DISCLAIMER: I'm not talking about flavor-based reasons in the following. Character flavor can motivate absolutely anything, so we can accept that as a given.

I was building a magician last night, and it occurred to me that the following are all worth 40 BPs:

1) Sorcery group at 4.
2) Spellcasting at 6 and Counterspelling at 4.
3) Spellcasting and Counterspelling at 5.
4) Spellcasting at 4 and Counterspelling at 6.

Option #1 is the only one that includes Ritual Sorcery. The other three are basically for more "immediate use" magicians and could be chosen based on where you'd want to skew the guy's functionality. Having a higher Spellcasting is arguably more beneficial for a few reasons (not the least of which is the potential to know more spells right out of chargen).

That brings me to my point: Most shadowrunners are "immediate use" kinda people. 'Runners typically don't die in their sleep or between firefights; they usually kiss dirt in skirmishes. So it really seems like Ritual Sorcery doesn't come up often enough to warrant a heavy investment in it.

And yeah, it's nice to have the option to send out a spotter spirit while working your mojo from the comfort of your own sofa. It's just that usually there aren't enough PCs (of the same tradition!) in a group to make that much more beneficial than just physically showing up at the target's doorstep along with the rest of the party and just casting on the spot.

To be clear: Ritual Sorcery undoubtedly has its uses, but it seems that they don't come up very often and when they do there are still viable non-ritual options available.

Given how expensive (in BP and karma) it is to be a full magician, it seems that it's more efficient to never pick up the Sorcery skill group and instead just buy a point or two in Ritual Sorcery after chargen. Once you get the Specialization that applies most to your primary ritual use, you're pretty much done as far as I can tell.

Counterpoints?

except, isnt the size of your ritual group depeendant o the lowest skill of the person in the group?

Right, but since most runner teams won't have more than, say, 2 casters of the same tradition....

true, but your initiation group does... and i would expect most of them to want you to be involved in more of their groups, especially as you rise within the ranks.

Heh:

"Sorry, guys, I'd really like to help you with this ritual rather than go out with my team and earn some money. It's just that I suck at rituals, and would only hold you back. Let me know how it turns out!"

<keeps looking for a non-ritual-heavy group in case these guys eventually kick him out>

heh:

"Sorry Joe, you keep saying ya wanna help us, but til you do, no new secrets of the deep for you!"

And honestly, with the skill caps in place, i doubt that, until REALLY high initiation levels, anything more than 4 would be neccessary.

So y'all are saying that Ritual Sorcery will likely matter more as just another prereq for some initiation groups?

well, yes, but i think you're going to file that under "character flavor" anyways, but i think it would make a logical point to it, and i hate making a character have someone just as a pre-req, but sometimes things have to be done.

ofcourse, i'd allow the player to petition the group for assistance with rituals as well, so so the skill and the pre-req come into use, but then you'll be binded by their time table, so it's not something that could be done on a whim.

Looking at the rules, it looks like you could perform a pretty decent ritual with just yourself and a spirit.

My own experience is that every member of the team wants to be different from all the others. If the team already includes a hermetic, a new player will come in as a Shaman or a Fern Witch or a Houngan or something. Anything that doesn't seem to be "stepping on the toes" of the other character.

As such, a Shadowrunner is by RAW basically never going to use Ritual Spellcasting. It's a complete waste of time.

---

Similarly Banishing. By the RAW it's just like shooting enemy spirits with Stun Bolts except:

1. They get more Resistance Dice.
2. The Drain is higher on average and much more random, meaning that it could drop you.
3. If your opponent did enough Rebinding Rituals, it isn't even going to get rid of the spirit.
4. If it works you can take and bind the other spirit even if it isn't appropriate for your tradition.

Unless you really want to be a Pokemaster and "catch them all", number 4 isn't really an advantage, meaning that Banishing is all bad. Instead of spending even 4 BP on getting a Banishing skill at all, you should spend 3 BP on getting Stunbolt and use that on every enemy spirit you want to get rid of.

So yeah, while the Cracking Skill Group or the Stealth Skill Group are filled with awesome, the Sorcery and Conjuring skill groups are wastes of time for the vast majority of Shadowrunners.

-Frank

Captian Misinformation rides agains!!!!

One advantage for Ritual Spellcasting is to track people down--If you have a Material link, send your spotter out to find the individual.

A Poor Man's Ritual Tracking until we get rules for that in Street Magic.

'cept material links are gone too.

However, the rules for adding them back in are preety simple, hell, they don't really need any adjustment at all from the 3rd ed rules.

I'd say that Ritual Spellcasting is pretty good for a runner if properly designed, run, and integrated into the group. Sure it takes way longer to cast and your pool isn't any bigger if it is just you and a spirit but you can cast stuff remotely on targets. With proper planning and set up you can break just about any run if you combine with a group/GM that does good leg work.

BTW, the cracking group isn't ALL good. Decompiling is even less useful than Banishing because you can take the Spoof CF which lets you gain control of sprites as well as agents and it causes less problems than decompiling. So at least in that regard Cracking and Conjuring are pretty similar.

Odds are as the more character specific books come out some of those relatively useless seeming skills bundled in skill groups under the basic rules will become more useful as they are linked to new tests.

Also I have apparently taken 2-3 points in the compose run-on sentance skill.

Correction: every one of those if hugely necessary now. Cybercombat used to be somewhat less than necessary before; in fact it used to be a very bad idea before you hit that magic MPCP-8 / DF-12 deck that actually let you do stuff for extended periods in the Matrix. Nowadays it's not even possible to actively cloak yourself from IC; they either see you or they don't.

@Modesitt - Ya, i didn't feel like going off and building another list of links trying to help people new to the board past the latest interation of Frank's Thickie Schtick. Of course you were also extremely helpful in such a brief and understated manner. Thanks!