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"Adept powers" for mundanes

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Mournclaw

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« on: <02-14-13/1157:22> »
If you go by the rules, there exists a huge number of adept IRL, like, right today. We see them pass by, we might not recognize them, even some of us are adepts. Heck, I am an adept. Going by the rules, that is. So I got this idea that you could take some powers without actually being an adept, using 0 for magic just as it is. There's some that should be mundaneuseable:

- Attribute boost; Sometimes people just have heightened concentration to the task at hand. Some are good at going for short bursts of high performance, but end up exhausted easily. Stun damage comes as fatique. It goes far for adepts as they get their magic for the test, but realistically speaking I don't see it as impossible for a person to score a hit or two more by putting all he's got into what he is doing.
- Missile parry; It can be trained to catch moving objects from air. It only makes sense that you get bonuses to dodging them if you do train for such thing. Jugglers for example are known to develop such high order reflexes as to easily catch objects thrown at them.
- Enthralling performance; Everyone knows a beautiful performance or a interesting show can captivate your attention. Again, the thing with magic. Maybe one may not do miracles in order to make an explosion not noticed among the audience, but a pickpocket for example...
- Flexibility; Self explanatory. Think of the rubberman/-woman shows.
- Iron lungs; Surely you've heard of people who can hold their breath for several minutes...? Some have even made an art of it. The world record is 22 minutes if I remember right.
- Nerve strike; You know it's reality. Probably over 90% of martial artists of today can do this, just a quick blow to the armpit or whatever place you choose to use. Maybe a kick to the balls.
- Pain relief; A quick session of massage can do wonders. Without magic it doesn't yield such unnatural results even... 3 hits with just agility isn't that realiable anyways, just as massage helps sometimes and sometimes doesn't. The time taken could be modified to a fixed 20 or 30 minutes though.
- Rooting; Think of any eastern martial art and their wide horse riding stances. More advanced students usually don't have to take the simple action IRL, though...
- Smashing blow; Karate guys and their tameshiwari. 'Nuf said I think.
- Wall running; Well, I personally know a man who can run up walls quite well. Think of any serious parkourer.

I might have missed some that I don't personally know of being done nowadays. Also, I tried to avoid things that are already covered in martial arts or that could be well interpreted to be usable by other skills. But by all means, do say if you have some others in mind. Also, I don't really know about what to use for the cost... Maybe 10 times the essence cost in karma? If that would make some too cheap, maybe 20x?

Pyromaster13

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« Reply #1 on: <02-14-13/1231:21> »
I think you should look up the Spell/Spirit Knack quality in street magic and modify that to cover adept powers.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #2 on: <02-14-13/1306:08> »
No. No, there aren't any Adept Powers that should be usable by mundanes. It's really that simple. You want Adept Powers, buy the Adept Quality. Period. Full stop.
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Thrass

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« Reply #3 on: <02-14-13/1319:27> »
I think in accordance to the spell/spirit knack power one could argue a positive quality for 5BP that gives you acces to an adept quality costing no more then 1 power point (and probably only rating 1) which gives you a magic rating of 1 that you can not use for any other purpose.
You wouldn't be as mundane as a spirit/spell knack person (as in not mundane because you have a magic attribute of 1).

The problem is...
for the same 5BP you can be an Adept and get a full power point worth of qualities, with the additional benefit of being an adept.
So no player who takes BP as a decision base for his character will take that houseruled quality.

To decouple adept powers from the magic attribute and thus allowing essence 0.01 streetsams to make use of them is just plainly wrong by the rules.
But you can mimic some effects of adept powers by martial arts, metagenetics, positive qualities, or technomancy stuff (multitasking iirc).

- Attribute boost... that's neither a good power to take nor can I see how you could  mimic it
- Missile Parry, you probably can go for martial arts here
- Wall running, jsut make an athletics check and run the wall... you'll probably not run up (or down) 5meters+ but in a limited way this should just work as well as your friend can simply do this
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Mithlas

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« Reply #4 on: <02-14-13/1354:00> »
I think for the vast majority of these you should look into loosely replicating them with martial arts (that system very much needs to be reworked, in my opinion), but outside of that I don't think that it's a good idea to throw Adept powers around willy-nilly. Adept is a positive quality for a reason. Yes, several of the things they can do should in some manner be possible for well-trained people otherwise, but that's done so by tweaking those abilities (like artisan) or Rule 0ing martial arts or some such, rather than saying "in the real world we can do things that this game abstraction has partitioned out to Awakened, so let's throw out what makes Awakened special".

Mantis

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« Reply #5 on: <02-14-13/1437:45> »
One of the conceits of the game is that people IRL who can do these things actually are adepts. They expressed early and have no idea they are using 'magic' to do the things they do but they are adepts. Mundanes are just that, mundane and no amount of training will let them do those things. Adepts weren't even discovered until the 2040s-50s or so and until then what they did was just considered being highly trained or talented or whatever.
Also, yeah, you can't scrape together 5BP to buy the adept quality? Or is it you don't want to pay for everything else that goes with it? Cram in the cyber and get some sweet adept powers too with no worry about buying up expensive magic and then losing it to cyber and and bioware installation. Also game balance, etc, blah blah blah.

Ernie55

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« Reply #6 on: <02-14-13/1520:00> »
This sounds a little bit like the 'latent awakening' quality in SM to me...

But I'd agree with what's been said already, some people seem to be quite down on adepts and taking away their snowflake thing seems a bit harsh to me...
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Helping Bear

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« Reply #7 on: <02-14-13/1534:00> »
Some of the adept powers I think could be fine for a mundane to have. I would talk to your role playing group, and maybe have some of them be made as positive qualities. I think attribute boost in particular is too powerful for it to not be an adept power, although a lot of the other ones could be made as positive qualities costing between 5-20 build points.

Aryeonos

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« Reply #8 on: <02-14-13/1938:51> »
I don't see any reason why you couldn't brush off some of the adept powers you take as just natural talent, like it's been said in this particular setting adepts have been around and no one knew until recently. The only time this could break the rules in your favour is if you were to say go somewhere with high (That's the bad one right?) background count where magic doesn't work (or backfires painfully), and by extension your adept powers wouldn't.

I agree that allot of those abilities are possible without "Magic" but it's just a game balance thing. Though I'd talk to your GM and group about role playing it differently fluff wise, but still play the same rules crunch wise.
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dreddwulf1

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« Reply #9 on: <02-23-13/2302:51> »
No. No, there aren't any Adept Powers that should be usable by mundanes. It's really that simple. You want Adept Powers, buy the Adept Quality. Period. Full stop.

I would have to say I readily agree with this statement. If you start giving away the adept abilities, you erode the relevance of the Adept. Mundanes are MUNDANE. There are plenty of ways for a mundane to be tougher without giving them adept abilities.
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Glyph

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« Reply #10 on: <02-24-13/1550:33> »
I agree, but I also think that it wouldn't be unbalancing to have the equivalent of some of the minor adept abilities as qualities, (for example, there is already a quality called double-jointed which is the equivalent of flexiblity: 2), or as martial arts maneuvers which aren't quite as effective as their adept power equivalents (for example, the iaijutsu maneuver compared to the quick draw power).

Novocrane

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« Reply #11 on: <02-24-13/1614:55> »
I wouldn't mind seeing some of the more mundane levels of adept powers turned into qualities, with actual adept level powers having them as requirements. Never going to happen, but it's a thought.

I_V_Saur

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« Reply #12 on: <02-24-13/1823:49> »
- Attribute boost
Edge on tests. Punching harder? Re-roll those 6s. Running faster? Athletics, Edge boost.

- Missile parry
There is a vast difference between catching a ball with one hand, and catching a Shuriken mid-air, hurling it back down the corridor, and doing the same for anything short of a bullet. Training can bring you so far, the Adept Power goes beyond physical limitations. E.x. Catching an arrow, slinging it back with bow-like force, bare-handed.

- Enthralling performance
There is a difference between a good roll during a concert, and sparkling during the chorus for effect. This Power is for things that mundanes physically can't do.

- Flexibility
Argument being, they're Adepts already. It's one thing to go double-jointed, and quite another to twist into a pretzel  - some people can. The entire point of this power, is that it classifies you as an Adept.

- Iron lungs
This Power needs to be improved, considering the feats people have achieved IRL that can't be done, by the rules.

- Nerve strike
This Power basically allows you to punch someone in the gut, and shut them down so hard they can't even piss themselves. Still, I think that I'd instead make it a Quality, or a Martial Art of some sort instead of a Power.

- Pain relief
Bringing someone from 'I've just been punched in the face by a team of Trolls' to 'Bit by a Chihuahua' in five minutes is pretty damned supernatural. Most acupuncture specialists need more time, if nothing else.

- Rooting
Hey, look, that guy just stopped a train, with his bare hands. I have never heard of a human being pulling that off IRL. Feel free to send links to the contrary.

- Smashing blow
That's a nice monofillament chainsaw you have there. *Snap* Would be a shame if anything happened to it...

You get the picture. Most of these Powers are beyond what physicists believe is physiologically possible for the human body to accomplish. I've heard of some impressive things going on, but most of it can be summarized as Edge, having a hard-capped Attribute, or both. The rest is precisely what inspired Shadowrun's Adepts in the first place.

Mournclaw

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« Reply #13 on: <02-24-13/1854:52> »
- Attribute boost
Edge on tests. Punching harder? Re-roll those 6s. Running faster? Athletics, Edge boost.
Agreed, makes sense
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- Missile parry
There is a vast difference between catching a ball with one hand, and catching a Shuriken mid-air, hurling it back down the corridor, and doing the same for anything short of a bullet. Training can bring you so far, the Adept Power goes beyond physical limitations. E.x. Catching an arrow, slinging it back with bow-like force, bare-handed.
This power doesn't include anything but the catching part... And catching arrows *is* possible, as demosntrated by more than a single martial arts master.
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- Enthralling performance
There is a difference between a good roll during a concert, and sparkling during the chorus for effect. This Power is for things that mundanes physically can't do.
But I quess you'll agree as well that some people are cabable of causing that "sparkling" effect. But, well, maybe you do have a point as that extra sparkle usually requires some set-up rather than an on-the-go enthrallment.
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- Flexibility
Argument being, they're Adepts already. It's one thing to go double-jointed, and quite another to twist into a pretzel  - some people can. The entire point of this power, is that it classifies you as an Adept.
If we start picking things that everyone agree are adept-like powers that could exist nowadays, my point is made across. I agree in that double-jointed rules-wise does the job without the need to put in adepts.
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- Iron lungs
This Power needs to be improved, considering the feats people have achieved IRL that can't be done, by the rules.
Totally agree  :D though it can be done by the rules, you just need a helluva lot of initiation and magic for that...  :)
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- Nerve strike
This Power basically allows you to punch someone in the gut, and shut them down so hard they can't even piss themselves. Still, I think that I'd instead make it a Quality, or a Martial Art of some sort instead of a Power.
My point exactly.
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- Pain relief
Bringing someone from 'I've just been punched in the face by a team of Trolls' to 'Bit by a Chihuahua' in five minutes is pretty damned supernatural. Most acupuncture specialists need more time, if nothing else.
You do have a point there. Still a lesser version of this could be made into a skill perhaps. Longer for taking the effect... Wait, right. Medicine exists already. My bad.
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- Rooting
Hey, look, that guy just stopped a train, with his bare hands. I have never heard of a human being pulling that off IRL. Feel free to send links to the contrary.
Consider the amount the power gives you those dice, really. A dice pool bonus of two, for example doesn't really stop trains that easily. Unless you're a troll, that is. Maybe this could be made into a martial arts maneuver of a fixed bonus of 2 for a complex action...?
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- Smashing blow
That's a nice monofillament chainsaw you have there. *Snap* Would be a shame if anything happened to it...
Okay, well, it's true this power would be overpowered when related to normal human beings. Maybe a maneuver again, a solid +2 DV against structures...?
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You get the picture. Most of these Powers are beyond what physicists believe is physiologically possible for the human body to accomplish. I've heard of some impressive things going on, but most of it can be summarized as Edge, having a hard-capped Attribute, or both. The rest is precisely what inspired Shadowrun's Adepts in the first place.

I get the picture. But you can't deny that there's something missing in the section of martial arts, for example. Regarding some of these powers. Though I understand that it's the result of abstraction and it needs to be done in order to even get the game on the shelf... Maybe I'll just talk to my group if they'd agree to houserule some of these.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

I_V_Saur

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« Reply #14 on: <02-25-13/2241:52> »
Make Adepts more common, add in your own martial arts, and tweak some rules here and there - Iron lungs could still be balanced if every rank gave you an extra 3 minutes, for example. House ruling for some powers, as needed, would be a good move.