A magician with Incompetent (Spellcasting), Oh my god, he's insane... Options

[Tanegar]

It just occurred to me to wonder what a magician would be like if he could not cast spells off-the-cuff at all. Note that this does not preclude Ritual Spellcasting, just the spontaneous variety. Would he be able to make up for it with clever and/or borderline-munchkinlike use of spirits, or is a magician totally hosed if he can't cast spells?

[Yerameyahu]

He'd be a… non-spellcaster? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) We used to have plenty of Conjurers, after all. Projection and spirits are plenty strong by themselves. Honestly, I'd prefer it if you didn't automatically get all the mage powers at once, but obviously that'd be a different ball game.

[Summerstorm]

With respect to realism (ingame consitency):

Of course there are magicians like that. There are many mages with geas or essence-loss too. Just doesn't come up as player characters often. I myself would encourage these un-optimized characters.

I would even go so far as saying it might be much more common as incompetences in mundanes, because of the highly mental effects on magic. If he doesn't THINK he can cast... well, he CAN'T.

Also would make for an interesting story for him to overcome it (buying it off and cast a spell, after many hardships and tests).

Dedicated summoner is very viable though. (Played one myself once) You can put the karma he would use for spells into an ally spirit and foci, have great counterspelling... and spirits totally rock the game. (Yes they are a tad too strong in my opinion.

EDIT: Ah and not to forget (well, not for this character, i think):

There is the optional rule for "specialist" aspected magicians, who would get a nice bonus on their primary skillset.

[Nath]

Incompetent has the same cost as Conjuror Aspect. With Incompetent, the character would not be able to cast a spell at all, but he wouldn't suffer any modifier with Counterspelling, Assensing and Astral activities.

[Yerameyahu]

The Aspects don't really work too well, to me, because we're only talking about a few BP. It used to be the difference between an A and a B priority.

[Smokeskin]

The Aspects don't really work too well, to me, because we're only talking about a few BP. It used to be the difference between an A and a B priority.

I've been thinking the best way to fix it was to reduce the cost of Magic attribute for Aspects, but I never got around to looking at it.

[Yerameyahu]

Makes sense. Hmm.

[Hagga]

He'd be a… non-spellcaster? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) We used to have plenty of Conjurers, after all. Projection and spirits are plenty strong by themselves. Honestly, I'd prefer it if you didn't automatically get all the mage powers at once, but obviously that'd be a different ball game.

Dedicated summoner is very viable though. (Played one myself once) You can put the karma he would use for spells into an ally spirit and foci, have great counterspelling... and spirits totally rock the game. (Yes they are a tad too strong in my opinion.

As compared to an INcompetant (Conjuring Skill Group) magician who is in a hell of a lot of trouble.

[Ascalaphus]

Hmm. Taking three Incompetences to Aspect is a big pile of BP...

[Yerameyahu]

Well, no worries there. It's no worse than In Debt 30 and Addiction (Betel, Mild) 5. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Let them hamstring themselves, 35 is the max.

[Ascalaphus]

What about Incompetence: Banishing and Incompetence: Ritual Spellcasting (and Incompetence: Decompiling)?

[Neurosis]

Conjurer Aspect nets you more points...but I have no idea if that's what you're going for.

[Glyph]

The Aspects don't really work too well, to me, because we're only talking about a few BP. It used to be the difference between an A and a B priority.

Yeah, but in build point, it was something like the difference between 25 and 30 points. In both SR3 and SR4, though, where you really save the points is in the narrower range of skills/spells/etc. that you have to get.

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah: I don't like the way Adept is 5 and Mage is 15, and 'everything else' is between. I know that you have to invest a lot more to be any good, but it's always been unsatisfactory.

[Marcus]

Given the ridiculous wording of aspect magician in this edition, there isn't any problem with this concept. It's silly but at least it has some character to it.

Aspect Magician was a good theory back in the day but good lord it might as well be you standing on the dock throwing precious quality points into the sea. Honestly a complete waste of time.

[Whipstitch]

A friend of mine ran a sniping oriented Summoner/Counterspeller mage a year or two ago and he was pretty nasty even with the self-imposed limitations. You can come out of chargen with Synaptic 2, Muscle Toner 4, Summoning and Counterspelling while still maintaining a useful Magic of 3 if you really want to-- with a specialization and the right Mentor or Focus you should be able to summon at Force 6 with fair reliability, although physical drain isn't fun. In a larger group such a character can suffer a bit compared to super specialists-- it lacks the sheer utility of a generalist magician or a street samurai's raw toughness-- but in a 3 or 4 person team such a build can be a real terror.

And yeah, Aspected is just a mess these days, especially compared to Incompetent.

[Tanegar]

Conjurer Aspect nets you more points...but I have no idea if that's what you're going for.

I really don't care about the number of build points it might save me versus Conjuror Aspect or anything else, I just think the idea of a mage who can't cast a spell spontaneously to save his life is both funny and interesting.

[Whipstitch]

I suppose. But really, by the fluff it's not anything unusual unless you really spin their background to make them out as an abject failure. If he's had the full benefit of training in a well-rounded tradition like Hermeticism, then it might be weird that he isn't well-versed in sorcery, but otherwise a character who doesn't make use of some magical techniques could very well be par for the course for some traditions. For example, there's probably a fair number of Christian Theurgists who never trained in conjuration because it is still considered a bit of a theological grey area.

[Makki]

especially for Mystic-Adepts, who don't have the BP/Karma to be good in both conjuring and casting, aspects or incompetence make sense. There's an optional rule in SM for Expert Aspects, which makes the flaw more useful. But as long as asptec magician counts against the 35BP limit, Incompetence is the better way to go.

[Dakka Dakka]

Huh? Aspected Magician and Incompetence come from the exact same 35 BP.

[Makki]

well, what i wanted to say: if aspected magician was a quality not counting towards the limit, like magician is, it might be more interesting as it frees room for other negative qualities.
Magician 15 BP
Aspected Magician 5-10 BP
Mystic Adept Health Spells Aspect 0 BP

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I'm toying with the idea of a brutish posession tradition troll conjurer....

That being said, does posession override the augmented attribute maximum or not? It doesn't say it does, so I would assume not, but.... you never know.

[sabs]

Magician counts towards the 35 Point limit.

[Dakka Dakka]

but to the other 35BP. The one for positive qualities not the one for negative qualities.

[Makki]

but to the other 35BP. The one for positive qualities not the one for negative qualities.

yeah. that's what I actually meant (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)