I get the impression that most players designing a mage PC take Magic at 5, possibly a few at 6, so they can be badasses from session 1 onwards. Sure, there are lots of mages with Magic 1-4... they're just all NPCs. Besides, better to go from Magic 4 to Magic 5 with 10 BP at chargen, than with 15 Karma during play.

On another hand... what if you had a PC who had Magic 2, and a big enough Drain DP to overcast at Force 4 without taking damage? That's buildable, especially if you run most spells through a fetish, and avoid the (f/2+3) spells.

Also, after a few runs you could get your 1 Essence worth of augmentation (see WeaverMount's thread on that), and then buy back from Magic 1 to Magic 2 for only 6 Karma. Then go up from there.

Yes, such a character would not be tossing huge stunballs and so forth... but there's more than a few tricks that are worthwhile at Force 4, and you might be more diversified in abilities than the Magic 5/6 builds.

Its true, with only Magic 2 there a lot of tricks u can do, but u will be like an amateur magician rather than an actual mage.

Actually, it depends a lot on the other member of the team...
If the face rolls a minimum 15 dice for social things and the sammy shoots and hits with the same DP or higher, then you'll probably be considered a weakling...
But if the face has a DP of 9 max and the sammy attacks with the same DP, then having a magic rating of 2, or even 1, shouldn't bother you...

These were 2 more of my ...

Hmm

Ork
Magician
Flaws: 35 points of choice

B 4
A 2
R 3
S 3
I 5
L 3
C 4
W 5

E 5
M 2

Binding 4
Summoning 4
Counterspelling 6
Spellcasting 4

Perception 4
Gymnastics 3
Infiltration 3
Etiquette 2

Spells:

55 points left over for secondary niche, gear, and contacts.

Depending on the profession you could make a good magic 1-2 build. Hermetic mage with good logic and average willpower would give enough help with drain.

Take a street doc with rudimentary skills in spellcasting and the following spells

Manipulation Spells
Levitate (Levitate wounded people)
Sterilize (Sterilize medical equipment or a wound)
Clean Element (water) (Fresh clean water for cleaning a wound)
Glue (Fix an improvised bandage to a patient)
Preserve (Preserve that limb for a few more hours until good care can be applied)

I have not chosen any health spells as many of them wont be very useful at a force of 1 or 2 – overcasting is possible but could be a liability, I’ll aim for a high Biotech skill group instead.

Skills would probably be the following
Spellcasting (Manipulation) 1/3
Spell Defense (Combat) 1/3 (Street doc don’t want a stray stunbolt in the face)
Biotech Group 4
Assensing (Aura Reading) 1/3 (Check patients health)

I would also recommend the Millimeter Wave radar as a hand sensor (size at least) and have it mounted as an accessory clipped on the characters display glasses. This would help the street doc identifying broken bones, cyberware and other oddities with it’s X-Ray like ability. It’s only 2000Y.

They don't say either way in the rules, but I don't think this is true...
Just like how Mystic Adepts have to keep buying the next magic attribute even if they spell cast at 2 and have 3 points of adept powers you couldn't rebuy 2... you would have to buy 3, then apply the effects of augmentation and operate at 2.

No, it's true, you 'rebuy' 2...
You see, it doesn't work as a (negative) augmentation, you lose it when you lose essence...
If it were an augmentation, you'd get it back when you got back the essence, which you don't...

I've pulled Mystic Adepts with the casting half around 2(it came to around 3 Adept 2 Caster). Some folks say this is why Mystic Adepts are gimped; i know this isn't technically in the realm you are speaking of(due to them actually having a 5 magic, it's just split), but i had no troubles with it. They had a halfway decent drain dice pool, and could pull out some nice spells now and again.

As for a quick Magic 2 build(this is someone who perhaps just discovered they were magically active, im thinking more of a ganger-type or something that needs to channel it)

Race: Ork(20 BP)

Name(for the hell of it): Johnny 'Boltthrower' Sputnik
Age: 19

+ Qualities: Magician
- Qualities: 35 of choice

(Starting BP: 400. The Ork/Magician get cancelled out by negative qualities).

Attributes:

Body: 5
Agility: 4(5)
Reaction: 4
Strength: 5
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 4
Edge: 2
Magic: 2 (20 BPs, has cyber)
Initative: 8/1
Essence: 5.1
Total BPs: 230

With this setup, he can have a decent Cha/Will or Int/Will drain attribute combo. I spent the full 200 on his Attributes, and im not sure if you want to count the magic, i bought a 3 and got cyber down to a 2. You could do it 2/1 if you like(if you want to be real strict about magic 2), and spend the 10 points on Edge. Since im thinking he was more ganger like, i left Logic more average...but he could have a logic linked one too if you don't mind giving up a die. He doesn't have to be stupid.

Contacts(ok, we use the Cha x2 free rule, if so, 10, if you don't, say 15...ill use the 10 here for the sake of it)

Total BPs: 240


Resources: 8 BPs(again, im thinking lower level guy here....but 40k is still alot)

Cyberware:

Cybereyes Rating 3(ill stick to availability here) w/ low-light, thermographic, flare compensation, and smartlink(.5 essence)
Retractable Spur(.3 essence)


Bioware:

Muscle Toner 1(.2 essence halved)


Active Skills(140 BP)

Conjuring Skill Group: 1[10]
Spellcasting: 3[12]
Counterspelling: 2[8]

Pistols(Semi-Automatics): 3(+2)[14]
Unarmed Combat: 3[12]
Blades(Cyber-Implants): 3(+2)[14]

Perception: 2[8]
Athletics Group: 2[20]
Pilot Ground Craft(Wheeled): 2(+2][10]
Infiltration: 1[4]

Etiquette(Street): 3(+2] [14]
Intimidation(Physical): 3(+2) [14]


Knowledge/Langauge skills:

Redmond Barrens: 3
Magic Background: 2
Safehouse Locations: 2
Gang ID: 4
Street Drugs: 2
Gang Turf: 3
1980s Death Metal: 2

English: N
German(Spoken):2(+2) (had a german gang leader maybe and picked it up from him, hence not being able to read or write it as well..not sure if this is viable, but Read/Write is a viable specialization...maybe Slang would be better?)

Lifestyle: Low(2 months)

Ares Predator 4(w/ 4 clips each regular, gel, and EX-EX), and Concealable Holster
Leaded Gloves
Lodge Materials(rating 2)
Armor Jacket(8/6)
Knife
Survival Kit
Sony Emperor Commlink/Redcap Nix OS, varied music chips, skinlink, and simchips
Miracle Shooter(1 year)
Virtual Pet(Ferret named Sparky)
Fake Licence(Small Arms, rating 4)
Fake ID(Rating 4)
Suzuki Mirage

Spells(12 BP)

Ball Lightning
Increase Reflexes
Combat Sense
Heal

Contacts(10 BPs + 6 free)

Former Wage Mage(middle aged human fellow, nicknamed Rog): C3/L5
Ganger(Fritz): C3/L3
Talismonger: C2/L1

(you might even cut out some more resources and go with a couple more contact points, like a Fixer)




The high Street Etiquette and Combat skills reflect on how he was more or less a gangbanger before discovering the magical abilities. He has a couple of scattering of skills like Infiltration in there, too...skulking about on the streets might have been necessary.

But there ya go, whomped something that could well be viable together, I think.

Personnaly i have much fun playing a magic 1 mage. There are quite alot of spells still usable with a force of 1 or 2 (not combat spells) though you should have a somewhat high edge attribute so you can cast some serious spells from time to time.
Also i got 12 dice with pistols from start and wired reflexes, so it's basically a bit like a not too great sammie with some nice aditional options provided by the magic.
Additionally even low level spirits can help the team in ways nothing else can, for example increased movement rate or the guard ability or simple watcher spirits, which are really great when combined with a possession tradition.

/edit
here it is

race human

BOD 4 [30]
AGI 4(6) [30]
REA 3(4) [20]
STR 2(3) [10]
CHA 3 [20]
INT 5 [40]
LOG 3 [20]
WIL 4 [30]

EDG 3 [10]
MAG 1 [20]
INI 9/2
ESS 4

Magician [15]

Scorched [-5]
Spirit Bane [-10]
Geas [-10]
Addiction [-10]


Pistols (SA) 5(+2) [22]
Unarmed (Cyber) 2(+2) [10]
Perception 1 [4]
Con 2 [8]
Etiquette 1 [4]
Gymnastics 2 [8]
Pilot ground 1 [4]
Assensing 5 [20]
Spellcasting 4 [16]
Counterspelling 3 [12]
Summoning 2 [8]
Enchanting 1 [4]

Gear [41]

Cyber

Cybereyes 2
Flare comp
LowLight
Vision enhancement 3
Magnification
Hand Razors
Skillwires 3
Datajack

Bio

Muscle aug 1
Muscle toner 2
Synthacardium 3
Synaptic 1

Force 2 Sustaining Focus [2]
36600 Nuyen in equipment.

Spells [18]

Analyze Truth
Physical Mask
Influence
Magic Fingers
Shapechange
Ignite

Contacts [9]

What about a Magic 2 mage (or shaman) with a level 2 Power Focus? Sure you don't have much left for gear, but that Focus can boost you quite a bit.

Were I to go this route I'd do it via heavy cyber, most likely. I've never gone through with a lower than 3M Magician though. Only gaining 2 dice from your magic attribute is a harsh if manageable disadvantage, plus it becomes easier for low level background counts to render you effectively mundane.

Imo power foci arent worth it really, especially for low magic sorcerers the problem is not rolling enough hits but to have a high enough force to use your hits and since power foci don't raise magic anymore they don't help in that departement (apart from a rating 2 costing 12 bp which would be better invested in a higher sorcery skill or mebbe a mentor spirit)

You never "get back" essence. When you replace say Wired 2 with Alphaware Wired 2 you generate an essence hole of .6 essence... You don't get back .6 essence... the next .6 essence of augmentation you put in you just doesn't cost anything. It's not logical that if you decide Magic 3 is enough you can just keep buying it and stuffing in cyberware. Following that rule a Grade 3 initiate who doesn't want more than 3 magic can slowly stuff in cyberwear and bioware 1 essence point at a time and eventually be an effective cyberzombie with 3 points of magic.

Let's say I start with 4 magic... and put in an essence point of 'wear. My magic is 3... I rebuy it to 4 for 12 Karma with a new cap of 5... I put in another point of 'wear and rebuy it to 4... I then initiate and bring my magic cap to 5... put in another essence point and re-raise my magic to 4?

That's not logical at all... I know... I keep trying to inject logic into Shadowrun, but come on.

I'm with you on this cryptoknight. I've had a player before try doing this, and I don't think it should be how it works. If you put in ware you have to spend the karma to compensate for it as well. Adding cyberware doesn't make increasing your magic easier, if anything it makes it more difficult.

Sadly, not necessarily the case anymore:



Slow and extremely expensive, but possible.

So this fixes you if you remove the implant... not if you upgrade it.
I suppose if you removed Wired Reflexes.. went through Revitalization and then had Alpha installed you could get by

But you'd have character downtime to an extreme to repair that essence hole. 30 Months to revitalize away the 3 points of essence for standard wired 2. Then recovery for implanting Alpha wired 2....

Of course that recovery won't take long with a character with 4+ body... 2-3 days tops

If someone wants to take 30 months of time, well, one week a month(that's 30 weeks total, over half a year), and aaaaaalll of that nuyen to regain the 3 essence, then spend another load on alphaware wired 2 and end up saving .6 points of essence from the whole thing, they are more than welcome to. While i find it's very cool they can do this now(it makes sense they would figure SOMETHING out with all of this time spent on research), this is something you really have to want to go through it.

Just remember during that 30 months... 1 week per month... you don't have wired anything implanted... so you're back to 1 IP... and No wired bonus to Reaction... me... I'd be hiding and hoping my enemies don't get me... but as a good GM... I'd point out that's 2 & 1/2 years to get it fixed. And ask the player if he'd like to make another character to play in the meantime.

I thought that it does not fix any reductions to Magic... ah, here it is on page 89 of Augmentation:



So the only thing you're doing when you remove cyberware and undergo Revitalization is gimping yourself. If you take that step then go for it with all you got (start with Alpha grade ware and then upgrade to delta when you can)... otherwise don't go at all.

As others have pointed out, you can get back essence...
The fact that you have to take the ware out and get treatment doesn't take away the fact that it can happen...
Being reduced to 1 IP during the treatment you describe for 30 months is (foolish) completely irrelevant...
And here's what the book says about raising Magic:

So if your magic is 3, it would be 12 karma...
If your magic was 4 and you lost a point due to essence loss, you magic would be 3...
And the new rating would be 4, ergo 12 Karma...
It doesn't say anywhere that magic loss due to essence doesn't count when improving the magic attribute...
The book does state that, for example, muscle toner doesn't count when improving with karma, and the adept power improved attribute does...
Now, I'm not defending it being logical, good or right, I'm just saying that by RAW, this is how it is...

Question for everyone: At what level of Magic is a Rating 2 Power Focus useful? The only reason I bring this up is this post...

Actually, it depends on the spellcasting skill and other modifiers, too. If you have a low spellcasting skill as well as a low Magic, the extra dice can help. What the original poster was referring to was the fact that spellcasting hits are capped by the spell Force. So a Force: 2 spell could only have 2 hits, meaning anything more than six dice or so for spellcasting will probably be wasted. The person who wanted the Magic of 2 planned to overcast spells at Force: 4 a lot, though, so a power focus probably would be useful in that case. It seems a bit weird, though, to deliberately gimp your Magic, then get an expensive magical item to boost your dice pool back up.

As far as the viability of a Magic: 2 mage, I would say it is like a sammie with a pistols skill of 2 - good enough to take out the mooks, but not up to tougher threats. If the campaign isn't too heavy on combat, you could get away with it, but otherwise it is not worth the comparatively negligible gain in versatility.

The reason I asked was because I have a Cyber Combat Mage with Magic 4, Spell Casting 4, & Conjuring Skill Group at 3. On top of this I have a level 2 power focus. I just wanted to know the viability of concept.



Unless of couse the mage's spells are those that don't rely on getting a lot of hits early. Healing Spells might take longer, but if you don't mind the wait, then it can work. I'm thinking of a hacker who awoke and then learned enough to be REALLY useful to the party. Or the two bit sammie (ganger) who awoke and learned off a street mage.

Force 2 and always overcasting = Force 4 and never overcasting...
assuming you always can soak the Drain, thus whether the drain is P or S is irrelevant.

The Force 2 Power Focus is worth taking if you'd like +2 DP whenever spellcasting, summoning or binding. In other words, hell yeaz it's an optimal investment of 12 BP at chargen. (If you bought up those skills three directly, 2 ranks each, you'd spend 24 BP, not counting Ritual Spellcasting, and you'd also increase the cost of any later Karma skill rank purchase.) A Spellcasting DP of 9 (skill 5 + magic stat 2 + power focus 2 = 9) is not going to waste; 9 dice will rarely yield more than 4 hits. Extra dice from mentor spirit and specialization are still not wasted. And there's no such thing as wasted extra hits on Summoning and Binding.

If the mage with Magic 2 also has Counterspelling, Assensing, Astral Combat, Summoning and Binding all at 4+, and soft-maxed WIL, INT and LOG/CHA, and a good skillset otherwise, they might contribute more to the party than the 400 BP mage who started with Magic 5. 36 Karma later, the low-starting-Magic character is now Magic 5; meanwhile, his rival who started with Magic 5 spent the same Karma on Magic 6 and Initiation, and still has 30 BP less of everything else.

Riley37, what do you think of my idea of a two-bit sammy that awoke and learned a trick or two from a street mage? Do you think it can work at all?

Thats pretty much the point. Now a 'normal' starting mage will generate 3 hits for drain on average, meaning when overcasting he'll pretty soon have trouble staying alive when casting physical spells. Thus i'd say you might be better off with a spellcasting focus for your favorite class of spells and maybe a mentor spirit or even just a lil more edge, depending on how often it is refreshed in your campaign. The latter will let you cast without capp and thus remove the need to overcast entirely. also the rule of the 6 will grant you 1-2 additional dice normally, thus making your spells even more potent then the variant overcasting at 4. Additionally when using 10 dice you have a chance of roughly 12% to generate 5 or more hits, thus wasting some when not using edge.

You can play with magic 2, if your GM is not into heavy anti-magic on principle. You need an idea what you will do if the enemy has counterspelling.

A bit munchy if you are going to have high magic later, but you can always overlap specialisation and mentor bonus. High edge is double good because you might want to circumvent the limit on hits sometimes. Logic is your drain stat, cerebral boosters 3 are a given. Emphasize support spells, and buy the power focus, which will never come so cheap again.

Consider a starting willpower of 3. No joke. On top of Logic 8, thats a drain resistance DP of 11, quite satisfactory for most spells you will cast.

At Chargen you can only get a Cerebral Booster 2.

I say go for Synaptic Booster 1, Cerebral Booster 1, Commlink, Cyberears 1, and Cybereyes 2. Load the Eyes and ears with their versions of enhancement. Put on top of this the Rating 2 power focus. This is EXPENSIVE (37 BP), but I think it is quite well worth it. With Vision Enhancement 3 and Audio Enhancement 2*, your dice for noticing stuff is going up and if you get the spell Hawkeye and then get a Sustaining Foci, you can get even more hits. You get the slight boost to Logic and you get situational awareness... not too shabby.

* Question for everyone. BBB pg 324 states that Audio Enhancement gives you the ability to hear frequencies outside normal hearing. Augmentation pg 37 states that Increased Sensitivity give you the ability to hear high and low frequencies. Now, my question is... what's the difference? Is there a FAQ/errata to clear this up?