The average human can't, because the average human has a Magic of Zero. TJ's arguing that Magic follows the same distribution as other metahuman attributes, which is a highly suspect argument.

I'm referring to Falconer, actually. He said 'average = 0-2 + 3-5'. Wide 'average' to me.

First value: Initiations
Second value: Magic Attribute

Yes, and it's a wide range, especially in that they're mostly additive. Magic 3, Initiations 0 is hugely different from Magic 5, Initiations 2. That's all.

You don't have to initiate to raise your magic do you? Until you want to get it over 6, right? So, if you're a working mage, even if you only had a magic of 2 to start, it's 15 karma to get to 3, and 20 more to get to 4. Even if you don't do a lot, if you're playing with magic for a living, there should be a steady flow of karma for getting things done, right?

Actually for an NPC mage it might not be unreasonable to Initiate before reaching maximum uninitiated Magic. Some of those metamagic powers are quite useful. For example the BGC-affecting metamagics, for someone interested in turning his rotten neighbourhood into an allied-aspected power site. Or the one to get an Ally Spirit.

The original argument started when TJ said that normal PCs should be average Magic 3, which I disagree with. While the average NPC mage might have Magic 3, there is really no need for PCs to be average. Also, several legitimate styles of mage characters (like the mage with effective combat spells) don't really function well at Magic 3, but do pretty well at 5.

It was about the question for which Magic rating the rules should work well. Personally, I think game balance should be optimized for the kind of stats that PCs are most likely to have, and that means a Magic of 4-7. The precise power balance between really low-powered NPCs (or intentionally weak special concept PCs) is not nearly as relevant.

Factoring in this is that TJ's gaming group seems to consist entirely of Nice People who never try to powergame or abuse the system, to a degree that the rest of us have difficulty believing is actually possible in the Mean Bad Real World. He's having fun, so no disrespect to him, but it tends to muddle discussions.

Heh... They are Not ALL nice people, but most of them are nice enough that there are very few issues at the table.
Point Taken, though. At a table where everyone eekes out every last erg of power, there may be issues with the concepts I espouse. However, I contend that that is not a Game World Issue, but a Table/Player Issue. One we rarely need to attend to very often...

Yeah, I just think your perceptions may be blurred because your table is abnormally well-behaved.. most tables aren't total nests of powergaming, but yours sounds unusually not powergamey. The question isn't so much whether rules work well among total powergamers, because that answer is always obvious (there's nothing a dedicated munchkin can't break), but whether they stand up to people casually trying to make characters that kick serious ass.

Pehaps... But don't think we don't have characters that can casually kick ass, they just do not do so with 20+ Dice. That is absolutely not necessary for the game world as written. I admit that it is often easy to get to that DP (or often higher) in some skills, but I still maintain it is not necessary to do so.

No Worries...

This is one of those GM interpretations and view of the setting things. Me, I go with the average corprate security mage as having a Magic attribute of 4, as I understand thatt hey are trained to be better than average rating to keep the riff raff out. If something more serious comes up that is when a call for back-up at HQ is in order.

Also, the talismonger has a few contacts so he can by the reagents, virgin telisma and other materials more cheaple than Joe average shadowrunner.

This is true too... Bulk is always cheaper than individual.

Regarding the question "What is the average Magic for NPC mages?", my thinking goes along the following lines:

Karma is a Shadowrun meta-concept for character advancement, but it will also be gained by NPCs at a much slower rate to account for training and experience (the way I see it, the intense live-or-die situations shadowrunners and active soldiers see on a regular basis means they gain karma much faster than Joe Bloggs wagemage in his humdrum desk job). I figure folk in full-time training (University undergrads and the like) would get around 20 karma per year to invest in skills and magic, wagemage magical researchers about 10 karma a year etc.

Awakened wagemages will spend a lot of this training and experience karma on boosting their Magic attribute, initiating, increasing magical skills and learning new spells. Therefore, even if a wagemage awakened with a Magic of 2 or 3, after 4 years studying Magic at University and 10 years on the job, he/she would have about 180 karma to use. While some of this might be frittered away on gaining social skills, knowledge skills and other non-magic-related stuff, 2/3 to 3/4 of this karma would be invested in their magical growth. This gives this graduate 10 year wagemage veteran about 120 to 135 karma. After gaining the basic sorcery/conjuring/enchanting/assensing/arcana skills, said magemage will probably put a big priority on boosting his Magic to 4 or 5, then initiating/binding a focus he has bought with salary he has saved.

Therefore, given that NPCs gain karma slowly through training and experience, the average veteran wagemage would have Magic in the 4-6 range with an initiation or two and/or a focus to boot, but YMMV.