I'm curious about your experiences? I'm putting together an Elf (maybe Night One) Adept with Magical Power of 3 as a Raccoon Shaman. He is a facish infiltrator, specializing in organized crime connections. No combat spells, no combat skills. Afterall with Qck-8 who needs Assault Rifle? I can default....or morelikely run.

I'm taking a couple of voluntary geasa so i'll still have effectively 5 PP for my Adept powers. Unfortunately i don't think i'll be able to squeeze in Astral Perception before Initiating, so he is going to be sort of a half-blind mage. I'm going to take the cheaper Magic Sense instead to watch for wards and stuff to try minimize my foci causing trouble.

He'll be able to summon City Spirits fairly well with the extra +2 totem die (plus Chr-5), and cast some utilitarian spells to bypass security and such. I'm likely going to drop the huge cash for a Power Focus (F1), though i'm not sure if i have to spend spell points binding to that? Also it seems important that i buy him at least one Sustaining Focus (F:1) for sustaining something like Gecko while doing spirit work. I'm really not comfortable about carrying foci with limited ability to fight back against projecting mages, but hopefully i'll be able to use spirits to keep them busy enough get help from a real mage in the party before i get mana bolted to a crisp.

Quick question, i've never bought foci during character creation before outside of one-use ones. Do i need to spend spell points to bond with them, unless of course i wait till the end of an run or two to gain the karma? I'm sure it is in there explicitly somewhere.

So, is there anything i'm missing that i need to watch out for?

EDIT: Oh, before someone mentions it if i take Night One i'm going with Blandness, Friendly Face, Good Reputation to try counter the freakshow that is a Night One. I've also included a razor in my gear list.

I personally really like Magician's Way adepts. You lose projection (which is a big loss), and they take some Karma, (especially if you want to shed those gaesa),but in a long-term game they can end up very powerful.

Quote me wrong, but I thought Mag-Way adepts got Perception for free...

Nope - you gotta pay 2 power points for it.

The variant metatypes cannot take Blandness. (See the SC, under metatypes.)

If you are playing SRII, you have the option of taking Astral Sight as a Magical Edge (3 points?).

You are choosing voluntary geasa for your adept powers, so you might also consider voluntarily geasing your Magical Power, which should give you effectively 4 magic (spell-casting) points. (It counts as an adept power, in this context.)

In some ways that character will be more limited than (for example) a "pure" magician or adept: in that apart from astral projection, every other possibility is open. If you want to be a jack-of-all-trades (my most common approach), no problem. If you want to be comparable in ability to others in at least some fields, you will need to choose which directions you want to specialise. Most games don't last long enough for the character to be able to do everything

I decided to read up on the subject, and on pg 74 of MITS it says adepts do not need access to astral space to center because they are centering on mundane skills. Adepts can learn to center Sorcery, but it only applies to astral combat. The Magician's way rules say that MW adepts use centering like any normal adept, so can they only center Sorcery in astral combat?

Correct. They also cannot buy power points for 20 karma. Ouch.

What that means is that a Physical Mage (it's easier to type than Adept of the Magician's Way) can center as per the rules for an adept for mundane skills, but for magical skills such as Sorcery, they follow the rules for other magicians. Translation: They can learn Centering and apply it to mundane skills without Astral Perception, but need to acquire Astral Perception before they can learn it for their Magical Skills (which would take up a Metamagic Technique of its own).

that rule about not buying pp for 20 karma doesn't feel especially limiting, to me. with a group and ordeals, you have to get up around grade 8 before initiation becomes more expensive than 20 karma. color me restricted.

I had a player who used that to keep his magic low on purpose, thus making him unlikely to fail Magic Loss checks.

That's the only time I've seen anyone go for the 20-karma power point.

There's also the bit where "freaks" are considered quite fashionable, too, such as a certain SURGE Changeling stripper.

The SRComp is chock full of concept-breaking "rules" anyway. The beautiful thing about Shadowrun is that it eschews the lame stereotyping used in other games like D&D... yet the SRComp basically forces Nymphs to be tree-hugging hippies, Night Ones to hide int he dark, gnomes to be shamans, and metahuman variants in general to be niched into some freaky little corner. Screw that.

Considering how there's a score of freaks walking the street everyday, I imagine variants would be less stand-outish in the 2060's anyway. Especially considering that many of those freaks purposely contort their bodies so as to look like freaks... just look at some of the bioware and cyberware made available, not to mention body art.

Besides, mechanics-wise, the metahuman variants don't get anything for free. Night Ones, for instance, cost 5 Build Points more than a standard Elf, yet basically only gets Bonus Attribute (Quickness) and Exceptional Attribute (Quickness) in exchange for a Mild Allergy to Sunlight and Distinctive Style... which balances out to +0. Whooptido.

My only problem with the Magician's Way Adept Rules are that if you have any bio/cyberware, you are screwed. Since the only way to get additional power points is through initiation (which is a good thing), and you can't learn a metamagic ablility at the same time, magic loss due to ware, or other things, really puts the MW Adept behind the curve.

To 'ware: not necessarily: and it can give you a significant edge over and above (if not cumulative with) physad abilities. You just have to be very, very careful never to place yourself in danger of losing that last, critical magic point. For me: I only ever once went above 2 points total essence loss, and that was a very concept-specific character. Others might find different balances.

Point-based systems are obviously better for the min-maxing elements once 'ware (especially cultured/beta) comes into play.

Re Blandness:

Muy bad. I was thinking of Human-Looking, and accidentally mixed in a house rule which seemed to be true to the spirit, if not the canon. So if you do take it with a metatype, it would not be an environmental bonus so much as a way to offset penalties.

Re trying to get things past the GM:

Why? Where's the fun in just trying to sneak equipment and abilities past the mediator of your alternate reality? Ultimately everyone can cheat at chess, but then it's not really a chess game, is it? But that's a whole other debate in any case.

Apparently you didn't read all of my posts either blakkie - specifically the part where I quoted from a later part of your own post (Check out my post just before the one which you quoted.)