Since wage mages are a thing, what do you suppose the going rate is for karma expenditures for things like crafting foci or quickening spells? Is there a guideline for this in SR4 that I might have missed?

Truthfully, I've thought it's always been a bit fuzzy how much "Karma" exists as something people are actually aware of in the campaign world, as opposed to a strictly behind-the-scenes game mechanic. If it's officially acknowledged to exist in-world, then it only makes sense for people to try to quantify units of it, and then to charge for the expenditure of such units. How much would they cost? Hard to say, with supply and demand, could be anything.

Well the going conversion rate in SR4 was 2500¥ for 1 point of karma. This is based on how much nuyen you could get per point of karma in the karma build. Now a magician is a karma pig. They suck that stuff down and still want more. Everything they do costs karma. Usually they want to do stuff for themselves. So how likely is it that someone who needs karma that much themselves is going to give away karma cheaply? Not likely at all. It's going to cost whatever the market will bear. The megas know this and pay appropriately cuz the last thing they want is a bunch of runners nicking their stuff cuz they cheaped out on magical defenses.

The "guideline" is the Karma character creation system from the Runner Companion, where Karma has a ¥-value (of 2500¥ per point).

There is also an optional rule, where you can exchange Karma for Nuyen and the other way around (same ratio as default).

Bye
Thanee

Currently, our Resident Mage charges 4,000 to quicken a Force 8 Health Spell (In the attribute/attributes of their choice) made [semi]permanent with a single point of Karma.
Seems to be a popular option. They have, of course, learned the drawbacks of such things, to be certain.

What would he charge for a f8 spell quickened with 24 karma? At 2.5k/karma, that'd be 60k for the karma alone. Still, no essence loss, and the ability to smash through most barriers without losing a buff, especially compared to Deltaware...

If you have to ask, you can't afford it, chummer.

It is not needed... Even At 1 Karma, he has yet to see any of the quickened spells fall to wards or barriers, and the one time that an opposition Magician tried to get rid of one, well, it ended poorly for the magician. Even our Mage has a hard time getting rid of them once quickened. HIgh Background counts help to remove them, to be sure, but...


That being said, the Economy he has established for such services is 4,000 per Karma Point; so that would be 96,000 for a 24 Karma Quickening, assuming he was willing to actually invest 24 karma for a Quickening, which I doubt.

Biggest issue is the lack of subtlety and the lack of any ability to hide the magical auras.

Reminds me that in some game I was in, the "game world" had no native interpretation for "an amount of magic" but there was a skill/spell/ability to transfer the game-mechanic mana points. So one of the PCs said, "Ok, look. I'm going to call 'the amount of magic required to start a fire' as 'One Thaum.' [game mechanic: Ignite cost 1 mana] Got that? Now...give me five thaums please and thanks."

KarmaKard™

Whether your tripping through the Astral or paying off a soul debt after that big Poker game in the La Grande Risqué I know I am always covered by my KarmaKard™.

Don't leave your home plane of existence without it.

I dunno, that's a huge buff for not a lot of nuyen, even if it isn't exactly "discreet" in the Astral. As long as you don't go around throwing cars at people, though, and you don't get scoped astrally, you should be fine. If you need to sneak this particular runner in someplace, though, you'd have to put him in a warded coffin or something.

Then of course there's always the heavy weapons troll (I'd name him Brik, because he's the opposite of discreet) who wouldn't care about discretion. I'm not saying it's ideal for every character, but you could frag some drek up in a hurry. Hell, leave Brik outside as a one-troll insurance policy against SWAT. Between Armor, Deflection, Combat Senses, Diagnostics on his weapons, a whole suite of positive health spells including Imp Reflexes... I'd say whoever tries to cut off the team's escape is gonna have bad time.

When did they change the rule to not require 1 point of karma per point of Force?

I'd avoid the 2500/karma point default. I always look at it as supply and demand.

Say there was a Transfer Youth spell requiring a voluntary subject. One could likely make money buying a few years here and there from young people relatively inexpensively, especially if they are impoverished (maybe even charging some youngsters who want to be like Tom Hank's Big.) The person then seeks out the old and wealthy and offers to trim a few years or decades of their age for tons of nuyen, which in turn is a negligible amount for the wealthy.

Supply and demand. The old and wealthy are analogous to Mages, the impoverished young are similar to the impoverished mundane.

Regarding corps, I am going to assume it is in the magicians contract how they are paid. It may be on a sort of salary basis, or per karma expenditure. In either case it is another reason wage mages should be well paid.

Don't rember if that was in 4th or 5th Edition. You are REQUIRED to spend 1 Karma to make it stick, and may spend up to Force additional Karma to make it harder to Disrupt (adds an additional die per Karma). To be honest, a Quickened Force 8 Spell is pretty damned hard to get rid of, though, even for the mage who set it.

SR4 p. 190, under Quickening

I doubt it got changed to 1 point of karma per spell in 5th, when prior editions had the same requirement. Especially when 1 Karma per spell is so unbalancing.

You would be wrong...