that route.

As for our mages, Anchoring and Quickening are the big ones. Followed by absorbtion and cleansing.

Some players in the group I currently run have an initiatory group. Their first metamagics were:

JIS Gun-Fu adept: Masking.
TnO Phoenix shaman: Centering.
PCC Eagle shaman: ack, can't remember! It wasn't any of the above two, anyway.

Personally, it would depend on the character I was playing.

My only awakened character at the moment is an obeyifa, and he's carrying around a ton of force 5+ gris-gris at any given time. Given the rules for masking, it doesn't afford him much protection at all, but I might take it for him later when he initiates just to make masking wards.

In general, though, he doesn't have too many options when it comes to metamagic. A great deal of them only work for people with sorcery. Anyone else wish there were more metamagical techniques centered around conjuring?

i'd imagine that most adepts go for Centering first, followed by Centering for a second skill area (if their focus is on something other than athletics and stealth).

2 words. Channelling, invocation. Or, how your 115lb Unicorn shamen can drop Bubba the cyber troll like a ton of bricks.

I took masking for my hermatic mage in the game I am in right now, so I could use it in conjunction with the possession metamagic technique.

I'm waiting to use it to sneak in behind the enemy defenses and attack from behind on the physical world.

I am surprised nobody mentioned quickening. It definitely seems to be a popular choice in the games I have played in.

The only Awakened character in my campaign that has expressed an interest in a metamagic mentioned Divination. And the otaku wants Info Sortilage. Guess they put a pretty high priority on information.

quickening's okay. that and anchoring are generally more useful to magician's way adepts, though.

plus, it's not like the security mages at a given facility will necessarily know every aura of every worker there, unless they've taken the time to assense each and every worker--and all the delivery guys, and all the repair guys, and all the transfers, and so on. if you're a mage or physad, and you're sneaking into a facility in disguise, masking will be pretty damn useful.

Depends on the character. Due to the tn forumal for using masking, even if its going to be a mainstay ability its not always useful as the first technique; depending on what kind of opposition you typically face. Regardless, you get a panda vote.

Most of the time I've seen Centering as someone's first. It's nice to have a little less Drain to worry about (for most mage/shaman types), and every Adept likes a few more dice to toss around to keep up his stealth/athletics ninja reputation.

I guess I have a few more paranoid mages/shamans in my group. They all like to appear mundane. Interesting results, panda aside.

Invoking is an odd one to take first because it kinda sucks at grade 1. That extra drain test is fearsome until you get some grades (at which point it is nothing). A watcher can do most of what a really low force great form would be usefull for.

Shielding is easily worthwhile though, useful even when it is just 1 super duper spell defense die for yourself.

But I have definately played in games where masking wouldn't be very useful because it was all hack and slash anyway and you might as well wear a t-shirt that said "shadowrunner", or where every awakened npc has twice your initiate grade, or where there are lots of foci in use.

Masking at grade 1 doesn't really let you penetrate anybody elses masking (the odds are really good that that guy you tried to unmask is just a better initiate than you), or mask many useful foci or spells (other than twinky game bug spells like increased reflexes 3 at force 1). It's basically just for masking yourself against non-initiates. Often all masking as a mundane does is tell everyone that you are an initiate.

For my combat-focused mage, Centering was the first metamagic taken. It's useful all around. Second and third choices were Shielding and Masking. If I were to give her more, I would take Quickening and Absorption.

Even with deliberate masking at grade 1 you can mask 2 force of foci or spells. It could just be useful for a power or weapon focus. At grade two masking foci deliberately can get good, but for a sustaining focus the math doesnt work out since you would have to mask the focus and the spell to blend in, or at least it seems to to me (though I guess you could protect the focus). Good point about the ward stuff, I don't think I have ever used it so I forgot it existed.

I think I took sheilding first once on a combat mage, then masking, but usually I take masking first then shielding, centering, or invoking depending on the charachter.

A wierd astral projection specialist might take posession, and a real role player might take divining or some other wussy metamagic.

Anyone have any ideas for a Panda Shaman?

I just created a Sky Father Shaman (full mage) and chose Centering as my first (and probably only) metamagic. I don't have that much experience with playing mages, and I just thought that centering against drain would help me out more in a pinch than trying to look mundane.

I like MMs a lot, and think the change from SR2 where you got them all at grade one was a good one. It is too bad that they are so unbalanced, some like Centering, Sheilding, Invoking and Channeling are just leaps and bounds better than the rest (Cleansing). Not to say that cleansing is not cool, but you could just center away the penalties with a good centering. Anywho Shielding is fantastic for protecting your team, and in a world where info is power Masking is a must have, so one of those is usually my first.