Lets say your character is initiate grade 1 with a magic attribute of 6. Are you better-off increasing your magic rating or taking the next grade of initiation?

On one hand increasing your magic rating gives you another die to cast/summon with, increases the force threshold at which you take physical or stun drain, and lets you castspells with a total force 2 higher.

On the other hand, initiation is cheaper until your magic attribute is lagging behind by about 4, initiation gives you a metamagical ability, and the power of your metamagical abilities are increased by your total initiation grade. Looking at the metamagics available, it's noteable that a character with Centering and Shielding gets an extra die on both counterspelling and drain resistance tests.

A good start for a character would probably be to initiate several, perhaps 3, times. Taking the right metamagics, that gives them 3 extra dice to resist drain and increases counterspelling ability.

Assuming you start off with good spellcasting/conjuring ability (5 magic + 4 skill + F2 Power Focus = 11 dice before totem mods) you should be able to summon beyond your ability to resist drain (summoning a force 10 spirit for 6.6 or so drain) and overcast combat spells to the extent that you'd take damage normally.

With combat spells, dice are better spent on the drain resistance test than the casting test as two successes on casting are worth one on drain. IE: Rather than getting 2 successes on casting, you may as well cast the spell 2 force higher and need 1 more success to take the drain. The 2 dice on casting = 1 on drain principle is, of-course, only true if you can cast the spell at the higher force. Care must be taken that the spell isn't fully resisted either, as then you have just spent time and risked drain for nothing.

Initiating to increase drain resistance ability is fairly cheap. Increasing magic attribute and casting/summoning skills after character creation is, on the other hand, fairly expensive. As a general guide I'd suggest increasing casting/summoning ability at character creation then initiating several times after character generation to increase drain resistance by way of multiple initiations. Only increase magic after either your opponents are often fully resisting your spells or you can take the drain from most of what you can do.

Note that I can't find anything under SR4 to say that casting dice may normally be witheld to help resist drain. Spellcasting, Summoning, and Binding Foci are the only dice that can be witheld from casting to resist drain as far as I can tell.

Unless, of course, you're an Adept, in which case, all of the metamagics SUCK for you.

Unless, of course, you are a mystic adept, in which case you can use the metamagics just fine, and use the increase in magic to buy adept powers anyway.

Another thing I just realised is that it can be useful to have both power and spell foci. Although only one focus may add its Force to any single dice pool, you can use the power focus to cast/summon/bind and the spellcasting/summoning/binding focus for the drain.

Low Magic/High adept is still a workable split as far as just initiating goes. What it means is sticking to high-drain but high-effect spells like area-effect/indirect combat spells like Ball Lightning.

Hm. Now here's a question: can foci be upgraded? Can you pay the cost difference in karma and nuyen and increase the Force of a focus, or are you basically SOL when you want to get a better one?

It'd really suck if you couldn't upgrade foci. As there's no point in having a force 1 and force 2 focus of the same type, not being able to upgrade woudl lead to a lot of wasted karma.

With the possible exception of upgrading cyberware grades (normal->alpha->beta->delta) I'd allow virtually every other item in the book to be upgraded.

you don't allow upgrading of cyberwear but you allow foci?

Unlike upgrading cyber, foci when upgraded provides a immediate benefit.

When you upgrade cyber, you just simply add more room for other pieces which in turn cost money.

Foci are EXTREMELY powerful, to upgrade them for the difference is silly, specially when you consider what it takes to make them.

You can perhaps discount the physical cost of course, but not the karrma.

If you destroy a focus, the bond is lost. One of the options in SR3 (unless you went through the complicated rules) was to destroy the focus, thus breaking the bond between you and the item. Usually the oricalcum could be salvaged, and you would use that, and additional materials to create a higher focus. This process, of course, is expensive - both in nuyen and in karma, (you don't get back the karma you spent to bond the original foci) but it probably your best option.

I didn't say anything about bioware hehe, that's like trying to change a stake from a 8oz to a 16oz after it's been cut from the cow and cooked.

Cyber is a simple matter of replacing the connectors, upgrading parts, the shell would still stay, and if you simply removed the whole thing you can call it part of the sell back price or whatever.

Upgrading a piece of cyber from basic to alpha, you pay the cost of the arm again.

Alpha to beta, you pay twice the cost of a alpha arm to do, and only net a small gain.

Beta to Delta, you pay 3times the cost of a beta for a good gain. or the equivelent of 8 basic limbs.

Foci's do have binds to thier creators until bound.

Same with artwork, and any labor of love.

To remove that is to remove a very large chunk of SR lore.

Who really cares to blast to bits some talisman maker in albania, unless you're a SR making foci and selling them for a profit (unlikely) there's no real concern for the link process, where's the money to be made nuking random talisman makers? =p

The two that come up off the top of my head are:
1) Selling him "Fireball Insurance".
2) Mind control of the talismonger for emptying out his bank account and/or doing your dirty work.

Pretty good odds though, any talisman maker has a) magical ability (yeah it's a requirment) and b) has made his own foci and can handle a ritual sending.

Well, there are only 6 extra participants if you get 7 people into a room together who have the same tradition and Exceptional Ability: Ritual Spellcasting. The maximum ritual participants are set by the lowest skill, not the highest, so usually ritual sendings are pretty small.

That and ritual sendings require a spotter, who is usually going to be a bound spirit (since that's the only non-participant who can go, and you need every participant you can get). While a ritual spell could potentially be a big thing, in practice it never is. Protecting yourself from it is just a matter of fighting the spotter. You just have to beat a single bound spirit, and you can use your own spirits all you want.

-Frank

But like I said, where's the profit in it? hehe.

Getting a team like that, you'd be just as well knocking over the talismonger selling the talismen, not the maker.

Maybe, but honestly there's just alot more low profile, high profit targets out there, I just don't see where the % is coming from on that.

That much magical Power would be much better suited for a higher profit shakedown.

I can see it as a mission easily, I'm talking as a way of making money tracking down talismongers and shaking em down with threats of ritual sorcery seems a bit risky for a low profit margin.

On the ritual sorcery part, say the spotter is a bound spirit right? What about if the shop/home of the talismonger is also their lodge, which keeps out all spirits and projecting/percepting magicians that don't have permission to enter?

Because it's not something I can see as players wanting to do because of the low profit in it.

a say, organized crime group doing it I can.

With all this debate going on, I'm really wondering why someone would want to attack the Talismonger to begin with... So you go through the effort of defeating any wards, defensive spells, spirits, etc the talismonger has. You manage to kill him.
a) If the event can be tracked to you in any way, you have a great potential of making an enemy of any client that talismonger regularly deals with.
b) If the event can be tracked to you in any way, you most likely have alienated yourself from any other talismonger with enough street savvy to have heard of the event.
c) To do any kind of ritual sorcery with more than one mage/shaman, you'd have to find enough magically active people who would want to agree with you that attacking a talismonger would be a good idea. (remember, the magic shop is your source for magical materials on the street, don't bite off the hand that feeds you!)

After these three points are presented, and you still think killing your magic item source is a good idea, then you're welcome to any hairbrain result that you think you're trying to acheive.

While you're at it, why don't you kill your fixer, your gun dealer or any other supplier you use, as it'll serve the same resuly.