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DragonBaneDM
2010-08-20, 12:01 AM
I'm building a mage who I wanted to be as min/maxed as possible, so I managed to get his Spellcasting through the roof.

I'm doing this cause my GunBunny of a Dwarf last campaign was wayyy too spread out and never specialized.

However, when my GM checked out my character sheet he noted that I had completely left Assensing untouched.

I remember the Adept who played with us before using Assensing like her life depended on it every five minutes, and besides really ticking everyone off all she managed to do was figure out that there were magical forcefields or powerful mages inside that we'd have to defeat anyway.

I dunno, in my SR experience Assensing seemed like a waste of build points. However, I'm sure a lot of people on here have more experience than I or my GM, so I was wondering:

Is Assensing worth it, and how much should I be investing in it if so?

Crow
2010-08-20, 12:11 AM
Well, I played 3rd edition shadowrun, and Assensing was a powerful tool.

However, in our games, the specialists tended to get killed. It was the generalists that could hang in any situation that managed to stay alive. That said, assensing was a valuable tool to have around, even if you didn't use it every session. Like the Ak-97 under the bed. Even the decker had to be able to throw down in Mogadishu if the situation called for it, or at least look like he could (style over substance!).

DragonBaneDM
2010-08-20, 12:16 AM
Haha, I didn't catch that Mogadishu reference, and I know I should spell check that. But I'm tiredddd. :smallsigh:

Anyways, what is it good for besides sizing other spellcasters up?

DeltaEmil
2010-08-20, 12:20 AM
Assensing is always good and even important in all editions of Shadowrun.
It's the number one ability to identify vampires (because masking cannot hide diseases, and vampires remain "sick"/HMHVV-positiv for their rest of their existence) or other creatures who do similar, you see how heavily cybered your opposite might be, you can track down free spirits who flee back to their home metaplane, and other such stuff. And of course there's stuff like reading emotions, which can help your character greatly while having sex, at least if you care for your partner.

a_humble_lich
2010-08-20, 12:49 AM
For the game I've been running it has been one of the most important skills in the game. It is basically perception in the astral plane, so whenever you want to do astral recon assensing is needed: from checking to see if the guy you're talking to is a mage to making sure spirits aren't sneaking up on you. But like all things it will depend on the play style of your group. If your campaign is mostly about blowing stuff up and you're not worried about running into too many magical threats it would be less useful, but that would be a very different type of game than ones I've played.

(As an aside, I also agree with Crow, and warn against being too specialized. While you want to be good at your specialty, not being able to do anything else both is dangerous and can leave you out.)

DragonBaneDM
2010-08-20, 05:29 PM
Mmkay, so between you guys and talking with my GM in the dining hall today, I'm convinced this is a good skill to have.

How many ranks do you recommend me putting into it?

DeltaEmil
2010-08-20, 06:08 PM
Enough that you should be able to generate 2 and more successes when the skill pool is combined with the leading attribute (intuition), if you play 4th edition. Having a total of 8 die is okay, and applying a specialization is of course helpful in that regard.
12 dices should be the maximum, unless your gm metagames with permanently invisible greater dragons with 12 bonded greater blood spirit servants going against you, so that you'd need to identify those as fast as possible, but else, don't overdo it.

Lost Demiurge
2010-08-20, 07:19 PM
About 6-8 dice is good to start. Get a feel for how often you'll be using it, and increase from there if you want more.

DragonBaneDM
2010-08-21, 07:41 AM
6-8 dice, gotcha! Thanks a lot guys, you've all been a huge help!