No books handy ATM, but I seem to recall that any Awakened can learn sorcery to use in astral combat. Adepts were specifically mentioned, in fact.

I can't recall if this was a 2nd or 3rd ed rule, so if someone has a page reference, it'd be appreciated.

That's what I thought too. To learn an active skill in SR3, you must be able to use it.

I agree. Of course, being able to start with one and having nothing better to dump your karma into is pretty powerful in itself.
I'd be willing to say that Conjurers get the second power point for an ally free (you still have to pay a point of magic for the first, but the second is free) meaning that you can start out with a force 5 ally, plus a couple extras at character creation.
I really have a problem with a conjurer being able to use sorcery (I realize it's your ALLY, not you, but that just means you don't even have to worry about drain). It's cheating. If you want to cast spells and summon spirits, be a full mage. If you want to start with the ability to conjure, and have an ally at character creation that can cast spells or use spell defense, be a Path of the Mage, put all six levels into magic power and there you go. 36 points to create your ally. And as you initiate you can add boost your initiative

You can. Astral Combat.

The paragraph you refer to refers to burnouts. The burnout cannot further improve(learn) any magical Active Skill. The conversion from Active to Background applies to burnouts. If you had the ability to use the skill but lost the ability to use(as well as the ability to learn the spell via the skill description), then the Active skill is converted to Background. Now, the Conjuror(or Sorceror) does not have the ability to use the skill (and they did not lose the ability like the burnout), they are different from the burnout as they still have the capability to learn the skill as they still have a Magic of >0. Also they did not lose the ability to use the skill, they never had it in the first place, therefore the precedent does not apply to them.


There is nothing in the books that states that you may not learn an Active skill you cannot use as long as you are able to learn it.

These are the relevant passages, emphasis mine. That Sorcery requires a Magic of 1 or greater to learn as an Active Skill is irrelevant to the fact that Conjurers CANNOT learn Sorcery as an Active Skill. Why do the burnout's Active Magical Skills revert to Background Knowledge Skills? Because he can not use them. Why can't a Conjurer learn Sorcery as an Active Skill? Because he can not use it. The Conjurer lacks the ability to use Sorcery, just like the burnout. The precedent applies, and Conjurer's Allies get no Sorcery.

And the book is quite clear on learning Active Skills you cannot use, you learn them as Knowledge Skills.

Note that 'perform' and 'use' are synonymous in this context, and remember:

And yet not a single one of those quotes specifically state that a conjuror may not learn Sorcery as an Active Skill. The same description of Active Skills may be applied to Knowledge Skills, the descriptions are too general and vague to be useful for any definative proof. Knowledge skills are also used to perform actions. For example, how do you speak English? You use the Knowledge(Language) skill: English.

Knowledge Skills do the same thing, see example above.

Why does the burnout's Active Magical Skills are converted to Background Knowledge Skills? It is because his Magic rating is 0. Note that I am not saying that he can no longer use the ability but his Magic rating is 0. The loss of the ability is due to his Magic rating being 0. The conversion of his Active Magical Skills to Background is the result of his Magical rating being 0. The conjuror never had the ability to use Sorcery, unlike the burnout. The burnout's skill conversion is due to his Magic being 0. The precedent DOES NOT apply as the conjuror's Magic is not 0.

While you cannot perform or use an active skill, it still doesn't mean that you cannot learn it. Yes, you may learn them as Knowledge Skills but it does not preclude you from learning them as Active. It is just that Knowledge Skills are never useless (p89 SR3).

Actually, they all do. Read them again, support, build up, then main point. Two quotes to indicate Active Skills are what your character can DO, one quote to indicate what happens when you have Active Skills that you cannot use, and one to cement that Conjurers cannot have Sorcery as an active skill.

Ahem,

Your example is defeated, the descriptions given do NOT apply to equallyKnowledge Skills and Active Skills. They apply strictly to Active Skills, and the amalgamation that is Language Skills.

Actually, the reasoning goes something like this: The burnout's magic rating is 0. Therefore he loses the ability to use Sorcery. Therefore he cannot use sorcery. Therefore his Sorcery Active Skill (if any) is converted to a Background Knowledge Skill, being completely unusable except as theoretical knowledge. The burnout's magic being 0 is only relevant in the fact that he is now unable to use magical skills. The Conjurer is automatically unable to use Sorcery, he doesn't even have to burn out to lose the ability since he never had it in the first place, therefore it cannot be learned as an Active Skill.

The Precedent DOES APPLY. Otherwise the Burnout would be able to keep his Magical Active Skills, albeit in an unusable form. He does not. Instead they are converted to Background Knowledge Skills. The Conjurer CANNOT use Sorcery, by the descriptions of Active Skills and the precedent set up by the burnout rules, the Conjurer CANNOT have the Sorcery Active Skill.

As to Knowledge Skills never being useless, who ever said a Sorcery Knowledge Skill was useless? It's quite useful for all sorts of things, especially if you've got Astral Perception and can use the knowledge skill to identify spell forms and such. You can't use it to cast spells, though. That's Active Sorcery, and that's something an Aspected Conjurer can't have.

Edit:

Which we can't allow, considering Dawnshadow's point was in how someone for whome practicing the skill is impossible could learn it as an active skill. Should this blind, deaf, quadroplegic get access to a UV host where he/she can practice shooting, and doesn't use the Computer-skill cop out, then that voids the example, since now this person can practice. If we stipulate that access to a UV host is also impossible for this poor creature, then how would they learn the Active Skill?

Yes, yes they do. That they are not explicit, that there is no quote saying 'An Aspected Conjurer cannot learn the Sorcery Active Skill, so there' is countered by there being no explicit statements of 'An Aspected Conjurer can learn the Sorcery Active Skill, so there'. There are, however, several implicit statements to the effect of the first statement, as I have shown. If you're going to argue that the rules say a Conjurer CAN learn Sorcery, back it up like I have with my point.

1) The quote is that Active Skills are required FOR actions, Knowledge Skills are not required for actions, just knowing things.

2) Yes Active Skills create effects, as they are used to perform ACTIONS. Knowledge skills have one effect: the possessor of the knowledge skill knows things. Performance Knowledge skills are an interesting case, and I'll get to them when I address your Virtuoso deflection in a bit.

3) What is the difference between never being able to do something, and suddenly becoming unable to do something? There isn't one. Someone born without arms cannot catch a ball with his hands, someone who lost their arms in an accident cannot catch a ball with their hands. That one started without the ability (Conjurer) and one lost the ability (Burnout) is irrelevant to the fact that neither of them have that ability. The burnout section's statment allows us to infer (yes, inference is an accepted means of coming to a conclusion) that any Active Skills that cannot be used (for whatever reason) become Background Knowledge Skills. The Precedent stands.

The first two quotes are completely valid, they apply to Active Skills, and not to all skills generally (You could make the case that they apply generally to Active Skills, but that's just damn rediculous and doesn't help your point at all). That the conversion was not reflected in MitS is irrelevant, as it was stated in SR3 and not contradicted in MitS or any other book to my knowledge (if you can come up with a contrary statement from another SR3 book, it would be viable). I've addressed the difference between Active Skills and Knowledge Skills as described by my quotes, so there's only two points left to address.

First, the blind, deaf, quadroplegic man. The point here is not to find ways to have this guy practice the skill. The whole point of the example is that he CANNOT practice the skill. This man is completely mundane, without matrix access, and doesn't have friends or money for good measure. Your point, if it's truly about not knowing when something will have an application, is completely irrelevant. We're discussing whether this guy could learn the Active Skill of Pistols, not whether it might be useful for him, having no way to use a gun in the first place. The Pistols Knowledge skill, which this guy could indeed learn (difficult though it might be), might be quite useful for many reasons. But the Active Skill will be forever beyond his reach, which is the entire damn point.

Second, Virtuosos and Performance Skills in general. This is a tricky one. It doesn't invalidate my other points (unfortunately for your argument), but it does present some interesting arguments on the state of some Knowledge Skills. Centering and Divining, for instance, both require a knowledge skill AND an active skill (and are freely available to ALL awakened, explicitly). The Virtuoso metamagic only requires an Artistic Knowledge Skill, as does some of the other new abilities presented in SOTA '64. Artistic, creative skills as presented in MitS can be either Active or Knowledge, presumably with the intent of keeping things in tune with SR3 descriptions of skills. Active Skills are something you can DO (dancing, moving meditation, playing musical instruments), Knowledge skills are something you KNOW (or only require thought, such as non-moving meditation, tarot divining, astrology). Interestingly, in SOTA 64, it doesn't state that the skill used to Perform is knowledge, only the skill used to create the performance. It does say to perform the Virtuoso piece one must succeed in a test with the appropriate performance skill, but nothing about Knowledge skills. this means that Dancing is then an Active Skill, but it's Background Knowledge component is what is used to figure out what steps to do when and what type of music (if any) to set it to. Poetry, Oration, and other such performances would likely use the same skill for creation and performance (a Language Skill). Painting, Drawing and Sculpting (of those mentioned) are the ones you should focus on, but even then one can have a Painting Active Skill, representing the skill of actually putting brush to canvas and making it work, and a Painting Background Knowledge skill, representing the knowledge oif which colours work well together, proper lighting, etc, etc. The Knowledge skill IS the one use to design the piece here, but that just indicates the rating it will have, and it could still be the Active Skill doing all the work of the drawing and sculpting and painting, with the careful and magically-fuelled design giving it it's supernatural appeal. Hmm. Too vague to come to definite conclusions. I'll give this one to your side for now, but it's riding the line, and will need a good deal more backup to topple my argument.

Since, in this specific case, adepts are otherwise forbidden to use Active magical skills, this seems a sound precedent.

Since this is so, a conjuror(a character) can learn any number of base skills(which includes conjuring). Explicit enough for you? It is explicit enough for me.

As to whether your precedent stands, since MITS is a rules explansion for the Magic section, and in reference to the burnout section in MITS (p30 MITS), the conversion is not stated. Again I would allow the conversion by virtue that it is stated in SR3 but the omission raises the question of whether unusable Active skills are in effect Background skills. Again I raise the question of regaining ability after it is lost (Aleph Society, Threats 2) and the conclusion that previously unusable ability may have future use.

Nowhere does it state that the performance skill is an Active skill. Indeed, on p65 and p66 SOTA 2064, under Enthrallling Performance and Improved Ability(Expanded) Table, there are references to Artistic/Performance Knowledge Skill and repeated reference to the appropriate performance skills as knowledge skills. The performance skill is a Knowledge skill, not an Active one as you argue. Nowhere is there any reference to performance skill as Active. Dancing, Oration, Singing are performance Knowledge Skills and there is as yet no canon Dancing, Oration or Singing performance Active Skills. You might infer that there might be canon and add it in of your own volition but it does not appear on any canon list of Active skills. House Rule away if you wish, but it is not canon.

The blind and crippled man should be able to learn the skill. It is within his reach, so to speak. You whole argument against the conjuror learning the skill lies on his not being able to use it. I am using this example to prove that despite someone might be unable to use a skill, it is not impossible that he can learn it.

Well, if a complete burn-out undergoes the pact/initiation and regains a single point of magic power, the following may occur:

1) A Kind GM would reason that the knowledge only became theoretical when they couldn't use it, so now that they can it's practical again.

2) A Stickler GM would reason that the burnout would need to spend karma and re-purchase their magical skills.

Which might work out well anyways, as they'd have to relearn how to use magic.

Implication in this case is inferred through use of logic. should you choose not to use logic in your thought processes, that's your business, but it doesn't make you right.

Yes, Conjurers can learn Conjuring. That was the entire point. I'm going to assume you meant Sorcery, and say this: If so, a mundane can learn Conjuring and Sorcery, since a character can learn any number of base skills, right? Nope, sorry, they're disallowed on the basis of Magic 0. So I guess that this 'any number' business just means you're not limited to, say 5 base skills to put your skill points into, and that you could spread your starting skill points out like a thin paste over every skill available to them if you so choose. This quote says nothing, and you should have realized that.

Which doesn't, of course, mean the conversion doesn't exist, it's just not stated in MitS. A lot of things aren't stated in MitS that are stated in SR3. Gee, spell targeting, basic spell defense, basic conjuring and all the base spirit types aren't spelled out in MitS, I guess that means they don't exist any more either! This point is invalid, the expansions do not counteract the core book by omission.

If you look closely, I discussed this point at length, and conceded it to your side of the argument with the caveat that it's really riding the ragged edge of interpretation. Why are you still arguing it?

I'm sorry, Toturi, but you just don't seem to get it. We ARE NOT trying to figure out how such a person could use a skill, the basic premis of the argument is that he cannot. What you are attacking is not the argument Dawnshadow made, but some straw man off in the corner. Every attempt you have made to address this point has seen you giving this person access to some way to use the skill, so that he may practice and learn it. That is not the argument, that is something completely different. This person, and I'm repeating myself to the point of rediculousness here, CAN NOT USE THIS SKILL in any way shape or form or through any metaplanar, matrix-related or other method, it simply is not possible for him. How, under these circumstances is he to EVER learn that skill? Remember that to learn the skill properly and not in some theoretical (IE knowledge Skill) sense he must be able to practice it. Answer this and you will earn your title, just don't come up with straw like UV Hosts or Metaplanes, actually address the argument as given. You say he should anyway, despite being completely unable to practice this skill: HOW?

Precisely so. The conjuror can learn Sorcery because his Magic is one or greater.

The quote in MITS is almost identical to that of SR3. I could logically infer that the authors deliberately left out that single sentence, but I will refrain from doing so, if you would stop infering something that is not explicitly stated in the book.

In the blind man example, I do not know how he can use the skill or how he can practise it. But I do know that he may learn it. All the book requires for someone to have a skill is for the player to allocate some skill points to that skill or to get it using karma, provided that the requirements are met. Perhaps the blind man had inborn intuitive knowledge of the active skill that he cannot use.

Brings up an interesting point. Could you teach your ally things you _know_ through skillsofts? I really hate the idea that an ally spirit is an astral clone of the summoner up until the point that it becomes a free spirit. Sure, its a clone with different experiences resulting in new attitudes, but I've always thought of ally spirits as reflections of the greater magic outside the magician.