Psi-surge in GM series

[Gnaag]

Hi to everyone; sorry for my poor english (I'm italian), I have a question: is it possible to use the psi-surge bonus (+4) in the Grand Master series?

thanx
And just a curiosity: in which city would you like to live in the Magnamund world? I love the description of Gologo in book n.21, and the moon party...cool ;D

[Oiseau]

I believe this falls under the "Loyalty Bonus" rule. If you played the Magnakaï series, then you master all 10 Magnakaï Disciplines. Thus, you can use Psi-Surge without selecting Kaï-Surge, Curing without selecting Deliverance, and Weaponmastery without selecting Superweaponskillship (or whatever, I forget). ^_^ You can also forget to pack meals (Hunting).

Still can't believe I never thought of that when I was younger.

The Oiseau

[Black Cat]

Here's what I understand of the Loyalty bonus:

If you have played all the books in the Lone Wolf series, you keep the same CS and Endurance scores when you start book 13 that you had in book 12, which may include all the possible bonuses granted to you by disciplines and Lorecircles. You add also the bonuses for the last discipline that you gained by completing book 12. So, yes, you keep the bonus of Psi-Surge in the Grand Master series.

Now, when you choose your disciplines for book 13, you might choose a discipline that is an upgrade version of a Magnakai discipline. According to the Rules Handbook, the bonus grant to you by this new discipline should replace the bonus given to you by the older one. So, if you pick the discipline of Kai-Surge, its 8 CS bonus replace the 6 CS bonus (if you have reached the rank of Archmaster in the Magnakai series) of the Psi-Surge. You don't add them together. So, the real upgrade of that is only of 2 CS on your previous score, but you have 6 CS even if you don't pick Kai-Surge at the beginning of book 13.

Well, that's what I understand of it. I might be wrong though...

[Ghost Bear]

That's how I understand it too Black Cat. You also get to use the +2/3 version of Psi-Surge in the GM series if you don't pick Kai-Surge. This rises to +4 if you do take it.

-GB

[Relenoir]

The way I understood it was this:
If you have finished ANY of the Magnakai books, you may use the loyalty bonuses from whatever disciplines you possessed in the series. So with Psi-Surge, you may use the +4 CS/2EP per round if you had it at some point using the current character, and also Mindblast for +2 CS per round with no EP loss, but not at the same time. If you reached Archmaster with this character, you have the benefit of using Mindblast for +3 CS per round, or Psi-surge for +6 CS/1 EP per round. Until you take Kai-surge, the bonus for these abilities remains where it is. When you finally take KS, the bonus for Mindblast goes up by +1, and Psi-surge remains the same. Of course, once you have Kai-surge, there is no reason to ever use Psi-surge again because it is less effective (more enemies are immune to it) and it provides a less potent attack bonus.

[deiseach]

Here's my understanding of it:

We do whatever we can to twist the deliberately ambiguous rules to suit our own agendas. This way we can sneer at people who failed to pick up on our tremendous wheeze, e.g. "you didn't know about the loyalty bonus? How stooooopid can you be??"

[Gnaag]

Relenoir said:

The way I understood it was this:
If you have finished ANY of the Magnakai books, you may use the loyalty bonuses from whatever disciplines you possessed in the series. So with Psi-Surge, you may use the +4 CS/2EP per round if you had it at some point using the current character, and also Mindblast for +2 CS per round with no EP loss, but not at the same time. If you reached Archmaster with this character, you have the benefit of using Mindblast for +3 CS per round, or Psi-surge for +6 CS/1 EP per round. Until you take Kai-surge, the bonus for these abilities remains where it is. When you finally take KS, the bonus for Mindblast goes up by +1, and Psi-surge remains the same. Of course, once you have Kai-surge, there is no reason to ever use Psi-surge again because it is less effective (more enemies are immune to it) and it provides a less potent attack bonus.

Yes I meant exactly this; I just played the book n.21, and didn't select Kai-surge; but I imagine I still have Psi-surge, since it's sometimes cited inbook. In 21 it wasn't so important (no huge enemies), but in 22-25, IIRC, there are very bad enemies like Zhurc, Eldenora King, the demon, and it could be useful.

[Ghost Bear]

Do you think it's usable in the New Order books? I'd be tempted to say yes, because obviously your Grand Master has mastered Psi-Surge.

-GB

[Darklord Gnaag]

Ghost said:

Do you think it's usable in the New Order books? I'd be tempted to say yes, because obviously your Grand Master has mastered Psi-Surge.

-GB

Finally it seems I can post
I didn't use in book 21 yesterday, but don't know, if I see that i lose badly in 22, maybe I'll use it ;D

[Banedon]

How I play, you still have your Kai Disciplines (and their effects) in the Magnakai series...for instance, you can still use Healing, Hunting, Weaponskill, etc. but they are replaced by the equivalent Magnakai discipline once you get it. For instance, you can't heal +2 each section, get +6 CS for combined Mindblast and Kai-Surge, or get +5 CS for combined Weaponskill and Weaponmastery.

[Black Cat]

After thinking about it all day long (and a good part of last night in my bed ), I figured out that you need to ADD the bonuses of the Magnakai disciplines to the ones of the Grand Master series, contrarily to what the Rules Handbook says. Here's why: in the Magnakai series, you add 10 to the number you picked on the Random Number Table (in this case, let's say a 9). After playing all the Magnakai books, you gained 5 CS points from the Lorecircles, 6 CS points from the Kai-Surge with the rank of Archmaster, and 4 CS from the Weaponmastery with the rank of Scion-Kai, for a total of 34 CS. You have to transfer this score from the Magnakai series to the Grand Master series in book 13 as it is said at the beginning of it.

Someone who starts directly with book 13 has to decide his CS score. He adds 25 to the number picked on the RNT (in this case, let's say 9 again). He doesn't have any loyalty bonus, so he starts with a basic 34 CS. Now, both players as to add bonuses from the Grand Master's disciplines. In the case of the player who played all the previous books, he has to replace the bonus granted by the Magnakai discipline by the bonus from it's Grand Master's equivalent, as said by the Rules Handbook. So, if he picks the Grand Weaponmastery discipline and the Kai-Surge, he substracts the previous Magnakai bonuses (6 and 4) from his CS score and then adds 5 and 8.

34-(6+4)+5+8=37

The player who starts with book 13 and picks the same disciplines doesn't have any bonus to replace, so if he picks the same discipline of Kai-Surge and Grand Weaponmastery, he has a CS of 47. Whoah! What happened to my loyalty bonus? I have 10 CS points less than the rookie has!

So, here's my solution: when transfering your CS score from Magnakai to Grand Master, add 15 to your CS, and then you can replace the previous bonuses granted by Magnakai disciplines by their Grand Master's equivalent. Like that, you'll have a bigger CS score than the rookie could have at the beginning of the Grand Master series (just like it actually happens when transfering CS score from Kai to Magnakai), but at the end of the GM series, both players should have the same CS score. At least it gives you a CS advantage in the earlier books of this series.

If I'm right, the Rules Handbook needs to be corrected.

[Oiseau]

I think the sudden change from 10 + RN to 25 + RN at the beginning of the GM series was made to replace the Sommerwerd (+8), the Shield (+2), the Silver Helm (+2), and the Kagonite Chainmail (+3), all of which you cannot have if you start with Book 13.

Adding all this to Black Cat's calculations, after playing Books 1-12, you would have CS = 34 + 15 = 49 (and you can reach 51 with another +2CS item in Book 12). Then you replace the Magnakaï bonuses with the Grand Master bonuses (4 becomes 5, 6 becomes 8) and you start with 52 (or even 54), always assuming you pick "9" to begin.

As Black Cat calculated, the newbie in Book 13 gets to start with 47 if he picks Grand Weaponmastery and Kaï-Surge. So he's actually at a 5 or 7 point disadvantage.

So, if you add the bonuses together, you're going to unbalance the Grand Master series in a bad way. ^_^

The Oiseau

P.S. In my opinion, something like this (initial CS adjustments) should have been done in the Magnakaï series too, just to make Books 9+ playable as stand-alone adventures. After all, you get most of the CS-enhancing stuff in Books 2 and 3. So the Magnakaï series should have rules that say : Pick a number and add 20 to get your Combat Skill. It still wouldn't be enough, but it would give you a fighting chance.

[Black Cat]

Oiseau said:

I think the sudden change from 10 + RN to 25 + RN at the beginning of the GM series was made to replace the Sommerwerd (+8), the Shield (+2), the Silver Helm (+2), and the Kagonite Chainmail (+3), all of which you cannot have if you start with Book 13.

I think the 25 (base CS in GM) is coming from 10 (base CS in Magnakai) + 5 (Lorescircles) + 6 (Psi-Surge, Archmaster) + 4 (Weaponskill, Scion-Kai) = 25. Like I explained in my precedent post, someone who has played all the precedent books and adds 15 to his CS before beginning book 13 will have an advantage of a few points over a newbie before he actually gets to the point where he has to choose is GM's disciplines only because of the bonuses granted by Magnakai disciplines. The same thing happens with the transfer from Kai to Magnakai: you get an advantage of few more points because of the bonuses of Weaponskill and Mindblast. But when you replace these bonuses by the new ones, the rookie player catches up on you. By the end of a series, both the experimented and the new players are supposed to have the same CS...without the bonuses granted by Special Items!

Someone who didn't found a certain Special Item doesn't have any chance to catch up the CS bonus granted by it. The Sommerswerd is the only Special Item that gives a CS bonus that you are sure to find by reading a certain book and that you can bring in the GM series. For all the other items, either you need to know the way to reach it (Silver Helm), either you can't bring it in the GM series (shield). So, by the end of the GM series, a rookie and an experienced player (who added 15 to his CS) are supposed to have similar CS score (assuming that they both got a 9 when picking their CS) with their disciplines, but the experienced player will have at least 8 more points because of the Sommerswerd (assuming that he has played book 2). By book 20, the loyalty bonus expresses itself in the Curing and Huntmastery disciplines, and in the Special Items that you are allowed to bring from the precedent series.

[Banedon]

Oiseau said:

P.S. In my opinion, something like this (initial CS adjustments) should have been done in the Magnakaï series too, just to make Books 9+ playable as stand-alone adventures. After all, you get most of the CS-enhancing stuff in Books 2 and 3. So the Magnakaï series should have rules that say : Pick a number and add 20 to get your Combat Skill. It still wouldn't be enough, but it would give you a fighting chance.

I agree...the first LW books I read were 8 through 12, and I found them impossible...I didn't really get into the series until I later found 1 through 7.

Also, I'm just kinda wondering this, but why do you always spell words like "Kai" and "Magnakai" with two dots over the "i"?

[Darklord Gnaag]

maybe this thread should be renamed: I wrote GM series, I meant New Order; however, i think it's the same for the bonuses.

I don't really like Kai and Magnakai as words; here they have been converted in Ramas and Ramastan.