so i thought i'd take a stab at making karmagen work, partially by figuring out the amount of karma a runner should even start with. ideally, you'd average over all the permutations of the priority system, but that's a huge pain in the ass combinatorially, especially figuring for the fucked up differences in each magic priority. so this estimation is based on making an average character with the best possible race and magic priority for priority C in each category, which seems to be an ork mage. my logic follows, please poke holes but please read carefully.

karma costs for each category:

Resources C: assuming 2,000 nuyen per karma, 70 karma. easy.

Attributes C: buying everything up to a 3 costs 25 * 8 = 200 karma. i assume here that you buy up from human standard and then add racial mods.

Skills C: 9 skills at 3 cost 12 points, so 108 karma, + 2 for the leftover for 110. add the skill group at 2 for a total of 115 karma.

Race: we'll figure low-light vision at 5 karma. two ways to look at attributes:

a) straight up karma cost, which is 45 + 25 = 70 karma

b) cost of an "average" set of ork attributes, which is (assuming body 7, strength 6) 235 (jesus christ!).

since this leads to crazy point inflation, we'll assume the racial modifier adds after attributes are purchased normally and call it 75 karma for the ork.

Magic C: ah, this is the bitch. first is the cost of entry to be awakened. there are two ways to look at this:

1) figure the karma hole from priority E to priority D, on average. for race, this gives you a mudane human with edge of 3, so 25 points; a hit of about 30 karma for attributes, about 24 karma for skills, about 22 karma for resources. averaging, this suggests being an adept or aspected magician is worth (-10 karma for magic 2) around 15-20 karma. this might be a bit low, since realistically the aspected magician gets a point of "magic" for free relative to the adept (astral perception). averaging, this makes it more like 25 or 30 karma

2) equate magic to resources as best as possible. the best comparison i can find is wired reflexes 2, which is 2.5 power points for the adept equivalent or about 70 karma in resources. figuring for the difference between 2.5 and 3 power points, we'll call the equivalent used wired 2, which costs 55 karma in resources. since magic 3 would cost 25 karma, this analysis suggests the cost of entry for magic is 30 karma as well.

part 2 is figuring out how much better off a mage is than an adept or aspected magician.

priority B is the only good example of this. i'm going to ignore the skills for this part of the calculation. by priority b, you get a mage with magic 4 or an adept with magic 6. the difference between the two is a full 55 karma, which fits pretty well with a mage being three to four times as capable as an adept or aspected magician. it also suggests that being an aspected magician is 25 karma better than an adept, but i think that's too much for just one magic type and astral perception.

so we'll call it 30 to be an adept, 40 to be aspected, and 90 for full mage or mystic adept (extra five for astral projection or being a fucking mystic adept) with a magic of 1. call technomancers 40 too since they're priority C. 15 points a pop for power points seems fair for the mystic adept given he has to get them via initiation in play, so figure the average cost of 6 intiations is about 20 per power point, plus a small break for having to buy the magic attribute too. still, you get double the power you now pay the price.

this makes our ork mage at priority C have the equivalent of 115 karma in magic (90 to be a mage, 25 for magic 3). he also gets 5 spells at 5 a pop, so total value is 140 karma.

this suggests that the total value of a starting runner is around 200 + 70 + 75 + 115 + 140 + 50 bonus karma = 650 karma. sounds about right. similar to previous versions as well. everything is karma from the start, so qualities cost or give back double as they would during play. no fake karma bullshit here.

races are easy:

elves: 25 karma (+1 charisma and agility, low-light)
dwarf: 70 karma (+2 body and strength, +1 willpower, 5 karma for thermograpic vision, 5 karma for pathogen resistance).
ork: 75 karma (as above)
troll: 160 karma (+5 body and strength, +5 thermographic vision, +10 for +1 armor, +5 for reach).

merry christmas, dumpshock. just saved you from buying run faster. well, i suppose there will be centaurs, and who can live without those in a game? if there aren't playable d'rooq-qua-whatever-the-fuck-they-are troll vampires, it's not actually shadowrun at all!

seriously, though, i think this might do till we get better options. a full out adept drops 130 karma on adept + magic 6, a full out sam drops about 130 karma for 260,000 in resources + 140,000 "free". the adept still makes out a bit better, arguably, but some things are cheaper for the sam, so without getting into that can of worms it seems to balance out. a balls-out mage is putting almost a third of his karma in just to get to magic 6 before he starts getting skills, so that seems like an appropriate investment, while an aspected mage is paying about as much as the samurai or the adept. anything i'm missing or overlooking here?