I whipped up a Mystic Adept Face for our group, and took her out on the first run last night. I found that, in numerous situations, i could actively control large groups of goons with things like 'Enthralling Performance' or 'Commanding Voice' from the adept side, and cast Chaotic World to bring them to their knees, and then Influence them to start capping each other off, Alter their memory so they thought they were fighting, and leave them to destroy each other. The problem was, I had a partner getting hit by lots of my effects, leaving me to conclude that the character is probably better off going in solo. Anyways, right out of character generation, this character is way powerful, without even any weapons of direct combat spells. Anyone else think this archtype can get a little out of hand?

Not really. All it takes is a competing mage straight out of chargen with a good willpower, a few combat spells, and a spirit that owes him some services and you'd probably need a new character sheet.

a while back threads were going on about mind spells and social adepts being unbalanced. you just happened to use both at the same time.

Hmm.. To be fair, I often craft powerful magic characters, and our GM rarely uses magical opposition. I'll discuss this with him, although I've been arguing for a fully magical campaign for awhile...

Ironically, magical opposition won't be your biggest headache. You can still brute force your way through another mage and bend him to your will. The combat drones driven by their own pilot programs, given an order of "kill her", will paste you in a hurry.