So Anchoring spells to bullets is something I've talked alot about in the past coming up with a cost to get a mage to use anchoring is something I've had trouble with. It basically comes down to, how much nuyen is karma really worth?

So in your game, how much would you charge per point of karma spent, as well as the initial casting?

I wouldn't. nuyen for a mage is worthless unless you use a nuyen/karma exchange rate house rule. But as a GM I wouldn't allow that rule if that's what the mage was doing. I'd only spend karma to anchor bullets for team mates where I would gain a direct benifit for the loss of improving my character.

Nuyen isn't just to buy new guns and gear. There are plenty of people in the world of Shadowrun who just want to make money for greeds sake. Hell, everyone that's anyone wants to make money for money's sake.

There has to be a mage in the setting who would see using his magic as a way to make money.

1 karma per force times X nuyen per karma * markup rate for being super rare + cost of time
Or imo
Force * 2500 * 8 + trivial amount = 20000 * Force
2500 is from karma gen. The times 8 is because your talking about a mage (rare among metasapients) who knows not just a meta magic but an advanced specialized metamagic (very rare among mages) who is sacrificing his personal enlightenment and more importantly future earnings (since he is losing power and power = money).

Also the items now carry his astral signature, are likely to leave it on the scene of a violent crime almost certainly involving murder(s), and as an added bonus can probably be used to magically track him and maybe for targetting him with ritual magic.

This is going to cost you too, in additon to the karma expense...

I tell you: I would like to be able to swap 2500 nuyen for 1 karma... (i.e. give I'll buy karma for 2500 nuyen like a shot).

I have observed that players are willing to swap almost any amount of money for karma: 20K nuyen for 1 karma is a rate that I have run at, and almost every mage / adept just does it. (FYI we don't get that much nuyen per run. At the end of run 12 after expenses, and no purchases a mage might have cleared 60K...and that would be from 3 months of playing every week. Even at that the extra 3 karma is far more valuable to the mage than the 60K nuyen)

Bold by me, and taking into consideration this...



This is why it wouldn't really be too many NPC sorts out there willing to do it. For no amount of nuyen. Sure, there might be the oddball mage who knows better, but his immediate needs outweigh not being ritually tracked down via the link and horribly murdered in the face, but not many. More than likely, if they are that hard up for the money, the pursuing party could easily get the info on who actually ordered the bullets with a bit more nuyen exchanging hands instead of torture. Which means they are now on your trail.

If you can convince you team mage to do this for you, awesome. But my thinking is any mage who has attained this much magical clout has the sense to realize how dangerous this application would be to themselves.

Didn't think about the being tracked down via astral signature part. But that is a serious drawback... hmm. Looks like I'll just have to make a mystic adept and have fun with it.

Another thing is the trigger condition for the anchoring. Assuming you want the spell to go off when it hits the target, it'll be a contact trigger. Which means....



...that if you go near those bullets, they're going to go off at YOU. Pretty much leaves out anyone but the mage directly handling them. Drones however....

You could use a complex trigger to do with blood though I'm not 100% on it's RAW standing however area effect doom spells on a missile launched via drone would be funny. Even a sniper would make fro a nasty assassins tool say X force what ever will hurt on top of an aim'd round the the skull.