Personally I don't see the big deal. Sure, if you're playing with a bunch of munchikins whose first thought is to how many kills they can get in the first five miutes of the game, then you probably won't like magic as much, but if you actually have roleplayers who make characters and use them, then the new magic and adept powers don't pose a problem at all.

"Pooched" in this context means fubared. Fuxx0red. B0rked. Screwed. The people who came up with powers like Kinesics, they're the ones who decided that adepts now have to by far outshine mundanes in the adept's specific field.

Now, I do agree with the fact that adepts who specialize are going to do things a whole lot better than a mundane. That's the power of the mundane, is versatility. But there's nothing saying an adept can't be versatile. At character creation, 6 points of power can get you Increased Reflexes 2, Improved Pistols 2, Improved Negotiations 2 and Kinesics 1. Or if you want to take a Geas on your powers, you can get Kinesics 2 and a couple of additional Senses. That's pretty versatile.

What gets me about these powers, though, is that many of them don't 'blur the lines' -- they give adepts clearly defined bonuses that the mundane can't have. I don't mind 'Improved Ability: Social Skills' all that much, because a mundane can get the same thing, just by dumping all that karma he's not paying to Initiate, into Etiquette, Negotiation and Intimidation. What I mind are powers like 'Kinesics', which give the adept a -1 to -3 target number modifier to all social interaction tests. An adept with Kinesics will always out-negotiate a Johnson, because that adept can lower the Johnson's effective Intelligence.

A lot of these powers I can see how to duplicate with cyberware, and there's some cases where cyberware will fubar the power in question. Like Kinesics: gifted at reading others' body language and mimicking their cues to their advantage, eh? Must be a pain and a half when dealing with someone who's using Skillwires, because their body is giving off the wrong cues! Or facial sculpt and melatonin control, which is easily duplicated through ruthenium sheathing and some DNI-controlled sacs under the skin of the face, which change facial features (I got this idea out of the When Gravity Fails sourcebook for Cyberpunk 2020). Heck, a lot of these powers came from cyberware, like Voice Control, except that it's a version for adepts, so now they don't have to spend essence on a voice modulator with the playback and other options. Or Sustenance, the Sleep Regulator for adepts.

Still, other powers seem... b0rked. Linguistics? Whose idea was it to give the adept free karma? Give an adept this and 3 levels of Mnemonic Enhancers and he would effectively know every language on Earth at an effective rating of 4 (well, 1 plus 3 dice) just by listening to it for a few hours. My linguistic adept would just keep his telecomm on SCOLA and suddenly he's much in demand by the UN for being a translator for every language on the face of the planet. Cool Resolve? Don't they already get this, through Improved Ability: Social Skills? 6 dice in Negotiations...

And then we have the magical buddy-powers, which just scream trouble, to me. When you've got a small game going with two or three players, sure, these don't look like much. But when sitting down at a table to run Shadowrun Missions, I don't want to find that my six runners are really five runners and a living power battery for his buddy, the Ubermage.

But let's get into the powers, specifically, shall we?

Aid Spell: I shudder at the thought of the Troll Buddy PC with Aid Spell 6, maxed-out Body and Willpower, whose job it is to act as a Rating 6 Power Focus _and_ living wall for his buddy the Mage. Talk about blowing away the power curve.

Animal Empathy: Craig's right, this whole system seems rather ill-defined to me. I'm aware that the upcoming Running Wild will most likely have rules for this sort of thing, but it would have been better to put all of the rules in one location.

Commanding Voice: This power seems like a wimped-out version of Control Thoughts, to me; my question here is, since this power works on subliminals, shouldn't a voice modulator also be able to do this? Even moreso, since the voice modulator could be doing it on a subconscious level, i.e. a barely-audible level to the [meta]human ear, while the PC is speaking about something else in a more audible tone. They've known how subliminals work since the early part of the 20th century, after all.

Cool Resolve: This power seems to me to be Counterstrike for Social Adepts. Again, this is a power that pooches the mundanes, by giving the adepts a defense that the mundane can never have. However, since this power gives the adept 'a confident and unflappable presence in social situations', this power could also be given through drugs (like derivatives of novacoke).

Deep Rooting: So this is like Rooting except it makes you a stable platform for weapons fire, right? Cool beans, sounds like the adept version of Foot Jacks and the Cyberarm Gyromount, only for a lot less cost (considering that to get Foot Jacks and the Cyberarm Gyromount, you need two partial cyberlegs and a partial cyberarm at least).

Eidetic Sense Memory: Come up with a rate at which pages are read by an adept (I suggest Intelligence number of pages (assuming a paperback novel, newspaper/screamsheet or screen of information) per minute, then figure out what this power does. Although the funny thing is that in the 21st century, literacy is a dying skill! Mundanes get better use out of Mnemonic Enhancers, or just cybersenses with recorders (with the additional benefit of being able to transmit recorded data).

Elemental Strike: I've actually had this power for years in my own campaigns, but it's a meta-ability (like metamagic for adepts, something they can learn upon Initiation). I don't agree with the cost of 0.5, given the abilties that giving the strike the effect of Fire, Lightning or Ice can do, but then I also allow it to work with Distance Strike in my game.

Empathic Healing: Another Buddy power, this one essential since it lets the Buddy eliminate Phyical Drain as well (as if the Aid Spell didn't make it easier to resist that Drain in the first place). To say nothing of having a Contact with this power. And to me, this power really doesn't seem like something an adept should have anyway, given that their magic is internalized; to me it smacks too much of an actual spell rather than an internal ability. (So does Distance Strike.) Personally I don't think I'd let this one into my campaign; it doesn't b0rk mundanes, it's just not what I'd expect an adept to have.

Empathic Reading: Now what we need is a polygraph attachment for a cyberlimb. This power actually will make PCs shudder; imagine that security guard having six levels in it. Good luck trying to Fast Talk your way into the compound now.

Enhanced Balance: Isn't this an actual sense, sense of balance? Wouldn't it make it simpler to put this under the Improved Sense power, and give -2 for 0.25 Power Points? -2 for 1 power point is way too expensive, in my opinion.

Enthralling Performance: For some reason, when I read this power, my mind immediately flashed back to Uhura's fan dance in Star Trek V...

Facial Sculpt: Like I said, cyberware should be able to do this much, much easier.

Gliding: This is actually a cool power, but I'd have named it 'light step' or something like that. It seems to me like Traceless Walk's next level (and Wall Running is this power's next level). It technically b0rks the mundane, since it's a power the mundane can't have, though. What we need to see are concrete rules for athletic endeavors such as gymnastics, acrobatics, pole vaulting and skating. Yes, the adept would still outshine the mundane in these areas, but there would at least finally be stated ways for the mundanes to get around the areas that these powers let the adepts circumvent.

Improved Ability (Expanded): Crap. As if it weren't bad enough that Centering can give adepts more dice in these skills, now almost all skills can be improved with the use of magic. This power seems like it severely b0rks the mundanes, until you run into one piece of 'ware that's often overlooked: Skillwires. A Rating 6 Skillwire system coupled with a skillsoft jukebox and some augmented chips (using the rules in M&M) turns the mundane into an instant expert in anything, and with the Chipjack Expert Driver, even nerfed, the mundane's going to have just as much dice as the adept for most of it. This is that whole thing about specialization being the purview of the adept: If the adept spends 3 power points for Improved Negotiations 6, he's going to out-negotiate the mundane. But the mundane can then switch out for his Pistols 6 chipware (with the naturalization modifier so he can use Combat Pool too) and show the Adept how someone shoots a gun. Or drives a car. Or pilots a boat. Or...

Inertia Strike: Sacrificing damage for knockdown? Okay, I can see this, except this sort of thing should be what the martial arts system could do.

Iron Gut: An overpriced version of Ingested Toxin Filters, in my opinion.

Iron Lungs: I've had a version of this in my campaign which is similar in many respects, but has additional powers and slightly different attributes (rather than allowing the adept to hold his breath longer, it slows down the rate of oxygen consumption in the adept's body requiring less breaths to be taken). Like Craig said, Internal Air Tanks are actually far more effective except for the fact that they cost a full point of Essence to install (but hell, if you're going to get them, get cybereyes and a smartlink as well, make full use of that lost Essence point, I always say).

Kinesics: Whoever came up with this needs to turn in their Shadowrun books and go back to playing D&D <j/k, mostly>. This power makes Dunkelzahn's spirit cry for the poor mundane fixers, Johnsons and fences that the PC social adepts will be pooching left and right. Not only does it give extra dice to _all_ social skills in a social situation, it provides an uncompensatable-for target number bonus for the adept. In my campaign, anyone who negotiates against a person with this power will quickly start refusing to negotiate at all with that character, because they know this power allows the adept to manipulate the situation unfairly. There are ways around this -- this power would be useless in the Matrix (What body language and personal clues does your icon give off?) or in situations where the opposed negotiator can't see the target (like a vidphone with the vidlink turned off). But these situations aren't presented in the rules.

Linguistics: Linguistics + Mnemonic Enhancer 3 + SCOLA TV= Instant Translator, no karma cost. There are a lot of better ways this power could have been thought up. I don't think the writer was smoking something... I think that person was being horribly lazy. Mind you, this power isn't so bad, considering that a person with a chipjack can know almost any language at any rating he wants, just for putting out the cash... but still. Free karma?

Living Focus: Another Mage-Buddy power, which lets said Mage-Buddy work as a sustaining focus too. But there's no mention of whether or not the magician in question needs to be near the Mage-Buddy for this power to work. It also doesn't say whether this counts towards Focus Addiction. The idea of hiring a few of these guys as Level 2 or Level 3 Contacts and then having them maintain my character's Improved Reflexes +3d, Improved Willpower 6 and Improved Invisibility spells sounds great to me. I'll give them all Aid Spell too, so I can use all those extra dice to cast the spells in the first place... yeah. This is sheer munchkinism just waiting to happen.

Melanin Control: I don't get it. Why not just one power that helps with Disguise? Like I said before, cyberware can do this much easier and more effectively.

Motion Sense: Like Craig said, this power isn't half as useful as Ultrasound Vision, especially given that Background Count applies against it. And as a sense, shouldn't it be under the Improved Senses table, at a cost of 0.25 points?

Multi-Tasking: I don't get this one either. What use is an extra free action per turn (unless you have the next power as well)? For 0.5 essence you can get a smartlink which gives you most of the benefit of this power, the next power, and -2 TN on your shooting to boot.

Nimble Fingers: See above.

Pain Relief: Another Mage-Buddy power, and this one gives the Mage-Buddy the ability to get rid of Stun Drain. I foresee people getting their semi-interested friends to play Mage-Buddy PCs with Aid Spell 6, Empathic Healing, Living Focus and Pain Relief. And I will turn to them and say 'Not at my table, you don't.' Oh, sure, it takes 30 minutes to do (divided by the number of successes), and only alleviates one level of damage... but then if said mage has Symbiotes 3 (which he can actually have without sacrificing Magic, check out the new errata), he heals Drain even faster! Besides which, wasn't the whole point of Drain supposed to be the fact that Mages have drawbacks to casting spells? This power + mage with Symbiotes, why bother having Drain in the first place?

Penetrating Strike: Actually a decent power, it lets the adept increase the Power of his attacks when he's maxed out on Strength. Nice idea.

Resilience: Also a nice power.

Side Step: Say hello to the concept of adepts as the ultimate masters of combat. Say goodbye to mundanes ever hoping to compete with them. This power lets the adept save his actual Combat Pool dice for offensive capability, and spend these dice for dodging. Still, at least it's only Pool Dice -- and there are other, cheesier powers to get before dropping 3-5 points into this power. But when they do, forget it. You're not going to outfight an adept with this power... at least, not on the first Pass.

Sprint: This power was already included in the game. It was called 'Improved Ability: Athletics'. What Sprint does is let you now have two extra autosuccesses when rolling Athletics to improve ground speed. All for only 0.25 points of power. And it lets the adept roll Athletics too! But wait, didn't we get rid of autosuccesses with second edition Shadowrun?

Sustenance: Erm... sleep regulator and digestive expansion for adepts? How does this power work with, say, Symbiotes, or a Suprathyroid Gland? If your body processes food and drink more efficiently, shouldn't this give you a penalty against toxic substances ingested by the adept (since the toxin is being spread more rapidly)? Plus, I don't care what this power says, you only rent beer by the hour.

Three-Dimensional Memory: I think that's a typo; it probably should read 'Magic Attribute x 10' or 'Magic Attribute x Intelligence'. Now, would Eidetic Sense Memory help this power out? It should. What about Mnemonic Enhancers? Otherwise, this is just an orientation system for adepts. Less useful, too, given that a mundane with an orientation system, cybereyes and a router to link them could just as easily edit his own maps and store them indefinitely.

Voice Control: Seems like it's written specifically so if you're considering getting Commanding Voice, you may as well get this power to complete the ability. And other than the ability to 'throw' one's voice, this power is really a very wimpy version of the Voice Modulator with Playback functions.

Wall Running: While this sounds like a neat power, I can't help thinking that the writer was playing the new Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time game while thinking up new powers. And aside from running and jumping puzzles like in that game, I can't figure out what use this power is that Improved Ability (Athletics) didn't already accomplish in some way. But at least it wasn't Gecko Crawl for adepts.

As far as the metamagics go, Attunement sounds like what Craig said -- that people are starting to get into this idea of controlling animals, and want powers and abilities to match. I can understand attunement to items -- okay, maybe attuning a car is a bit much; after all, it's a big hunk of machinery, but okay. The animal thing though, I just get the idea that people have been playing MMORPG's too long and want to have Animal Trainers in Shadowrun. Or worse -- 'Hell Hound! I Choose You!'

Cognition - Center for perception tests? Why didn't you just call this 'Centering (Mental)'? While I can appreciate that it takes the adept karma to Initiate, learn Centering, and the Centering skill needed, I shudder to think about what happens when you allow said adept to also have Mnemonic Enhancers with this ability.

Empower Animal Companion - 'Hell Hound digivolve to...' Yeah, this is all well and good until someone tries to talk me into owning a tiger. Or a silverback gorilla. Or a bear. Um... no.

Infusion - Not In My Campaign, You Don't. Free powers for a roll of the dice? Even with the Drain resistance test, and the mandatory burnout, I wouldn't use this. Like Craig said, it's too much number-crunching and bookkeeping for one, and for two it lets the adept get free powers where the mundane doesn't have this option.

Limited Astral Perception - Now if only aspected mages could learn this metamagic technique.

Somatic Control - Doesn't Infusion already give the adept control over his body's own somatic gifts? And this one takes the mundane's forte, flexibility, and gives it to the adept. You can go from having a 9 Body (for damage resistance) to a 9 Strength (for punching) to a 9 Quickness (for running the hell away). Whoever thought of this - thank you SO much for b0rking the mundanes.

Virtuoso - Um... I agree that this is rife for munchkinism. This metamagic really requires strong GM control, and in games without that kind of control, it has the potential for huge amounts of abuse. A Dancer with a Virtuoso dance... a Singer with a virtuoso song... walking down a dark alleyway, suddenly confronted by a rival gang, and the magician turns to the adept and says 'Quick, start doing that one thing you do...' Hmm, I see potentials for humor too.

I'm not going to get into the various other magical abilities here, like Craig did. Most of the powers presented were fine, in my opinion, but like I said, a few just b0rk the whole setup. Like Kinesics. Like Linguistics. Infusion, gah. Somatic Control, ugh. What were you people thinking?

One more thing I'd like to add, directed at Crimsondude 2.0: Screw the mundanes? In any game you are in, mein freund, there had better not be limits on mage PCs. Otherwise it's forcing people to be screwed. You want to be a hypocrite, go ahead. But this game is based on mages being rare, and quite frankly that means that the game forces people to get b0rked for theme. Until that basic concept is fixed, balance is needed.

That's all. Discuss at leisure.

The whole thing sounds like a cool idea on the surface -- but then you start looking at animals which are actually useful to have, and you're either setting yourself up for a zoo, or you need to go with a paracritter -- and they're warned against. So you start looking at getting a bear, or a tiger, or some other exotic animal...

Oh, yeah. Go ahead, get one of the big critters. They cost to feed, they need special housing requirements, and they're going to make being a shadowrunner frickin' impossible, because someone is going to find out, report it to the authorities, and the authorities are going to wonder why SINless John Doe owns a tiger, lion, or bear, oh my.

You can stick with a dog, or a cat -- but you probably aren't going to be risking the animal in combat, at least. So one thing can be said about this power -- in the hands of a smart GM, it's not going to be used as a shortcut to train animal drones for the adept to control.

The power of the Beastmaster works fine in ED, but that's a very different setting. When a powerful magic user (read: adept) comes into town, accompanied by a tiger, it's ok. He must be very powerful, otherwise the tiger wouldn't travel with him. So he's able to vcontrol the tiger and everything's fine.

But hey, it's a high-fantasy setting. In the SR-universe it would be very strange to have a tiger as a pet, that's right.

My first thought on seeing all the animal-control powers was actually to use pigeons as surveillance drones...

I've been wondering about that phrase... "getting their mundanity free..."

Is it advisable to charge for the option of not having cool powers?

Hi! I'm Craig, the bastard admin that wrote that on SR: Denver. Reading over the replies, I think some people have missed some key points of my arguments, and I thought that I could help people understand my point of view.

Not that it'll change any of their views, mind. I'm sure there will be more ridiculing and vilifying of me shortly! The trick is not to care.

First, people seemed to miss the fact that these are my opinions. These are not the law from high. I am not God - my last name doesn't even start with an M, much less actually be Mulvihill. It's amazing how some people seem to take these simple opinions of mine and treat them as some kind of personal attack.

Secondly, my words are very biased from the specific kind of game that I play. I run a Shadowrun MUSH. It's an online game with about ten times as many players as in your typical tabletop campaign. It's been running for about four years, and is set in the city of Denver.

Running a game of this magnitude is a challenge in and of itself. This task becomes even harder when every single sourcebook has new powers to be implemented, new gear to be added, and new typos to be corrected. Add on that with the unique game style that lends itself to much more intense player to player interaction - not all of it peaceful - and game balance between PCs becomes an issue. I like to deal with this by keeping things relatively sane.

Here are some parts of my point of view. (Ok, this is your cue to start getting pissed at me.)

I hate the Earthdawn-Shadowrun connection. Hate it. With a passion. Hate, hate, hate. In my world, Sperethiel is a made up language. Beautiful, but made up by (meta)humans, just like Esperanto and Klingon. In my world, Immortal Elves are a hoax perpetuated by a minority that didn't think they were cool enough yet. In my world, there are no Horrors.

I hate dragons. Not the concept of them - but the fact that they are used as deus ex machina by the writers. Bad writers. When a dragon can be shot down by any Samurai with a sporting rifle (go ahead, laugh, I've seen it done with GMs even through the Armor spell) they should know damn well better than to have a dragon FLY into the MIDDLE of a CITY and then say the dragon just goes on a nice little rampage and emerge unscathed, despite the hordes of magical and paramilitary resources being thrown at it. (See: Ghostwalker, YotC.)

I don't like the rules. The rules of Shadowrun often contradict themselves and don't always make magical sense. That said, most of the problems can be controlled in a tabletop campaign by the GM saying 'look, this is how it works.' Heck, most of the worst problems won't be encountered until you have characters with over 300 karma, skills above 10, and other such wackiness - such as exists in my game. Insert flames about how stupid I am for even allowing that level of player here. I won't get involved, had that discussion on my game too many times to count already.

I love the game. I love the setting, the concept, the cyberpunk with a dash of magic. I've been playing since 1st edition. Back when we had staging numbers (you remember staging numbers, right?) and pastel hairdos and it was all kind of tongue-in-cheek. This brings me to the main thrust of what the argument was aimed at.

I feel Shadowrun is getting away from what Shadowrun is supposed to be. Magic is not supposed to be some kind of panacea. I think that Adepts should not be able to do everything. I think they should have certain things that they, and they alone can do - but I also think that Samurai should have that privilege. And Mages. And yes, even riggers and deckers and mundanes.

It honestly looks like the way the game is going, Adepts will be able to everything. They'll have every piece of cyberware duplicated in a power (and of course, no new cyberware will be developed to grant or even adept abillities for Samurai), they'll be able to sling spells and use powers at the same time (oh - forgot to mention - I hate Magical Adepts, too), and they'll eventually be dropped down to priority E, just in time for the developers to trot out the new SOTA: 2066 The Scourge sourcebook! Yay!

William Gibson. Neal Stephenson. Ridley Scott. These are hallowed names in the cyberpunk genre. Cyberpunk was where Shadowrun started, and I think it should stay there.

People have also criticised my original rant as being 'all over the place'. I said some powers were too powerful, some were too useless, some were too weak. I even said (gasp!) that a couple of the powers I actually liked! Well... what do you expect when you fire off a shotgun pattern of powers like that?

Some of those are too powerful. Some of them are too weak. Some of them I feel don't belong in a sourcebook players can use, but could make an interesting addition to flavor an NPC for a single adventure.

Overall, SOTA: 2064 reminded me of another book by a different publisher. White Wolf: Dirty Little Secrets of the Black Hand. Some of it's useless, some of it's too weak, those will get ignored by players who don't want the specific, esoteric character class those bits cater to, and if the GMs aren't willing to deny a lot of the rest wholesale and closely monitor character creation, you'll end up with Ninja Samurai Faces with Magic.

Isn't there enough cool new technology out there to write about, here in 2005, without having to add more adept powers and metamagic into an already unstable system? Just because it's not magic doesn't mean it's not cool.

I mean, take katanas. Katanas come from Japan. Japan is cool. Therefore, Katanas are cool. Therefore, Katanas do more damage.

Peace!

P.S. 13 pages already? Geez.

I'd point you at this thread. Mainly, the idea that Shadowrun isn't really cyberpunk anymore and probably won't really be cyberpunk. Cyberpunk isn't even cyberpunk anymore. Sure, a GM can run it that way, and should if he wants to, but that's not necessarily the direction the game development is going.

Everyone likes their pet runner type to get cool new stuff. That's just the way it goes. The problem is that unlike real life we need balance in a game. Adepts can already do it all, as it has been pointed out.

The answer: Make some more Edges that imitate Adept powers. Why should Kinesics be just an Adept power? It could be an Edge. Tone down Virtouso a little and it could be an edge. Just create a list of edges you can buy after character creation, make them stack with cyber/bio ware, but not adept abilities. 5 karma = 1 Edge point and have a ball. Suddenly your sammies will be on even ground again. Adept Faces will exist but the regular face will be more numerous and just as successful.

Yep, each of the writers has their own vision, which sometimes overlap and sometimes conflict. I've had plenty of discussions with the other freelancers that could be summed up as "I don't really like where that idea is going" and just as many that are "wow, that's a cool idea, let's see how we can tie that in with another idea." And in the end, it all comes down to Rob. If Rob were to send back feedback on one of my proposals and it said "I don't like where this is going, it should stress this or that element more", then I change it to fit. Which he's done.

But yes, it is a different game than it was in '89. It's gone through a few different line designers, each with their own ideas. It's gone through many different writers, each with their own visions tempered by whatever line designer is currently in charge. Some of the literary ideas that fueled the game's creation in '89 have significantly changed since then, and many of Shadowrun's new players weren't even born back when they started. So is there drift away from what Shadowrun originally was? Absolutely. Some might call it development. Some might call it less flattering things. But the game sure isn't static.

which is good. a game can't remain static, if it's to remain relevant to newer players.

I always liked the connection to ED. Of course I played ED also, so I was biased. Because of that I have no problem with the Virtuoso skill being used for something like armor or cloak. Raise the background count. Also know that nobody forgets seeing you in virtuoso made clothing (think JLo at the Oscars several years ago). So, not the thing to wear if you don't want to be noticed.

I would expect to see high profile NPCs dressed that way for impact and protection. Of course I would expect SOTA 65 to come out with spell matrices similar to ED that mitigate the high background count.

My meager thoughts,

Chris

YotC in general was very firmly outlined by Mike in advance. I even argued against his idea of SURGE, but it was a done deal. So, whether you think YotC was horrible or great, the freelancers actually had very little say over the events in it, even though we wrote the chapters.

I knew I loved you two for a reason.

Just a quick note here-I don't think heated discussion, or eve lengthy discussion means we're doing something bad-in fact we seem to have done some good in here, clarifying at least a few rules. I think we all aknowledge how subjective this topic and line of discussion is-and I don't think anyone means this to be statement of fact, and I hope that despite our criticism that the writers who read this don't take it too personally. (I undertsand how hard it is to look at what you deem a decent product of your creative talent being tore up hard.)

In the end it sounds like we'll all keep buying books until smebody manages to make a better game. Something I can't imagine.

[Edited]

Nevermind. Just reread the rules. Will shoot first player in my group who waves SOTA64 around and says he's making an adept.

So, are horses compatible with the vehicle combat rules?

Could we do with a bit less of the point-by-point out of context quoting and a little more with the overall coherent thoughts and opinions? It's far more readable when I'm reading someone's well-constructed paragraphs conveying ideas than when I'm seeing essentially a personal argument that should be taken to private messages. I hate to be a thread nazi about this... I guess this thread is way out of hand anyway, what with 14 pages of mostly bickering.

No.

It's easier and more coherent to address specific points directly instead of within one long paragraph.

I can do those (as you've seen). But now is not the time.

Simple. Just don't quote people. Write your thoughts and ideas independently of dividing the quote into separate parts... the moment you divide a post into multiple parts is the moment you take the context out of the idea and invalidate the basis of your reply by diving into minutiae. The first post was as poorly-written as the subsequent point-by-point replies... just because the original post was poorly-written doesn't mean one has to stoop to that level.

Last time I'll write a criticism on this particular thread, as I don't like wearing the thread nazi hat. I just thought someone should pipe up at least once, just for the sake of ethics. Carry on.

*shrug* the points he made were disparate. it's impossible to address them quotelessly without rambling. the quotes provide a nice way of dividing ideas which are, at their core, divided.

what's so terrible about it? even when the GM decides the command doesn't work, it's still a useful power.

Thank you to both Crimsons.

And Kage, while it might not have happened in your games, I'm sure there are plenty of people who've had the chance to cycle in new adept characters in the past six+ months that these rules have been out there. I just want to hear if the problem is as big as the noise being made about it would lead people to believe.

For something that's gotten so much talk and discussion, I've yet to meet anyone who's actually encountered a problem with any of the adept material introduced in SOTA64. In fact my experience has been quiet the contrary, people have contacted me to tell me how much fun they've had and how they've finally been able to bring their character concepts to life. So I'll reiterate the questions:

If there are serious mechanics problems, I would think one could always appeal to the Gods Of Errata.

errata's tough. not only do you have to make sure the fix is good, you have to make sure the text of the fix will fill close to the same wordcount as the old text.

Since I was one of the first persons to voice similar complaints (differences in details, but some significant similarities) as Craig, right after I got SotA'64, I'll simply answer Synner's questions:

1. Yes, I have encountered two Adepts that made use of the Speaker's Way in what I'd consider abusive ... Simply because the powers in question (as the majority of the SotA'64 powers) do lack the incompatibilty to cyber, bio and edges that previously known powers had to a certain extend ... That was one of my initial concerns, that I got "smacked" for when voicing them openly ... and I was "smacked" by practically the same persons that now go against Craig

2. Depends on what you consider "uber" and "my" ... I have witnessed a serious increase of Adepts in general. And I cannot say, that they were "rare" before SotA'64 in my rounds or the rounds that I happen to have insight into. And those Adepts weren't just highly-specialized stealth, melee or Way of the Gun types back then either ...

how abusive? and what else were the adepts good at?

Unless I'm mis interpreting the rules for Living Focus, I think the idea of it being a 'Buddy Mage' ability wrong. Unlike the other BM powers mentioned (Aid Spell, Pain relief, etc) Living Focus is a bonus for the Adept.

"in order to sustain a spell cast on her"

Get a mage to cast a sustained spell on your Adept, by pursading the mage they don't have to sustain it. That's great. It doesn't sustain a spell cast for the casting mage...

It's also not overpowered in any way, as you take the +2 TN penalty and are limited to sustainng only 1 spell in this fashion.

Imagine a Gun Adept begging a mage to cast Enhance Aim on them, hoping to get at least 6 sucessess, to have a bonus after the +2 TN penalty.

Now adding in Aid spell could be broken...

"Cast Enchance Aim on me, I'll give you 6+ extra dice. Woo-Hoo! You got 12 sucesses, that's a minus -4 TN for my (Centered, Attuned, Laser Sighted, Vision Magnified, Improved Pistol) shots!