QUOTE (Hagga @ Feb 19 2009, 10:53 AM)

I asked in a previous thread, that was somewhat related, in a hope of not having to make a new one. No answers, so I thought I'd try here:
Magical strength and grades of initiation, obviously, are not the same. How common is it for an initiate mage to be running around? And the further question - how common is it for the various grades? In Street Magic, there is a grade 5 initiate at the peak of his power - 11 magic. He's in Saeder Krupp's moonbase. How would corps and nations react to him? What if he wasn't employed by a corp, but just ran an enchanting shop? Or was a crime lord in some godforsaken slum?
What about, (my original question) those who make the Lord Protector look like a sickly little girl? People who have done *nothing* but study magic since the start of the Sixth World and are sitting around with grades of 15, 20, 25 with magic at peak potential? How is the world likely to react to these if they are corp or government employed? And worse, those who *aren't* but are independent? I can't help but imagine lynch mobs, or a gauss cannon to the skull at point blank range "Just to be sure", for all three. It's fairly monstrous, after all. (Yes, I know statted dragons have magic that is sitting around 12. Let's face it - that's ridiculous. Given that all the adult dragons were hatched in the previous Age, they're going to have grades of *gulp*.)
As with anything that relates to degrees of power/skill/etc, it should be a steep pyramid...
...The higher you go, the fewer there should be.
People like the Lord Protector should be near the top of the pyramid, by virtue of their access to training, their access to mentors, their access to materials, etc...
...If there are lots of people without those resources, but at his level of power, I think there's something wrong.
Similarly, if Dragons don't have Magic Ratings and Initiate Grades of <stupid number>, then there's an issue [as you say - thousands of years old, life devoted to magic, etc]...
...Either they should have Magic Ratings and Initiate Grade of something ridiculous [which doesn't seem to be the case], or it should be much harder to get to those levels - almost exponentially more difficult, the higher you go, and not just in terms of karma/build point terms.
But then SR [or any game, really] isn't really geared up for characters who are thousands of years old, especially not when they have to interact with non-millennia year olds - look at their handling of people like Harlequin.
Why would there be lynchmobs just for high power Characters ??
Can you, as a blunt, tell who has a high Magic Rating - unless you see them cast a spell ?? Do you know the difference between MR 1 and MR 20, as a person in the street ?? If there are lynchmobs, surely they'd hunt all magic users ??
All the more reason things, resources and materials would watched, limited or just not available.
The requirements for anything above "normal" high level characters would be things that are a quest on their own, things that are are most likely rare or almost impossible to find - and probably not related to money - materials, knowledge, mentor, etc.
Like now - if you do searches on certain topics, the various security organisations are aware, and they will investigate.