Magic adept and the art of cheese Options

[Cynic project]

You can get a magic rating of 8, right off the shealf with one of these bad boys.

You simply put a Gesa on your magical powers. Boy look 75% of 8 is 6. You go,yea I got a magic rating of 8,haha suckers.

[mfb]

yep. done that.

[Kagetenshi]

But now it's all geased. The big kick is the number of spell points you get, but other than that, it's a pretty mediocre increase for the cost, especially considering no astral projection.

~J

[Cynic project]

You and your Elven reasons to poke at silly ideas...

But on the other hand you get the ability to cast big spells,and and stuff!

I on the other hand don't play adepts so I can't really say I would ever do this.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Well, since you can't normally get powers above rating 6 at chargen...
...nor spells above force 6...
...it doesn't really work or provide any benefit unless the GM is ignoring some relevant rules for whatever reason.

[LinaInverse]

Slight Hijack:

OK, say you have a starting char with a Magic 8. I assume you don't get actual Initiate metamagic powers w/ that. What does that buy you?

1) Your Area spells are a tad bigger
2) You can cast up to Force 8 spells w/o risking Physical
3) Your Spell Pool is slightly bigger ((Sorc+Magic+Will)/3 rounded down)
4) Some spells (ex: Levitate) depend on your Magic score to determine overall effectiveness

#2's advantages are heavily undercut by:
2a) You can't start a char w/ >6 force spells
2b) Learning a high force spell is not a trivial matter (x2 Force roll against Sorcery) and can take tons of downtime to accomplish (all the while, the char isn't earning Karma/Nuyen)
2c) Your drain resist target numbers start getting very high; it gets very tough to fully stage down all the drain during combat if you don't have a lot of Foci, Elementals or other form of extra dice

Is that it? What am I missing?

What does having a Magic of 8, 9, or even 12 buy you? This, compared to the benefits of buying/learning new spells, buying/binding new Foci, creating/summoning an Ally, learning new skills (ie, Centering, Enchanting), etc. Yes, the Initiate metamagics are obviously powerful and Initiate Grades themselves help in numerous ways, primarily in Masking/Sleezing past Wards, etc. But that's not the advantage I'm seeing here w/ this Magic Adept.

[Kagetenshi]

It allows you to have more active foci before focus addiction, but other than that not much. The metamagic is the Big Cheese of Initiation.

~J

[James McMurray]

And don't forget that it makes it more likely you'll lose magic when you have to check for loss. Granted, you'll be losing down to where a normal person would be, but it has to be annoying to start with 8 magic and then wake up after a brutal run to find yourself with only 6 or 7, and still under the effects of your geasa.

[sidartha]

Question: and before you rip me a new one I don't have the books available to reference.
If as this Magic 8 Adapt you take the same geas for all your powers(hopping up and down on one foot while singing 'I am the very model of a modern Major General'), and you then initiate choosing to shed a geas do you gain all your powers without the (single) geas? Or do you choose one power point to release and thus have to initiate a total of eight times to get your power points back.

[toturi]

Your actual Magic is still 6 and since Magical Power is an adept ability, it still cannot exceed 6 levels. Geasing allows you to afford 8 levels of Magical Power but the limitation of your actual Magic rating is still in effect. Just like you can't have more than 6 levels of Improved Ability even if you can afford it.

[Fortune]

[toturi]

Magic loss results in involuntary geas anyway.

[CanvasBack]

I've seen people make these types of characters and they never seem to strike the right balance of casting ability vs. standard adept powers. It seems like you get the worst of all worlds with this combo.

[Kagetenshi]

As Fortune says, geasa willingly taken to reduce Power Point costs can never be shed.

~J

[Glyph]

The cheesiest adept of the magical way, if you use the point system, is to combine an adept's improved ability power with the ability to bond a weapon focus at char-gen (since you do have spellpoints). 6 points of improved ability and 6 more dice from a Force: 6 weapon focus can get pretty ugly, and that's before you add the Ambidexterity Edge to the whole mess. :)

[sidartha]

[Kagetenshi]

Incidentally, had they been involuntary geasa somehow each Power Point worth of geas would have had to be shed separately. It would have only been six PP worth, though, since that's the Magic rating, but either the magic rating would have had to be more or the geasa would have had to be less otherwise the person in question would have burned out.

~J

[Panzergeist]

Magic adepts blow anyway. Shadowrun is not a game for jacks of all trades, especcially when it comes to magic. Besides, if you are going to spend all your power points on magical power, why not just be a mage so you can astrally project? That is way more valuable than the 2 points of magic.

[Crimson Jack]

[ES_Riddle]

I do have to say a phys mage is a poor choice as the only spell slinger in the group unless he has astral perception. You have to use astral perception to erase astral signatures, and the mage who doesn't erase astral signatures will eventually get ritually geeked.

[northern lights]

glyph hit the nail on the head for jumping the gun to weapon foci. makes a very single minded character, but it is phenominal for that one thing. not really my type of character, but used it for npc before.

the real kicker i see is a mage who can affect the physical plane just as often as a fair sammy. no more limitations of 1 stunball per 3 volleys of incoming fire. now your mage has the ability to counter just as often. this is a HUGE bonus when the situation is not astrally based. that also takes away the biggest limitation of projection, though sota metamagic helps in this regard.

you can also jump the gun to power foci the same as weapon foci above. used this on a character once where he had a pain editor and whenever the shit got heavy, he would summon a force 10 spirit, which the pain editor prevented him from passing out from the drain. one run, the team just left the spirit to finish the run and got out alive.

there are pro's but there are con's as well. depends on how much the GM plays to one or the other.

i've also used it to have a fairly normal physad who had the ability to summon weak spirits to do things like look in the next room, open the door from the other side, etc.

[toturi]

Without turning the adept that Glyph described into overkill, I can see an magical adept with a Weapon Focus, no spells and simply smothering whatever the enemy mage throws at them. Remember without needing to worry about splitting his spell pools this way and that, all he needs is put everything into spell defense, concentrating on either banishing enemy spirits or simply cutting them down.

Ever seen a mage that did nothing except spell defense?

[Panzergeist]

Now that is a good idea. Sorcery spent entirely on spell defense, no spells except maybe heal/treat, and a kickass weapon focus. That actually could make him pretty good. Jack, you have a point about them having good long run potential. However, if the group already is all magical, they would probably benefit most from a decker, unless the GM is being kind enough to give you missions where you don't really need one.

As for ambidexterity and weapon foci, that is a good way to make a one-trick killer pony on speed. I made an adept who had ambidexterity, improved reflexes 2, edged weapons 6, improved edged weapons 6, and a force 1 katana focus once. 19 dice he had for close combat. Could have been 20 if I had tossed in a reflex recorder. And of course, I could also have had him use a monowhip instead, for an extra reach point. Also, in SOTA 2064 there is a new metamagic for adepts called attunement, which allows them to spend karma to attune themselves to a piece of equipment, reducing their target numbers by 1 when using that item. Imagine rolling 20-30 dice against a target number of 2 for close combat. You would be a human cuisinart.