Adept Powers

 

Astral Perception

Cost: 1

This power allows the adept to bridge the gap between the physical and astral realms and “see” into the astral plane. Adepts with this power follow all the normal rules for astral perception.

 

Attribute Boost

Cost: .25 per level

You can call upon your inner strength to perform amazing feats beyond your normal abilities. Attribute Boost must be purchased for a specific Physical attribute: Agility, Body, Reaction, and Strength (separate Attribute Boost powers may be bought for different attributes). It cannot be purchased for a Mental or Special attribute.

To gain the boost, make a Magic + (Attribute Boost) Test. Each hit on this test boosts the attribute by 1. The boost lasts for a number of Combat Turns equal to the twice the number of hits generated.

When the boost runs out, you must resist Drain equal to the Attribute Boost rating using Willpower + Body; each hit reduces the Drain Value by one. Attribute Boost Drain is Stun damage.

The attribute bonus from Attribute Boost is not compatible with any other attribute augmentations, whether from implants or spells, with the exception of the Improved Physical Attribute adept power.

 

Combat Sense

Cost: .5 per level

Combat Sense provides an instinctive sense about an area and any potential threats nearby. The character gains one die per level for Reaction on Surprise Tests and when defending against ranged and melee attacks.

 

Critical Strike

Cost: .25 per level

This power uses magic to increase the Damage Value of your unarmed attacks, as you strike with more proficiency and power. Each level of Critical Strike increases the character’s Damage Value in unarmed combat by +1. Critical Strike may be used with Killing Hands, and may also be used in astral combat. The use of Critical Strike must be declared with the Unarmed Combat attack.

 

Enhanced Perception

Cost: .25 per level

This power sharpens your senses. Each level provides an additional die for all Perception Tests, including Assensing Tests. You cannot have more Enhanced Perception dice than your Intuition attribute.

 

Great Leap

Cost: .25 per level

Adepts with Great Leap are able to make incredible jumps into the air and over long distances. Each level of Great Leap adds a die for Jumping Tests. Each level is also added to the character’s Agility for determining the maximum distance a character can jump.

 

Improved Ability

Cost: .5 per level (Combat skills), .25 per level (Physical, Social, Technical skills)

This power gives you additional dice for use with a specific Active skill. Dice purchased for the Active skill carry over equally to any specializations of the skill you know. You cannot have more additional dice than your base skill rating. Improved Ability does not actually improve a skill’s rating, it only provides additional dice for tests involving the skill. Improved Ability must be purchased for a specific skill, not a skill group.

This power costs .5 per level for all Combat skills and only .25 per level for Physical, Social, and Technical skills.

 

Improved Physical Attribute

Cost: 1 per level

With this power, you can raise a Physical attribute (Agility, Body, Reaction, or Strength). Each level increases the attribute by one. If you later want to increase the attribute using Karma, the cost is based on the total attribute, including the magical improvements. Increasing Reaction with this power also affects Initiative.

This power allows you to exceed your natural attribute maximum up to the augmented maximum, but each point over the maximum costs double (2 Power points per level).

 

Improved Reflexes

Cost: Variable, see below

This power increases the speed at which you react, just like wired reflexes. For each level, you receive +1 die to Reaction (this also affects Initiative) and 1 extra Initiative Pass. The maximum rating of Improved Reflexes is 3, and the increase cannot be combined with technological or other magical increases to Initiative.

 

Improved Sense

Cost: .25 per improvement

You have a sensory improvement not normally possessed by your metatype. Improvements include lowlight or thermographic vision, high or low frequency hearing, and so on. Any sense provided by cyberware can also be provided by this power, unless an improvement involves radio or similar technological phenomena. Unlike cyberware, there are no package deals on cost. Additional Improved Senses are described here:

Direction Sense: Your sense of direction is so acute you know what direction you are facing, and whether you are above or below the local ground level, with a successful Perception Test. This ability is especially useful for tribal hunters, guides, spies, and runners who pursue similar occupations.

Improved Scent: You can identify scents in the same way as a bloodhound. You can identify individuals by scent alone, and can tell if someone whose scent you know has been in an area recently with a successful Perception Test. The strong smells of most sprawls impose modifiers on the use of this sense.

Improved Taste: You can recognize the ingredients of food or beverage by taste alone. A successful Perception Test allows adepts with Chemistry or a similar Knowledge skill to identify ingestive poisons and drugs concealed in food or drink. A successful Perception Test allows adepts to determine if a sample of water is pure enough to drink.

Flare Compensation: Your eyes adapt quickly to intense light, allowing you to avoid the effects of flash grenades and similar weapons. This power functions exactly like the flare compensation vision enhancement.

Sound Dampening: Your ears are protected from loud noises and adjust quickly to sudden changes in noise level. The sound dampening power functions exactly like the cybernetic damper enhancement.

 

Killing Hands

Cost: .5

This power uses magic to turn unarmed attacks into lethal, physical damage. When participating in unarmed combat, you may do normal Stun damage or declare the use of Killing Hands and inflict an equal amount of Physical damage instead. Killing Hands may be used with Critical Strike. A Killing Hands attack may also be used against creatures with Immunity to Normal Weapons to inflict either Stun or Physical damage; their defensive bonuses do not count against Killing Hands. Killing Hands can also be used in astral combat.

 

Kinesics

Cost: .5 per level

An adept with Kinesics has complete control over her body’s nonverbal and subconscious communication and social cues, even when engaged in stressful social scenarios. This control includes facial expressions, body movements, posture, eye movements, and internal biological stress functions such as heartbeat, blood pressure, and sweat glands. The adept is also gifted at reading others’ body language and cultural-specific affectations and mimicking their cues to her advantage. As a result, this power boosts the character’s natural presence and social charms.

Each level applies a +1 bonus for the adept when making or resisting Social skill tests. It also applies a +1 dice pool modifier to the adept on any Opposed Tests made to gauge the adept’s truthfulness or emotional state, including Judge Intention tests, assessing for emotional state, and other magical and technological tests.

Two adepts with Kinesics and within sight of each other can use a Complex Action to nonverbally communicate simple notions to each other, using body language alone. Only basic messages and emotional states can be conveyed: yes, no, bad idea, I don’t want to, I’m angry, look out behind, you and so on.

 

Missile Parry

Cost: .25 per level

You can catch slow-moving missile weapons such as arrows, thrown knives, grenades, or shuriken out of the air. When using this power, the defender rolls Reaction + Missile Parry (+ Dodge if on full defense) against the ranged attack test. To successfully grab the missile weapon out of the air, you must generate equal or more hits than the attack test. Using Missile Parry is a Free Action.

 

Mystic Armor

Cost: .5 per level

This power magically toughens your skin to resist the effects of damage. Each level provides you with 1 point of armor (that counts as both Ballistic and Impact) that is cumulative with any worn armor. Mystic Armor also protects against damage done in astral combat.

 

Natural Immunity

Cost: .25 per level

Your power of mind-over-body allows you to resist the effects of toxins and disease. Each level of Natural Immunity provides 1 additional die for Resistance Tests against such effects.

 

Pain Resistance

Cost: .5 per level

Pain Resistance allows you to ignore the effects of injury. It does not reduce actual damage, only its effect on you. Subtract your level of Pain Resistance from your current damage before determining your wound modifiers. So, an adept with 3 levels of Pain Resistance does not suffer any modifiers for sustaining up to 3 boxes of damage and suffers a reduced penalty with more significant injuries. Pain Resistance works equally on both the Physical and Stun Condition Monitors.

Pain Resistance also allows you to resist pain from torture, magic, illness, and so on. Each level adds +2 dice to any tests you make to resist pain, such as a Body or Willpower Test against the symptoms of a painful disease, interrogation, torture, and so on.

 

Rapid Healing

Cost: .25 per level

You recover more quickly from all forms of injury, using magical energy to boost the normal healing process. Each level adds 1 die to your Body for Healing Tests. The power does not increase resistance to injury, toxins or pathogens, but does allow you to recover from their effects more quickly.

 

Spell Resistance

Cost: .5 per level

You possess an inherent resistance to sorcery. Add 1 die per level of this power to all your Resistance Tests against spells. Spell Resistance does not interfere with spells that you choose not to resist. The only critter power this protects you from is the Innate Spell power (and critters using Spellcasting of course).

 

Voice Control

Cost: 0.5

An adept with Voice Control has an amazing level of control over the properties of her voice. The adept can change her voice’s pitch, modulation and tone at will, as well as increase her volume. This allows the adept to mask her voice and imitate sounds within the normal range of metahuman vocalization (i.e, no infrasound or ultrasound), including mimicking the voices of others. This trick can be used to defeat voice recognition systems; make an Opposed Test between the adept’s Charisma + Con against the voice recognition system’s rating, or against the Perception + Intuition of other characters the adept is attempting to fool. Voice Control also allows an adept to “throw” her voice up to (Magic attribute x 2) meters away.