I dunno what 'semantics' is supposed to mean there ("I'm wrong"?), but the fact is that your historical example of volleyed arrows bears no resemblance to MRSI (in real life or, much more importantly, in SR). That's a pretty important difference.

• The rank of their Adept Powers would still be limited by their Magic Rating;
• Buying a Metamagic for 15 Karma is an optional rule;
• if that optional ruleis in play, Full Magicians can do it too (and wind up with twice as many metamagics)

Completely disagree.

Why? The whole point is a tradeoff, not to beat the purebreds at their own games.

Since you're obviously not thinking this through pax....

They end up cherry picking the best of both worlds... they can take full spells... with full spellcasting... (many spells replicate adept powers). And for those things you want constantly, you end up with the adept powers without needing sustaining foci or quickening. They also gain access to everything magical in the book... including all foci (including those normally not available to a straight adept such as a power focus).

And things are 'limited by magic'... please... all that means is that I can cram combat sense 5, and mystic armor 5... and run out of PP. (not the greatest example.. but merely illustrative)... or you could take 4 .25 point powers at rank 5. It's not about quantity of a SINGLE power... it's about sheer quantity of them. You end up with a very very cheap 5 power point full adept, and 5mag mage... complete with initiations for only a fraction of the cost that it costs the mage to raise magic.

Buying metamagics on the cheap actually ISN"T desirable for a full magician, because he needs the damned initiations anyhow... and things like centering, shielding, etc... pretty much every metamagic wants gets a big boost each time you initiate instead. But for the mystic adept... it's a bargain basement option because it means for 15+(10+3xinit grade) you can get the init grade AND a power point each time. (or with the house ruling... 2PP and no metamagic).

Toss in just take a dose of a drug whenever you need to project, and what's left which makes a full magician a great choice? Also mild addiction to start... it gets worse from there... please... only a threshold 4 test... hah you obviously didn't read through Neraph ("The gamemaster can also do away with Addiction Tests and simply determine if, when, and at what severity a character acquires an addiction based upon the character’s roleplaying actions."). Using drugs to render an entire full magician type irrelevant and do the best of all worlds... comes with a cost in my book.


And by try hard to be everything at once... they have tons of points invested in being melee adepts and similar such. Their spells aren't well picked.

And do not forget: Throw in at least two points of ware to get really all the best deals!

Because they have access to both Mage and Adept worlds, Mys Ads are more unlimited in terms of ultimate potential. However, because they have to split Magic between Spellcasting/Summoning and Adept powers, they tend to be slightly weaker than pure Mage or pure Adept out of CharGen. Hope to OP enjoys his Mys Ad character!

@Midas
Exactly thats the point. It tepends on how you read the rules. If you read them the right way, they do not have to. Thats the issue.

Must admit I am not 100% on Mys Ad rules as none of my players play one, but my understanding is that you are wrong. Although the Mys Ad's full Magic score is used to determine max spell force/summoning force/adept powers, the Spellcasting DP only uses the number of dice allocated to Mage use and PP for Adept use respectively. So the Mys Ad has lower DP for his magery than a full mage and less PP to play with than a full Adept, as well as the inability to astrally project or astrally perceive without spending 1PP on it (which is something that he is gonna want to do sooner or later). Not a major nerf, I admit, but a nerf nonetheless.


For the record, by my house rules Mage and Mys Ad cost 15BP and Adept 10BP (with choosing a Way only 5BP a la Mentor Spirit). Not that this has any bearing on the discussion at hand ...

@Midas
Making an example.
There is a rule, that you can't have more powerpoints active than your magic attribute.
If you take the Full magic attribute for that, you may as well use initiatons to get additional powerpoints.
So you just put one Magic-point twords "powerpoints" you can just take initations to get additional "powerpoints".

Since for magician the most important thing is a high raiting it does not really matters. (If you are able to buy additional techniques for 15 Karma, it even matters less.)
So the avarage mage can have your avarage with magic 5. You just put one point in "beeing an adept".
Now you have a 4/1 mysadept.
Now Karma goes by and you increase your magic to 7/1 with lets say 6 initations. You are a normal mage and you need auramasking, extended and lets get Centering.
Now you have a mysadept with 4 powerpoints and 7 dice for magic working in most other ways as a mage or an adept with magic 8.
if you want to put it to the maximum you take 6 powerpoints and just buy your techniques for 45 Karma. So you are a mysadept with 7 powerpoints 7 dice for magestuff and you function as a adept and a mage with magic 8...

What you are talking about here is very high-level Shadowrun. Characters with hundreds of Karma. Most campaigns never get there, I suppose.

So, yeah, Mystic Adepts are very potent when they get there. Awakened characters outgrow mundanes eventually.
Whether that becomes a problem is very much dependent on the playstyle of the group, though. If it does, there are enough options to do something about it.

BTW, getting a PP instead of a Metamagic technique is an optional rule, too, as is buying techniques for 15 Karma.

If you are bothered by those: Don't use them! Problem solved.

Or simply don't use the buying of Metamagic techniques with 15 Karma, making the choice for Mystic Adepts a real one. That should suffice already.

Bye
Thanee

@Thanee
Yes, you do not start there and you maybe do not end there. The point is the way is there. You may only get up to 3 powerpoints or even only 2. Still the same issue (just smaller).


Thats what a lot of people said. They do not allow those for mystic adepts. Or you can rule the seperation of the magic attribute a bit stricter. (The combined only counts for non-adept-powers)
There are dozens of ways to handle it. Just saying, if you go the "friendly" way, it is more than just a bit overpowered.
If you go the mean way, he is quite hard to build.

Yep, and that surely is something one should be aware of.

There are a number of factors to consider, some are very much dependent on the specific group and their playstyle, too.

And then, the "golden middle" should be found by using or not using certain optional rules and maybe even using house rules, if necessary.

Bye
Thanee

... and they'll never be quite as good at either world, as a pure Mage or a pure Adept. They'll always be just a few PP, or just a few spellcasting/summoning dice, behind the curve. Also, they won't have Projection, and even Astral Perception will cost most such characters one of their Adept PP.


No, not full spellcasting. They'll be short 1 die per PP they began the game with, on their spellcasting die pool. Maybe more.


First off, getting a PP instead of a metamagic is an optional rule. You don't have to allow it.

Second, if you're still limited to 5, thus have a Magic of 5; and have 5 magic available for spellcasting ... then you started with, what, a 5-0 split? And thus, you have had to Initiate five times to get to that point ... spending 95 Karma to get there. And since you've talked about the 15-per "loose" Metamagic acquisition too, I assume you'll load up with five of those. That's another 75 Karma ... 170 total. That is quite an ADVANCED character. Missions would be pointing at them and saying "retirement time, sonny."

The same character as a straight-up Adept, for 170 more Karma? The same five initiations, plus raising their Magic by 2 points (to 7). They wind up with 12PP, more than twice the MysAd's total. Andhigher limits on power ranks, should it matter. And OH HEY, they still have another 10 Karma unspent. So that sixth initiation is closer for them, too!

Or the same deal, as a full Mage. Two extra dice for spellcasting, maximum Spell and Spirit force, etc. Plus five metamagics, and grade 5 initiation. And those 10 Karma points left over, still.


Aside from the metamagic, all an initiation really gives a full mage is the opportunity to raise their Magic. I can see buying a couple "loose" metamagics along the way as being quite a reasonable trade-off.


I would never allow a "loose" metamagic, for only 15 Karma, to gain the adept a full PP. That solves half of that problem right there.

The rest? I don't see the problem. I really don't. Because for the first grade of initiation, they're spending 28 Karma ... for the second, 31 ... for the third, 34 ... and right away, "just raise your magic by 1" is already cheaper (assuming you start with a 5 magic) than initiating again. That 5th initiation cost 25 points; plus 15 for ametamagic puts it at 40. And I would really have to ask why they didn't just raise their Magic attribute by 1, at that point.

@_Pax._
Yes, it only works with optional rules. A lot of adept powers is in the wind too. Making them more or less usefull for mages. (By a lot)

Again it depens:
If you do not allow the optional rule to get a metamagic for 15 Karma, the splitting hurts a bit more.
If you do not allow the optional rule to safe Karma if initiating due to groups and ordeals, it hurts again. (Making initiation more expensive)
If you do not allow the optional rule to get a powerpoint instead of a metamagic technique if initiating, it hurts the mysadept real bad. (Making it only a viable option in order to abuse some powers)
If you rule strictly on those powers, well this door keeps closed, too.

So yeah, it depends on the group. Thats what has been said since page one.

So, lets cut to the chase an do the math.
Raising magic (if you are having a total magic of 5) =30
Initiations:
One: 8-13
two: 18-29
three: 30-48
That means, if you are smart about it, you get three powerpoints for the price you would get one point of magic. And since the rule, that you can only have a number of powerpoints "active" up to your magic attribute does not really bother you...
You still get the initiation ranks! So if you can now get your 4. initiation for 14-22 Karma, you can use this technique (for example centering) with a rank of 4.
If you are approaching the 6. Initiation for 17-28 Karma it depends on with which rules you play. If your group does not allow for discount you should thing of buying a technique for 15 Karma. If your group does not allow this rule neither, it tends to end here. 30+ Karma is a lot and I guess it will not be worth it for much longer...

So best case: You need around 100 Karma to get from 4(mage) /1 PP to magic 5(mage)/4 pp/6 Initation/ 3 Initation techniques...
So yeah, that is quite nice. A mage could have 6 spellcasting dice, 6 initiations and 6 techniques.
If you allow for buying single techniques, well you get those three for another 45 Karma.
It gets worse for the mage the farther you go. 7. Initation? Magic 7 (35 Karma), Initation (19-31 Karma). 8. Initiation: Magic 8 (40 Karma), Initiation 21-34 Karma.
Here buying up magic is really not worth it much longer. So Initiations too, drop out of the picture. Making it a better choice to buy those techniques with Karma...
So yes, it is not a punpun kind of character. It takes a lot of time to really outperform a mage in every aspect.. But it is most likely better since the first 50 Karma.

Your Initiation grade cannot exceed your magic. So our putative Magic 5 Mystic Adept, can only get to Initiation Grade 5, before he too has to start upping his Magic attribute.

And those 45 karma you so casually tossed at learnign some metamagics? The pure Mage spends those on another point of magic, or maybe another two Initiations. Or, just buys some Metamagics, too.

@_Pax._
The point is, you take the best of the two worlds and you do not really pay for it. Thats the whole trick.
There are maybe 5 good metamagic techniques in the book. So if you got those, it looks empty for the mage...

And if you are concerned about the Karma costs... What would it take to get agility from 1 to 6? A lot of Karma or one adept power (Mind over matter).
The same thing with reaction.

Sorry Umidori, That was what I Intended (if you look a the post). Apparently I mistook the Willpower Score for the Reaction stat (not sure how, must have been a blond moment). If you see my Quote above, I did say that it was Reaction + Intuition for Initiative, and that you rolled Initiative. That becasue Initiative is NOT Intuition (it is its own figured stat), the Adept ability did not figure into the mix in any way.

Sorry for the confusion. What I get for not proofing it before I posted it.

The problem with that is that in olde tymes (as you put it) they did not actually impact the SAME POINT in the target. They hit the target multiple times. As such, any armor is actually applied as many times as they are hit. So that is not an issue. By the rules, flight times are non-existant, and the MRSI in the game does not work in the same way that the Archers of old worked.

Yeah, I am still a bit confused on the 10-12 Hardened...

Any GM that simply goes "You're addicted" after the first dose of a drug that you have a statistical probability of resisting the Addiction to is a Scumbag GM - akin to one who says "You got shot for 4P damage, mark it down" in combat (without allowing Dodge or Armor Resistance checks) or "You got surprised" (when you have decent Perception pool and vision/audio augmentations). When I mention things I assume that the actual Rules are in use and GM Fiat stays as far away as possible. Anything is possible when GMs directly decide things.

Quickly? They can take 13 or 14 Metamagics (some of which can be taken multiple times for broader effect)... Can't remember the exact number, but I did count them once. Magicians and Adepts have about an even split in that regard.

As for Cheesing them out, you may only have as many Initiations as Magic Rating. So, each initiation counts as an instance, whether you take a PP or Metamagic as a result. I also would include that in the calculation for Number of Metamagics (Magic + Initiations). A PP would count as a slot for that as well. Keeps everything in line and uses the same rules for all concerned. Choose to take a PP instead of Metamagic, well, you used one of your slots. Anything else would be ridiculous, I think.

Oh, and if your GM is allowing you to take a Metamagioc for 15 Karma and then convert that to a PP, he is smoking dope.

Fixed that for you.

Which seems to be your problem here. You play to the Concept, you do not try to be everything at once. That way leads madness...

The current Mys-Ad I play is pretty banging. 2/3 Split (after 280 Karma). He has mastered the Soreceror's Way (I think that is the one), has over 30 Spells, 3 Metamagic Techniques, and has Adept abilities to boost his chosen niche. He is not a combatant, he is a manipulator (so a Face character, to some degree). His spell selection allows him to cover a lot of areas as a support character, and he has no combat spells. He has been a joy to play, does not step on the toes of anyone in the game, and has his moments where he shines.

Of course, we are not allowed to purchase a "loose metamagic" for 15 karma and then convert it to PP either. Again, that way lays madness...

That the one, thanks Neraph...

Have to agree about not letting someone use the "metamagic for PP" rule, at the same time as "15 karma for Metamagic" option. Either, sure. Both in the same game, sure. Both in the same instant ...?

Madness, indeed.

I've voiced my objection on that last bit... but like I said the only reason it hasn't been a problem is the players are complete newbies and didn't know how broken it was or how to build a character to a concept. They took powers merely because they were cool without much matching up between them.

Also, while I enjoy arguing rules here on the forums... in game, I'm very big on the whole... do it as you see fit and keep the game moving rather than getting bogged down into rules. Quick to answer, if asked for an opinion (neutral... commonly point out things in GM's or players favor). Quite frankly, he's running it that way and it's not worth the argument (and yes he is on the deepweed).



A mystic adept face on the other hand has a well done focused concept. There's a lot of synergy in there, I've also played one in the past. Quite a few adept powers which don't have spell equivalents and other things like say increase cha that dovetail well. You're not essentially taking your powers at random and trying to be a full fledged caster/summoner/melee master/face/ninja/gunbunny/wheelman... all at once.


Pax et al.
I strongly believe those two optionals can't even be used together as written. The PP substitution specifically says... "AT INITIATION"... not when gaining a metamagic.

But in any case... I don't have issues with straight adepts and the PP for *initiating*.

Straight adepts really do hurt for lack of useful available metamagics.... once you have adept centering... there's not much else to look forward to outside some of the benefits of masking, and centering if you like that one advanced which allows you to temporarily redline an adept ability (I kinda like that one; though it really needs the ability to use it at less than 100%). That redlining/temporary burnout ability works a lot better with the PP substitution as well (lower magic score/less drain... many more different adept powers to choose from to boost).

It's only the mystic adepts I think it's not necessary for. The primary reason for granting adepts the boost isn't there... lack of metamagics; they qualify for every single meta a mage can take as well as the adept ones. Mystics are plenty good enough and have more than enough points to go around... there are plenty of really cheap powers which are available which dovetail perfectly with a mystic adept (example... attribute boost (agility) + power focus + full magic score; bargain .25pp. attribute boost (reaction)... same... paired with sustained increase reflexes spell, the adept powers activate very quickly when needed for a solid boost and normally last plenty long enough for 1 drain *laf*).

Toss in cyber/bio optimization and it starts to get really sick (you can drop out Powers as you get cyber replacements for them eating up their essence space... yeah I had 1.5PP in rank 1 increase ref... then I dropped $$$$ on synaptic 3 and lost 2 points of magic... naturally the 1.5PP of increase ref went away along with .5PP of something else).

Mystic adepts qualify for skills and foci not available to straight adepts... like the above example shows... there's a few adept powers which roll magic + whatever... they all benefit from a power foci (not available to a straight adept... but mystic adepts get a lot of mileage out of them). Toss out a manipulation sustaining focus and suddenly spells like elemental aura become rather nasty... why bother with the inferior elemental strike ability in comparison. Another solid example is a mystic adept can take counterspelling (replacing a magic resistance power)... while a straight adept cannot use the skill.

About the only thing which bones out a 5mag/5PP/5metamagic mys adept with a R4 power focus is that they're a lot more susceptible to background counts. (lose 1 point of mag... you lose your extra PP as well, as well as one of your metamagics... and your power focus reduces in effectiveness as well... however... as a mystic adept things like cleansing are an option). A mage on the other hand tends to have a 2-4 point buffer between their magic score and init grade when they start losing access to metamagics.

I can't find anything that says adepts can only use weapon foci. I can see it inferred by the wording of other foci ("a magician can use..."), and I can tell that adepts gain nothing from having a spellcasting focus bound, but I do not see it expressly stated anywhere that they can only bind weapon foci.

You know something... it's not in SR4a now... and of course... they didn't stick it in the SR4a change reference errata.

In the prior SR4 book it outright said
"Adepts may only bond to weapon foci. Magicians and mystic adepts can bond to any type of focus."

So strike that as old and errata'ed away since it's no longer in the SR4a book.
Still though I can only see an adept having any use for a weapon or power focus. None of the others do anything of use to them.

I can't think of any good reasons why adepts shouldn't have other types of foci.

For example, an adept could have a sustaining focus such that, while they can't cast any spells to sustain with it themselves, other people could cast a spell on them and their focus could sustain it instead of the mage's own focus.

~Umi

Spell locks (sustaining foci) have never in any edition of the game ever allowed anyone OTHER THAN the person bonded to it to activate it. To the best of my knowledge... all foci have always only been usable/activatable by the person bound to it.

A mage activates his own sustaining focus by the act of casting a spell through it.

So no Umi... Closest thing is the adept living focus power in street magic... which only transfers the -2 sustaining penalty from the mage to the adept.

... and then to the focus that the adept has.

No Neraph... the adept CANNOT activate a sustaining focus.

Read the activation rules... the ADEPT would need to cast the spell through the focus to activate it... even a mage CANNOT transfer an already cast spell to a sustaining focus. He needs to cast it into it... the adept power is a weird exception allowing the mage to cast the spell into something else besides himself or his sustaining focus.

As others have pointed out that PP instead of metamagic at initiation is an optional rule.

The way I see it though, even if you do use the rule it is an either/or choice. If a character opts for the PP rather than the metamagic, I wouldn't then allow same character to turn around and buy a metamagic with karma for quite a while in game, and I would probably require him to gain a metamagic via initiation first. The character made a big decision to focus the magical benefits of his initiation internally (the PP) rather than on deepening his understanding of magic (the fancy-pants metamagic). If the same character were to turn around a few runs later and decide he suddenly wanted to deepen his understanding of magic and buy the metamagic because in metagame terms the player has worked out it is cheaper in terms of karma, I would tell him where to go (unless it was in character, i.e. he followed a flighty flip-floppy tradition).

The other point is that anything your Mys Ad can spend karma on, so can the full Mage or pure Adept. If your Mys Ad can buy a metamagic for 15 karma, so can the mage and so can the adept. And because the Mys Ad is probably splitting his experience between mage metamagics and adept metamagics/PPs, he will still be behind the curve vis a vis the pure mage or the pure adept with the same total karma. Admittedly he will have access to both worlds so there will be things he can do that the pure mage/adept can't, but he still won't be as strong in each world as the pure form. The trick with playing a Mys Ad well, as TJ pointed out, is to look for synergies. And, as others have pointed out, any Mys Ad powercreep probably won't start making a huge difference until the characters are approaching prime runner territory.

Falconer did not say anything about the GM deciding to say "You're addicted" after taking a drug once (and yes, that would be a dick move), he said "Take a drug any time you want to project ... " which to me implies semi-regular use (I guess it depends how often said Shade-smoker projects).

The RAW is deliberately vague on how often addiction tests should be called for, so like it or not that is something the GM directly decides. If and when the GM does decide to call for an addiction test, one bad roll and you could gain a Mild Addiction for your trouble. The GM might decide to allow you to use Edge to reroll failures once or twice, but would be entirely within his rights to not allow this, or tell you that you're pushing your luck and next time Edge ain't gonna save you.

I could see a GM rewarding a perennial drug abuser (for instance someone who speedballs combat drugs every time he gets into combat, and gets into combat a lot) with an automatic Mild Addiction. I guess it just boils down to the question "Do you trust your GM?", and if not, why are you playing in that game ...

Actually in this case Neraph... the rules specifically say... no roll is necessary by the GM's discretion.

So in this case, you're taking the GM's place in assuming that a roll will be granted for continued use. Again, RAW makes a point to outright say a GM may just outright give you the quality for drug abuse. No roll required.


Midas:
I mostly made that post to provide a bit of feedback to others about some of the worst abuse I've seen. If you want to watch a game devolve from shadowrun to magicrun (no non-magical need apply). Then a lot of those optional rules are a great way to get there if used unrestricted.

@Midas

There is no "curve".
Every character has to split his karma.

Shadowrun is not DnD. You do not have a linear progression and you have no classes.
This means it costs the same to raise magic from 8 to 9 than it costs to raise magic 3 to 5.

This automatically implies that any chance to get something for the "down" costs or even linear costs will prove to be superior at one point.

As long as you do not play with the "optional" rules, mysadepts are very hard to build. Because yes, now you have to really split your magic. (Splitting Karma is something everybody has to do)
True, this one dice for spellcasting/summoning or whatever might be worth one point of adept powers. But still, it is lost.
The second you have a amount of Karma it will cost you, you outsmarted the system. (Unless the amount of Karma is too high to be usefull)

Why? Because Karma has no solid exchange course. There are often several ways to get the same effect, but the Karmacosts are different.
For example: Getting several IPs.
There is an adept power, which costs 4 PP for 3 IPs. There is an echo, which has to be taken three times, there is ware, which would make you rebuy magic or ressonace.
Same thing for skills. There are adept powers to increase skills, there is ware, there are echos to use skillsofts there is ware for that and probably much more.
Everything with its own "karmacosts".
What does this mean?
Getting more options sometimes allows you to save Karma. If your only restriction for those "options" is that you have to pay a fixed amount of Karma, you will be ahead eventually.

It is the same with essence loss or biowires and so on.

The best way to show this, is the cybermage.
You got two mages, both starting with magic 3. (Lets say they are aiming for a long game and only started with 400 Karma)
Now as the runs go bye the both get Karma. Mage one raises its magic and mage two just does not know what he wants and saves it up.
The first 50 Karma were given out and mage 2 has a solid magic of 5.
Mage one thinks, hey I want to be cybered up!
So he buys some ware, and spent 1.5 essence on it. So his magic drops to 1. Damn he thinks, need to buy it back. So he spends 45 Karma and now has a magic of 4.

So our mage 2 has just exchanged 25 Karma for two points of ware. Now lets say he has used a muscle toner to get his agility from 3 to 5. He already got back that Karma.
The Karma will be able to buy less and less. But the Boni the ware gives our second mage stays the same or even improves.

You are wrong, there is a curve: PCs may spend some karma increasing attributes, rounding out skill-sets and buying off negative qualities, but they will more than likely plough a lot of their karma/cash in their "main" field of expertise, at least until they can't improve much/any more. This is especially true for awakened characters with effectively unlimited progression. How many awakened characters do you know who don't initiate/buy spells/increase Magic and skills associated with their mojo?

Either way, this is beside the point. If you give a Mage, an Adept and a Mys Ad 100 karma to spend freely, they may all spend varying amounts of it buying specializations and skill ranks in secondary skills and whatnot, but the mage will almost certainly be better at the spellcasting/summoning side of things than the Mys Ad and the Adept will similarly be better at adepty things than the Mys Ad.


True, there may be more karma-efficient ways to do things for the various builds - for instance, an Adept or Mys Ad can use PP to Increase Skill for less karma than the mage would spend learning the skill normally, but if the mage decides he needs a bunch of skills he is more likely to save his karma for initiations and sacrifice a point of Magic for skillwires. So what?

As for enhancing IPs, Mages will tend to go the spell and sustaining focus route, Adepts and Mys Ads for either the PP enhancement or a synaptic booster. There are pros and cons to each method, but each player will choose the method that best suits their character and gameworld. Again, so what?



I fail to see a problem with your cybermage example. Both mages made legitimate choices. Mage 2 has focussed on improving his Magic and has a higher Magic than mage 1 (and with it has the ability to cast higher force spells/summon higher force spirits). Mage 1 has taken a bunch of cyber/bioware for the various benefits these provide him ... including that Muscle Toner that helps him shoot and Infiltrate better. The next run, Mage 1 physically sneaks and shoots some, while Mage 2 relies on his higher force Invisibility and Stunbolt to greater effect. There are pros and cons to each choice, and yes Mage 2 will lose out if he decides to 'ware up later on, but that is what is called an Opportunity Cost: he chose to get more magically powerful earlier and reaped all the advantages thereof for a karma tradeoff later (when he gets the 'ware). Again, why is this a problem?

@Midas

And thats were you are totally wrong. If I can spend 1.5 Powerpoints and get to use my logic for any test involving agility, thats fucking awsome.
The Karma to make up for that... Even if we are just talking about using a logic 5 instead of an agility 3, we are talking 45 Karma for 1.5 pps.
Talking skills. Getting an increased skill power gives you +1 skillpoint for 0.25 to 0.5 powerpoints. Getting a skill from 3 to 4 is 8 Karma.
(If you are flying by the 6 the costs just go through the top.)

Now, if one pp costs 15 Karma, do the math.


Well, it depends on his magic score. If he already got magic 8, well it might not be worth it. And depending on how you handle essence loss, it might be never worth it. Depends...
But as a matter of fact, it is the SAME ISSUE. If you can use one point of ware for a given amount of Karma it is (on the long run) better than sacrificing one point of magic.


Alright. Nothing with going one way or the other. But if you got yourself a way, where you only pay a fraction, it is questionable...


Yeah, and here you just choose to not see a problem. Everything forces you to make some sacrfices. It becomes a problem if the "sacrifces" are minimal opposed to the gain.

The Attribute Boost drain absolutely necessitates houseruling IMO.
At my table it's the average of power rating and Magic rating round down.

There are so very many places where it talks about GM's discretion with rules that the default is to use the rule instead of GM's discretion, since GMs will vary and their discretion will vary. The default should be the rules, not fiat, and that is my point.

Why? Attribute Boost is a good utility power to me. You know, like the Increase Attribute spells are. Except that the Attribute Boost has more potential Drain than the F/2-2 of the Spell does. So, I can go with a Force 6 Spell for 1 Drain. Likely to get 6 Hits too, if my spellcasting is any good. If my Adept is Good and has his Attribute Boost at 2 and his magic at 6, that is 8 Dice, for 2-3 hits, for a limited time. AND IT HAS MORE DRAIN already... No need to increase the drain, in my opinion.. If anything, drain should be decreased and duration should be increased. Of course, in most instances, I rarely see an Attribute Boost above Rating 1 anyways, so.

Fortunately I do not have War, so no Mind over Matter adept power on my table. Other posters seem to think it is broken, so the less said about it the better. As for the Increase Skill power (which in my book is one of the best adept powers, especially for non-combat skills), I addressed that already, the mage can opt for Skillwires if he would prefer to save his karma for initiating and raising his Magic. Also please note that if said mage can summon Task spirits to help him in a given task, he may not need to have such a high skill rank to get a reasonable DP.


Not sure what you are saying here ... If a mage has a Magic of 8 (or whatever), he could get a shedload of skills for the karma it would cost him to raise his Magic to 9, so yes, a high Magic mage might not want to lose Essence, his choice.


No offence, but all the people who bitch about how unfair it is that low Magic mages who take cyber take less of a "karma hole" than high Magic mages who take cyber tend to be powergamers who always want to play high Magic mages. Get over it. That is the opportunity cost you pay to be an awesome mage straight out of CharGen.
If they want to take advantage of this "loophole", they are welcome to play Magic 3 mages out of CharGen themselves, but oh no, these idiots would NEVER do that. Nor would they ever complain that this percieved "karma hole" is largely mitigated in BP CharGen by the fact that soft-capping or hard-capping Magic gives you more karma-equivalent bang for your BP than taking a modest Magic of 3 anyway.

Exactly my motivation - by RAW raising an AB power to 2 is too costly in drain for a measly one extra die as opposed to, say, getting another AB power for the same cost. Whereas you can add dice by raising Magic without increasing the drain at all which is something all magic-users want to do anyway. Hence scaling the power is practically unheard-of, which I consider to be innately indicative of a problem.

I don't see any reason to make the power comparable to the spell - adepts and magicians are different characters with access to different abilities so like-for-like doesn't make sense.

I think we are on the same page.

@Midas

Alright. Actually very easy.
You have mage who gets himself skillwires, while he has magic 5.
Option one:
Increasing magic back to 5 costs 25 Karma
Option two:
Increasing magic back to 5 costs 30 Karma.

Now this mage got up to magic 8 again.
Option one: The costs of skillwire are now 25 Karma
Option two: The costs of skillwire are now 40 Karma.
To get skillsoft worth 25 Karma, no sweat. 40, very hard.

So this thing depends on how much you need to pay to get it and how it is ruled.

Now, normally a mystic adept is splitting his magic between adept and mage. Meaning if he take 3 powerpoints, he loses 3 points as a mage.
Now, the second you can buy one point for a given Karma, it is potential for abuse.
Same thing with the cyber adept. Why do you think cyberadepts are so great?
It is not the synergy. It is the fact that you get to add two sources of power and it only costs you a given amount of Karma. (Option one)
The second you use option two, they go down. The second you force mystic adepts to split, they get much weaker.


Lol. First char I played, cybermage because the second I just glimpsed at the rules, that was obvious. As I wanted to increase my magic in game, the GM made me pay the higher costs. As I asked why, he just said: Everything else would be total abuse of the system. And yeah, he was right.
So, please. Every powergame worth its salt knows that this is a freaking big loophole. They take a force 4 Powerfocus and drop their magic for ware. If you are a real smart powergamer and using the optional rules for adepts you use a mystic adept like neraph described him. (And actually, it is quite hard to call the guys doing the first thing powergamers, they just read the rules. The second thing is probably worth to be called powergaming)

By RAW Option 1 is the way the costs are calculated, although I see from this forum that some GMs do go with Option 2 as a house rule.


Allowing adepts to gain a PP at initiation instead of a metamagic is an Optional Rule, so if you and your group don't like it you don't have to play it. Also, as I said before, I would not allow a PC to make the choice to gain a PP at initiation and then buy a metamagic cheaply, but YMMV.


As noted above, this is not RAW, but a fairly common house rule. I myself am happy with the RAW in this case: as I have repeatedly said, starting out with a lower Magic score is very limiting on a character's effectiveness as a mage. Even with the Restricted Gear Power Focus 4, Magic caps the max force the mage can cast at, and force of spirits he can summon. Low Magic might be less disadvantageous for an Adept, but that's just the way it is.

Also, the GM doesn't necessarily need to approve a rating 4 Power Focus for a starting character if the character does not have a high loyalty Talismonger contact or somesuch. Even if he does, such a powerful focus might be coveted by any number of NPCs, so good luck to the low Magic mage trying to keep hold of it ...

@Midas
The problem is, it is not really a big limitation.
Lets say you do BP-Gen.
You start with magic 5 and a powerfocus 4, powergamers choice.
(As an smart alternative you may just take one point of cyber instead of buying physical attributes. This can be very handy, if your GM allows for second hand.
So lets take reaction enhancer, muscle toner and muscle replacement. Getting maybe strength 2, agility 3 and reaction 3, instead of 1/1/1.
Now you have more of your 200 BP to put in the other attributes, giving you better deals. (High body, edge and drain attributes)
Now you are going to do some initiations. Maybe three times.
At this point, you are (compared to a normal mage) one point of magic behind but you have higher attributes. Physical and mental (or maybe an higher edge).

Now, you pile up Karma and only buy some specs. Maybe after 6-8 Runs, you got around 60 Karma.
Now the mage you compare to, will probably use this Karma to get higher magic. Meaning he will increase to 6 for 30 Karma, with 5 more even to seven.
You go the extrem way here and drop your magic with cheap ware to one and buy it up to 4 or 5. Leaving you 2 Points behind the other mage.
If the game goes on and the other mage increases magic up to 10 you can follow up to 9 with 25 additional Karma.

It is even worse with adepts in Karma Gen.

The point is, it is not really a problem, if you do not really go for it. Dropping your magic from 5 to 4 for ware costs 25 Karma RAW and would (even considering magic 10) only cost 50 BP with the houserule. The differance is not really worth mentioning. If you drop 5 to 1 it is 70 to 200. Using an adept and going 1/2 untill you got your essence used up (down to 2.XX), would only be 40.

Which are all viable character options to play. They DO have drawbacks.

Irion,

You seem to be strongly opposed to awakened characters taking 'ware. As TJ kindly pointed out, by RAW such characters are viable options. Feel free to use the (apparently common) houserule that karma costs for raising Magic are the equivalent to raising that attribute before Essence reductions for 'ware are factored in, or even houserule against awakened characters having any 'ware at all in your game. Problem solved.

Please also remember the fact that the GM must approve a character sheet before it is used on his table. I for one would not approve a mage character who took 3 of his physical stats at 1, and addressed the Power Focus 4 issue in my post above, but YMMV.

@Midas
No, I am not opposed to this option. The point is, that there are ways to make it smart and get away with paying very little for it.
I mean, honestly, you do not have to be a genius to get that.


And thats something I really can not stand. Its "the rules are fine but don't play by them".
Does a player have not the right to choose his or her attributes?
Thats really the most basic thing during character generation.

Are two attributes at one OK?

This is the argumentation I get a lot, considering this sepecial topic.
And I really do not get it. If you do not mind it, why are you against characters who are doing it?
Whats the differance between getting 1(3) or 3 in your attribute?
So what you are saying is simply, the rules are OK, I just ban an adept who takes (too much) cyber (too cheap)?

This is something I do not like. There should not be GM fiat in Chargen.

So greater dragon contacts and free spirit pacts for all then?

More seriously, suppose the GM had customised the setting? For example, in my current campaign Seattle has been under quarantine for a couple of months and it's all gone a bit to hell, which impacts somewhat (albeit not a lot) on what I'll allow at chargen. I'd put it that a GM doesn't even need to be so formal about it - if a player points to something in the books the GM can simply say "not in MY Seattle".

I take your point about the attributes, but GM fiat is never out of the question - he provides the game, what he says goes even to the point of defying player dice rolls. His incentive to obey Wheaton's Law is the same as always - if nobody likes his game then nobody will play it.