Shapeshifter Magic
 

Good morning!

I wanted to post here and make sure this was a bug before I submitted it officially. For the shapeshifter race, I am not able to raise my magic above 5 if I choose B or C for mystic adept and C or D for physical adept.

I looked through run faster front to back and found no indication that they should be gimped to 1/5 magic unless they choose the highest priority.

Is this a bug? If it is, I will definitely submit it through normal channels and try to edit in the fix myself, but if this is what is intended I didn't want to waste valuable dev time on it.

Thanks and have a great day everyone!

We have not yet updated Run Faster from 1st printing to 2nd printing, and in 1st printing, the shapeshifter Magic was listed as 1/5, on the Metavariant Attribute Table on pg. 105. Second printing just lists Magic as "1" on that same table, so I don't actually know what they meant there.

Yeah, I saw the same thing there too. It looks like the 1st edition was just missing the column header for edge and it caused magic to get moved to the edge column.

I saw the magic 1, which matches the metssapients like naga and sasquatch, and also am not sure of the intention, maybe it meant they have 1 magic even if you put magic in priority E? Don't quote me on that.

Thanks for replying, I will probably mess with the editor to update the magic/edge/init based on volume 2 and just to match one of the metssapients. Easier than starting from scratch!

Aaaaand Google is my friend. "Metasapients and shapeshifters who select Priority A, B, C, or D for Magic have their natural Magic of 1 replaced with their new Magic attribute."

Looks like the 1 is just there as a base that gets replaced if you take any magic level. I'm guessing it's there since metasapients have abilities keyed off magic, like the infected and having a 1 there allows you to add to it at character creation without having to be an awakened character.

Yes, creatures that have a Magic Rating listed gain a Magic Score no matter what. They do not require the purchase of a Magic "priority" such as Adept, Magician, etc. although they do not gain access to further magical abilities without having such a choice made.

For example, a Shifter that does not select an Awakened ability set would only have access to Magic in the form of the Shift power and Regeneration (assuming we use the forthcoming errata). They could take the Arcana skill (since anyone can), and Assensing and Astral Combat because of the Dual Natured (again, assuming we use the errata). They would not have access to other magical skills without purchasing the access through Adept/Magician.

These creatures also cannot take a Resonance ability (since Magic and Resonance are mutually exclusive).

Just like the other Metasapients, and all the metahumans, Magic is predefined as having a cap of Essence + Initiate Grade. Which is why they just list a "1" to indicate that they have a Magic attribute.

Yep, all makes sense to me now. I decided to go ahead and edit in the provisional changes and also fix the 1/5 magic rating for the shapeshifters.

I only needed it for chargen anyways.

Thanks for all the replies! You guys here do an awesome job and HeroLab is probably one of the most bang for the buck purchases I have ever made!