New mage needs some Advice! Options

[Cain]

Yeah, if there's any skills you should skip, it's Ritual Sorcery and Banishing. Better to leave those off.

My current mage even has an Incompetence in those two skills, that's how useless they are.

[Wasabi]

Ritual Sorcery is but Binding and Banishing are awesome. Where killing a spirit merely drops one of its services with a point of Edge and a Banishing roll you can take multiple services. One complex action and a strong roll and BAM! Gone.

For counterspelling you could also get a tradition that includes Plant, Guardian, or Guidance spirits since they get counterspelling. I dont think there is a set way to handle multiple counterspellers aiding one person but in most games I'd expect it to be better than just the one person. Oversummon a Force 8 Plant/Guardian/Guidance spirit and you've got instant access to 8 Counterspelling dice including the ability to dispel active effects. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cthulhudreams]

Binding is definitely very good, banishing I still subscribe to the 'shoot it shoot it shoot' school of banishing thought. YMMV.

But either way, summoning 4 is mandatory on all mage characters. There are few better investments of 16 BP.

[Cain]

Ritual Sorcery is but Binding and Banishing are awesome. Where killing a spirit merely drops one of its services with a point of Edge and a Banishing roll you can take multiple services. One complex action and a strong roll and BAM! Gone.

Yeah, except you'll probably take more drain than if you simply Stunbolted the thing unconscious. Not to mention that it's all dependent on h ow many services that summoner has on it. Lower-force spirits may end up being impossible to Banish, because they'll have more services. Gods help you if it's a high-force spirit with a lot of services. (In the game I'm in now, my mage has 11 services on a bound force-10 spirit. I got lucky on some rolls, but there's nothing preventing the GM from saying our opposition got lucky as well.)

So, you can use Banishing lots and lots of times, taking Drain each action, and still not get rid of the spirit. Or, you can simply manabolt the hell out of it, and get rid of it much faster, for less drain. Yeah, I'd say that Bainishing is pretty damn useless.

[redwulf25_ci]

Well my magic is only 4, its 5 minus 1 for the essence loss on cyber/bioware

I have cyber eyes, internal comlink, internal hotsim, internal datajack, platelet factories, trauma dampner, and cerebral booster rating 1 to get +1 logic

Well, if it weren't for the platelet factories and everything following my advice would have been: Cyber eyes? Don't need those, get contacts with the visual abilities you want. Internal comlink and hotsim? Why? Use external ones. Data jack, again, why? Trodes don't cost essence and I don't recall using trodes being penalized in this edition. Even my non-magic using characters do this 90% of the time to save essence for things that HAVE to be installed. If you do eliminate these for their non-essence using counterparts then ask yourself, does my mage really NEED the rest of the list? If not spend your money/points on something else and get your magic back up to 5 (I don't think that will save you enough points to get it up to six, but I haven't done the math).

[Lidralyn]

Well, if it weren't for the platelet factories and everything following my advice would have been: Cyber eyes? Don't need those, get contacts with the visual abilities you want. Internal comlink and hotsim? Why? Use external ones. Data jack, again, why? Trodes don't cost essence and I don't recall using trodes being penalized in this edition. Even my non-magic using characters do this 90% of the time to save essence for things that HAVE to be installed. If you do eliminate these for their non-essence using counterparts then ask yourself, does my mage really NEED the rest of the list? If not spend your money/points on something else and get your magic back up to 5 (I don't think that will save you enough points to get it up to six, but I haven't done the math).

Yeah I had thought of going with a no cyber/bio mage, but platelet and trauma + eventually 3x cerebral, and a pain editor(I know it doesn't work with dampner) with delta is very solid for overcasting/summoning/binding

Plus my guy is a hacker also and I'd much rather have my good link imbeded in my skull with the hotsim and then another link to spoof things through so its not as traceable. I am not the main hacker in the team, but I still have skill group cracking at 4 so will be ok when I hotsim. The hacking points are cutting into my magic a bit but it fits the theme for my runner.

[Cain]

You still don't need both a datajack and cranial commlink. The commlink does everything a datajack can do, and then some. There's really no point. Save yourself some essence, or get something else.

[Lidralyn]

I was wondering that, me and friend were debating it, since we are just starting SR we are still confused a bit on how things work....is there ever a point to need a jack if I have a link/hotsim in my head?

I figured there might be some systems that aren't wireless and I'd need to jack into them?

[redwulf25_ci]

Yeah I had thought of going with a no cyber/bio mage, but platelet and trauma + eventually 3x cerebral, and a pain editor(I know it doesn't work with dampner) with delta is very solid for overcasting/summoning/binding

Plus my guy is a hacker also and I'd much rather have my good link imbeded in my skull with the hotsim and then another link to spoof things through so its not as traceable. I am not the main hacker in the team, but I still have skill group cracking at 4 so will be ok when I hotsim. The hacking points are cutting into my magic a bit but it fits the theme for my runner.

That makes more sense. In addition to what Cain said I suggest getting rid of the eyes as well (replacing them with contacts/goggles/glasses) ands using that essence for something else as well.

Edit: And you should be able to run a second non-cranial comlink just as easily as one cranial and one not.

[Cthulhudreams]

The eyes are useful for a primary spellcasting as they allow you to overcome vis mods to spellcasting.

The implanted commlink is no good to anyone, and an external rig is cheaper, easier to upgrade and doesn't cost essence. I'd ditch the jack as well. There is no reason not to use trodes, nanopaste or otherwise. Just jettisoning this stuff saves money. Consider throwing it into another cerebral ooster point of rating.

[Cain]

I was wondering that, me and friend were debating it, since we are just starting SR we are still confused a bit on how things work....is there ever a point to need a jack if I have a link/hotsim in my head?

Not really, no.

I figured there might be some systems that aren't wireless and I'd need to jack into them?

You can still hardline a commlink, via skinlink or other measure.

[Lidralyn]

Not really, no.

You can still hardline a commlink, via skinlink or other measure.

Ah ok that makes sense, one thing I read was a skinlink only has a device rating of 3, and my good commlink has a 5/5/5/5 rating...do I have to upgrade the skinlink? or can I just pay the $50 nuyen and be done with it?

[Cain]

Ah ok that makes sense, one thing I read was a skinlink only has a device rating of 3, and my good commlink has a 5/5/5/5 rating...do I have to upgrade the skinlink? or can I just pay the $50 nuyen and be done with it?

Just pay the 50 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . I imagine that the Device rating is for if someone tries to hack the skinlink itself, such as if you hid data on it. Trodes also have a Device rating of 3, but they don't impede the Response of a commlink in any way.

[Shiloh]

Binding is definitely very good, banishing I still subscribe to the 'shoot it shoot it shoot' school of banishing thought. YMMV.

But either way, summoning 4 is mandatory on all mage characters. There are few better investments of 16 BP.

I'm running just fine with one (1) in Summoning, 5 in Magic and 2 Power Focus dice, getting a couple of services out of ad-hoc summoned spirits, which is all I need.

Banishing is great for getting rid of watchers and other Astral tails without having to Project. It also means that other mages' Spirits aren't too much of a worry for a lightly-armed team.

I'm wishing I'd taken Binding, now, because having another couple of spirits available at the same time as the 1 un-Bound one would be a very handy force-multiplier for our small team.

[Zak]

Banishing is great for getting rid of watchers and other Astral tails without having to Project. It also means that other mages' Spirits aren't too much of a worry for a lightly-armed team.

Where can't you use a manabolt when you could use banishing?
The magician sending the spirit will notice anyway.

The only reason to take banishing is when you plan on actually taking over the banished spirit afterwards with binding.
And I second that you really want Summoning 4.

[Drogos]

I have no idea why any of you think Banishing is in any way superior to just blasting the thing? Short of spirit stealing there is no reason to do this. And most of the time you run into Spirits that are bound to their locations by security mages (I mean, not every facility can have a mage on call 24hrs, but a Corp could easily hire a mage to bind a spirit to watch over a facility for pretty cheap) and banishing a bound spirit is an exorcise in getting knocked the fuck out.