I had been considering the consequences of low force spells. And the interesting consequence that when not in a background count, force 1 can be as hard to resist as force 5 for some spells. Force 7 or higher is just as easy for some spells (such as "stun Bob").

Thus:
Hardened ego(id?):
This metamagic does not alter the drain code of a spell (Filtering is the closest you'll get to that), but it does make some spells easier to cast. The initiate can ignore any drain whose power is less than half his initiatory grade (rounded down). Thus someone who takes this as their first metamagic can ignore any spell whose net drain TN is 0 or less. Background count applies before this limit, so it stacks very nicely with filtering.

Eh?

Background Count doesn't have any bearing on your Drain Code. Mana Warps do, but not Background Counts. They only apply to the spellcasting target number.

That aside, I'm not particularly keen on the technique. Seems like it could really be abused in the long run. At most, I'd let it lower the Drain Level of spells within the limits you gave by -1 to a minimum of Light, but I wouldn't let it completely ignore it. That would make it particularly nice when coupled with a Trauma Damper.

Of course background count affects the drain code! As per p84 MitS.

As for the new metamagic... mm well it's okay I guess. I don't know that I'd find it very useful myself, if playing a spellcaster, but in any case I'm more of a by the book person. Homebrewed metamagic and the like don't normally sit well with me.

Well cripes. We've been blissfully ignorant of that last paragraph. My mistake.

Lucky mages in your group!!

It's no big deal though, not like shadowrunners are often going to go (or create) anywhere with a background count of 2 or more eh?

Oh please. Under most circumstances Background Counts don't go above 1, and it's not often you see one rated at 4 or higher; and 2 and 3 is only +1 to Power. Huge battlefields in the middle of a war tend to be pretty rare in my games. Dunno about yours.

It seems a bit broken, to me...

We already have centering against drain, and filtering. At higher initiate grades, you get a mage who can sling very powerful spells and not worry about drain at all. (An Initiate Grade 6, for example, can sling Force 6 Manabolts all day at Deadly damage.) Combine it with fetish required spells and exclusive spells and you have a nightmare on your hands... (Like casting mutiple Force 6 Deadly Manabolts without having to put dice aside to resist drain).

The basic idea is alright, but the mechanics need work. Maybe roll half Initiate Grade as a complementary skill to resist drain? Maybe if the spells force is under half your Initiate Grade, it gets lowered one drain level?

I don't know - in being a Shadowrun GM for twelve years or so I have never ever seen the problem of spells having too high a drain. The opposite problem is more common, imo.

You could make a metamagic based off of ED's Spell Matrices, but that's a tough conversion. If you want to go this way, have Filtering be a requirement, and state that a magician can build spell matrixes which channel mana from the surrounding area instead of the mage himself.

Threading
- The techique allows the initiate to have his Grade number of matrixes, and spells held in a spell matrix have their Drain Power reduced by half the Initiate Grade(round down; background count is ignored for this purpose. It also doesn't create a background count, if you were using ritual magic, say.) Background count also doesn't factor into the target number, but you do not gain any benefits from positive background counts either.
- Also, no spell can have a higher Force than the initiate's skill in Spellthreading - It is, however, possible to put several lower force spells into one matrix - the total force cannot exceed the characters skill in that case.
- Casting a spell from a matrix takes a Complex Action, as normal, but the magician doesn't need to roll for drain. Each spell held in a matrix can only be cast once, after that the matrix needs to be 'recharged'.
- Spellthreading is required to create these matrices. Each matrix has a base time of (Forcex3) minutes to create, and doing so is an exclusive action. The TN is the drain target number of the spell the matrix is built for. If built for several spells, the TN would be the combined drain TN. This is an Active Magical Skill linked to Willpower.
- A spell matrix is vulnerable to attack on the astral, but they are difficult to detect (+4 TN), and they defend themselves just like barriers do. The spells can also be dispelled, as normal, but their force is considered 2 points higher for this purpose.

Okay - those rules were pulled partly out of my behind, but I am working on a full set of rules.
They are abit complex, but less so than the ED rules I think. The rules are a bastardised version of EDs Spell Matrices and Threadweaving, and they are less powerful (at leat until you reach very high initiate grades). I also propose a karma cost to create these matrices, though 1 point per matrix seems a bit low, and Force x 1 Karma seems a bit high.

The one saving grace about the "Force 1 Trid Phantasm/Improved Invis" twink is that the drain is a bitch to recast if someone neutralizes the sustaining foci. However, with this, if I'm reading it correctly, Hardened Ego would make it so it's absolutely nothing for an Initiate Grade 2 mage or shaman to continually recast their little twink spell with TONS of successes now that they don't have to set dice aside for drain.

The idea is (as stated) to give the mages a reason to cast stunbolt at something less than force 6. The idea of lowering the level of drain when the condition is met does seem to be less troublesome than ignoring it entirely.
A reversal of the extra-deadly spell effect would probably fit better. Every 2 that a drain TN is below 2, the drain level is dropped by one. Although the scaled initiatory effects are often fun, it probably is excessive for something like this.

This new idea would lead to spells that reach 0L drain being resisted immediately, and the odd case that a spell results as -2D would become a 2M.

There's already at least one good reason to cast it as less than Force 6, especially in an area with a high background count (as I've recently been informed of), and that's to reduce the Drain Power. Making it free to cast at lower Force ratings is a little redundant anyway; it's one of those spells that's really easy to resist.

That aside, there's nothing wrong with Force 6 stunbolts; it's the "standard" Power of a magical attack for all intents and purposes. It's like being upset that a heavy pistol does 9M, thus someone should make sure that you can shoot your bullets with reduced Power for... well, for some strange reason.

How about something like having the drain power reduced by a third of your initiate grade? Or looking back at the old armor rules, grade/3 automatic successes on the drain test. Probably with some limit on the number of automatic successes allowed based on force, so that "Force 20 Manabolt cast at Light" idea from the old forums doesn't come back in an even more annoying form.