I’ve seen a lot of posts both here and on other forums about Mystic Adepts and their power scale. Some argue that the RAW is just about right, others say that the Hot Patch Errata places them about right and there are others somewhere in-between. I have given this a lot of thought and have come up with a re-write of the Mystic Adept, and I thought I’d share my ideas here to see what others think.

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SR5 Mystic Adept rewrite.

This is to hopefully balance the Mystic Adept back into playability, and make the archetype into something not so over-powered.

These rewrites are based on RAW not the Missions Errata. With this rewrite there are no balanced Hybrid Magic Users, a Hybrid will always favor either spells and mana-based abilities or adept abilities but it is impossible to be balanced.

Change all existing references of “Mystic Adept” in the core book to read “Hybrid Magic User”.
When selecting a “Hybrid Magic User” from the priority list, you must specify it as either a “Mystic Adept” which is an Adept with the ability to cast spells or a “Physical Mage” which is a Spell Caster with some Adept abilities. These categories are broken down below.

As a Mystic Adept follow all of the rules for Adept except that you can also learn to use mana-based magic (Sorcery Group, Enchanting Group, and Conjuring Group). Purchasing and improving skills from these groups cost double the normal Karma and The character’s Magic Attribute counts at half (round down, minimum 1) its current value for use with those skills. Purchasing Spells, Rituals, and Preparations coust double the normal karma (this includes during character creation).

As a Physical Mage follow the existing rules for (what the book currently refers to as a Mystic Adept) with the following exceptions: You gain Power Points equal to your Magic Attribute, whenever you increase your Magic Attribute you gain an additional Power Point for free (so Power Points will equal Magic). All Adept Powers cost double the normal Power Points and you can not have any Adept Powers with a Rating greater than half your Magic Attribute (round down, minimum 1).

Summary:

• Hybrid Magic Users
• Can not project astrally
• Can not use astral perception unless purchased with Power Points
• Purchase their spells/rituals/preparations in the same way as Magicians (except see below)
• Can have any skills from the Enchanting, Sorcery or Conjuring skill groups
• Gain Power Points with each Magic Attribute increase, the same way as Adepts
• Must choose either Mystic Adept or Physical Mage
  
  • Mystic Adepts
    
    • Pay double karma costs for increasing skills from the Enchanting, Sorcery and Conjuring skill groups (this includes points spent during character creation)
    • Pay double karma costs for purchasing Spells, Rituals, and Preparations
    • Use only half their Magic Attribute (round down, minimum 1) for using skills from the Enchanting, Sorcery and Conjuring skill groups
  
  
  • Physical Mages
    
    • Pay double Power Point costs for all Adept Powers (this includes during character creation)
    • Adept Powers with ranks can have no more ranks than half of the Hybrid’s Magic Attribute (round down, minimum 1) (this includes during character creation)

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So what do you think?

Edit:
Edited to reflect discussed changes note the changed items.

I'd have to give it more thought, but at first glance I mostly like it.

It bugs me that there are two breeds of mystic adepts in this system, and that you have basically increased from 3 to 4 the number of magic user types (though to bring back the idea that mystic adepts can be either more physically oriented, or more magically oriented, isn't a bad thing).

Overall, the balancing seems about right, especially on the physical mage side, which seems like a more balanced approach to the sr5 mysad. The way you have laid it out, I would pretty much never want to play the new "mystic adept", because double karma cost AND half magic is very harsh. I think maybe just considering half magic for all magic tests, spells and effects would be sufficient? What do you think?

Anyway, that's just my initial reaction to what you propose.

I thought about using only the 1/2 magic, but with reagents I wasn't sure it would be harsh enough. It's been a very long time since I've played a spell caster, and I haven't played one at all in 5th, so maybe that would be enough.

How about 1/2 Magic and double cost for spells/rituals/etc, rather than skills?

-D

Yeah I think that could work. Also if it's the reagents you're worried about, just say "mystic adepts" need twice the number of reagents for the same effect.

The biggest problem I have with this is the same problem Mystic Adepts had in the previous edition.

They can do everything, but only half as good.


My own house rule for Mystic Adepts is somewhat similar, but it cuts their power from a different angle. Closer to can do half as much, but equally good.



Bye
Thanee

I do like the idea of the aspected magician thing, I'll have to mull that one over a bit. The gaining .5 PP mer magic is mechanically the same as the double power point cost, so we are on the same page there.

Great ideas guys. Keep 'em coming.

Before getting into the balance of it, I'd say my key issue design-wise would be the inflexibility of it - there's no capacity to decide just where the point between adept and mage that best suits your character is.

As far as the whole half-Magic thing goes, too - is that JUST for dice pools, or for the determination of Force Limits and determination of Stun/Physical for Drain as well?

Honestly, I was always of the opinion that SR4A got it just right.
Played with RAW and FAQ rules. Either worked...

Almost, at least.

The difference is, that you also restrict individual powers to half max. level, while I allow the individual powers at full capacity.

That's, basically, the whole idea behind my approach... you are as good at what you do as a full mage or adept, but you don't get the whole of what they can do, but roughly half of each.

Bye
Thanee

The half-magic is for all aspects of using it, not just dice pools. I realize that it is imperfect, but the whole system of the (SR5) mystic adept is imperfect, I'm just trying to put some polish on it.

Ahh, I see. Some very interesting things to think about. Thanks.

I agree, I liked the way SR4 handled it, and it allowed for a balanced approach. Though I personally have never seen a SR4 Mystic Adept that was played balanced, it was possible. By played balanced I don't mean the split of their magic attribute, I mean actaully played with balance as in equal use of both magical abilities and spell/spirit use. Every MA I saw was either more caster with adept powers or adept with some spells, but never evenly split.

See, too me bringing in that halving of casting/summoning force does a lot more harm than good, if only because under the hotfix system they're actually reasonably balanced (far enough behind in Mage ability that it doesn't matter that they keep up in Force). Of course, that's largely due to the increased costs they suffer, but cutting down on their dice pools directly does the job quite well too. Overall it just seems like too much (and really, such a thing was too much in SR4, as well, which is part of why you didn't see true hybrids much there either).

I'll reiterate that I find the lack of granularity to be a bit of an issue too.

Honestly my biggest problem with the SR5 Mystic Adept, is that they are not adepts... They are Mages with some adept powers. You can't realistically build an Adept with some spells without trying to lobotomize yourself. At least under 4th edition you could have an Adept with some spell ability, but that isn't really possible in 5th. I'm trying to bring back that possibility. The hotfix only makes this situation worse. You have to become a better mage to even have a chance to become a better adept under the hotfix.

Sure as a roleplayer you can take the high maric attribute then buy up your power points and ignore your mage-esque skills, but why would you? You have to initiate and spend your meta-magic on another power point. If you are already doing all the mage-esque things involved in that, you may as well use the ability you are providing yourself with. If you don't that's like a street sam buying a really nice armored jacket and never wearing it. Sure he has it, and it looks really nice in his closet but he's not going to use it because it doesn't fit the concept of a street sam.


Under my proposal, if you want to be a Mage with some adept powers you can be, and you take no negatives for anything mage-like. You also still get a fair number of adept abilities.

I liked some of Thanee's ideas, but it still seemed that the MA under those rules was a Mage with some Adept ability. So I've re-written my proposal taking into account most everyone's comments... So without further ado version 3:

******
SR5 Mystic Adept rewrite.

This is to hopefully balance the Mystic Adept back into playability, and make the archetype into something not so over-powered.

These rewrites are based on RAW not the Missions Errata. With this rewrite there are no balanced Hybrid Magic Users, a Hybrid will always favor either spells and mana-based abilities or adept abilities but it is impossible to be balanced.

Change all existing references of “Mystic Adept” in the core book to read “Hybrid Magic User”.
When selecting a “Hybrid Magic User” from the priority list, you must specify it as either a “Mystic Adept” which is an Adept with the ability to cast spells or a “Physical Mage” which is a Spell Caster with some Adept abilities. These categories are broken down below.

A Mystic Adept is a combination of an Adept and an Aspected Magician and follows all of the rules for both, except that the Mystic Adept can not use Astral Perception unless it is purchased with Power Points.

As a Physical Mage follow the existing rules for (what the book currently refers to as a Mystic Adept) with the following exceptions: You gain Power Points equal to your Magic Attribute, whenever you increase your Magic Attribute you gain an additional Power Point for free (so Power Points will equal Magic). All Adept Powers cost double the normal Power Points costs.

Summary:
Hybrid Magic Users

• Can not project astrally
• Can not use astral perception unless purchased with Power Points
• Gain Power Points with each Magic Attribute increase, the same way as Adepts
• Must choose either Mystic Adept or Physical Mage
  
  • Mystic Adepts
    
    • Can have skills from the Enchanting, Sorcery or Conjuring skill groups as an Aspected Magician
    • Purchase their spells/rituals/preparations in the same way as Aspected Magicians
  
  
  • Physical Mages
    
    • Pay double Power Point costs for all Adept Powers (this includes during character creation)
    • Can have any skills from the Enchanting, Sorcery or Conjuring skill groups

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So?

The problem with the Physical mage is that it has everything a regular Adept has, but also some spells where a pure Adept has just the adept stuff.

This makes no sense. Apected Magician is a very good part and I'll use that if I ever allow a Mystic Adept to be played at the very least to make them not just Mages with powerpoints on top.

Why play an Adept even under your latest proposal? A very very minor advantage in Priority? Mystic Adept needs to be something along -2 Priorities worth of Magic for a pure one. I.e. Magic A (mystic adept) is like Magic C (Aspected Magician) and Magic C (Adept) merged together + a tax on Magic (i.e. it costs +5 karma per Magic to get a Power point except you can pay this at any time, not just character creation.

The +PP only at chargen stupidity is what pidgeon holes them to burn all their starting karma on that since it is a lost opportunity otherwise and that makes very one dimensional characters that are forced to go without advantages, bonus skills or anything else. Let them get the power points at any time they could raise magic, for 5 Karma each.


Even then, it is still stupidly overpowered to have guaranteed 6 hits Increase Reflexes dispel immune, astrally invisible*, always on, drain free Initiative boost as a spell caster. Add adrenaline boost and you have a mage that goes first and has more actions than everyone else without wasting Foci slots for initiative and instead use that for other buffs.

People not understanding this have no concept of how much it costs to have good Initiative with cyberware. Even the spell is a bit of a pain and that is the second best option compared to cyber.

Sadly, you are not at our table... I have what you refer to as a balanced MysAd. Split is 3 Sorcery and 2 Adept, but I use all aspects of the character pretty equally, unless in a BGC.
Sadly he will be retiring soon. We will be changing to SR5.

I think these two comments are basically saying the same thing, and I kind of agree, but at the same time I think the SR5 Mystic Adept is only slightly off the mark. In one sense it's actually a further progression towards "unified magic theory", this time unifying casters and adepts. But the main risk seems to be giving those who would otherwise be straight-up Magicians a bunch of extra Adept Powers "for free" (ignoring the quite modest Karma cost and loss of Astral Projection), and the one tweak I would make to alleviate that risk that is very simple:

Each Power Point purchased counts as 1 spell towards the Logic x2 limit on # of spells learned, with a cap of 6 on the number of spell slots thus used (so that Mystic Adepts are not excessively stunted in growing their powers long-term).

From a balance perspective, aside from a few passive powers that require no skills at all (Mystic Armor, etc) which are handled by adding the above limitation, all of the stuff an Adept does requires different skills from what a Magician does. This means that in order to do well at both roles, there's a significant skill/attribute investment involved. This isn't any different from, say, the Magician or the Street Sam deciding he wants to get into Decking, in my view. It will take a lot of extra investment to become good at a second role with which there's very little overlap, but they aren't mutually exclusive, mechanically speaking.

The thing is that "Mystic Adepts" actually were / are fullmages with access to (some) adept powers from the fluff/lore perspective since their introduction in SR2, under SR3 and now again under SR5. Only SR4/SR4A made it sound as if they were adepts with access to (some) spell-slinging and conjuring.

However, the true culprit when it comes to balance in SR5 is indeed the fact that this time around the core mechanics make Mystics full Mages with slapped on adept powers that even double-dip under unerrataed RAW once you leave character generation because of the magic+1 = power point+1 mechanic. The mechanics (particularly once you use the [un]offical Errata) pretty much demand that you max out the Mage part with high magic attribute and get as many power points since opportunity cost - even with the [un]official Errata - is otherwise just too high. As a consequence you get magically "super-powered" but otherwise boring full magicians that just don't have automatic access to astral perception and (currently) no chance of astral projection.



Then I'd suggest that you completely ignore or rather rewrite the SR5 mechanics in a way that replicates the SR4 (or in fact even SR3) mechanics:

Have Mystic adepts assign each point of magic attribute towards either adept or magician aspect and only allow to gain power points for those magic attribute points that were assigned to the adept aspect. Determine limits and such based upon the respective parts of the aspects within the magic attribute. For all other purposes use full (combined) magic attribute value. Spells for the magician aspect are bought under normal rules with karma both during character generation as well as later progression. This would have several benefits with just minor drawbacks:

Benefits (ignoring stuff like execptional attribute):

1. Your Mystic Adepts could start with any distribution of magician vs. adept aspect you desire ... be it 0:6,1:5, 2:4, 3:3, 4:2, 5:1, 6:0
2. You could get rid of the (then unnecessary) special rules about buying power points with (pseudo-) karma during character generation
3. Mystic adepts would no longer need special rules for increase of magic attribute, since they'd simply follow normal rules for either magician or adept aspect depending on which aspect they raise at a time.
4. Neither unbalanced 6/6 starting characters (maximum would be a combined magic prowess of 6 coming from both aspects) nor double-dipping (RAW) upon increase of magic attribute and certainly not the long-term "gimp effect" that the [un]official Errata creates.
5. Upon magic loss the player would decide which aspect of his magical traits is effected. No uncertaincies whether or not current magic loss affects magician's magic, adept's magic or both.

Drawbacks:

1. A bit more bookkeeping concerning current rating of either magical aspect (e.g. limits)
2. "no Missions with that character"

As an alternative you could even revert to the SR3 mechanics where you mechanically treat the Mystic Adept as a normal adept (overall with little to no difference to the above as far as game balance is concerned). Introduce an adept power called "Magic Talent" which can only be taken by Mystic Adepts and has a power point cost of 1 per level. Each level of "Magic Talent" grants one level of magic attribute for purposes of spellcasting, conjuring, etc. You need at least 1 level of the power in order to use the magician related skills and drain, limits and other magician related values are based upon the level of the "Magic Talent" power. Spells have to be bought normally with karma (both during character generation and later progression). Magic loss would always directly affect standard adept magic attribute and thus power points, so the adept would have to choose which powers are affected. The only difference when compared to the first solution is that within this variant a Mystic Adept could possibly get the Magic Talent at reduced cost once stuff like power point cost reductions due to "Ways" or "voluntary geas" re-enter the scenery.
However this latter variant certainly recreates the contradiction between game mechanics vs. fluff, because it would treat the Mystic Adept as an adept while the fluff still says that he is in fact a mage who channels some of his magic like adepts do.

The whole idea of splitting the magic attribute, quite frankly, rests on completely false assumptions. And I'll point out, as I have before, that while it has it's flaws the hotfix rules for Mystic Adepts are BALANCED - you quite simply cannot be just as good at being a dedicated mage as a mage can, nor just as good at being an adept as an adept can. You can, however, put the two pieces together in such a way that you have the same level of influence.

I was actually unaware that the fluff had Mystic Adepts as basically Mages with access to some Adept ability. That does put a different spin on things for me. I try to use the world fluff when I can (though our table changes things as needed). Maybe simply using the hotpatch is the best approach after all. At first blush the hotpatch did appear balanced to me, even after some indepth review it seems balanced it just removed the Adept with spells concept, but perhaps that isn't supposed to be a concept.

Thanks for all of the input folks I do appreciate it. Time to think about this more. Feel free to keep discussing, I'm always intrested in finding out others opinions, even when I disagree with them, it's good to have info.

As I recall from the old days of SR1 & SR2, Mystic Adepts when introduced were regarded as Adepts who could also cast spells. The mechanics of it were rather clear, they were adepts first and foremost but had sacrificed some of their adept abilities in order to pick up mage abilities (and not all of them either). In fact, their mystic part was a Power they chose by devoting Power Points to it. But that's way in the past.

I honestly believe the way SR4A treated them was the best version overall so far. I'm still poring over my SR5 book. I need to start doing an analysis of it against SR4A and see where the rough points are at. Something feels off about SR5 but I cannot quite put my finger on it just by reading the book.

If feels off because there is really no sacrifice for the Mystic Adept in SR5. You get the best of both worlds. Full Magic and potentially Full Adept. That is a huge change from SR4A.

Not quite. IIRC SR1 didn't have "physical mages" at all. SR2 introduced them as part of Awakenings - New Magic in 2057. Their "fluff" stated the following:

Shadowland information:
For decades most folks believed that the abilities and mindset of a physical adept were totally incompatible with the abilities and mindset of a magician. The thinking was, physical adepts "grounded" their magic so strongly in their bodies that they couldn't wrap their minds around the more complex astral manipulations of sorcery and drek like that. The two paths could never meet, or so the idea went.
[..] According to Rainwater, these physical magicians have powers of a physical adept plus some abilities that supposedly only belong to magicians and non-physical adepts. No one's found a real physical magician yet, but lots of people seem to take the idea seriously

"Fluff" that came from the rules section:

Physical magicians are Magic Priority A characters that follow a different path from most other magicians. Rather than devoting all their time to studying ways to control the energies of astral space, physical magicians channel some of their magic ability into improving their physical abilities in the same manner as physical adepts, while honing the rest of their magical talent on traditional magical skills such as Sorcery and Conjuring.
[..]
Because they focus so much of their talent on the physical aspect of magic, physical magicians begin without access to astral space. They may purchase and use the asept power of astral perception normally, but can never use astral projection.

The game mechanics demanded that they split their magic attribute points between magician and adept aspects (pretty much like in SR4). Despite their fluff description they were only required to have a minimum of 1 point towards magician aspect and overall the mechanics worked primarily as adepts.

SR3 fluff told pretty much the same. The rules were more integrated, by making the magician aspect an adept power. However the wording of certain additional rules on initiation was wide open to interpretation (and the most common one heavily gimped physical mages).

SR4 fluff changed that by stating:

Some adepts choose to learn less than their maximum number of adept powers, preserving some of their Power Points for spellcasting or conjuring. Such magicians are still called adepts by most magicians, though other adepts may refer to the character as following the “Magician’s
Way.”

So this time around they were more adepts than mages according to fluff. The rules again worked more like in SR2 with a split magic attribute and they got rid of most of the rule exceptions (particularly as far as initiation and magic increase as well as acquisition of additional power points were concerned).

SR5 doesn't provide too much fluff information beyond the fact that Mystic Adepts are hybrids that can make use of both magician and adept aspects. However on the mechanics level their magic attribute focuses mainly on the magician aspect and power points are just (somewhat arbitrarily) thrown into the mix (with obvious balancing issues that required hot-fixing for Missions [the German rules use those fixes as official Errata]).



Overall I'll second that notion, because the SR4/A variant used the least amount of special rules.

_____________________________________



And those "completely false assumptions" would exactly be which ones? Please be more specific when making such bold claims and please try to remember that this idea was in fact used - with variations in details - throughout SR2, SR3, SR4/A and worked quite well (despite the balance controversies during SR3 that stemmed from a flawed, but rather common rule interpretation).



I'm inclined to say "bullshit" here. The hotfix rules are by no means "balanced" since they don't actually address the flaws that have been introduced within the character generation rules and it even creates additional inconsistencies.

1. The part of the hotfix that limits power point gain to forgoing metamagic establishes the notion that after character generation a power point is equivalent to a metamagical technique for mystic adepts => a power point is thus closely connected to initiation and in turn to the cost of initiation. This mechanic can only balance metamagic vs. power point when comparing standard magicians and mystic adepts if the mystic adept start with 0 power points, just like an uninitiated magician. Unfortunately the character generation rules do allow a mystic adept to start with 6 power points (even under hotfixed / errataed power point cost during chargen), so in a direct comparison of magical prowess a mystical adept has the advantage of up to 6 initiations at significantly lowered costs that a standard mage can never ever compensate.
2. However, the alleged equivalence of metamagic and power point when comparing mages to mystics is dubious, since in far too many situations a metamagical technique overall is more powerful than the powers that a (single) power point will provide and some (if not "many") adept powers can even be replicated either by gear, cyber/bio or spells. A truly "balanced" mechanic would require that these two options are indeed in a form of equilibrum across the board, since the mystic adept has the same base opportunity cost as a standard mage (when aiming for identical starting value for magic) and once the karma-based chargen returns, we might even see the return of higher base cost.
3. Things get really hazy when looking at mages vs. mystic vs. standard adept that haven't maximized on magic attribute / magic attribute plus power points / power point during chargen. Let's have a mage with magic attribute of 4 and a mystic with magic 3 and 1 power point and an adept with magic 4 (=4 power points). Due to the fact that 1 power point technically also equals 1 point of magic attribute within this comparison, all three characters have a base "magical prowess" of 4. Or mage want's to increase his magical power base by inceasing magic to 5 (=25 karma). Works quite easy, has a clearly defined cost. Same for the standard adept (again 25 karma). Our mystic adept however faces two options: Either he increases his power base on the adept side or he increases his magical aspect . This will require him to initiate at a cost of 13 karma for the power point or raise magic with 20 karma. I'm certainly not going to call that "balanced" in either case.
4. A full comparison of power point value between standard adept and mystic doesn't work out either, since the standard adept still gains power points via increase of magic attribute. So again no real balance here.

The fun part is: The current ruleset - even hotfixed - certainly allows a mystic to be as good as a dedicated mage, depending on how you value up to 6 power points (one of which can be used for the lacking astral perception) vs. the lack of astral projection.

Frankly, I didn't want to launch into the full discussion if there wasn't at least some interest in the subject first - so I tested the waters a bit, which might have been rude of me. Apologies.

It's the essential structural problem of designing hybrids - having half the power of one character and half the power of another character seems intuitively like it should add up to the game influence of a full character, but in actual fact it doesn't. In general, this is because the abilities of a full character work together to create the level of influence they have, and that the interaction between power and influenced would be better described as curved than linear (ie, a character who is twice as powerful has more than twice the game influence -the easiest way to look at this is to look at what happens in a combat focused game when one character is twice as powerful as the others - not only does he contribute more to taking out the enemies, but the enemies and encounters themselves have to be altered to account for this anomaly, including things like tougher enemies and specific counters).

In SR, there is also the fact that while the Mystic Adept gets half the powers of the Mage and Adept, they still have the same skill and attribute allotments as a Mage (and fewer than an Adept) and dramatically less Karma. They have to spread this across both sides, resulting in worse skills and attributes for both their Mage and Adept sides, as well as having less by way of supporting gear/qualities/foci. In the end, creating a balanced environment with a split magic would require a step away from "here's the magic a Mage would have, and you have to split it between the two". Something like "here's your base magic for both sides, and here's some points to allocate between them up to a maximum of N" - and then have them be raised with Special Attribute Points separately. The trick is finding the exact point where you have a properly balanced environment.



Untrue - Power Points cannot make you a better Magician, and the Karma expenditures wind up putting you notably behind. 50 Karma spent directly on being a better Mage creates a much better Mage than 30 Karma on Power Points and 20 Karma on Mage stuff.

But that depends heavily upon your character's design premise...
Even in SR4A, where you split Magic, a well built Mystic Adept can have far more Influence in the game than either a Straight Mage or Adept (this I know from Experience).
After all, BETTER is highly subjective. It all depends upon Concept more than just straight POWER.
POWER does NOT equal BETTER.

In other words. It's not the size of the Magic attribute, it's how you use it.

You're now arguing in a different context than the statement you're responding to was intended - Cochise's statement, at least in so far as I interpret it, is saying that the Mystic Adept would be a better Mage, which is flatly untrue.

And I'm just gonna point out TJ Fallacy again - your table seems to be awesome enough to even out normal issues with level of influence. In general, however, where influence (I) is a function of power (P) and the frequency of which situations within the set occur (F), I(P, F) does not equal I(P/2, F*2) unless (a) you're the only one with influence in the set or (b) the others with influence in the set are not up to their potential.

I agree with everything else wholeheartedly, specifically with how power scales non-linearly as karma/resources/attributes/whatever is spent on a character. But I don't agree with that last statement.

The mystic adept can spend power points on being a better mage. Initiative is one obvious example. You get undispellable wired reflex 3-equivalent (or focus with improved reflexes which can be dispelled and you have to spend money and karma to bond, as well as the 5 karma for the spell which you probably don't want anymore) for 20 karma, leaving another 0.5PP on another goodie. With 30 karma left, you can still get say a mentor spirit and focused concentration 6, if it pleases you, making a damn dangerous magician. This 20 karma also freed up perhaps 1 or 2 points you might have put into Reaction otherwise. So.. yeah hard to find anything else that beats this 20 karma spent on "non mage related stuff".

Apart from initiative, there is a number of things that can be useful. Of course one might feel forced to spend 5 karma for the 1 PP on astral perception (not very expensive if you ask me). Enhanced perception is quite good for 0.5PP, and definitely very useful for mage stuff (+1 on assensing and perception might free up skill slots for you). And a number of other powers can be really useful for a mage without being directly a "mage thing", and require no additional specialization in non-magical things. Combat sense, danger sense, mystic armor (which can be seen as reducing how many attributes to put in body to some extent), pain resistance, and spell resistance all come to mind.

At the end of the day, I fail to see how you can spend these karma points to improve your magical abilities, in a way that will make the regular mage so much better at magic than the mystic adept with his power points at the cost of 5 karma per point. Additional nuyen can be useful for buying extra goodies, but really what you can get for 10k hardly compares to a power point. Similarly for qualities for the most part. Skills you can often get a better equivalent with power points spent on skill equivalents (which also have the advantage to be a bonus instead of increasing the skill itself, and thus making future karma expenditures smaller). Same goes for attributes which can be increased (the physical ones) at 1PP or 5 karma per attribute point, definitely hard to beat, no? And if there's something so valuable that it makes you a better mage more so than 5 karma on a PP, then just don't spend the full 30 karma that you are allowed to.

So yeah, I really strongly disagree that spending power points doesn't improve your magical abilities, or at least doesn't increase your influence in the game as much. I would argue that it is actually the opposite.

Unfair - You cannot resort to Algebraic formulas to prove a point. I call foul.
You do have a point, though.

A mystic adept cannot spend Power Points on being a better Mage. However, many types of mages are not just mages - for example, a Mystic Adept CAN spend Power Points on the combat side of a Combat Mage, which would be a hybrid. And a hybrid should be where you look at the Mystic Adept first - and still, they'll be behind on magical skills.

What happens is that you have the dedicated mage (and many hybrid mages built as a full Magiciain) use their Karma to get things like a Power Focus, qualities (Mentor Spirit, Focused Concentration, and so on), more spells... There's a lot for a mage to spend Karma on. I've worked it out on here before, and in essence the mage winds up a few dice ahead in everything and has an easier time sustaining spells (and while adept powers can take over for some of that, the inflexibility of not being able to switch it out for other spells is a substantial drawback).

Would you prefer lambda calculus?

Even worse...
No Math is my preferred argumentative standpoint.

You make a good point, but I don't think it holds if we look at specifics. Sure what I describe seems to help combat mages more than other mage concepts. But in the end, unless your mage does not see any action in combat (strange game that would be), it will help him. Getting a second and/or third pass of initiative, or increasing your attributes, or skills, can all help increase the influence of the character in a meaningful way, which can usually be equivalent to the karma loss somewhere else. To take a specific example, removing focused concentration in exchange for power points can often be a good deal. Can you really claim that a mystic adept would have less influence on the game than a full magician which is the exact copy, but has focused concentration 5 instead of 4 power points?

Of course it depends on concepts and what you try to accomplish, but for most full magician concepts, I think it's not hard to find a chunk of karma that would be better spent on adept powers instead, even including the cost of losing astral perception/projection. In most cases, I can probably make that change with no loss of dice in magical skills. At the very least, I don't see how the overall change would be a significantly reduced influence on the game as a whole.

Again, I think that in many cases, the mystic adept is actually better off.

I agree, as this has been exactly how it has tracked in our games. Will be interesting to see how it plays out in SR5 over time, though.

It's not that the dedicated mage sees no combat - it's that given the choice between spending substantial Karma for something that's only good for combat, versus spending it for something that can be used in more situations and is also good for combat, the dedicated mage is better off with the latter.

And Mystic Adepts might be better off for hybrid concepts - but that's exactly where they should be better off. If the hybrid option isn't better for building a hybrid concept, something is wrong.

And how does he do that? Specifically, how do you spend 50 karma where it's not possible to take away 15-30 karma without diminishing significantly the mage's magical power. I'm not saying there's no sacrifice, just that it's possible and less or equally costly than the value of what you get in return.

Say you want a power focus 3 (18 karma), you can still get a mentor (5 karma) and 5 power points (25 karma). Pretty good deal if you ask me. Very powerful magician. Okay, you could use 14 karma to increase spellcasting to 7, for instance, and buy 2 more spells. Is that going to give you more influence on the game over taking improved reflexes 3 and spell resistance 3, for example? Not to mention that those 24 karma can be spent later, whereas the power points are not something you can ever get otherwise.

For Magic A, Attributes/Skills B/C, Resources D, Human E:

- 10 Karma to Nuyen
- 18 Karma to bond Power Focus (28)
- 5 Karma for Mentor Spirit (33)
- 12 Karma for Focused Concentration 3 (45)
- 3 Karma for Quick Healer (48)

You're already 28 Karma deep just for the most significant piece. FC and QH can be very easily switched for other options, as well. Trimming 15 Karma from there You simply cannot avoid that 10 Karma to Nuyen, as you need that remaining 16k nuyen for a Fake SIN and licences, non-terrible commlink, armour, reagents, and the rest of the essential kit. You COULD swap FC and QH for Power Points, but FC is far more useful to a dedicated mage than anything you'd get for 3 Power Points - the loss of flexibility and longer Drain healing times are big issues.

Which would be a misinterpretation on your behalf. My statement says that - depending on exact number of power points bought during chargen - a Mystic Adept will be "as good as" a "dedicated" magician, because of two things:

His relative raw magical power is equal to (or even slightly better than) a normal mage's raw magical power ... still depending on how you as a player individually value access to astral projection vs. the benefit of up to 6 "metamagical techniques" and how "big" the differences in magical skill levels can really be for the standard mage who uses 30 of his chargen karma for magical skills / positive magical qualities instead of power points.
Because after chargen both standard mage and Mystic adept can progress 100% identically (=equal dedication).

One of the major issues with your overall argumentation is that you try to compare mage and mystic on an "academic" level as if the setting of the game (Shadowrun) was of no importance at all. So while you correctly infer that adept powers don't necessarily provide a direct boost to the mystic's "magician" aspect you neglect the fact that he will benefit from these powers within the environment that he operates in ... both when trying to make use of his magical skills and when doing "other stuff".

Oh and there certainly are power's that will add to / boost his prowess when compared to a standard mage:

1. Astral Perception will recreate a normal mage's advantage at target acquisition for purposes of spellcasting
2. Improved Sense (Low Light / IR-Sight) can improve target acquisition for purposes of spellcasting for mystics - depending on race - without the need for special gear / implants.
3. Improved ability dice that are added to the skill level of the "mundane" skill the mage uses for the metamagic "Centering" .. Further improved Drain resistance
4. While a magician will not resort to direct astral combat that often, astral combat is part of his magical skillset. Critical Strike (Astral Combat) will improve a Mystic in that area (provided he has also gained Astral Perception)
5. Killing Hands: Again an improvement of astral combat
6. Improved Reflexes provide permanent reaction / initiative improvement that don't have to be cast, cannot be dispelled, removes the need for sustaining a spell (and should sustaining foci return, their drawbacks [e.g. when dealing with wards] will be negated as well)
7. Adrenaline Boost and Combat Sense will similarly have positive effects on use of magical skills under combat conditions (which are a "default assumption" of the game's setting)
8. Pain resistance will remove wound based modifiers when casting spells or performing other acts of magic - again as a passive, non-invasive version
9. Spell resistance: Directly adds to the ability to use Spell Defense for protecting the mystic himself from incomming hostile spells

And those are just the powers from the current core rules.
Potential candidates from SR4 are:

1. Adept metamagic Atunement (Item) on a weapon focus will provide additional prowess when engaging in astral combat
2. Adept metamagic Cognition will allow to temporarily boost the respective Drain attribute for the use of magical skills
3. Cloak will add to Spell Defense against active Detection spells for the mystic
4. Counterstrike: Again an improvement in astral combat
5. Distance Strike will again be open to interpretation ... but again: a potential improvement in astral combat
6. Iron Will: Also directly adds to the ability of using Spell Defense against certain spell types for the mystic himself.
7. Multitasking provided an additional free action => You could declare "Multiple Attacks" plus "Centering" (provided that you have acquired that metamagic) and still cast without having to resort to Reckless Spellcasting ... Obviously this will (again) be subject of debate due to the "when not directly involved in combat" limitation and no clear definition what constitutes a "direct involvement".
8. Mystic Armor + Elemental Resistance: Again adds to the Spell Defense against hostile spells with elemental effects for the mystic himself
9. Heightened Concentration: Ignoring situational dice pool modifiers for the use of any magical skill.
10. Supernatural Toughness: additional boxes on stun monitor has implications for Drain / Reckless Spellcasting
11. Indomitable Will: Again additional dice for purposes of defending against Spells for the Mystic himself
12. "Magician's Way" -> Sorcerous Parry: Directly increases the Counterspelling skill. And it will certainly be funny to see the debates concerning Mystics being able to choose other ways and thus gaining access to way specific powers that can incease Drain relevant attributes like Intuition or Logic

I'm certainly not saying that all of these things have an opportunity cost that is worthwhile. This is just about showing that adept power can and will affect the use of magical skills both directly as well as indirectly.

And just to add another "what if" scenario: What if we get to see the return of the "Limited Astral Projection" metamagic from SR3 (SotA'64) for Mystic Adepts? Then any adept power that affects combat and isn't preculded from usage in astral combat will directly effect astral combat further. Additionally one could certainly debate whether or not the use of any adept power during a metaplanar journey (quest) is also a boost to the magician aspect.

I need to ask you to define what you mean here, because I'm not sure we're having the same discussion... And while we're at it, I'm wondering what concepts you think the Mystic Adept should be better for.

~hmm~ I'm a bit at a loss here myself, because I think it's rather obvious what I was talking about: Raw magical potential under the perspective that a Mystic Adept can shift some of his magical potential as magician towards adept powers. Magic attribute and power points are basic mechanics for purposes of raw magical potential in either case. Since it was your claim that the (hotfixed) rules are (overall) "balanced" the shift between those assets has to be compared with regards to the following aspects:

1. Loss of automatic access to astral perception, (currently permanent) loss of astral projection and a skill / positive quality difference of up to 30 karma vs. the gain of up to 6 power points that most definitely can influence how and when magic skills can be used within the typical game setting. The question there is: Are the obtainable benefits truly equal, lower or higher when compared to what a normal mage gets when spending the 30 karma exclusively on magical skill levels and magical qualities? I have seen no proof from you that would indicate that such a shift is in fact "balanced" (more or less equal). And we haven't even touched upon a comparison of Mystic Adept vs. standard Adept.
2. The relative worth (and thus the "balance") of those up to 6 power points a Mystic Adept can have when looking at the fact that under hotfixed rules on a strictly mechanicl level, each power point has the worth of one single metamagic post character generation. This get's even more important when considering the fact that previous editions had expanded chargen rules where initiation was allowed as part of the chargen process and we're likely going to see that again in SR5.
3. The post chargen evaluation of the cost of magic attribute increase (the magician's direct increase of raw magical potential) vs. the cost of getting an additional power point (one of the two options of how a Mystic can expand his raw magical potential). Mechanically the increase of magic attribute is usually far more expensive than initiation cost, so this would indicate an imbalance towards the standard magician. However the need to initate (and thus enter the realms of refined magic potential a.k.a. metamagic) in order to be able to expand a basic aspect does look imbalanced towards the Mystic adept. I just can bring myself to think that two imbalanced aspects nullify each other and thus create an overall "balanced" experience and I certainly wouldn't call it "good game design", even if it were (somewhat) balanced.

My demand from a game design perspective would be that concepts with Mystic Adepts should be "different" and not (clearly) "better" (or "weaker") because the latter would indicate a serious "imbalance". So my objections with the current implementation are not related to the prospect of Mystics being better (or worse) for actual implementations of specific character concepts, but more with the mechanical inconsistancies, the degree and number of "special rules" necessary to create a (perceived) balance when compared to the base concepts (adept / magician) and - last but not least - the differences in how these magical archetypes vary in their ingame self-perception when looking at what they have to do in order to expand their respective basic power potential.

That's not saying that a Mystic Adept couldn't or shouldn't be "better suited" for the actual implementations of certain character concepts or "Magicians" being better suited for other concepts. I firmly believe that Mystic Adepts can and should be better when trying to implement some very specific variants of "combat mage" ("Ninjas" come to mind here) or "mind-twisting faces" while clearly losing out against concepts that focus more on access to astral space / interaction with the "spirit world" (e.g. astral recon, exploration of deeper magical knowledge via metaplanar projection).

Ah. I'm not, frankly, convinced that raw magical potential, as you've defined it, measured anything that's actually useful to this discussion. To begin with, looking only at the Magic attribute and number of power points misses details like skills, qualities, and equipment.

And I would submit that Mystic Adepts should be better for hybrid concepts - a set in which I would include the Combat Mage, in so far as it is defined as a character blending combat ability and magical ability.

A balanced and varied environment does not demand that options A and B always be equal on the relevant measure (my measure of choice being influence); where A is better than B as often as and to the same degree that B is better than A, balance holds.

Magic attribute and Magic attribute plus Power Points are the core mechanic and defining factor for magicians and adepts. So I would expect this to be true for a third magical archetype who explicitly is a combination of magician and adept (p. 69 explicitly states that: "Mystic adepts are a combination of magicians and adepts."). So if balance is an actual design goal this core mechanic must work out before secondary stuff like allowed skills, skill ratings and limits should be adressed and on that level individual character concepts are of no interest at all. Additional magical qualities and particularly equipment are not an issue either when looking at core balance if we can create situations where those qualities and the equipment are in fact "equal". And with the current ruleset that is possible (even though it somewhat breaks the idea of the Mystic Adept concept in the beginning) for magicians and mystic adepts:

Create two magically active characters with identical priority distribution, identical skills and identical qualities. Now for purposes of making the issues I see with the current system easier to spot, let's further assume that we use the following priorities:

Magic B (=>magic attribute=4), attributes A, skills C, ressources D, race E and we don't raise magic any further during chargen. One is a standard magician, the other one is a mystic adept who simply doesn't buy any power points during character generation. Magic attribute and all derived values will be identical, except for the opportunity cost of being a mystic adept:

1. Currently the permanent loss of astral projection
2. Temporary loss of access to astral perception and the subsequent options for target acquisition via astral perception

Looking "balanced" for now? Pretty much. Now both of our characters have two options of increasing their core magical potentials. If both raise their current magic rating we'll not have any balancing issues. If both of them decide to initiate and just take the same metamagic there won't be a balance issue either. The following situations however will have balancing implications:

1. Magician raises magic attribute whereas the mystic adept initiates and takes his first power point. In this situation both of them have raised their basic magical potential. The cost difference is at solid 12 karma. Now the questions are: Are the resulting benefits for either character balanced on a strictly mechanical level against that difference? Is it truely fitting with the lore that - apart from the obvious cost difference - the mystic adept must engage with an activity like initiation in order to increase something that is supposed to be part of his rather basic magical existance?
   
   I'm not too convinced of that the answers to these questions really should be "yes".
2. Magician and mystic both opt for initiation where the magician learns a metamagic and the mystic takes his first power point. Cost wise this time there's no difference, but with the exception of taking the astral perception power it's rather doubtful that the effects of metamagic vs. adept powers taken balance with each other.

Now we take a slightly different approach with the following stipulation: We don't spend ressources identically but instead shift some of the posssible skill levels / magical qualities of the magician build into power points within the mystic adept build. We're not even aiming for the full 4 power points (power points are capped by magic attribute) but rather just 1 power point that we invest into astral perception. Now opportunity cost for being a mystic is changed to

1. Loss of astral projection
2. A not clearly definable loss of skill levels / qualities / karma to nuyen since we'd have to shift 5 chargen karma to the power point. However losing 10k Nuyen (derived from your chargen example) doesn't necessarily look too dramatic, since ingame Nuyen (in by implication equipment) are easier to come by than karma.

The above problems with progress remain the same and now we additionally face the situation that our mystic adept now has something that is clearly worth a metamagic without even being an initiate.

But so far we have only looked into a direct comparison of magician vs. mystic adept. Now since p. 69 established that the mystic adept hybrid is in fact a combination of adept and magician with access to all skills and powers of either magical archetype with the known exceptions, we now have to ask, why it's mechanically impossible to start as an mystic adept whose current powers replicate a "standard adept" and his development as magician is postponed until after chargen or at least have a mystic adept with a (seriously) bigger adept aspect than magician aspect? Not necessarily a balance issue, but certainly something I'd call "bad design" when compared to the freedom provided by previous editions.

And now let's come back to that "flawed" concept of split "magic attribute" for mystic adepts: The "fun" part there is even SR5 mechanically does have that distinction, since on the core design level you could replace the term "magic attribute" with "qi attribute" for adepts in every instance without changing how the mechanics work for the adept. And using "magician attribute" and "qi attribute" for the respective aspects and "combining" it into an overall "magic attribute" would still work perfectly for a "combined" magical archetype and it would certainly help with avoiding balance issues and the design traps that we're seeing now.



Which is pretty much identical to what I said in the last paragraph of my previous posting. So to me that's not the the area where the balance problems of the current rules lie (neither RAW, nor the hotfix variant).

Final note: Changing rules just for the sake of changing them isn't good design and I still don't see any real advantage with the changed ruleset on mystic adepts.

@RHat

I see your point and I agree with a part of it. You say the mystic adept is not as potent magically than the pure mage. I agree and you made a valid argument. But that's not really the whole issue under debate. I'm saying the difference is small enough that the adept powers more than make up for it. And you have not convinced me otherwise. You have to look at the whole set of possible scenarios to determine if the character has more influence (to use your word) on the game, not just his magical abilities. Since we can't seem to agree on this and we've both explained our position, I think I'll just have to agree to disagree at this time.

For Magic A, Attributes/Skills B/C, Resources D, Human E:
25 karma PP
12 karma power focus
5 karma mentor spirit
4 karma focused concentration 1
3 karma quick healer

So the pure mage is what 1 die better at magic, sure his focused concentration is 2 higher but if you don't go in full you are reagent cheesing it anyways. So reagent cheese 3 or reagent cheese 1 i dont see the big deal. If you are using it just for attribute boosts, drop quick healer and get it to 2 and it handles your dump stats fine.

so really 1 die better for 5 power points, is one die better really a better mage?

The hotfix makes it less unbalanced, but the mystic adept is broken at the core when they allowed them to double up the magic attribute in character creation.

DMiller:
I don't really like the rules you've posted at all. They do very little to address the core problems. The designers of 5e were on crack when they did Mystic Adepts and very little can be done to fix this. I see you're trying to fix things... such as allowing a mage focus or an adept focus in the adept instead of being forced to be a magician focused adept. But I don't think your proposed rules help much on this score. Especially the advancement rules! No one should ever get a 'twofer' on magic/power points. This is the core of what's broken in the 5e Mystic adepts. Yet this is exactly what you do... even if it might be more properly be called a 1.5'er instead of twofer with your doubling of half the costs/benefits.

You also do the exact same kind of railroading that SR5 is guilty of. You force people to do a 2:1 split on their powers (2:2 with doubled costs... making it 2:1 effective). What about the guy who wants 5 points of magic and only 1 point of adept powers like in SR4a? That was a very viable concept and player type.

In the end, you're better than the SR5 rules since you trim some of the abuses... but worse than the SR5 hotpatch missions errata in that you're way too powerful in the long haul in comparison with your 'extra magic for nothing' approach.

Overall the SR4a rules were the best of the official published so far. I've played a missions official mystic adept now in both SR4a and SR5 and I have to say it's no contest... the SR5 MA blows the other out of the water... the other is basically a technical adept with a touch of utility magic. (in the form of a handful of weak spells, and weak spirit services... a force 4 concealment, guard, etc... can be valuable in their own right). It really comes down to this... the SR5 MA comes out the door as a full mage (minus projection) with effectively 12 points of magic on the cheap.

Arguments to the contrary such as things such as mentor spirits and such are mandatory out the gate are missing the point. 30 points for 6PP as a one time only chargen extravaganza is WAY too cheap... All the mage specific advantages they claim can accrue instead miss the point.

Everything listed as a huge advantage for the pure mage coming out of chargen can be bought after chargen by the mystic adept... while the MA might be an initiation or two behind the pure mage after doing so... it's not a huge difference. And as time goes on... it's even less of a difference. If the Mystic adept chooses to ignore his adept side from this point on... he's effectively only 2 initiations behind the pure mage in karma expenditures (18karma for a force 3 power focus and 10 for a mentor... as opposed to 29 karma to initiate twice). An advantage but not a decisive one, especially the longer the game goes on. (6 magic with 2 initiatians... in the future what... 9 magic with 5 initiations vs. 9 magic with 3 initiations?)... the head start isn't that big.


Another item I've seen skimming the thread is very wrong. The original mystic adepts were adepts first and foremost... the rules even stated outright if anything caused them to lose magic, they would lose power points spent on 'mystic' before any other. If these were permanently lost... the adept would permanently lose all spellcasting ability and could never buy that power again and would forever more be a non-mystic adept.



I think aspected mages have a ton of problems as introduced in the 5e rules. They're too constrained in the long haul. Taking a -6 or -8 dice penalty if they try to use ther magic in a non-aspected way would have been better I feel... an aspected mage could attempt to summon or enchant... but would only be able to handle very weak spirits or preperations. That said... forcing 5e mystic adepts to choose an aspect is probably the best way to straightjacket them. (I have a phys ad who summons on the side... or who can cast spells but not use spirits... or who is mostly a phys ad but with a 'bag of tricks' with a few alchemical tricks up his sleeve).


My ideal way to fix mystic adepts would be to split the magic attribute in two while still limiting total magic to {essence + initiations}. Then raise each one as normal using the stock 5x new rating attribute cost. Since the split attributes are so much lower than the combined one... it fixes the SR4a problem of stupidly high costs to advance a mystic adept in both halves... if so desired. While keeping one of the key balancing factors of the game, the increasing high costs to raise increasingly higher attributes intact.

Sam buys priority A magic... he puts 3 into Magic attribute and 3 into PP attribute. His total is still 6 equal to his essence... if he loses essence he loses a point of magic or PP his option. After initiating he has the option to raise either his Magic from 3->4 for 20karma as normal or his PP attribute. As compared to a straight mage who has 6 magic and needs 35karma for 6->7... this is a significant savings and allows him to advance at an equitable rate while still always being behind the pure mage in power.

Bill buys priority B magic... he puts all 4 points into magic expecting to raise his adept abilities later on. He pays 5 karma for the first PP to raise Power from 0->1 and 10more to raise it again later to raise it from 1->2. After this he needs to initiate to raise either his Magic or Power further (assuming no essence reductions).

That is probably how I'd work it... cap any adept powers bought at the Power-Magic rating... spells would use the Mystic-Magic rating as their dice/force caps. With the initiation PP instead of Metamgic option... such a character could easily keep himself going... unless he wanted to raise an adept power to a level above his Power rating... forcing him to raise it occassionally... But using metamagic -> PP... and buying Magic each time would raise his raw quantity of adept powers and magic rating at an equitable rate if he was willing to sacrifice a metamagic or two as a mage.

That's how I'd do it as well.

Next time please do not just "skim" and actually read ... because it was said that by fluff - opposed to the actual rules - they were not "adepts first and foremost" and I was even "kind" enough to provide the SR2 parts of the fluff and could do so for SR3 as well if need be.

You can't use one problematic rule (which you acknowledge it to be with the "cheese" term) to justify another. And that character has only about 14000K left over for Nuyen, or only 4000 after a single high rating Fake SIN; if you don't have enough money left to buy the various things every character should have and the basics for your character type, then you're behind as it is.

Falconer: That method doesn't work, because it rests on intrinsically false assumptions. If you'd done more than skim the thread, you'd be aware of the previous discussions on the subject.

After some thinking on it, that idea is growing on me as well.