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he only bonuses a Free Spirit cannot use are from Foci. They can use any other bonus out there, Including Specialization, Initiation and the Mentor Quality. The ONE free spirit I created had a 4 Casting Skill, and a 6 Magic. 10 Dice to start with. About typical for a Starting Mage. I agree that Foci give the Metahuman the potential to outstrip the Free Spirit given a bit of time. But that does not have to be the case. And, I think that Free Spirit Powers make up for that quickly as well.
Having played a free spirit for nearly 6 months now, I feel without doubt the mage is MUCH better at magic. Lets look at why:
Mages can sustain spells by: foci, bound spirits, ally spirits and concentration. The concentation sucks as its -2 on almost everything per sustained spells
Mages can boost their spells by foci, bound spirits, ally spirits, the magic attribute and skill. The attributes and skills are hard to increase as they require huge amounts of karma
Mages can access all spirit powers by summoned spirits, bound spirits and ally spirits. They can change which ones they have access to.
So now lets compare that spirits
Spirits can sustain spells by: concentration (which as stated previously sucks)
Spirits can boost their spells by the magic attribute and skill.
Spirits have to pick a small subset of the spirit powers and cannot change them
A starting mage could have a mentor spirit, a foci rank 4, and a bound spirit rank 4 a total of 6 die for most spells, and 10 die when they want to use a service better off
Experienced mages are even better: a mentor spirit, an ally spirit rank 4, a bound spirit rank 4, and a rank 4 foci a total of 14 die better than the spirit.
The inability to sustain spells easy is probably the biggest pain: I don't think I have played a mage that could not easily sustain 2 spells. Sustain foci cost 30K, and 3 bp for a total of 9 bp.
The combination of all of the above basically makes the spirit a second class spell caster
Having said all that I love playing my spirit, probably more than I like playing mages.