Poor Mongo indeed! I could't read that without laughing.. Brilliant!

As for buying up magic after 'ware addition, I can scarcely understand why you'd want to. 'Ware is easiest to justify at character creation, so you'd need to sink enough points into magic to offset the 'ware you were planning on picking up. After that your essence is still limited to 6, so you can't add more 'ware indefinately. And without initiating your max magic rating is going to drop to 0 once your essence drops below 1.

Frankly if I was going to go through all the trouble of initiating I'd rather be able to have an enhanced magic cap (and presumably magic rating). Else you're cybered up, intiated up the whazoo street sam/mage is no more magically powerful than a starting mage can be. If you've got the karma to waste then fair enough, but if you've got that much karma why not be a kick ass magic 8 or 9 mage?

By high tech solution you mean maggots, right?

I can't help feeling that if you've gotten that much karma you're either earning it too quickly, or you've been playing the same character long enough that retirement might be in order.

I guess the GM could design a run that'll really stretch you, but by the time you're rolling 14 dice for every skill it's going to be a pretty bloody tough run.

I would also draw your attention to the last paragraph describing the adept quality.

Agreed. The break points seems to be at 2 essence. Beyond that, and it's not worth being an Adept.

As for the convoluted method, consider this.

I have an Adept. He wants to eventually have 5 point of ware and 1 point of magic. For whatever reason, I started with 1 magic and no ware.

So, I'm in game, and now want to spend Karma.

Magic costs new rating * 3.

I can go to 2, to 3, to 4, to 5, to 6. That's 6+9+12+15+18 karma, or 60 karma. Then I buy 5 points of ware.

Or I can go to 2, and spend 6 karma. Then I can get 1 point of ware put in. Then I go to 2 again, and spend 6 karma. Then I get 1 point of ware put in. Rinse and repeat. 36 karma, versus 60. 24 karma difference is pretty significant. Granted, it's weird, and I can't pick up wired 3 with ware, but I wager I could wrangle it pretty well.

Not really. You invested 1 magic point. That's 5 BP. And you got 1 magic point worth of skills - probably +2 to a gun skill. Which is 8 bp.

So you actually saved 3 bp.

Granted, it's not a great use of karma over all.

But the main point is that any ruling which encourages weirdness like this is a bad ruling, to me.

The other situation is someone playing a 400 point, 100 karma game. I'm fairly certain that you can use this ruling to abuse it as well. It won't be a huge gain - probably on the order of 8-10 karma or bps. But still, simply by saying "Oh, no, I bought things in *this* order, so I have more karma" is against what I see Shadowrun being about.

In d20? Sure. Par for the course. SR? Not so much.

Is there a 'right way' to play an Adept? One of the things I like about Shadowrun is the lack (or at least minimalization) of a character class system. I don't feel that players should be punished because they choose to play their characters outside the box.

Okay, so for your example. You now have a completely uncybered character who has two extra dice for one skill. (although really with a magic rating of 1 you can't have any power with a rating higher than 1, so it would have to be two skills each with one extra die, but that's not my point) The point is, while this character has saved 3BP, an uncybered character who's only magical ability is a couple extra skill dice is hardly a broken, munchy, overpowered character.
And if they ARE taking cyberware, then they're paying for magic points that they aren't benefiting from, so I'm not that worried about it.

For your example of the 400BP + 100karma game. It's a good point. I wouldn't want to make a player choose between making an "efficient" choice of character history vs. the background they really want. I'd give them the cheaper price, and let them describe their background however they wanted.
Similarly I'd let the Samurai make his character with all alphaware, but would allow him to describe having other ware that was upgraded or replaced completely in his background without expecting him to pay for it.
Basically, build the mechanics of your character as efficiently as you want. Then describe them however you want, fleshing out their history to make them into the person you really want them to be.

Maybe I'm wrong and this is actually a much bigger problem than I think it is, and if I find that it is becoming a problem in any of my games I'll gladly admit it. But so far? It just hasn't been a problem for me.

Now that we've thoroughly hijacked this thread...
We still have that problem of "efficiency" in character creation. It was why BeCKS was created so many years ago. To buy a skill up in game, it costs more and more every time you raise it, it's a factorial difference (*2, *3, *4, *5, etc.). But the first point of a skill during character creation costs exactly the same amount as the fourth point of that skill during character creation.

You might be interested in this thread.

That is true. And I've never really liked that disconnect between pre- and post-generation. So I completely agree with you that it's a bad thing, but I don't think it really has anything to do with cyberadepts in particular.

I would suggest that magic requires a commitment to that magic by the magical character. It's not specified in the adept quality, but I feel that a character who takes the adept quality should also adopt a tradition or paradigm that they follow. I don't much care what it is, so long as they have one.

I personally feel that deliberately thrashing your magic rating with 'ware repeatedly is breaking that commitment to magic.

but that's assuming they wanted to be an adept in the first place.
it's not DnD, or Gurps.

>>>>>[Chummer, it's folks like you that keep mages in business, and voodoo in the streets. Magic's a tool, bub. Nothin' more, nothin' less. You keep babbling on about 'commitment to magic' and the 'special bond between a boy and his fetish' and it'll be elf poncers and corp-mages from here till the Seventh World. Once ya open yer eyes, and realize that all of us can benefit from a little Mana-infusion (with a mango topper), we'll finally get magic outta the mysterious forests, and in to the hands of the folks that need it.

Imagine it - yer dear ol' gran don't need Wired 3 and a Cerebral booster. But imagine if she could cast herself a couple of low level sustenance spells a day? Maybe a 'relieve aches n' pains' and then a levitate, for high stairs? Not to mention boostin' yer self just a touch above what everyone else has. I swear.]<<<<<
-The Chromed Hermetic (no relation) <03:03:03/09-03-72>

nothing really catches my eye the pregen character templates have "gold" as an allergy though that doesn't much make sense to me for a flaw, how often does one come in contact with it to justify 15 BP. but if I can't think of anything then I'll most likely take it.

I also haven't found anything that fits for those extra 20 BP in flaws.

Karma and how it is gained is a function of "roleplay" and the interaction of the present character with the game world and game mechanics. To start off, you are born - what karma has been "gained" by the PC at birth? What roleplaying was done? So how did you get the karma to get "elf" or "troll"? Are you Awakened? How did you get the karma to "buy" your Awakening(while you Awaken at sometime in your life, whether you have the potential to do so is determined at birth unless your GM is allowing Awakened qualities to be bought with karma)? What's that you say? Karma was accumulated in your PC's previous life? Even if I did believe in karma and reincarnation, then let's go back to the time where the very first metahumans walked the earth, where did they get their karma?

A background that has to be stretched to fit everything in is difficult to roleplay well(the fact that RP karma is only given once and 1 measly point besides is another non-chargen matter). A background that is highly plausible is easier to roleplay. So yes, I think that there has to be different tracks for character creation and character improvement and the efficiencies that the interaction of the different methods generate.