Initiation !?!

WuJen wrote:Some groups, especially in the heremetic style, actually are schools.  Seriously, a Heremetic school would look like Hogwarts.  Basically you can join as a member of the body academic, or you can just pay for tutelage.

Sure, and in such cases you would still get the 20% discount, which is in keeping with what is in the book.

WuJen wrote:Rule 1: WuJen is *always* right.

Rule 2: Should events prove WuJen to be wrong, see rule 1.

Unless he rolls a knowledge check to prove his rightness, at which point he is likely to critically glitch.

So
Sato
Wujen
Torpor makes 3, any of the rest of you guys interested?
I mean you can always join afterwards.
I don't mind using my first 5 karma to make the group, what about you guys?
We need at least 3 willing to do it. If we get 5 people with 5 karma and 2k each we can do it as soon as we can. Then you can initiate a needed.

Well, pretty sure Kingfisher is gone. That leaves only Sun left.

Feel bad for Kingfisher, a bit.

Still, there is only so much hammering your head on a brick wall you can do.

As to forming the group...  I don't mind spending some Karma on it, especially for the long term savings.  Street Grimoire seems to be really thin on magical groups compared to the 4th edition book.

In the 4th edition book, the benefits of joining a magical group were:

Initiation-- the 20% bonus, required a ritual and maxxed out the number of members in the group.  So with the 4 of us, it would have topped out at grade 4.

Magical Instruction-- you get +3 dice on Instruction tests concerning magical stuff, regardless of tradition

Metaplanar Quests-- The group may face the Dweller on the Threshold together to get into the metaplanes, regardless of tradition

Ritual Magic-- Everyone in the group can participate in Ritual Magic regardless of tradition.

There was also a variable benefit depending on the groups resources, which isn't really applicable if we form our own group.

The 5e seems to have stripped away all the benefits except initiation, but left all the restrictions.

WuJen wrote:In the 4th edition book, the benefits of joining a magical group were:

Initiation-- the 20% bonus, required a ritual and maxxed out the number of members in the group.  So with the 4 of us, it would have topped out at grade 4.

Magical Instruction-- you get +3 dice on Instruction tests concerning magical stuff, regardless of tradition

Metaplanar Quests-- The group may face the Dweller on the Threshold together to get into the metaplanes, regardless of tradition

Ritual Magic-- Everyone in the group can participate in Ritual Magic regardless of tradition.

There was also a variable benefit depending on the groups resources, which isn't really applicable if we form our own group.

The 5e seems to have stripped away all the benefits except initiation, but left all the restrictions.

I will probably throw in some further benefits but I need to think on them. Most of these things are just a consequence of having people you can rely on, bonded or not and most of those don't really apply to adepts, which most of your group consists of.

WuJen wrote:Feel bad for Kingfisher, a bit.

Still, there is only so much hammering your head on a brick wall you can do.

I would feel bad if he didn't run off to facebook and badmouth us in the shadowrun group every time he got in trouble for doing something crazy. We have more players than we know what to do with (at least two more are about to join as soon as we wrap up this mission). We were more than patient with him and he just plain ignored every bit of advice given.

Torpor wrote:I don't mind using my first 5 karma to make the group, what about you guys?  
We need at least 3 willing to do it.  If we get 5 people with 5 karma and 2k each we can do it as soon as we can.  Then you can initiate a needed.

I thought it was 5 Karma TOTAL from the leader of the ritual only.
The rest of the group can pay in via nuyen @ 2,000 nuyen per karma.
If it were evenly split, we could pay him the equivalent of 5/3 Karma = 3,333 nuyen each ( (5/3)*2,000 nuyen )

Nevermind, I reread it. So we need to pay in to the ritual leader's learning AND pay 5 Karma each to join.
I'm interested, but would like to know what the karma equivalent per adventure is to get some sense for how long it will take to break even.

You have to pay 5 karma to join including the leader. We are paying his 5 karma to learn the ritual via 2k per karma.

Am I reading Channeling right in Street Grimoire?  *Any* tradition can learn it?

So I can basically initiate to gain the ability to have spirits possess me, while leaving me in control?

Looks like it.

GameMaster wrote:I grouped arcana into enchanting because it is primarily used for creating things and I basically treat the enchanting skill as the magical build/repair skill. Creating foci and their formula, creating spell formula, creating spirit formula, etc. are all arcana. The only single check that doesn't involve making something is specifically with initiation, and I am pretty sure I am going to be altering the initiation rules anyway once I have had time to thoroughly think them out because there are some silly things there. Normally arcana isn't grouped with anything. It's just it's own weird magic skill.

I was going through rituals looking for stuff related to conjuring, and found the Calling Ritual.  It can be done even by non awakened and uses the Arcana skill.

Arcana is just weird.  I'm not sure what they intended it for at this point.

Also...  I mean, good news on the bit about channeling, I guess.  Unless they toned down the benefits of possession (massive stat boost, invulnerability to normal weapons) that seems like a place every magician should go.

WuJen wrote:Also...  I mean, good news on the bit about channeling, I guess.  Unless they toned down the benefits of possession (massive stat boost, invulnerability to normal weapons) that seems like a place every magician should go.

The stat boosts aren't that massive unless you summon a super high force spirit. Your physical stats only go up if the force is higher than your stat. if such is the case, they go up by half the force of the spirit. As for invulnerability to normal weapons, you don't get that. Instead you basically lose wound modifiers (1 die per force). You still get hurt normally, you just don't feel it.

ah, then they did indeed nerf it into oblivion.

I'm happy to see rules for mistreating spirits.  Every edition has promised dire consequences for mistreating your spirits, but no rules.

I'm less happy to see yet another karma sink for magicians.  Basically you get punished for using your abilities with reputation, and the only way to correct it is to either take geas which you can remove with Kamra, or do a ritual and remove the reputation with karma...  No options to, you know, treat the spirits right and get a positive reputation or have a path that does not involve wasting even more karma.

I won't be using that. If you are mistreating spirits, it is obvious. After her behavior with the water spirit, Kingfisher would have had a minor bad reputation with spirits of water. I am not going to to point count every little action you do, but if you are particularly shitty in your treatment of spirits, there will be consequences.

What gets me is things like Long Term Spell Sustaining is a fairly significant infraction.

I get it's painful, but to need to give up a boat load of karma every time you want a spell to last more than a few seconds?  Seems a bit much to bake into the rules.

For that matter, just binding spirits at all into long term service is a minor infraction.  I dislike rules that punish for using basic abilities.  It's like 3.x D&D when magic users had to spend their xp to make magic items.  I get you don't want them turning into factories, but seriously scribe scroll was a granted ability of all wizards.

I think it's just a way to discourage you from trying to get around the sustaining rules without consequence.

Just unfortunate that I didn't take Alchemy from the start. Kinda weird that they made the old anchoring metamagic into another way to cast spells, but sure.

As you have tied arcana in with it I should probably find a way to squeeze some points there, maybe drop out the points in Astral Combat or Assenseing, though I envisioned myself spending more than average time in astral space, what with my extensive cavorting with spirits.

Just checked the rulebook. Adepts can get one of 3 metamagics: Adept centering, Flexible Signature, and Masking, or they can get a powerpoint per initiate grade. Only one that seems kinda interesting for Sun, is Adept centering. Extra powerpoints, though... Hell yeah!

So count me in on the initiating! It fits the purpose of why Sun went to Mingmei pretty well, anyways.

RafV wrote:Just checked the rulebook. Adepts can get one of 3 metamagics: Adept centering, Flexible Signature, and Masking, or they can get a powerpoint per initiate grade. Only one that seems kinda interesting for Sun, is Adept centering. Extra powerpoints, though... Hell yeah!

So count me in on the initiating! It fits the purpose of why Sun went to Mingmei pretty well, anyways.

Well, every 4 members reduces the ritual force by -1, so that's 4

OK so the ritual force starts at
12
-1 for every 4 members
+2 for additional tradition (mages, adepts)
-1 material link
-1 for every 2 strictures
  Attendance (-1 branded)
  Fraternity (-1 branded)
-1 exclusive membership (-1 branded)
 Excluse ritual (-1 branded)

Total force 6