Increase Reflexes adds +x IPs and +x to Initiative.
Improved Reflexes adds +x IPs and +x to Reaction.

The latter is still stupid expensive without +PPs from Initiation, but it is a distinct bonus to your Reaction-linked skills like Dodge or Pilot which a mage would need to arrive at by another spell.

Also, focus-dependent characters get hit much harder by BC. All those shiny power pieces just suffocated by a little Domain, and suddenly the Christmas Tree mage gets dragged to the curb as refuse.

Finally, the Adept is a karma-perpetuated killing machine, so he has a whole lot of money to mess about with. Sure, he could get Delta Bio and lose a bit of magic, or, instead, he could buy a pickup truck and fill it with Heimdal guided missiles. He can do some wacky stuff with money, because he's not chasing the next level ______ like everyone else.

As an Adept only costs 5bp and a Magician actually costs 15bp... it should be pretty obvious that the adept is not going to have the full abilities that a Magician can come up with...

That being said... Magicians do not have access to any spell (at least that I am aware of) that raises their actual skill level like the Adept has...

Keep the Faith

Adepts get hit pretty hard by BC as well. I'd say stupidly hard and irritating to deal with on a character management level as well. But yeah people with the magic dohickies get hit harder. In a game where we were playtesting some things the mage I had started with a power focus 4. Man oh man did the admittedly absurd dice pool drop in a BC count.

Depends on the character in question.
Is a cookie-cutter neo-clone fluffwise really that different from a standard cyberpunk hacker with a ton of bioware, stupid glasses and a tacky leather cloak?
Not at all (and, of course, both have a 90% chance to be unbearably godawful).
Does a technoshaman differ from a hacker who specializes in viral networks?
Hell yeah.




I must note that Bruce Lee totally kicked Chuck Norris' ass, and rightfully so.


But to come back to the original discussion :
An important thing to keep in mind here is how long the campaign's going.
If you're gonna play a brief campaign or a oneshot, sams can easily hold their own against mages and wipe the floor with adepts.
As well as the technos will be outshined vastly by a well-built hacker, unless both really specialize in totally different fields.
And don't even get me started with mystic adepts, they'll sink karma point after karma point into their abilities and will still leg behind the more dedicated characters.

With 500 karma under the belt, this may look completely different.

With even more karma, mystic adepts will start to surpass _everything_ else (outside of mancers and AI in their specialties, but that makes up just a small part of the game and unless you waltz into Zürich Orbital on a regular basis, adepts can stand their ground in the matrix, too).
Remember that a lot of adept powers stack with spells that do the same.
Throw in some well-chosen deltaware and at some point, you get a veritable one man army.

For a magician with 6 magic who doesn't have any increased reflex spell, it's 8 karma and 500 nuyen to learn that spell and with his 6 magic he can probably cast it at Force 4 for the full benefit (which is mainly 3 IP, any other benefit is purely ancillary). for an adept with 6 magic who didn't pick up Increased Reflexes III in the beginning, it's going to be 240 karma to pick that power up. If the adept is part of a magical group, with all the restrictions that being a member of a magical group entails, it'll save him a grand total of 14 karma. By the time any group has earned 240 karma, the street sam will have long ago earned enough nuyen for Wired Reflexes III plus a bunch of other cyberware.

The adept seems to have the poorest deal of them all because magic points are far more necessary to the adept than to anyone else (and so bloody expensive) So, here's my proposed fix...

The magician spends karma to increase the Magic attribute normally.
The adept spends karma to increase the Magic attribute as though the Magic attribute were a skill.
For both magicians and adepts, the cost of initiation remains the same.

Problem fixed, I think. The magician, in a very long game, will probably initiate once or twice. The adept, in a very long game, will probably initiate four or five times. In that time, the magician will likely have bought a dozen or two new spells and will be able to cast any of them at full Force (and, with a few foci, be able to sustain a few of them at a time). The street sam will be buying up cyberware left and right and will likely do the same thing that the adept is doing, raising his "skills" (although, with the cost of initiation, the street sam will be buying more skills than the adept can buy). It seems to give about everyone a level and even playing field.

Another fix is the two provided in street magic. First, the adept can give up their metamagic for a PP if they want, and second (and far more useful) is the purchasing of power points for a set cost (15 karma I think). This second one is great in my opinion, as it gives an adept very reasonable access to PP. There is still some incentive to raise magic to a certain point as max ranks in a power is capped by magic, just as there is an incentive for mages to raise magic to up the force they can cast at. And there is still reason to initiate some in order to get those cool metamagics (adept centering and masking) and to improve their metamagics' power.

Just take invoking and spirits who's great form power is astral gateway.

This thread is making me want to create an adept, too!

I wasn't aware of this purchasing PP option. If you have the chance, could you share the reference?

Thanks!

It's in Street Magic, one of the sidebars I think. Let me see if I can find it quick.

Edit:
Hmm, weird, couldn't find it. I did find the rule that allowed an adept to apply geas to their powers to drop the cost by 25%, and I found buying metamagics for 15 karma, but I couldn't find either of the two rules I mentioned. If I could find the first one, I'd be willing to bet that buying the metamagics directly was just adapted to fit that. Anyone else know? I'm sure I've read it in one of the books and not just as a house rule that someone suggested.

Oh, man. I totally got scooped by Karoline while watching Ong Bak 2 (all this adept talk got me in the mood).

I'll try and source the PPs instead of Metamagics rule for you.

Try the Street Magic Erratta Document...

Keep the Faith

Well, hell, why not. Do you want to start the topic, or should I? I'm not sure what all I have to contribute to the discussion, but if you do, by all means, get the ball rolling. I'd love to hear it.

You're right. http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources//sr4/sm_errata_v12.pdf

Honestly, my group usually plays without mages, mysads, or spirits. It's the same idea as avoiding the Matrix: once you have a mage in your game, every enemy has to have magic, and if there's anything astral, the other players are just standing. I feel like SR4 has made it easier to keep the Matrix happening closely alongside the meatspace action, but… yeah, it comes down to taste.

So, our answer to OP is: because adepts fit into a near-mana-less game.

Sometimes, Dumpshock makes me think we need an "Advanced" Shadowrun rulebook put out - for those characters who actually reach the insane heights talked about here, with errata. For the Adept with the attuned sword and 25 degrees of initiation, for example, or the Mage with 30 magic. Not like these are in game, but still.

That optional rule is broken Banaticus. Especially when you get people combining it with learning metamagics for a flat 15 karma w/o initiating. (it's under learning metamagics or something like that also in street magic).

Both those rules were made when both magic and initation attribute costs were much mroe in line.
Remember it used to be magic is (3x NewMagic) just like the other attributes, and initiations were (10+ 3x InitGrade) meaning initations would always cost more than raw magic rating.

Now though the initiations end up costing a lot less than magic points especially when you're looking at buying things up to say magic 5 or 6... Then the only reason you care about magic is for magic-linked adept powers (not many), and the power rating caps.

With the change to SR4a... if you use it I suggest only doing .5PP and not a full PP for initating. (remember there are a lot of things which add +1 dice per initiate grade or per 2 init grades... so getting that AND getting a full PP worth of powers for less than just buying the PP is a bit whack).

I'm glad someone finally pointed this out.

Awesome - thanks! Does this mean we're applying the 15 pts for metamagic and then switching the metamagic for a PP? I'm not sure if that's RAW, but it does make adepts a lot more viable early on in the game.

Well, there's always the Infusion Metamagic technique. It's a temporary .5xInit Grade PP boost above and beyond Magic ratings for (magic)xMinutes. It causes some stun damage, but whatevs.

And Infusion Foci from the Digital Grimoire are quite good.

To me the mystic adept is just an adept that has bought spell power as an adept power. Why have mystical adepts at all, just make them adepts.

That's not the problem. The problem isn't that mages can just go boom and you're dead without any of the normal stuff that you use to dodge/parry/tricksy-dodge, the problem is that mages get access to new stuff so cheaply. New spells are only a few nuyen on the Matrix and it's only a few karma to memorize it. With a small investment compared to every other character, magicians gain the ability to do "anything" and to do it well.

You know, the more I think about this, the less I like it. I've gone on at length about how the adept is weaker than every other class, when a game runs for a good while, and the "fix" is that an adept should be able to get more powers by giving up the uber cool stuff that can't be purchased any other way? Even the "you can initiate for 15 nuyen" is pretty craptastic, because the huge cost of raising magic is the raising magic part -- initiating is really an ancillary cost.

That does make adepts a lot better, possibly a little too much better, depending on how much nuyen runners earn in the average mission. Two missions is suddenly the equivalent of buying some cybereyes with some mods. 13 missions is about as much as Wired Reflexes III, a 100k nuyen investment. Actually, that might be right about spot on.

Nice one!

Bye
Thanee

Well, counterspelling is pretty nasty; it means enemies suddenly have a real chance to take no damage from direct combat spells. Last fight we had was basically about whose side's mage got geeked first. After they killed the HTR mage, the HTR was willing to negotiate.

Mages are really powerful as long as nothing hinders them, but they slow down considerably in
- Poor vision
- Counterspelling
- Background Count

Serious HTR mages should learn Mana Static, I suppose.

Suppose a background count N:
- An Adept loses N PP.
- A mage has -N magic; this means nearly all his buff spells become prohibitively expensive, and his chances at killing someone with a spell are rather thin unless he's willing to risk +N drain and overcasting.

In my experience even a BC of 2 was enough to really slow down a normal M5 mage.

HTR mages need to learn Mana Static.

Basically yes. One rule says you can trade in metamagic for power points, and the other says you can buy metamagic. No real reason you couldn't trade in those metamagics for power points again.



I'm really confused here. Being able to get a power point for 15 karma sucks because raising magic is expensive?

That's the entire point of this rule, that since in core rules, the only way for an adept to improve is raising magic, and raising magic is prohibitively expensive, this gives ways to get some extra power without spending 100 karma to do so.



How do you figure? They increased the karma cost to raise attributes. For most characters this had no affect. For mages it had the affect of meaning they advance entirely through initiation as opposed to even raising magic, which is generally better than them because that means they have access to more metamagics, and all their metamagics are more powerful.

Adepts on the other hand got completely screwed by this, because suddenly their only way to improve became twice as expensive. I don't think the two rules presented are broken because of 4a, I think they're required because of 4a. Remember, they can only buy one extra power point for 15 karma per initiation grade, so they'll still have to initiate. Basically this lets them keep up with mages by giving them the same route to increased power. If you want to say trading in a metamagic should only get you .5 power points, you should also say that it requires two initiations to get a single metamagic, and that all buffs from initiation should only be based on half initiation grade, because that keeps it in line with the increased magic cost. Also, all 'ware should cost twice as much now to compensate for the fact that attributes cost twice as much. Oh, and skills, don't forget increased cost of skills.

See my point? Just because a chance was made that happens to screw a particular group (Almost certainly by accident), doesn't mean that any change that unscrews that group is wrong.

Asking an adept to pay for a full point of magic (plus initiation) every time they want to raise their abilities would create a game where nobody plays adepts. A magician can learn a new spell to kill stuff with for 5 karma, no initiation needed. street sams can raise any killing things skill by (new rating x2), not to mention the cyber and bio they can cram themselves with only a nuyen penalty in hand. Now, the adept wants to increase his power levels -- this will cost him dozens of karma, and at the absolute least (raising magic from 1 to 2, initiation level 1) 17 karma. The optional rule of power points at initiation not only makes adepts playable, but it makes them viable.

It also makes Mystic Adepts by far the best "class" in the game. Get your natural magic to 6, and then every initiation you can take a power point. Now, you can do everything a mage or an adept can do, better, and more cheaply, since your spellcasting abilities are high and you can easily focus on pumping in adept powers.

Not exactly, you're sacrificing powerful metamagics in exchange for adept powers, and karma spent on adept powers is karma not spent on new spells. So yes, while you can do anything a mage can do (except project) and can do anything an adept can do, you won't be able to do everything that both a mage and an adept could do, because you'll always be lagging behind each of them in their own field of expertise, which is fine. It's the old 'jack of all trades master of none' thing.

Not much of a sacrifice when you can buy any metamagic for 15 karma outside of initition...and honestly there are about 4 useful metamagics in the game, so it's not a HUGE downside.

Oh, and just to be clear: when the adept intiates, he can choose a power point instead of a metamgic. This does NOT cost an additional 15 karma. It only costs the price of the intiiation.

no matter what a mage will always be a better spell slinger and or conjurer.

Yes, I know, but my point is that you will never have the same amount as either a pure mage or pure adept would have. When you trade a metamagic for a powerpoint, that is one less metamagic you have over a mage. When you spend 15 karma for a power point, that is three extra spells a mage has over you. When you get a metamagic, that is one power point an adept has over you, and when you get three spells, that is another power point the adept has over you, and this isn't even taking into account that your magic is going to be at least a point lower than a mage's, and you're going to start out with at least 1 power point less than an adept.

Okay... looks like a lot of this is half-understood and poorly thought out by a lot of people.


Karoline... the problem w/ spells is there's only so many you can use at once. Those sustaining penalties rack up quick! Also, I've not seen a SINGLE person mention that a mage MUST spend a lot of points and karma into sorcery and conjuring skillgroups as well as astral combat and assensing! (You CANNOT defend yourself in astral combat unless you are trained in the skill! trained use only!). All of those are OPTIONAL for an adept (and most adepts are better off ignoring them).

An adept doesn't need to spend a single point in any of them, he just puts his points into his skills the same way as a street sam. Then he uses karma to enhance them w/ magic directly. No need to buy a whole arsenal of support skills. The comparison is nowhere NEAR as simple as people are making it. Unlike a mage, it's far more effective for an adept to actually buy up the skills and specializations than advance magic in many cases.


Lets take another example... Karl is a Mag2 Adept... he has Improved reflexes for +1pass, init, and reaction. Otherwise he's just a gunbunny.

Is he better off spending 13 karma for his first initiation (not including available discounts for groups/ordeals/etc!!!). Or 15 karma for Mag3?! The answer is very basic... he's far better doing 13 for the initiation... he picks up adept centering allowing him to ignore initiate grade of penalties as a free action. He gets more karma.. he's still looking at 15 karma for Mag3.. or 16karma for Init2. IF he gets init2... he can buy a full PP just as if he had bought Mag3... however his adept centering gains another dice! (score!). He takes the PP and puts it into combat sense, nimble fingers.

This math gets even worse if Karl is a bio/cyber adept... as now he's buying 'powers' w/ nuyen for augmentations... he intentionally has a low magic score to pick up things he can't get that way. He may have spent a lot of BP on magic in chargen but it's flat rank cost... compared to a 'natural' adept w/ 5mag -> 6mag 30karma... he only needs 15karma to go from 2->3 because his essence loss lowered both his magic, and his magic cap.


Remember the caps... Essence + initations caps magic. Magic caps initiations. Magic also caps known metamagics (if buying them w/o initiating). So it's not as if the adept can do tons of stuff w/o buying magic... just past a certain point, effectively it's a twofer... buy the point of magic, then pay 15 for another full PP. (made more sense when 15karma would buy you Mag5... not when it's the amount needed for Mag3).

In that aspect... if Magic5 was worth 15karma before (remember karma awards also went up 50-100%!! effectively keeping attributes cost the same, while lowering the cost of everything else). 25karma is now the going rate for magic5... hence why I suggest a half-PP instead of a full one for going this route. It makes sense when you're looking at the cost to raise Mag->6+... but for lower ratings it simply is too much of a bargain.

It's all been said.

Mage, Adept, and Mystic Adept are all choices that provide a range of alternatives to suit a players preferences.

BP Costs are one thing, the other side of the equation is the Fun Benefit each player gets out of those BP costs.

Why are you directing all that at me? I was one of the people who kept pointing out that in order for a mage to emulate an adept she is going to need tons of sustaining foci or take massive sustaining penalties and would require a massive spell selection.



First, buying metamagics is capped by initiation, not by magic.

Second, I know magic 5 is now 25 karma, but the entire point of my last post (or most of it anyway) was that just because the magic cost has increased doesn't mean the cost for a power point directly should increase. The stat cost increase had virtually 0 affect on the power of anyone except an adept, who got their power cut hugely because advancement was almost impossible at those high costs for a point of magic. I'm reasonably sure this was an unintended consequence of raising the cost for stats, and so having the option to get power points at a lower karma cost simply brings them back to the power level they had before the change. This, in short, corrects a rather large balancing error that occurred because of a change to the rules. To claim that we should reduce the power point given to half a power point suggests that this nerfing of adepts was an intended and desirable consequence.

I'm trying to fix a problem, not adjust my fix so that it remains in line with the problem.

Sammoth:

Blatantly incorrect. You're astrally projecting and you get ambushed by another mage. Mage has a pack of spirits phase in around you. Spirits proceed to pwn you in UNOPPOSED astral combat tests. (staple skill on all my mages is 1 rank in astral combat specialized in defense!). Concealment power etc... lots of ways that a mage can find themselves engaged by a melee astral combatant. Especially given astral movement speeds. All those willpower & counterspelling won't do you squat if you can't roll intuition + astral combat to resist getting hit (or at least pre-soak damage before the willpower soak). Hell even in OPEN COMBAT, where you have a chance to shoot spirits at range... astral movement speeds are such that, the spirit can move and attack you in the same pass... depending on how evil your GM is... the spirit may even get 'intercept' attacks to stop you from running away, just like the normal melee rules.

Yes spells are your offense. However, that does not obviate the need for a defense in astral combat! Without points in assensing you're blind... as a mage you need both assensing AND perception. Ritual magic can be extremely effective, but is niche, and banishing yeah needs some work.


It's almost NEVER efficient to get a stat maxed under BP chargen. Only if you completely forget the 'penalty' +15BP for the final point to go from 5->6. 1->5 == 40BP(+magical quality), 5->6== 25BP. So I'm assuming you mean magic 5... since if you bought to 6, dropped your essence to 2.X (-4mag).. you could still do the first raise in magic from 1->2 w/ karma like you suggest before initiating. (otherwise you'd need to initiate first). See next section

Another problem I see in a lot of arguments... not necessarily from you and others. Is they assume every mage has learned the full spell book. You play a game and watch 50 karma go into 10 new spells... and come back to me and you've still barely dented the surface.


Apologies Karoline:
I had you confused w/ someone else in the thread. However I strongly disagree with you. Power point costs are perfectly fine! There's absolutely no need to make them cheaper! More or less the adept is only spending karma on his base skills and direct magical enhancements to those skills. I don't think you realize exactly how many PP an adept can get through this and for how cheaply.


The relevant section of Street Magic: (I said it slightly wrong... but you also have it incorrect)
p52 - Optional Rule, Learning Metamagics
"The maximum number of metamagic techniques that may be learned is equal to the characters Magic + Initiaition Grade".

IE: Essence 3 character. Max Magic == 3. Max Initiate Grade == 3 (+free meta for each init), Max # metamagics == 6 (including freebies, so that's 3 more freebie PP).

This means, that a Mag3 adept can easily have 9PP worth of powers (capped at rating 3), AND 3 initiations under his belt.

Given that the karma costs haven't been commented on, and the SR4a erratas to ALL the books are still in indefinite hiatus, this is an open issue.

Effectively, the karma raise costs turn into Only raise magic as a last resort... however... someone so maxed out effectively would lose 3PP worth of powers for each point of BGC (lose 1 point of magic, which temporarily loses a point of initation, which drops the number of metamagics allowed by 2.).

This is what I mean by the karma costs aren't in line. Also some of us find Increase Attribute one of the absolute worst powers in the game. (costs double over natural max, increases karma cost to naturally raise the base attribute... almost always better off going with cyber/bio. You end up spending karma on reduced returns on magic stat rather than increasing the base attribute itself which is cheaper in the long run). I much rather favor Attribute Boost (yes takes an atcion... but a lot of the time a temporary spike in an attribute is all you need... as you keep buying magic/etc... it keeps getting stronger and the drain for 1 or 2 ranks is laughable). Also, some metamagic powers like Infusion end up pretty kick-ass the LESS magic you have (the RAW gives no discretion for only overcharging a fraction of your ability for lower drain, though as a GM I'd allow it).


At this point, you're talking about combining on OPTIONAL rule... with a SIDEBAR SUGGESTION (and that one only added in the errata, not in the main book). Something which I guarantee has not been playtested very well. This is why I suggest that the costs be shifted to be more in line w/ SR4a.

Adepts got accidently screwed by SR4a, letting them get PP from intiation doesn't increase there overall power but makes to broaden there powers out. The ultimate cap is magic rating not PP. mag3 max mystic armor 3, max combat sense 3 and I can go on for a while. At a certain point an adept will have to pay for the magic point but it will be a while.

I apologize, I did not consider defensive capabilites when discussing Astral Combat. Getting 1 point in the skill would make a large difference. Still, this is a moot point for all but full magicians, since Mystic Adepts and Adepts cannot astrally project (and if they are astrally perceiving and come under attack they can simply stop, which IIRC is a simple action).

Paying for Magic 6 in Karmagen is perfectly efficient, though I agree it is better to softmax if you use BP builds.

When you talk about the amount of spells a magician might spend Karma on, I kind of disagree. Sure, some may want to branch out, but I can't think of many spells you truly need.

Heal, Improved Invisibility, Stunbolt/Manabolt, Levitate, Mana Static, Fix, and Fashion are all must haves. There are many which have very nice situational benefits, but even when I played the same mage character from SR2 to 3 for nearly 10 years I never needed more than a handful of spells.

It is a little fuzzy if the mage can't also roll INT+Dodge. Dodge does not specify that it only works on the physical plane. Astral combat is resolved like normal combat with certain differences. In normal combat you can dodge as well as parry.
The admittedly weird FAQ seems to support this.

The optional rule was put in because it was too expensive for a phys adept to raise his magic and get PP to spend. Now it is even more expensive in 4A, that means to me the optional rule is more logical to put in your game. Yes it is a bigger karma reduction than before. But so what, relative costs don't mean much. If before it was too expensive and now it costs more it is even more um too expensive. The optional rule is there because pp are too expensive when tied directly to magic, they have a value unrelated to the magic attribute cost. When the magic attribute cost increases that devalues the PP costs even more making it an even worse value. The optional rule lets you separate the PP cost from the magic cost to some degree. I am not sure about combining the sidebar rule with the optional rule because its a flat 15 and not a scaling cost like everything else in the game.



I think it depends on the campaign. If 50 karma in you are still go against the same challenges and the magical security is still a dude with 4 magic and 3 counter spelling you can branch out with a ton of spells. If your opposition for a lack of a better term levels up with you because you go on bigger badder runs, you can only put so much into spells you have to get your magic up, get some initiations under your belt, add a power focus, and maybe a ally spirit. Having 10 new spells is cool fun and useful, but it doesn't help you much when all the mages you face now are grade 2 initiates with shielding and reflecting and have a dandy counter spelling focus with there counter spelling 4(combat spells)

A magician doesn't *need* to put points in there unless he wants to, just like an adept. Just because you can go dual natured and see the astral plane and open yourself up to astral attacks doesn't mean that you must go dual natured and see the astral plane. There's nothing that says that a mage must spend points in those skills any more than an adept must. I reccomend spending points in them, but then I recommend that an adept spend points in them as well.

Then don't astrally project, problem solved. If you choose to astrally project, then yes you'd better be able to support it, but then that's true for any dual natured being, whether an adept who spent 5 BP on being able to astrally perceive or shapeshifters, etc It's a free ability that magicians have and it's fully their choice whether they should support it or not. I feel that they should, but then I feel that adepts should as well.

No worries, but think about it this way: When stats cost 3x, people realized that it was too expensive for an adept to advance much, and that the adept didn't have much use for initiation, so they added in a means to turn initiation into power points. So, at 3x there was already a recognized problem of power points costing too much for adepts. Then 4a comes along and introduces 5x costs for stats, which means that there is an even bigger problem with the cost of power points being too expensive. So, if in 4 basic, when going from 5 to 6 magic was 18 karma, and that was considered too expensive, don't you figure that 4a going from 5 to 6 costing 30 karma is even more in the realm of too expensive?

So, when the smaller amount is already too expensive, and then they change the rules to make it even more expensive, why do you suggest that everything else should become more expensive as well? It's been said several times already, increasing the cost of power points to adepts was almost certainly unintended, seeing as how even before the cost was increased, the devs themselves put in a way to get power points more cheaply.

What you're saying is basically "Well, they screwed over adepts by raising the cost of magic, and so in order to fix it, we'll increase the cost of any other means of getting power points."

To try and explain my point better to everyone.

Priori:
We all should largely agree, that larger karma awards mean that the 5x attribute costs are roughly the same in real terms as the old 3x attribute costs. The only REAL effect here is to reduce the cost of everything else (initiations, skills, etc.. which have not had their costs changed).


SR4: (at least the rules as they existed under SR4)
It was always more expensive to raise initiate grade compared to magic... because raising initiate grade required the same cost increase 3x rating PLUS 10 extra karma. (maybe w/ situational reductions for group/ordeal). So it wasn't generally effective to raise initiate grade higher than 2 or 3 points under your magic attribute.

In effect, it was MORE expensive for an adept to gain PP this way than just to buy the magic (until he hit magic 4.. then he would look at initiating... if he hadn't already decided he needed masking).

I liked this, it solved two problems. Shortage of metamagics for adepts, as well as giving them a few extra PP to spend still capped by magic. I think this solved the problem.

The 15karma to buy a metamagic. By strictest RAW reading is incompatible w/ the Street Magic Errata. "Adept Initiation. Groups may consider allowing adepts to gain 1 Power Point INSTEAD OF A METAMAGIC AT INITIATION". Keyword being at initiation... IE: you can't just spend 15karma and get a power point... you can only use it for an actual metamagic technique.

Under this system, I thought things worked out pretty damn well for an adept... under strict reading. They could get 1PP plus 1 more PP when they initiate, and even spend 15karma if they actually wanted the metamagics as well. The karma costs were reasonable as well.

Your baseline average adept would have say 4Mag, 1PP, and 1 initation. (IMO: Mag 3 is not average like other stats, as initiations raise the average to 4 or 5 IMO). You'd generally want the actual magic about 3points higher than the initiation due to the +10 kicker cost.

Mag3 starting... 12karma->Mag4, 13karma->Init1-1PP. 15karma-actual metamagic.
30karma total. 5PP total + 1 actual metamagic.

Now SR4a:
10+3x rating ends up being a LOT less expensive than 5x new rating. If we now adjust for higher karma awards, initiations are now MUCH cheaper than they used to be. (intsead of always being more expensive than raising magic itself generally, they end up cheaper... and w/ more karma to spend to boot). And to reiterate... this doesn't include karma discounts available to initiation!

I thought they struck a good balance in SR4, w/ street magic and the errata. So now, you end up w/ it being preferable to initiate rather than raise magic! Generally you want to max out initiate grade now rather than raising magic. This only becomes more true as your magic gets higher and higher as the -20/-40% cost reduction becomes more significant.

Due to karma inflation, in real terms...that 30karma above is now more like 50'ish.

Well starting Mag3 again...
13 karma->init1, 16karma->Init2, 19karma->Init3. 15karma->actual metamagic.

38+15==53 karma..

So for inflation adjusted award... we now have Mag3, Init3, 1metamagic. A net gain of +1PP. Hence why I suggested changing it from 1PP per initiation to .5PP per initiation. Because raising magic only increases PP and caps... raising initiation gives the same PP and can give a lot of bonus dice (masking, adept centering, etc.). Generally having 1 extra dice is not as usefull as having 3 other things. The higher initiate grade ratings also make things like item attunement (gun) much more tempting as well.


IE: I liked the errata and the old costs and thought it hit a good balance. With the changes I think a lot of the fixed costs (even the 15karma to learn a metamagic) are too cheap and need to be adjusted just like attribute costs were to reflect the inflation.


The implications of the above are also apparent when you think about it from the perspective of a Mystic Adept... Buy up Magic and devote it to spellcasting, Buy up initiations and devote them to power points. Spend 15 karma for actual metamagics as needed/wanted.

Manabolt works just fine without the skill. If someone can only attack you in HtH clever mages kill him at range.

You are in a building... buliding is nothing but astral 'clutter' blocking ranged spellcasting LOS

A spirit moves through the 'wall' and sends a shudder through your psyche as it slams into you.


Look at astral, walk, let alone run speeds... If you fail an assensing perception test... it very well could get within charge range of you easily w/o you noticing. (assensing takes the place of perception for all purposes and more on the astral). So no, I don't buy for one moment that you're never going to get caught in astral combat as a mage.


I repeat... you cannot roll or default astral combat at all unless trained... definition of a trained only skill.

The purpose of the skill is not to attack, it's so you're not completely helpless. Since it only costs you at a minimum 6 karma to learn and specialize it in defense, it's nowhere near prohibitive. Or 4BP for 1 rank in chargen. Given all the other stuff and power of mages... there's no reason not to have them spend a little on this.


Though allowing an astral use of dodge/full dodge... does give the dodge skill a bit more meaning, so I really liked that suggestion above!.

So I can't see through the walls but it can? I'm just screwed.

It used it's search power to track you down.

Or the mage in the room next door told it that there was something in the next room and to go through the wall and attack it.

My point is, you're largely defenseless... things can and will happen. And the assertion that I have a gun... therefor I will never be caught in melee is a non-starter. (it's almost an exact metaphor) A strong offense does not equal a defense in many situations.

It doesn't matter how... there's many reasons from simple chance, down to tracking, down to intel (someone who knew you'd be there), ambush (failed perception)... and I can keep going on.

Actually, you're pretty safe in SR from melee if you have a good gun. There's a small penalty, and you can just Dodge (even better than against bullets, natch). *shrug*

Actually there Falconer, I see it as a balancing thing in the game world...

You can easily initiate (though it is still expensive, it is less expensive than buying your 4th, 5th, or 6th Magic Point... But eventually, you WILL neeed to purchase that magic attribute up or you will no longer be able to initiate...

You might also put a limit on "extra" Power points (those bought at the cost of 15 Karma) equal to the character's magic rating as well (though I do not think that there are any limits to this, I would enforce this limit for balance)... this will force the character to continue to purchase his magic up... and honestly, over the long run, those with Magic/Resonance are the only ones who truly have unlimited growth, as long as they continue to raise their relevant special attribute... gets real expensive to raise that magic to 10 after all, and it only gets worse from there... I would hazard a guess that most campaigns do not tend to go that long... if they do, then you know that you have a long row to hoe to get excessively powerful... but it is available... and honestly, you will eventually run out of powers to purchase and metamagics to acquire for that Adept as you get more powerful... unless the campaign allows for creating unique applications of power, or allows you to create unique metamagics.

Keep the Faith

Just a point there Banaticus, it is Karma Costed, not Nuyen...

Keep the Faith

Just to point out quick, there wasn't that large of a karma increase in SR4a to make up for the massive increase in karma cost for attributes (which is about the only thing adepts spend their karma on). I think it went from 4-6 per mission to 5-7 per mission, so a 20% increase, while raising a stat went up by almost 70%.

Also, as you pointed out, everything else became comparatively less expensive, initiation, skills, spells, bonding foci. So, basically everyone but the adept got a power boost, and the adept got a power nerf. I don't see how a rule that takes the nerf out of that for the adept is a bad thing. All the metamagic for PP and buy PP for 15 karma does is keep adepts in line with everyone else. Sure, it doesn't keep them in line with their nerfed selves, but I don't see a point in doing so.

Sorry for the use of the word nerf so much, but it certainly seems to apply here. Not generally a word I like to toss around much.