| From: | "Jason Carter, Nightstalker" <CARTER@***.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Physical Adept answers for Jeff and Chris |
| Date: | Wed, 19 May 1993 12:08:39 -0700 |
Physical adepts in SRII have three major changes form SRI. Autosucesses are
out the door, but you can buy extra dice with any physical or combat skill
instead of just Atheletics, Armed Combat, Unarmed Combat and Stealth. Increased
Reaction was split into two parts; Increased Reaction, which increases your
reaction attribute, and Increased Reflexes, which gives extra intiative dice.
Lastly, you can now buy extra Combat Pool dice.
The reason Physical adepts were down-power is the same reason the other
magicians were down powered. They were just too damn effective. Read below for
reasons to be a SRII physical adept.
Chris:
It's about time. SRII is better than SRI for most purposes. (unabashed plug)
Bioware does make people harder to heal, but only magicians lose essense from
bioware. For mundanes add 1 to the target number to heal for every two points
of bioware body index.
Acutally in most important cases it's actually cheaper to get another grade of
initiation than it is to buy up your physical and combat skills. Initiation
(assuming magic group and ordeal, the only way to initiate) cost 9 for grade 0
and goes up to 10 (G1),11 (G2) ,12 (G3),13 (G4),14 (G5),15 (G6), 16 (G7),...
For one point of magic you can raise athletics and stealth by a total of 4
dice, or Armed Combat, Unarmed Combat, Throwing, or Projectile Weapons buy a
total of 2 dice, or Firearms and Gunnery by a total of one die. Assuming you
already have skill 6 in any of these skills, it would cost 14 karma to raise
just one of them just one point.
Increasing characteristics is better done with straight karma since whether it
is above or below racial maximum it's just cheaper that way. But I'd like to
see you raise your Reaction above racial maximum (actually it's cheaper to just
raise your intelligence and quickness than to by increased reaction). Increased
Reflexes IMHO just cost too much, but I guess that's to make wired samurai
faster than physical adepts.
As for the other physical adept abilities, I think most are overrated. Killing
Hands is great, especially if you want to be a spirit processor, but you better
off with L or M Killing Hands and a ton of Unarmed Combat dice than you are with
S or D Killing Hands. Two extra initiative dice, killing hands (M), and four
extra dice with Unarmed combat cost only 8 points of magic (30 points of karma).
We could go on for ever, but I think I'll wait for your reply.
Centering is the number one reason to become an initiate. You by a centering
skill (an unusual language, dancing, singing, meditation) and get to make a
skill roll verses the target number of the action minus your grade. For every
two successes you get to reduce the target number of your skill check by one,
but only to reduce penatlies to the roll. Now intially you can only center
on physical skills (athletics and stealth) but you can buy the new power of
Enhanced Centering (2 magic) and extend the power to a skill catagorie of your
choice. Combat is an old favorite, but imagine the damage a physical adept
detective could do with enhanced centering in Social Skills!!!! (These are not
the droids your looking for. "These are not the droids we're looking for.")
If you look at it in the right light, being a Physical Adept doesn't really cost
that much more karma than playing a samurai. You just do things in a different
way.
See Ya in Shadows,
Jason J Carter
The Nightstalker
