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rlemansky
Greetings.

I'd like to avoid any munchkin issues, but I'm at bit of a loss. Why would anyone play a Magical Adept over a full Mage? Can't most of the adept powers be simulated with either Magic or Low Essence cyber-ware? If so, what advantage is gained by being an Adept? What am I missing?

Any input's appreciated.

R
Ranneko
2 words, B priority

Or alternately: Lower cost

So you get more skills/better stats/more cash
Critias
No you don't. Being an Adept of the Magician's Way is priority A.
GentlemanLoser
Improved Ability: X
Weapon Focus.
Centering 2 (Your weapon focus of choice)

Magic resistance + Spell Defence + Shielding.

Mystic armour + Armour

Enchanced Aim + Improved Pistols
Ranneko
True, misread. My mistake.

Well there are adept powers than cannot be reproduced by spells or cyber, such as improved skill, or traceless you also don't need foci to keep an adept skill running, unlike mage spells.

It's a matter of what you want really.

Besides some concepts work better with a magician's way adept.

*Still plans on making a magical girl sometime*
Endgame50
Well, it depends on which way you're developing the character. I wouldn't make a Magical Way adept as a spell hurler who happens to have some adept powers. As you noted, for most of what a magician would find useful, you could probably duplicate it with low powered cyberware.

The main benefit afaik, is the flexibility of an adept who has spells at his fingertips.

For example, you could take a improved reflexes at +3 at force 1, put it in a force 1 sustaining focus, and then learn masking. It'll be covered by your passive masking, leaving you with a more or less permanent +3d6 to your initiative. (which is roughly equivalent to 2 levels of wired reflexes, a little worse statistically). You spend 2 spell points, more money, but only 1 power point instead of three.

a force 1 levitate would allow you to fly, albeit slowly.

So on and so forth. If you're willing to risk physical drain, there's a horde of low drain spells out there you could use at higher forces. (Improved invis, stealth, heal (Heh heh), and so on.) I'd recommend using that iniatory point to up your spellcasting ability though, since it's the first to go if you lose magic--best to have a buffer.

On the adept side, you could go social and take kinesics (no starting PC can take cultured phermones, and kinesics are better anyway) or go physical and take killing hands or whatever. You're then dealing with an adept who has a handful of spells to improve his performance.
GentlemanLoser
Ambidextrous + Improved Pistols + Enhanced Aim + Centering (Pistols) + Item attunement = 4 shots per phase at TN2.

Ambidextrous + Improved (weapon) + Enhanced reflexes + counterattack + weapon focus + Increase Strength/Strength Boost + Centering (Weapon) = blender

Throw in some nice decrease body spells...

I'm sure I've missed out some stuff that can be included...

And do all this from invisibility.

Grinder
I have an magician adept in my current group. Works out fine so far, but the fact that he is unable to scout in the astral is really a big handicap. Sure, you can pick up Astral sight for 2 magic points, but that's very expensive.
GentlemanLoser
Isn't there a limited astral projection metamagic skill for Magical Way Adepts?
Grinder
Don't know at the moment. The player of that char would probably know it and he hadn't mentioned it, so...
Fortune
Limited Astral Projection is a Metamagic from SotA64, usable only by Magical Adepts. The limitation is that you substitute minutes for hours for the duration.

GentlemanLoser: I am not sure if you know it from your above post, but AFAIK Centering is available per skill category. You wouldn't have Centering (Pistols) or Centering (Swords), but rather Centering (Ranged Combat) and Centering (Melee Combat).
Dawnshadow
Created with the house rule that magician adepts gain metamagic with every initiation (except to shed gaesa), in part because nobody thought it made sense, and in part because he's a shaman of a very unusual totem (darkness) and so isn't welcome in the multi-style Initiatory group the PC Adept is part of, and is too conditioned against expecting help to go find one, so he's initiating with brutal costs...

Improved invisibility + ambidex + weapon focus (3) + increase str (4) + aptitude (swords)..

TN 3 in melee, and once you get up to skill 8... that's 15 dice per round (applying weapon focus bonus only once, since getting the bonus with both hands is a touch on the crazy side (force 3 would give 4 dice.. force 4 would give 6..).. if I want it on both, I'm going to get a second weapon focus..) All spells on sustaining foci.

Add in improved reflexes, improved quickness, some sense mods, and quickdraw..

A martial art... that let you buy manouvers for weapons.. and you have multi-strike and whirling as well.

Couple that with a few force 4 spells (powerball, manaball, stunball) and you have a character that can slaughter goons magically, and take out most anything with swords.

Add in an ally spirit initiation and you have all the abilities of a weak mage with the combat ability of an adept. Add a power focus to the mix and you can throw any spell a starting mage can without going into physical drain, with a lot more melee ability and a few metamagic techniques to round it out. (Mine are masking, divining, and shielding as I recall.. haven't gone with centering yet, it's next on the list)
Tarantula
I'm sorry, any aptitude (some combat skill here) is cheezy and geared for fighting already. The book even says the GM should consider it carefully.
Kanada Ten
Quick Strike, Multitasking, Improved Senses (not resisted like the dumb detection spells), and a few choice powers like Killing Hands (drainless) can make a Magician's Way adept pretty badass. And Geasa can make the Magical Power a bit cheaper.
Dawnshadow
QUOTE (Tarantula)
I'm sorry, any aptitude (some combat skill here) is cheezy and geared for fighting already. The book even says the GM should consider it carefully.

It's potentially unbalancing. That's very different from cheesy.

Aptitude (anything) represents someone who's got exceptional instincts in that. For there to be NO aptitude (combat stuff), then that would be cheesy, because you're saying that NOBODY is a natural at some type of fighting.

It's no worse then the magician/shaman taking aptitude (sorcery) which if I recall correctly is perfectly legal with no warning.

Personally, considering the spells our group slings around as an example, it's a heck of a lot better than aptitude (sorcery).
Fortune
Actually, the recommendation is against all Combat, Magical, or Computer skills.
Dawnshadow
Ah, alright.

The point about nobody being a natural in that department becomes all the more relevent for the 'cheesy' stuff.

It's potentially unbalancing. It still makes sense that people would have it.

(I don't personally have the book, just the GM does, so I can't check the exact lines, just go with my trick memory. Apparently I should reread it.)

Personally, I wouldn't recommend it in a low power game, because it would be a far more serious thing there. But.. the adept started into a fairly high-powered game -- the other two characters had 15+ karma pool.

Beyond that, just that I wouldn't recommend it doesn't mean that it shouldn't happen. I'd be just as concerned about a troll Sam with natural body 11, a pair of cyberarms, and titanium bones.. (body 14), or even worse, a pair of cyberlegs instead of cyber-arms, for body 15.
Tarantula
But, a body of 15 isn't as game-breaking as -1 to ALL TNs permanently. Aptitude anything is a serious bonus. Aptitude pistol + laser sight gives you benefit of a smart link. How about that same troll, with aptitude polearms, and a polearm? base 3 TN in melee combat with 3 (or is it 4?) reach.

Aptitudes problem, is that you can tag it on any other game-breaking thing, and make it worse.
Dawnshadow
QUOTE (Tarantula)
But, a body of 15 isn't as game-breaking as -1 to ALL TNs permanently. Aptitude anything is a serious bonus. Aptitude pistol + laser sight gives you benefit of a smart link. How about that same troll, with aptitude polearms, and a polearm? base 3 TN in combat with 3 (or is it 4?) reach.

Body 15 is a LOT more of a gamebreaker.

Troll, Aptitude Polearms, reach 3, TN 3.

Fine... they'll tear through most of the opposition they'll face. That's alright, they should.
They will NOT tear through the adept charging in with killing hands and close-in fighting, or the other Sam using the same and a set of dikoted spurs. They might win.. but it's nowhere near certain.

Troll tossing 15 body though? Ordinary armour drops most soaks down to 6 or less. They can soak a LOT of stuff without taking damage. They just don't go down. (They don't go down at body 11.. the only things that have done much damage to my Sam with body 11 are: dragonfire. Full auto in the back. Tazer shots with 7+ successes. A direct hit with an AV rocket (Admittedly, he was in hardened powered armour, helmet, the works, so had some pretty scary armour values), and lightning spells.

Only the lightning spells and tazer shots aren't as good now because he's got nonconductive FFBA at rating 10.
U_Fester
I would have the body of 15 over aptitude any day of the week. With armor of 6 you need to bring in some big guns to do some damage, plus the 15 dice to roll for damage isn't that bad either.
BitBasher
QUOTE (U_Fester)
I would have the body of 15 over aptitude any day of the week. With armor of 6 you need to bring in some big guns to do some damage, plus the 15 dice to roll for damage isn't that bad either.

I totally agree with others in that the Aptitude is FAR more of an issue than 15 body. TN mods are almost always significantly more powerful than extra dice.

A 15 body character kinda makes me go "meh" but being able to lop 1 off TN's is huge.
Fortune
QUOTE (Dawnshadow)
Only the lightning spells and tazer shots aren't as good now because he's got nonconductive FFBA at rating 10.

Which is totally based on a house rule, as I said in the other thread.
Cynic project
Um, those cyber troll don't like the fallowing things, Asullt rifles on burst fire with Ex-ex, lasers, shaped charges, MAD dicetors, just name a few things.

But even das uber troll can go down. The problem with aptitude and the skills is recommend you adviod, is that why wouldn't the pistol adept have it?Why wouldn't the spell slinger? Any flaw or edge that you have to ask why wouldn't any character have, is not worth putting into the game.
mfb
given the current rules, the mage will quickly and easily outstrip the magician's way adept in terms of raw destructive capability, versatility, and just about every other measurement of "powerful" i can think of. physmages progress, magically, at half the rate of full magicians or regular adepts: they can either gain a metamagic or gain a power point. a competently-run will burn the pants off of a competently-run physmage, given ~30+ karma. at charagen, though, a physmage is initially the better choice.
Fortune
If the rules for Magician Adept Initiation were fixed it would be a different story though.
mfb
indeed. heck, if the rules for magician's way adept initiation were fixed, i might play them more often.
Crimsondude 2.0
Fixed?

It'd work if the description was written coherently.
Rev
The infusion focus is another thing thrown into the mix. Works better than normal for a physmage because their magic goes up but thier power points don't (if they learn metamagics) So a physmage can get plug & play power points (and use them all the time) for 6 karma and 150-300kY(street index) per point.
Fortune
It's that incoherency that led to the ludicrous FAQ ruling, which is in itself quite coherent, albeit totally wrong.
mfb
an adept who gets only metamagics at initiation, and who has an infusion focus with a force equal to 2x his grade, will be on an equal footing with a normal mage.
Rev
Except that they can spend the points on adept powers instead of magical power if they want. I don't think it makes them better than a mage, but it certainly helps them out. If there is a lot of money available it helps them out a lot because they can plug & play powers appropriate to any situation and learn them for about the same karma as a spell.
Tarantula
QUOTE (Dawnshadow)
Troll, Aptitude Polearms, reach 3, TN 3.

Fine... they'll tear through most of the opposition they'll face. That's alright, they should.
They will NOT tear through the adept charging in with killing hands and close-in fighting, or the other Sam using the same and a set of dikoted spurs. They might win.. but it's nowhere near certain.

Troll tossing 15 body though? Ordinary armour drops most soaks down to 6 or less. They can soak a LOT of stuff without taking damage. They just don't go down. (They don't go down at body 11.. the only things that have done much damage to my Sam with body 11 are: dragonfire. Full auto in the back. Tazer shots with 7+ successes. A direct hit with an AV rocket (Admittedly, he was in hardened powered armour, helmet, the works, so had some pretty scary armour values), and lightning spells.

Only the lightning spells and tazer shots aren't as good now because he's got nonconductive FFBA at rating 10.

No, it isn't. To have that 15 body you have to sacrifice a lot of other things you could have gotten instead. To have aptitude, you have to figure out some flaws, which any munchkin could do, to compensate, thats it.

Also, yes, the troll would tear through said adept, as the adepts TNs are 4's, and the trolls are 3's. Also the adepts power is reduced (If I remember right) from close-in fighting. Same with the sam, but give the troll a dikoted polearm, if the sam gets diokoted spurs. Sam has less power, and the troll still has a tn of 3, and will overall beat the sam.

Add on the troll will soak anything hes hit with anyway, and now hes even worse.
mfb
pshaw. they'll both go down when the mage slaps them with a high-force D stunbolt.
Dawnshadow
QUOTE (Tarantula)
Also, yes, the troll would tear through said adept, as the adepts TNs are 4's, and the trolls are 3's. Also the adepts power is reduced (If I remember right) from close-in fighting. Same with the sam, but give the troll a dikoted polearm, if the sam gets diokoted spurs. Sam has less power, and the troll still has a tn of 3, and will overall beat the sam.

Add on the troll will soak anything hes hit with anyway, and now hes even worse.

Any adept/sam that wants to fight the troll close in with any expectation of winning would almost certainly be capable of punching through the armour, and be confident that he's vastly more skilled. Otherwise the difference in TN's would be irrelevent.

Power is reduced by 1 for close-in fighting.

The Troll should be tough. The troll should have a good chance of winning. Whether the troll WOULD win is up in the air. Likely. In good shape? Not necessairily.

Trolls can be beaten in melee rounds even when they've got a 3 reach bonus on you. I've got a Sam who did it. He lost the fight overall, but the Troll was not in great shape after. It just takes a little intelligent planning in the fight.

Take more intelligent planning, and you just unload a few clips at him before he gets into range, full auto with an assault rifle.

Beyond that, a single light wound, physical or stun, negates aptitude quite nicely. That just takes one lost opposed diceroll, or one shot that isn't soaked fully.


Body 15, on the other hand, is a more measurable, consistant bonus (unaffected by the Troll's condition) which can and will cause serious problems. Yes, said character would be weaker in other areas. But, it's still 15 dice thrown to soak anything that comes. Put armour + helmet on, and add in even the slightest bit of intelligent fighting to make shooting TN's higher, and the troll will be walking away with virtually no damage from most gunfire and weapons.
hahnsoo
QUOTE (Grinder)
I have an magician adept in my current group. Works out fine so far, but the fact that he is unable to scout in the astral is really a big handicap. Sure, you can pick up Astral sight for 2 magic points, but that's very expensive.

My Magician Adept character plans on creating an Ally Spirit to cover this hole, although we already have a very competent Raccoon shaman to cover astral surveillances.

Magician Adepts aren't very cost effective, but they are versatile in some ways (I'd still say a full mage is much better), and some character concepts work much better as a Magician Adept than as a Magician or a plain Adept.
BitBasher
Oh hell no.

QUOTE
Beyond that, a single light wound, physical or stun, negates aptitude quite nicely. That just takes one lost opposed diceroll, or one shot that isn't soaked fully.

In an opposed roll having the aptitude is a horrible advantage, the odds of beating someone out when you suffer a TN penalty are devstating.

Assuming no other TN mods, rolling 4 dice with an aptitude at a TN of 4 is equal to 6 dice without an aptitude.

The example of a troll with a +3 reach losing to a sam with no reach or ways to avoid reach is horribly rare except in cases of artistic licence. The troll could drop his TN to 2 while raising the sammie's TN to 5. This means that For every 6 dice the sammie rolls the troll would need around 15 dice to break even. That's without an aptitude. If the troll also had an aptitude the sammie would need 30 dice to break even with the troll's 6. I'd like to hear how your scenario went for the sammy to have a prayer in hell.

That's a HUGE shift in odds. Aptitudes cause a complete game balance shift. particularly in melee. This huge balance shift also applies to magic and decking.

In short, an aptitude is a Phenominal measurable, consistant bonus.
mfb
the balance shift is less huge in magic and decking, but still appreciable. the balance shift in melee is absolutely overwhelming.
Dawnshadow
QUOTE (BitBasher)
QUOTE
Beyond that, a single light wound, physical or stun, negates aptitude quite nicely. That just takes one lost opposed diceroll, or one shot that isn't soaked fully.

In an opposed roll having the aptitude is a horrible advantage, the odds of beating someone out when you suffer a TN penalty are devstating.

Assuming no other TN mods, rolling 4 dice with an aptitude at a TN of 4 is equal to 6 dice without an aptitude.

The example of a troll with a +3 reach losing to a sam with no reach or ways to avoid reach is horribly rare except in cases of artistic licence. The troll could drop his TN to 2 while raising the sammie's TN to 5. This means that For every 6 dice the sammie rolls the troll would need around 15 dice to break even. That's without an aptitude. If the troll also had an aptitude the sammie would need 30 dice to break even with the troll's 6. I'd like to hear how your scenario went for the sammy to have a prayer in hell.

That's a HUGE shift in odds. Aptitudes cause a complete game balance shift. particularly in melee. This huge balance shift also applies to magic and decking.

In short, an aptitude is a Phenominal measurable, consistant bonus.

The situation I'd been referring to: my Sam vs Troll. I did not say the Sam won the fight, I said he won a few rounds, at a greater disadvantage than Aptitude. Aptitude would have included Close-In fighting for the Sam, so would have gone more in the Sam's favour.

No close-in fighting, neither with aptitude, Troll was using whips, Sam was using dikoted spurs and had venom packs (custom cyberware, each arm could deliver 8 doses of gamma-scopalamene (sp)), both had skill 8. Yes, it's a dirty stunt.

Sam hit I believe it was 3 times over the fight (about 9 exchanges). First one was the most important -- because he got a dose of GS in, which is absolutely obscene. All of the sudden, the Troll, beyond the injury modifiers both were facing, had another +2 to his target numbers.

The sam ended up losing the fight in the end -- Troll was still standing, and he was passing out. That's when the mage had finally gotten there and cleaned the rest of the fight out.
---------------------------------------

No modifiers but aptitude.. aptitude will get 2/3 * dice successes, compared to 1/2 * successes, over a large sampling.

4 dice each.. gives 8/3 successes for the person with aptitude, compared to 4/2 (2) without. That's not an exceptional difference -- in fact, it's about equivalent to 1 extra skill point. In fact, it's 2/3 of a success more -- rounding, yes, it becomes equal to 6 dice without, but statistically speaking that's very different.

MFB: I would say it's a greater advantage to the mage, because the mage just has to see you to use the advantage on you. Melee skills? Have to get into melee. Lots of time for people to point assault rifles or throw stunbolts/powerbolts/manabolts.
mfb
yes, but with magic, it's not generally as close a contest; the mage's base TNs are different from the target's base TNs, and different modifiers apply to each--it's not a direct contest. in melee, you're rolling directly against your opponent, and the TNs are usually very close; raising or lowering the TNs is often more important than having a few more dice.
DrJest
Where I really found a physmage to be an advantage was when making my Gun Kata Adept. Since I wanted a dual pistol setup, laser sights were out; being able to throw an Enhance Aim into a sustaining focus was well worth sacrificing a point of magic for (as mentioned before, subject to GM approval that's a Personal Extended Enhance Aim, which is even more useful). Having taken the magic point in the first place, it's worth adding a few other spells; Fashion and Makeover, those two classics, and an emergency Treat (yes the drain will be physical, but a low Force treat can have its Drain soaked to nil, and the few boxes of healing could save someone's life - even yours) spring to mind. A lot of utility spells work at that kind of level as well; Gecko Crawl, anyone? Magic Fingers? It's not strong, but it'll flip a switch.
Dawnshadow
True mfb-- but raising or lowering the target number has a vast affect on the amount of successes, and can make the difference between a spell being tough to resist but possible, and instant-kill.

For instance, sorcery 6, force 4 spell, 5 spell pool, and 4(D) drain...

If you're frying goons against target 4, you need to throw 8-10 dice to be relatively sure that you're going to kill them all first cast.

If you have aptitude, it's target 3, and you need to throw 6 dice to be relatively sure, leaving you more to direct to drain resistance, with in turn makes your mage more likely to be able to continue casting..

Aptitude, in melee, is devastating, but not insurmountable -- but it's a more limitted application.

True, changing target numbers in melee is usually more important than adding a few dice.. but changing target numbers happens quite a bit, for a larger amount of reasons, from everything to that gunfight beforehand to bad lighting, to a phobia taking affect, to totem modifiers for shamans, to reach.
BitBasher
QUOTE
Sam hit I believe it was 3 times over the fight (about 9 exchanges). First one was the most important -- because he got a dose of GS in, which is absolutely obscene. All of the sudden, the Troll, beyond the injury modifiers both were facing, had another +2 to his target numbers.
It's not that sudden (referring to to what I bolded) drugs don't take effect until the beginning of the next combat round, after you roll initiative again, even drugs marked "instant". Most folks glaze over that.
Dawnshadow
It's sudden enough when neither one gets more than two actions in a round wink.gif

You're right though, I did miss that.
BitBasher
QUOTE (Dawnshadow)
It's sudden enough when neither one gets more than two actions in a round wink.gif

You're right though, I did miss that.

We missed that for a long time and it made drugs far less useful for specific applications while still keeping them a nice alternative. It made them far less abusable in many situations from a game balance point of view.
Cynic project
I have yet to see a magical adept that was good at being an adept or good being a mage. At best they lag behind most adepts or mages in the field that they want to go for. The thing about mages is that they need a lot of karma to do what they do. The thing about adepts is they need a lot of karma to do what they want to do.

If you are a mage, you look in the book and you can rightly say I want just about every spell in the book,plus some others. You may want to get an ally spirit.You may not.

As an adept well you can always get more power,and frankly you just about always do.

Both these things take Karma. About the only thing they have in common with the use of the karma is that they both want metamagics. In the end, just about any time I wanted to play a magical adept,I played a voodoun.
Tarantula
QUOTE (Dawnshadow)
Body 15, on the other hand, is a more measurable, consistant bonus (unaffected by the Troll's condition) which can and will cause serious problems. Yes, said character would be weaker in other areas. But, it's still 15 dice thrown to soak anything that comes. Put armour + helmet on, and add in even the slightest bit of intelligent fighting to make shooting TN's higher, and the troll will be walking away with virtually no damage from most gunfire and weapons.

You missed my point. Regardless of whatever "game-breaking" scenario you come up with, throw aptitude on top of it, and its that much worse. Aptitude is so game breaking because you can tack it on top of anything else, without any real penalty (hell, grab borrowed time, combat junkies aren't likely to live long anyway). It doesn't matter what scenario, aptitude (if applicable) is going to be much more gamebreaking than something else, because you could have that something else, and aptitude. Melee shapeshifter with aptitude? Sure, go for it. Ghoul gnome spellcaster aptitude sorcery? Yeah, be a nasty bastard. Street sammy aptitude(weapon of choice) go kill some guys. Adept sniper aptitude (rifle) go splatter some heads. It just makes any game-breaking build worse, not to mention making non-gamebreaking ones game-breaking, or close to it.
The White Dwarf
For magicians way adepts vs full magicians, its more of a "how long term do you plan" thing. Cause out past 300 karma youre gonna start seeing the adept get a lot more powerful. But with lower values the magician tends to be better *in a broader range* than the adept. Magicians way adepts tend to be able to combine several powers from both categories to really shine in one area, but they lack the versatility that comes with being a full mage. Until, of course, youve built up enough karma to overcome all that.

As far as aptitude in the recommended "not" skill categories, that recommendation is there for very good reason. I dont care what you compare it to, in what example, in what test or condition; the aptitude is always broken relative to whatever youre trying to compare it to.

Dont fight it just trust us. Statistically and game mechanically its an almost ir-reproducible advantage that will wildly swing the odds in the aptitude-ee's favor.

Its not even a challenge to point out why. Its been done to death before. Any example anyone throws up here trying to claim aptitude in a recommended barred skill will be shot down in short order. Give up, resistance is futlie. Just accept its too powerful. You may like things too powerful, and be content with it in your games, and thats fine. But it *does* wildly swing the odds past the ability of virtually anything elses ability to do so.
Shockwave_IIc
QUOTE (Forune)
Limited Astral Projection is a Metamagic from SotA64, usable only by Magical Adepts. The limitation is that you substitute minutes for hours for the duration.


Isn't there also requiment of Astral Perception first?


QUOTE (DawnShadow)
Trolls can be beaten in melee rounds even when they've got a 3 reach bonus on you. I've got a Sam who did it. He lost the fight overall, but the Troll was not in great shape after. It just takes a little intelligent planning in the fight.


You turn round in a conversation of Aptitude and Reach saying that you've had a character win against the odd's and bring in a third element. You turn round and say that Trolls with reach 3 aren't a difficult beat even if they happen to have aptitude (though in the example you later gave it seemed that the troll didn't) but only because your Sam had Gamma Scopolamine. Thus for such a Troll to be balanced everybody had to carry Gamma-Scopolamine coated weapons which over 99.99% of people don't have. Thus the conclusion is that over 99.99% of the time such a character is NOT balanced.
Fortune
QUOTE (Shockwave_IIc)
QUOTE (Forune)
Limited Astral Projection is a Metamagic from SotA64, usable only by Magical Adepts. The limitation is that you substitute minutes for hours for the duration.


Isn't there also requiment of Astral Perception first?

Yeah, but I kinda figured that was self-evident. nyahnyah.gif wink.gif
Dawnshadow
QUOTE (Shockwave_IIc)
You turn round in a conversation of Aptitude and Reach saying that you've had a character win against the odd's and bring in a third element. You turn round and say that Trolls with reach 3 aren't a difficult beat even if they happen to have aptitude (though in the example you later gave it seemed that the troll didn't) but only because your Sam had Gamma Scopolamine. Thus for such a Troll to be balanced everybody had to carry Gamma-Scopolamine coated weapons which over 99.99% of people don't have. Thus the conclusion is that over 99.99% of the time such a character is NOT balanced.

Balance doesn't mean that a fight will be won 50% of the time by one party and 50% by the other.. it means that ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, it will come down to luck. As in, two identical people fighting with identical styles, it should come down to luck.

Everything else, should, quite rightfully, depend on tactics, planning, strategy, and what dirty tricks you have up your sleeve. If you're fighting someone that you can't beat one way, then you're fighting the wrong way.

Otherwise, every spellcaster is broken in the fight, because from well out of range they manabolt/powerbolt/stunbolt at Xdeadly and the troll is down. No maybe a little drain for the caster, depending on things.

If the character in question is unbeatable in EVERY way that you can think of, then it's unbalanced. If they're unbeatable in most, then they're getting unbalanced. If they've got one thing they excell in, then they are not unbalanced.

If you want to make the argument that everyone should be beatable in melee by anyone, everyone, or exactly 50% of people, then there's no point in any debate. We're down, effectively, everyone has skill 1 in every skill.

In the example I gave -- all I did was show that a 3 reach bonus is NOT the be-all-end-all of a fight, and gave a way that the fight became more even.

Yes, there's a recommendation for GMs to consider whether or not aptitude is something they want in their games for those skills. It's not a recommendation 'not' to have it, it's a recommendation to be careful about using it. There's a difference. It's an important one.
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