So, since there's really no other way to do it, I'm looking at Quickening some Health spells onto my group's characters, to provide some permanent Attribute boosts. Now, if I go the tattoo/scarification route, I can throw down 500 nuyen and (Force x 3) Karma to give the spells (Force x 3) resistance dice. The question is, how many resistance dice is "enough"?

If I push up to Force 12, I can spit out 36 resistance dice - which is a decent amount (9 auto-hits using the 'buy hits' rule). How often will something come along that can out-dispell that? Also, is there any way to activate/deactivate Quickened spells, so they can pass through barriers and such without having to be re-cast? For example, if a spell is masked using the Extended Masking meta-magic, will it still have to fight through barriers?

Hrm. Of course, considering that I can only mask spells with a Force equal to my Magic attribute, that drops it back down to Force 6, and thus 18 resistance dice (4 auto-hits). Slightly less impressive - but would that be enough?

if you have the needed metamagics to pull that off, shouldn't your magic be a little bit more than 6 allready? O.o
usually, 18 dice to resist despelling should be enough . . but if your GM really wants to hose you, you just have to walk through a background count high enough or into a mana-static spell . .

It probably should be, but I've been saving my Karma for other things. I could buy it to 8, but so far I've only bought it to 6.

I'd say ask your GM. He's the only one that knows what kind of dudes you may deal with trying to dispell your enhancement.

If you were at my table, 12 dice is probably sufficient. And even less could work, as the opposition I would be throwing at you probably isn't going to focus on dropping the mage's attributes down a couple points, but killing you. Also, I put enough wards around that a quickened spell, at any force, is going to alert people.

That's just my take.

(Emphasis Mine)
You can only mask Aura's and such on your own person. You cannot mask anyone else's aura or a quickened/sustained spell on them.

You must have examined the aura of the spellcaster who put up the ManaBarrier/Ward prior to be able to 'spoof' his aura to allow you to pass through it.

So anyone with a quickened spell to get through any ward (especially if they are mundane) must roll to force through a ward/barrier at x2 force of barrier vs x2 force of Spell (+ karma) to pass, thus setting off any and all magical alerts.

Even if I'm the one that cast the spell?

Yep, you can only mask things attached to your aura. You cannot mask anything on someone elses aura.

Plus you cannot deactivate a Quickened spell.

Hrm. So I'm stuck either inventing some weird new 'Super-Quickening' form of metamagic, creating permanent forms of the Increase Attribute spells, or painting huge neon "LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEE!!1!ONE!" signs on my buddies' astral forms.

Apparently, but then permanent attribute boosts without drawbacks would be pretty broken.

Yep plus anyone who specializes in Counterspelling with a counterspelling foci can take a crack at dispelling the quickened/sustained spells you have placed on your buddies, PLUS your aura is kinda imprinted on the spells you have quickened so that leaves you a nice ripe target for Ritual Spellcasting.

Get a nice spirit and show it your aura traces and say find this aura, they track you down astrally and then have a nice astral spotter and WHAMMO!! Crispy Critter mage via ritual sending.

True. I'm considering proposing a form of super-quickening metamagic with the following drawbacks:

Blood Weaving
Prerequisites: Quickening, Sacrifice
Blood Weaving is a dangerous and controversial augmentation to Quickening, which allows a voluntary Sustained spell to become completely permanent. The Spell must be cast using the Sacrifice metamagic technique, with the subject taking at least one level of damage (in the form of ritual tattooing, scarification, branding, or the like). Then, the target of the spell voluntarily takes the Spell into their soul, lowering their Essence by 0.05 per point of Force and paying 3 x Force from their own Karma to Quicken the spell. The Spell's effects then become completely permanent in every way, but may never be turned on or off. If the subject ever wishes to remove the spell, they must pay Karma equal to 10 x Force, at which point the Spell is permanently dispelled.

You call that a drawback?

It's about equivalent to the drawbacks from Bioware and Cyberware, PLUS it costs Karma and Nuyen (for the Quickening materials). Compare it to, say, Muscle Toner.

We dropped quickening shortly after it was introduced with the first Grimoire. Back then, it severly unbalanced the mages compared to sammies. With the drabacks that followed, it became balanced - something one could use in specific sitations, as a "temporary" boost. Not something to have on all the time, as a runner, something equivalent to getting out the heavy armor and weapons for that special occasion.

All in all, using it for permanent stat boosts was useless anyway - if we'd have used it that way, the opposition would have done the same, cancelling its net effect out.

And I'd seriously reconsider your course of action, just take a look at the spells other than stat boosters, and ask yourself if you want them permanently without any drawback (Detection spells mainly, but manipulation spells come to mind as well).

I've gotta agree with Fuch's plus It would be easier to just let the character progress naturally via his own Karma. Plus if he does want to improve his attributes he would have to improve with the new boosted attribute rating in Karma x 3 ( I think that is the karmic cost to improve an attribute rating)

That is far superior to any cyber or bio on the market...ever. For just 0.3 Essence and 18 Karma you too can have a +6 to any (excepting Edge, Magic, or Resonance) attribute. For 0.2, how about +3 Reaction and 4 IPs? I'd use this on myself, give up the extra magic I bought up when I initiated, spend the karma to buy the spare two Metamagic techniques and then go to town with Perma 4 IPs and boosted drain stats. HOORAY FOR UNSTOPPABLE MAGE RAGE!!!!

In short, NO!!!!

Indeed. If you are already going for house rules, and want your whole group to have bigger stats, simply raising racial limits would be far easier.

Why not just implant bio/cyberware and use that karma to initiate and boost your magic? When you start getting to high levels of initiation, what is the real drawback of a lower "natural magic" score?

A 3 magic, 3 essence, level 6 initiate still can have a magic of 9, right? That's overcasting up to force 18. Or am I misunderstanding the effects of lower essence here?

Ack, no wonder everyone's freaking out - an extra '0' got stuck in there. That should be '0.5 Essence per point of force'. (and remember, the Force has to equal the original (augmented) attribute, so if you're already at a 6, you're paying at least 3 Essence).

I'm mostly looking for some way to boost the otherwise-unboostable stats - Intuition and Charisma.

Charisma you can boost through tailored pheromones. Intuition is harder, but there are lots of boosts to skills like Perception, which are based on intuition. Mages can get pain editors, trauma dampers and similar stuff to boost drain resistance tests, or get aid sorcery from spirits, or help from focuses.

What tests exactly do you need boosted from those two attributes?

I'm still not liking the 2 essence for 4 IP thing. I mean I realize that it's less expensive essencewise to pick up bio for those same IPs, but as a mage why not save the money and use it to buy a power focus to make up for the lost magic? All in all, I'm not a fan and wouldn't allow it at my table. As for true boosts to Intuition and Charisma, maybe there's a reason they are unboostable

One never knows until the situation presents itself. Mostly, the Gamist in me is just bugged by the idea that there's stats that you can't "hard-max".

Change tailored pheromones to raise the attribute instead of DP (same limits for when applicable) and you hard maxed it.

Slight derailment maybe, but I was of the understanding that its Charisma, Intuition and Willpower that can't be hardmaxed.

How can I tweak my Willpower you say?

Deepweed

Why not just get some sustaining foci (which you CAN mask, since you keep them on your person) to sustain the spells on your teammates? And you can turn them off as necessary without losing your karma investment (though you'll have to recast the spells of course).

DS