A 200 Karma mage? How much money did he get extra with that 200 Karma.
If you look at Mission Rewards, to get 200 Karma which is roughly 45 missions. You would easily have received 5k per mission. That's 200,000 nuyen pretty easily. Even if I say 1/2 of it was spent on 'lifestyle and other costs.' That's still another 100K.
A 400bp mage, with 200 karma and 100,000 for foci, enchanted items and bound spirits? He's going to be able to Summon a Spirit as good as your 400bp+200 Karma free spirit.
If you look at Mission Rewards, to get 200 Karma which is roughly 45 missions. You would easily have received 5k per mission. That's 200,000 nuyen pretty easily. Even if I say 1/2 of it was spent on 'lifestyle and other costs.' That's still another 100K.
A 400bp mage, with 200 karma and 100,000 for foci, enchanted items and bound spirits? He's going to be able to Summon a Spirit as good as your 400bp+200 Karma free spirit.
A free spirit PC doesn't need to pay normal lifestyle costs. A FSPC does not need to spend money to learn spells. A FSPC doesn't even necessarily have to pay for a home. So where a mage is going to have to be spending fairly large amounts of money for spells, lifestyle, foci, and ritual materials, a FS is going to be free to utilize that money in different and possibly more effective ways. As an indirect result, a FSPC would be an excellent partner for a mage PC, as the FS could simply give all those funds to the magician if needed. Furthermore, if you are worried about the hardiness of your FS straight out of chargen, then take qualities like Exceptional Attribute, Lightning Reflexes, Tough as Nails, Arcane Arrester from SURGE, or (especially) Lucky. A FS has more breathing room for qualities than a mage, so you should take advantage of it.