EDIT: All that typing... to come to an answer I really didn't like.

Nevermind me, thanks Shockwave.

Ok theres been loads of threads on the sammie versus Adept thing, you might want to do a search for it.

I beleive it boils down to. Sammies get harder quicker but peak quicker.

It seems that you've got you geas rules wrong for adepts, they only geas 1 magic point's worth of powers not their entire ability to use magic.

I understand how it works, but after two initiations, an Adept who takes a deadly wound is more likely to loose that point of magic then keep it.

As most Adepts are on the front line of combat more then the other character types, they get to the Deadly damage area much quicker then the mage who's safely hiding around the corner and down the street if he can help it.

You can't slap all the geasa on one Power Point...

But after the reading... you can slap the same geasa on diff power points.

Gah. That seems kinda... not in keeping with the spirit of geasa IMO.

In our group we just reversed the deadly/magic test. We too thought it was stupid that as a magician or adept gets stronger in the magic (higher magic rating) the easier it is for him to lose it. That is just us though, we like to attain power and keep, only death in the final sense will take it away from the characters. Funny though our characters rarely initiate more then 2 or 3 times, if at all.

tjn, I think you're right about Physical Adepts being the only ones who really take a hit to their power when they lose a magic point. In my experience over the last 4 years, I've seen perhaps 10 lost magic points during a period where all our magicians and adepts combined have earned perhaps 1500 Karma between them (average of 3 Karma earned per character per 8 hours of play).

If your adepts lose magic points at a similar rate, one for every 150 earned Karma, what you describe won't be much of a problem during the first 450 earned Karma.

Past 400 earned Karma or so, our team has found it difficult to make adventures that properly challenge the players and their characters (probably mostly due to Karma Pool). We have had more fun since we retired our experienced characters and all started afresh.

Have you had campaigns run long enough that Adepts have 10 to 15 Power Points? Do you change your GM techniques at some point, in order to challenge the characters?