There are three metamagics that aren't affected by initiate grade: Channeling, Quickening, and Anchoring. I see no reason that this should be the case.

For Channeling, I would say that you should get a dice pool penalty equal to half the spirit's force divided by 2 (round down) minus the initiation grade. For anchoring and quickening, you should be able to lower the karma cost by initiation grade down to a minimum of 1.

What do you think?

Not sure about the channeling one, I'd put a limit on the forse you can channel maybe grade or twice grade.

The reduction of cost for anchoring particularly I could go with. I think quickening really doesn't need the cost reduction to my mind.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to express on the channeling honestly. Personally, I try to make channeling as hard as possible, because it's damn strong.

It's not clear to me what your [edit: Emo's] concern here is. Mine would be minmaxing at grade 1; if I'm only going to get one dice for Shielding or Centering, why not put it off and take the one that gives me all the benefits up front? Wanting to increase the utility of these later on as you advance seems to me insane.

Channeling is the only one that's potentially overpowered for a grade 1 initiate, but I don't really know what to do about it. I'd kind of like to see it as an advanced technique; make Invoking a prereq, maybe? Of course, I'd like to see Invoking have a prereq, too. (The grade increase benefits of Invoking, incidentally, are fairly minimal in the dice scheme of things. I'd include it in this category of metamagic that makes as much sense to take at grade 1 as later.)

At low power levels quickening eats up karma for causes that (Ally spirit enhancement aside) aren't very useful to shadowrunners because they'll get knocked down by wards. At high power levels they'll eat up huge karma and trip the magical security everywhere, including a lot of personal trips.

Anchoring is more potentially useful to shadowrunners, but almost always only in one shot uses that are intended to blow karma on a short term goal. Again, not broken. And if you've got the karma for an anchoring focus, potentially very useful in some custom, limited application. The real problem with Anchoring's usefulness is the cost of the foci, not the one shot technique. Hell, all of the metamagic foci cost too much to bind.

I'm concerned because I've seen groups w/ high grade intitiates in earlier editions where you could anchor and quicken dirt cheap and it got scary. Imagine 1kp/spell quickening for a 10th grade init. Quiken force 10 armor, deflect, imp att will, invisibility, and say.. control thougths on an NPC, and suddenly for 6 karma, you can do all the crap you'd normally have to blow 60 on, and be able to tear apart most anything, because you're damn had to hurt. That's why spirits only sustain for a short time, and you have a limit on the spirits you can have.

I meant I don't undestand Emo's concern here. He's proposing nerfing Channeling and pumping up Quickening/Anchoring. Since the alleged problem is that these don't increase with improved initiate grade like all of the others, rather than their individual power levels per se being unbalanced, they should either all be improved (because you think players will focus on maximizing their metamagics that depend on grade and will naturally improve) or all nerfed (because players will grab these in their first initiations to grab 100% of a benefit right away rather than wait for something like Shielding or Centering to become meaningful around Grade 3 or 4 and bring full dice if you wait until then).

By going both ways in his "remedies," it looks like he's less concerned about these three being the odd man out (his presumptive reason) and more interested in pumping up TEH AWESOME. The only thing that makes this less than usually transparent and somewhat surprising is the proposed weakening of Channeling.

I'm of the opinion that all metamagics are not equal, but that's inevitable - they do so many different things that you can't really compare them except in terms of how useful they are for a particular purpose. For some types of job like tomb raiding or exploring hazardous magical areas, Cleansing, Sensing, and Filtering could be the only way to go on your first three metamagics before you go for Shielding and Centering once they offer real dice. Others will take Masking, Extended Masking, and Flexible Signature first. It all depends on what you want to do. As long as no technique makes anything too easy (and Channeling is the real potential offender here, with honorable mention to Invoking), I don't really care that some are pretty limited in their field of application.

How about this then:

Channeling limits the Force of the spirit you can channel to Initiate Grade. Or maybe Gradex2. Same for Invoking.

Quickening and Anchoring limit the karma you can spend on a single application of each metamagic to Grade. Or maybe Gradex2.

hmm, isnt the risk of channeling that if said spirit gets free, you got one hell of a spirit on your hands? ie, do not tamper in powers you dont understand?

I assume you meant Invoking, not Channeling. I assume a Channeling/possessed magician whose spirit goes free is still kept in the "backseat" and can't actually act. He'd have to leave or (for some strange reason) just go along for the ride and continue to provide passive benefits but not grant the use of other powers.

ugh, got the mixed out it seems.
hard to keep track of them all