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View Full Version : Shadowrun 4e: Karma for Adept Powers



Fenrazer
2011-03-01, 11:02 AM
Does anybody know where to find the system for karmaic upgrades to Adept powers? I have been looking for a while, and have yet to come across the material needed. I am thinking about using a slightly modified system of what is used for upgrading Knowledge Skills, or Complex forms, but since there are Powers that only take a fraction of a point, I am not sure what to do. I guess the idea of having a fraction of a Karma sitting around bothers me for some reason, as I tend to spend as soon as I have enough to upgrade, and I have not done much in the way of Adepts in 4e.

Any suggestions, or references to ease my super meticulous leveling habits?:smallconfused:

EDIT: Also, are there any stats in 4e for the Night ones?

Lost Demiurge
2011-03-01, 01:13 PM
You won't see karma costs for adept powers, because they're tied to your magic stat.

When you raise your magic stat by a point, you gain another point's worth of adept powers.

Yes, this means that to get beyond 6 points worth of powers you'll have to start initiating. It gets expensive.

The stats for night ones are in the Runner's Companion, I believe. Along with some awesome, useful, and occasionally broken stuff. (YMMV depending on your game.)

comicshorse
2011-03-01, 01:30 PM
Yeah Night Ones are in the Runner Comapnion

Fenrazer
2011-03-02, 07:23 PM
Yikes. Doesn't that mean that Mystical Adepts are insanely powerful then? Higher magic increases a lot in their hands.

Slade
2011-03-23, 02:57 AM
Yikes. Doesn't that mean that Mystical Adepts are insanely powerful then? Higher magic increases a lot in their hands.

Yes. However, and believe me when I say this:
Adepts (and casters) are Karma sinks. Consider:
Maximum starting Magic score is 6, and when its new rating times 5, that's 35 karma to gain a point, 40 for 8, and so on.
Not to mention the need for initiation grades on top of that, requiring 13, 16, 19 and so on, in Karma.
Considering that each Shadowrun gives around 5 Karma each (this varies of course) you can see that it LONG term planning required.

YIKES! Playing a caster is a pain!

Lost Demiurge
2011-03-23, 09:06 AM
Yikes. Doesn't that mean that Mystical Adepts are insanely powerful then? Higher magic increases a lot in their hands.

No, because when you play a mystic adept you must split your magic up between adept powers and your mage's effective magic rating.

So if you have a magic of 5 and 2 points of adept powers, you only have an effective magic rating of 3 for casting spells/summoning spirits/whatever.

If you buy your magic up to 6, you must choose whether to increase your adept powers OR put it towards your mage's effective magic rating. So in the example above, if you went to 6 points then you could either go up to 3 points of adept powers or an effective magic rating of 4. A single point increase would not increase BOTH of these ratings.

Mystic adepts are considered a trap by power players. Throw in the fact that they don't get astral sight and travel like regular mages do, and they're only usually an option if it really fits your character concept.

Seerow
2011-03-23, 12:52 PM
No, because when you play a mystic adept you must split your magic up between adept powers and your mage's effective magic rating.

So if you have a magic of 5 and 2 points of adept powers, you only have an effective magic rating of 3 for casting spells/summoning spirits/whatever.

If you buy your magic up to 6, you must choose whether to increase your adept powers OR put it towards your mage's effective magic rating. So in the example above, if you went to 6 points then you could either go up to 3 points of adept powers or an effective magic rating of 4. A single point increase would not increase BOTH of these ratings.

Mystic adepts are considered a trap by power players. Throw in the fact that they don't get astral sight and travel like regular mages do, and they're only usually an option if it really fits your character concept.

I've seen some GMs rule that the Magic focused to the spellcasting portion of Mystic Adept is a Adept Power (ie you spend 3 points of Magic on the Mystic Adept power), which opens it up to be modified by a geas. The rules for geas in Street Magic let you spend pick up a geas for specific powers 25% cheaper (SM31). So if you have say 6 magic, you could pick up Mystic Adept 4 for 3 points, and still have 3 points worth of adept powers (which could similarly have geas applied to get an extra point worth of adept powers out of it).

Mind you this is a pretty sketchy interpretation, and your GM will likely shoot it down, but if the GM says "**** it, Mystic Adepts are weak and could use the boost" it's a good place to introduce it.



Yes. However, and believe me when I say this:
Adepts (and casters) are Karma sinks. Consider:
Maximum starting Magic score is 6, and when its new rating times 5, that's 35 karma to gain a point, 40 for 8, and so on.
Not to mention the need for initiation grades on top of that, requiring 13, 16, 19 and so on, in Karma.
Considering that each Shadowrun gives around 5 Karma each (this varies of course) you can see that it LONG term planning required.

YIKES! Playing a caster is a pain!

Don't forget you can drastically reduce initiation costs. Get yourself a group and do an Ordeal (several of which are pretty easy. For example the first grade initiation most casters take is an Oath to their initiation group, which qualifies as an ordeal), and you cut 40% of the cost out. That first initiation cost goes all the way down to 8.

But yeah, Magic is still really expensive to bring up, and I don't know of any tricks off hand to make that cheaper.


I also seem to remember there being an alternative where the Adept can, on level up, choose to get an extra effective point of magic for his adept powers, rather than a metamagic. I can't find it right now, so I could be misremembering, or remembering a house rule, but if it is there that can help a lot too.


edit: Okay, it's definitely in the spreadsheet I use for character generation, listed as "Power Point", but I don't see it in the metamagic section of street magic, and there's no source listed on the sheet, so I'm not sure where to look for it.

LibraryOgre
2011-03-23, 01:51 PM
I've seen some GMs rule that the Magic focused to the spellcasting portion of Mystic Adept is a Adept Power (ie you spend 3 points of Magic on the Mystic Adept power), which opens it up to be modified by a geas. The rules for geas in Street Magic let you spend pick up a geas for specific powers 25% cheaper (SM31). So if you have say 6 magic, you could pick up Mystic Adept 4 for 3 points, and still have 3 points worth of adept powers (which could similarly have geas applied to get an extra point worth of adept powers out of it).

Mind you this is a pretty sketchy interpretation, and your GM will likely shoot it down, but if the GM says "**** it, Mystic Adepts are weak and could use the boost" it's a good place to introduce it.

I'd call it a perfectly legitimate interpretation, myself. The GM should throw a few shots at you where you're not able to do use your magic, but it works for me.

Seerow
2011-03-23, 04:05 PM
If anyone was curious, my GM found the rule about gaining extra PP as a metamagic after I asked him about it. It's apparently in the Street Magic errata, added into the Tweaking the Rules section on page 31.


What does this mean for you? It means that any time you initiate, you can get an extra power point rather than a metamagic. You can also choose to spend 15 karma on a metamagic, and pick up the extra power point (I wish there was some way to reduce that cost. Maybe via an initiation group, if not the ordeal? That would be a purely GM call though), up to a maximum of your magic.


Now, up until grade 4, initiating will be cheaper than the bonus metamagics. But at rank 4 initiate, you can have 6 magic, and 10 power points. This is at 14+12+10+8 = 34 karma. You can then get up to 6 extra power points at this point, at 15 karma a piece, at that point you're looking at a pretty long time before maxing out (lets face it, it takes a while to accumulate 90 karma), but if you still want more after that you can start boosting your magic, which also raises the cap on a lot of your powers.

And don't forget your geas. Depending on how mean your GM is, a geas can be an adepts best friend or worst nightmare. Having a amulet that is valuable to nobody in the world except you and getting 25% cheaper adept powers is nice. But turning 12 power points into 16 is a hard to ignore benefit.