Centering is just another term for Drain Reduction. Adepts can still take Centering to reduce the Drain from their powers.

Still, I don't think that the devs could totally throw away the "Centering to Reduce Penalties" idea... Maybe it's coming back in "Street Magic", along with the long list of all the rest of Metamagic.

The SR3 Attribute Boost (not Attribute Increase) series of powers had drain. Some other use activated too i think, i don't recall them straight off. But ya, there weren't a lot of powers that did. Just like there weren't a lot of use activated powers.

You get turned to goo. It's a messier form of Petrify, and possibly one of the most dangerous spells (for the targets, at least) in SR.

Some of the Metamagics in State of the Art (Infusion for sure, and maybe Somatic Control) suffer drain after using them.

Magic Loss effectivly reduces your Attribute Cap. Your Magic Attribute Cap is effectigvly Essence+Initiate Levels.

Initiation gives you access to a metamagic ability and raises your Magic Attribute Cap, but does not raise your actual Magic Attribute, as noted by others.

If you lose essence, both your current magic attribute and your attribute cap drops. if your current magic rating drops to 0, you become mundane and lose all access to magic.

Bull

Whoa, okay, so Initiating doesn't give you a shiny new magic point, but instead raises the MAX magic points you can have? As in, a 6th Grade Initiate would have a max total magic of 12? Also, once you raise this cap, you actually have to pay MORE karma to raise your magic up to the new cap?

Example: Mage A has a starting Magic of 6, he's at the cap 'cause he's a converted SR3 (or whatever) but he's just earned enough Karma for his first initiation. He collects his metamagic, and looks forward to being able to cast force 14 spells when he needs to, but first must raise his Magic attribute to the superhuman level of 7 with Karma he's not likely to get for a good long while.

Years later Mage A has initiated 14 straight times, and raised his magic attribute to a staggering 20. He then loads up on 5 Essence points of cyber and bio, and ends up with a final effective Magic rating of 15, still more than enough to toast any puny mortal who stands in his way . . . especially now that he goes 4 times a turn.

Is this right? Or is the Magic Att still capped at 6 (or 7, I guess) with Initiation adding its rating for dice purposes and physical/stun purposes?

That's correct.

That's also correct.

Which is also correct. Mind you, that character will take quite a bit of essence to develop to that level, and since he's sunk every point of karma he has into initiating, he might, uh, be limited in some other respects.

By essence I assume you mean Karma, and yes, he will likely be deficient in most other areas . . . which means jack all when he can weild his mighty force 10 + spells like jackhammers against all the problems he's faced with in the world. The only difficulty he'd have is in finding the karma to bond sustaining foci for all his incredible Increase Attribute spells. The very thought of some being acheiving such a level of personal power would be wet-your-pants scary to people like Street-Sams who are limited to mortal levels of competence by the skill and attribute caps. Hell most highly competent magicians will run screaming when this juggernaut arrives on the scene, spewing death and torment all about him. This is a guy who could kill almost anything alive simply by autosuccessing a combat spell at force 10 (DV 15 if I'm reading the rules posted in these forums right, and assuming a Spellcasting skill of 5 with no Edge added).

Holy god mages are now 'Teh UbeR!'


.... You know what, I think I like this.

I saw the Force and Force x2 for dice pools, but I don't remember being told it was 2 boxes/hit. A Force 6 spirit is going to -average- 4 boxes summoning and 8 boxes binding. Not the worst, but binding is going to smart a bit. A Magic (6), Cha/Log (6) mage is going to avoid summoning drain a little better than 1/2 the time but he is nearly guaranteed to suffer drain binding without extra help there.

I guess it also means that there won't be a huge drain difference summoning anything from around Force 4 and down, unless they get a really good roll.

When does the drain switch from Stun to Physical? What did they end up setting for the limits on unbound and bound spirits you can maintain at any given time?

Can spirits use their Edge to Oppose summoning/binding if the GM judges the spirit to have a particularly strong motivation for disliking the conjurer?

So summoning drain and binding drain are the same? EDIT: Or summoning drain is based on the F*2 opposing dice pool roll with 1 box/hit? That is still the same average damage of 4 boxes for a Force 6 spirit, but a lot more room for variance.

There is obviously a typo or 2 because it should be 5 x 3 and there is a ( missing.

It continues:

They get power points equal to their Magic attribute, which starts at one and can be bought up as stated elsewhere.

Astral perception is half as much, the rest look about the same.

Mystic Armor now counts as Ballistic and Impact and works against astral combat.

Could be you can techinally cast them all you want, but they don't actually affect anything? They do say that Physical spells only affects things on the Physical plane? I'd see that as an oversight, but not so much for people that don't have a history of grounding (played SR2 or SR3 with grounding house rules). I wouldn't assume grounding is back based on that alone as that implies there is a conduit (especially for AoE spells) back to the Physical plane.

It is just as easy to assume that you have LOS (with perception penalties) to the physical plane, and that physical plane only dwellers are at the complete mercy of astral only spell casting entities. Besides the obvious balance issues.

P.S. Did you see anything about the old exclusive action restrictions i listed earlier such as sustaing a spell while going into or out of astral projection?

I have not noticed any exclusive actions.

Come to think of it, I'm completely amazed that nobody has asked that yet.

I'll bet that we have to wait until Street Magic to get the full rules for pimpin' out the Spirit Harem™.

Ya, So although subdued, the old SR3 issue of caster demigods over the longterm is still around. They set it up so mages have to buy in two steps to raise each Magic point past 6. At 10 + 3*Grade to initiate plus the normal Attribute raising it costs a total in the mid-twenties for 6 -> 7, and an even 40 for 7 -> 8.

The bad news is Magic Loss only occurs on a voluntary basis, with the implant of 'ware.

Easier than before.

Can do it solo.

Hits on magic + ritual spellcasting determine success. Additional members of the team, same tradition, hits grant bonus dice to leader.

Team must all know spell, size is limited to lower of Force of lodge or Lowest ritual spellcasting skill of the team.

Still have targeting if out of LOS. I think you now have to make sure the spotter has enough time to stay astrally projected, but a bound spirits can be used as spotters. Spotter must be able to assense the target.

The leader's Magic + Ritual Spellcasting forms the base dice pool. Spell Force is limited by leader's Magic attribute. If the force is higher than leaders Magic, the entire team resists Physical drain.

Takes 12 hours minus leader's Magic, minimum 1 hour.

Individuals may use foci to supplement their own tests. It isn't stated in the same place, but it mentions individuals may use foci or bound spirits who are not otherwise occupied to resist drain. So I assume a spirit could be used to Aid Sorcery. In fact, Ritual Sorcery is listed under the Aid Sorcery section.

Note too, only one focus may contribute to a single dice pool, so no ritual focus + power focus + power focus. But dice pool + focus + spirit aid sorcery power seems legit for the ritual casting for each member and the same combo again for drain.

you could allways do it solo. just as long as you dont need a ritual tracking to locate the target first

Does this mean that after earning his first 6 power points (the ones he started with in SR3), the adept must pay 34, 40, 46 etc. karma for more powers?

Sorry for nitpicking, but I just wanted to be clear on this.

- Magnus

Yes, you still cannot heal stun damage. It even specifically says so in the Spell catalog (along with Psychological illnesses).

An adept may not necessarily start with 6 power points in SR4, since Magic is bought just like any other attribute. Your other assessment is correct. An Adept, once they hit the Magic Attribute 6 cap, must Initiate first, then purchase the next point of Magic to hit 7 and get another point of powers. Note that you don't have to wait until then to get your first Initiate grade... as long as your Initiate Grade (in this case, 0) is less than your Magic Attribute, you may Initiate.

Doing it solo wasn't part of the easier, but now you can do it solo and have a bound spirit do the tracking, (though I thought you could have an elemental do it in SR3. Not sure, rarely played hermetic.)

Easier was everyone being able to use foci and bound spirits. And no longer mention of it being an exclusive action so can be combined with other strategies to make it easier and more useful - like I said about using it for casting sustaining foci spells.

planing to pull a constantine are we?
(didnt he have so many contracts on his soul with beings downstairs that if he ever died he would start a war?)

Only one. p79

As long as the availability is 12 or below, you can purchase it at character creation. Thus, combat spells can be learned at character creation. I think the reason they are Forbidden is not because they don't exist legally, but because any act of magic used for hurting others is automatically considered Assault, and any death is considered premeditated murder, but this is just speculation. "Elemental Manipulations" are now considered Indirect Combat Spells instead.

Good question! I can't honestly say. I've not seen anything under the Magic section (specifically, the Heal spell description) or the Health and Damage section to say with any certainty. From what I've read so far, you can heal damage from drain using Magic, but I could very well be wrong (and I'm looking as hard as I can here).

Not with Magical Healing. You can heal any single "set" of wounds once with First Aid and once with Magical Healing (in that order). First Aid is a very icky roll now (I think it's something like a Threshold 2 with net successes determining how many boxes are healed), but there is a new skill called "Medicine" that allows you to augment long-term healing (finally! Separating First Aid from Medicine). Very similar to the way it was in SR3.