I recently (due to a recent thread) dusted off the old BP Expansion page inspired by Infinity Cubed back on the old Forums. You can access them at http://shadowrun.i-sphynx.com/BP.htm, suggestions and comments are welcome as I'm currently in the mood to update/expand it.

Sphynx

I definately don't like the flaw.

Its like taking a "failed physical skill flaw" . Preventing the player from ever learning "Clubs" for example.

I also think the 1,2,4 costs... nm sphynx is right.

Also, astral projection should be 3 in my opinion. 3+3 = 6, well worth it in my opinion.

The Power points cost for points gained beyond the magic rating seems way to cheap for adepts. At 3 points, hell Everyone would be making adepts with roughly 15 power points to purchase abilities with... Leaves lots of room for making unbalanced characters at the beginning.

Points beyond the magic rating should be more, not less. As it is right now, points up to 6 cost 4 each (magic rating cost plus 2). Points beyond are at 3 points.

Adept points should cost 2 always, and rule that they cannot exceed their magic rating. Therefore if they want 11 power points, they would need to purshase a magic rating of 6 AND purchase 5 grades of initiation AND purchase 11 power points. Now that seems more balanced.

Remember, the magic rating teh adept has can also be used to work with purchasing the other non-adept magic abilities. Maybe it should be more then 2 points.

I see this system not penalising for being an Adept/magician. It's basically a 2 for 1 deal. kind of game breaking.

I agree the Flaw is abuseable (take it with Techs you never plan to learn anyhows) which is why it's only a 1 point flaw.

As for the other comments, you have to keep it in line with current costs. Right now, using the system you can make a Full Mage for 30 points and an Aspected for 25. Raising the costs will exceed the current costs of 30 and 25 which is not a good thing unless you want to discourage Magic. Lastly, 1, 2, 4 can't be 2, 4, 6 because to keep the Aspected type of Shamanic or Elementalist at 25, the 2nd level of conjuring and sorcery need to be at half the value of the 3rd, so ut'd need to be either 2, 4, 8 or 1, 3, 6, both which would cost the BP to use Magic to exceed their current BP values.

Sphynx

Magic Group membership should also have a points cost attached (since it costs karma and is a powerful advantage). Also the 2 point version of sorcery and conjuring isn't overly balanced for some totems/idols. A 3 point version might be well placed (at GM discression, but you could probably do a list of the totems/idols which give 2 spell catagories and no disadvantage, such as Fire-Bringer for sorcery).

Also, you need to work in a mechanism for buying up the magic later, or forbiding of such.

Ah. Interesting rules for magic, I've yet to test them fully but they look like they would bring points-based magical characters closer to priority-based magical characters (which can be worth up-to 145 points by the standard system).

I'm not sure about buying-up the magic attribute; what happens if someone buys 4 points then buys 2 points of cyber? Is the magic attribute reduced to 2 or does it stay at 4?

Also:
Adept abilities; can any magical character have them?
Characters allowed to summon shamanic and hermetic spirits? Yowch!

Anyway; I'm done nitpicking... It looks like a good system with lots of options.

Glad you're keeping this up. It was a very, very brave and worthwhile thing he did to try to make a balanced build system for magic that made sense, and I saw it evolve quite a bit on the last forums.

Minor hijack - Infinity Cubed ('ne Funkenstein) used to be a fixture on the boards. Then he disappeared. Did he just tire of things, or did I miss something? IMO he had a very harsh demeanor, but he really knew his stuff and could back it up 9/10 times.

One minor critique about the page: would you consider pumping up the brightness on the text a bit? It's a bit hard to read. You also might want to consider a sans-serif font like Verdana or Arial... HCI (Human Computer Interaction) studies show that Sans are much more readable on low-resolution media like a screen.

Also, I've found that bumping up the line-height slightly on text makes things more legible... try this style sheet attribute:

line-height: 1.3em;

Actually, try 1.3em - 1.5em... it varies on the typeface, and ones with large x-heights tend to look better with larger leading.

A few disjoint points:

For starting as a member of an active magical group; 3 of your magical points should be spent to be a member of a magical group at the start of the game. If you initiated as part of a group that no-longer exists (or that you were rejected from) this would not be an issue.

Personally I'd prefer it if you had to buy the full 6 points of magic as all of the standard characters do.

Another separate idea is to allow magic to be bought up-to your essence rating (for the case of shape-shifter characters).

On the point of being able to summon both nature spirits and elementals: I have contemplated this in the past but you'd either need to be a hermetic (who somehow understands how his formulae link to spiritual domains, maybe needing another library?) or a shaman following a totem totem that is OK with summoning hermetic spirits. The way I could see that happening is buying the 2(*2=4) point version allowing you to summon the most relevant type of elemental to your totem (eagle = air ETC).

Do bear-in-mind that being able to summon both spirits and elementals is fairly powerful. A character could go in with 3-4 high force elementals up their sleeve, summoning spirits inside the building to conceal, confuse opponents ETC before loosing a high force elemental (the drain from which made the caster's ears bleed, but that was months ago) to take-down anything in his way.

Lastly: spirits and elementals are probably the biggest difference between shamans and mages. The only other real difference is the cost so I'd suggest that any shaman wishing to summon elementals would need to pay a fair bit of for it. Firstly: they'd need to use hermetic methods (possibly substituting the circle for a lodge, but still needing a Conjuring library and conjuring materials) to do so. Even then shamans are a lot cheaper as they don't need a sorcery library (or an enchanting one for that matter).

I'd have a hard time believing a mage could summon both unless their totem was some god of knowledge and science like Thoth or Mercury; I think most totems would be completely incompatible with the hermetic mindset... really, a shaman is a friend, an associate that asks and entreats; a hermetic is a slave driver, a controller that uses legalistic methods to dominate.

I'd imagine finding a 'middle ground' that works for both mechanics would mean significant changes to the flavor text and methods of summoning... if he treats spirits with respect and dignity, why would an uncontrolled fire elemental want to burn him to a crisp? Wouldn't he be nicer to them, too? Oh wait, a balance issue just reared it's ugly head... if elementals don't become violent when uncontrolled, this buffs his hermetic side significantly... how do you balance that with in-game mechanics without unintended consequences?

A tough nut to crack.

Actually, the Totem chooses the Mage, the Hermetic doesn't. Who's to say that a person didn't master Studied (Hermetic) Magic before being chosen... or a higher possibility, continued to study magic in school despite being chosen by a Totem? I see no reason why a Shaman couldn't have also learned to perform Hermetic type of Magic.

@Lilt: Added a 3 point Initiatory Group to the list, but since a BP is roughly about 5 karma, I think maybe we should reconsider that cost.

Sphynx

I didn't mean for the 3 points to join a group to be build points. I meant for them to be magic points (the sort that you get for 5/build point).

On the topic of characters who can summon different types of spirits: Wasn't it that the totem does not choose the mage; the totem is supposedly crutch to help the mage with his magical ability? (see the various dragons books) I suppose it could be a combination of the two actually.

On the topic of dragons; It is possible for dragons to summon most types of spirit so it does not seem 100% impossible that some form of technique could be used by metahumans, especially if they have been trained by dragons. Just don't try an argument like "But great dragons can do it so why can't I?".

The problem with a system that lets awakened characters spend extra points to go beyond their normal limitations (full mage who also has adept abilities, or an elven shaman who can also summon fire elementals), is that it becomes broken at higher build point allocations - so GMs need to keep that in mind.

In other words, if it is a 120 build point game, I might play a normal hermetic mage, but in a 135 point game, I would be tempted to add five Power Points worth of adept powers and also be able to summon city spirits.

Also, remember that adepts get Power Points for initiation - so what do you do for characters who pick adept abilities and other magical abilities? Do you give them a metamagical technique and a Power Point, or make them choose one or the other ("pure" adepts generally get both)? Also, nearly any adept will buy Astral Perception with build points, rather than spending 2 points on the power.

If you implement this, there will be more variety in awakened types, but they will also be much, much more "blended". In other words, the rat shaman is likely to get 2 points of adept abilities so he can have improved stealth: 6 and traceless walk; the phoenix shaman will add fire elementals to her spirits; the mage hunting adept will have sorcery for spell defense; and so on. If you see the distinctions between shamans, mages, and adepts as being little more than arbitrary definitions to a process that is really unique to each individual, then that won't be a problem. But I can tell you that if you implement this, you can say goodbye to most of the "standard" awakened characters.

If it's ever broken it's always broken, not because of more build points. For the 5 build points you choose to put into more magical potential, the gun-bunny can spend to become highly skilled in another area, or the rigger can master another vehicle type.

As for it breaking the barcriers between magical types. There are no barriers between mundane types except those they set for themselves. Why should magic be different. Nothing says that a rigger can't serve as face, decker, or street sam, but there is some distinction between shamans and mages that they cannot expand their views to include aspects of the other's abilities.

@Glyph: Valid point. You think we should cap the expenditure to 30 points? Or perhaps 25% of your starting BP allowing for 30 at 120BP and 33 for 135BP? I personally think no cap is needed, but I can see how it could be abused.

As for saying goodbye to the normal standard, that's honestly quite fine by me. I prefer diversity, one of the reasons SR is my favorite game, and your examples are why.


@Everyone - Unresolved thoughts:
Should we remove the MetaTechnique flaw?
- - (I can easily go either way on that)
Cause a loss of Magic for taking Cyberware?
- - (I think it shouldn't, could explain why you only bought 4 levels of Magic actually)
Do others agree with Lilt that you shouldn't be able to summon spirits cross-tradition, or it should cost more BPs?
- - (I obviously don't agree, but I prefer this be group decided.)

Sphynx

I wouldn't agree that "if it's broken, it's always broken". Higher build point allocations change the value of the points - at the higher end, you are spending on frills, not essentials. At 120 build points, spending 40 build points to be a super-mage is a sacrifice. You are cutting to the bone. At 135 points, it is much easier. You are just trimming the fat.

Not that you have to nix these rules at 135 points - you just need to give the mundanes something they can spend the extra points on - let them spend more than 30 points on resources, or have an SOTA option that lets them spend build points to have access to higher Availability gear.

Cash and cyber aren't the only ways to get more potent with more BP. 10 build points can make a mundane character world class in another type of skill, or give them more useful mental attributes. If you reach the point where a character has no purpose to run once all the BP were used up, then you designed the wrong character for that campaign.

I don't see why cyber shouldn't lower your magic attribute...

As far as I see it, the question is:

I buy magic attribute 4. I get 2 points of cyber, so my essence drops from 6 to 4. My magic rating is still lower than or equal to my essence, but when I lost my essence, did I also lose my magic? i.e. is my magic attribute now 2, or is it 4?

@Sphynx: out of curiousity, since this strikes me as being the focal point of the problem, does buying a magic attribute below 6 mean that the character had an attribute of 6 and then lost it from magic loss? Or does it mean that the character is just some kind of weirdo on the astral so he isn't as in touch with magic as other awakened characters? Or is he not a weirdo because in 2060 there are plenty of people with magic less than 6, and that just like any other attribute, a 1 is low, 2 is slightly low, 3 is average, 4 is pretty good, 6 is incredible? How do you play that in your game?

I agree that, whatever Magic rating someone starts out with, they should still lose Magic points from implanting cyberware. Otherwise, you are more or less giving free Build Points to people starting out with cybered characters. You also make it possible for sammies with an Essense point or so left to get Magic: 1, Sorcery: 1, buy the Sorcery skill, and have a sammie with 10 dice or so of Spell Defense (assuming Spell Pool of 4 and Sorcery skill at 6).

As far as initiation goes, that is the only other part of it that I think is a bit overpowered. I would do it like SR Companion - make them pay for it with spell points, without any groups or ordeals. Otherwise, you will have people starting out with 3 or 4 levels of initiation fairly often (not a problem if that was your intent).

Ouch... yeah, for 3 points an Essence-1 Sammie could have a nice Spell Pool, good point. Ok, modified it due to consensus.

Sphynx

For a slightly different perspective, here are some excerpts from the magic section of my group's House Rules:

Awakened Character Design Rules:
In order to add some more spice and variety to the magic rules, the following table was created to allow players to pick and choose the abilities their characters possess prior to gameplay, as well as create a wider range of Awakened character possibilities. The use of these rules require keeping track of the character's "Uninitiated Magic Attribute" (as well as his "Maximum Uninitiated Magic Attribute") separately from his actual Magic Attribute. The maximum rating possible for an Awakened character's Uninitiated Magic Attribute is equal to the character's Essence score (round down), minus any Magic reductions from wounds, disruption, or other sources. Magic loss (including Magic lost to cyberware) still reduces the character's actual Magic Attribute normally and, if that reduces the character's Magic Attribute to zero, will still cause the loss of all magical abilities and result in the inability to use any Magical Skills or foci. However, if the character's Maximum Uninitiated Magic Attribute has not been reduced to zero by Magic loss, the player may spend Good Karma to raise his Uninitiated Magic Attribute normally, reviving his abilities and gaining one point of Magic. Awakened characters may initiate at any time, regardless of their Uninitiated Magic Attribute. Please note that magician adept characters must purchase levels in the Magical Power ability before they can actually use their Magical Skills, but pay the Building Point costs listed below.

Voluntary Limitations on Magical Abilities:
During character creation players may choose to limit the magical abilities of their magician characters in exchange for a reduced Building Point cost, as listed on the chart below, in a manner similar to that of accepting a voluntary geas. Adepts may not take these limitations on their powers, as they can already take voluntary geasa, but magician adepts may limit their Magical Power in this fashion. Regardless of the number of limitations taken, the Building Point cost of being magically active may never be reduced below the cost of the character's Magic Attribute, including the initial 5 point Awakening cost. Aspected Magicians already include one such limitation in their Building Point cost, but may accept additional limitations normally. If a character should ever attempt to expand their abilities beyond these limitations, they must declare their intent to do so and effectively relearn their magic, repurchasing their Uninitiated Magic Attribute with Good Karma and facing the penalties for breaking geasa until they can shed the limitation(s) during their next initiation(s). A character who has decided to shed a limitation may not initiate further or join a new magical group until they have repurchased their Uninitiated Magic Attribute, and may not initiate for magical power again until the limitation in question has been shed.

Mystics:
Individuals exist in the Sixth World who have experienced "partial Awakenings" and have a Magic Attribute, but do not have access to Sorcery, Conjuring, or adept powers. However, such people, often referred to as mystics or psychics, may learn all other Magical Skills and can bond foci in the same way as other Awakened characters, so long as they have the prerequisite skills and abilities. Mystics may initiate normally and can learn any metamagical techniques that they are capable of using, and initiates with astral projection gain access to the metaplanes. Such individuals are often self-initiates, however, as many magical groups do not include members from the mystical tradition.


Using these rules, magic is prorated during character creation, but can be raised (up to 6) with Karma in-game, in the same manner as other Attributes. It is, however, still negatively impacted by foreign material, such as cyber- and bioware, and receives the usual reductions or penalties associated with such implants.:

Component Cost (in Building Points)

Magic:
Character is Awakened 5 BP (grants Magic of 1)
Starting Magic Attribute +1 Magic Point per 2 Building Points
Astral Perception +5 BP (grants ability to ward)
Astral Projection +5 BP (requires Astral Perception)
Character is an Adept 5 BP (Power Points = Magic)
Character is a Magician 5 BP (Spell Points = [Magic - 1] x 5)
Aspected Magic use only -5 BP (Spell Points = [Magic - 1] x 7)
Other Magical Limitations -5 BP (may not reduce cost below Magic cost)
Character is a Magician Adept 15 BP (Spell Points = Magical Power x 6)
Additional Spell Points 25,000 nuyen per additional Spell Point

In-game Karma costs:
To raise Uninitiated Magic Attribute: 2 x New Rating
Extra Power Point: 15 GK (20GK, under standard SR3 rules)
Astral Perception: 20 GK
Astral Projection: 20 GK (requires Astral Perception)

I'm not saying point-blank that it should not be possible to summon spirits from multiple traditions, just that very few characters would be able to do it. As I like playing characters that can summon spirits I have often considered the possibility but not yet suggested it to a GM. The character would be a bit of an awakened oddity (similar to psionists ETC) in the way that they don't follow a standard tradition and there could be a number of variants on it.

As for mixing adept powers with mage powers; I can see it happeneing but there should be some form of initial investment/commitment for being a mage, an adept, or a shaman. Off the top of my head:

Magical ability: 4 points (can buy other magical abilities)
Magician Ability: 2 points (can buy sorcery and conjuring)
Adept Ability: 2 points (Can buy adept powers)
Magic attribute: 1/level (up-to essence)

This way standard magicians will cost the same amount, but it upps the cost of playing a hybrid or filling-up the last essence-point worth of cyber with magical ability. Reducing the cost of magic attribute also encourages people to buy it to 6 (seemingly the norm) and reduces the theoretical gain characters might have by taking cyberware.

Of-course; this system would make a character with astral perception slightly more expencive (8 points rather than 5) but these numbers are open to tweakage.

[edit=1]And yes this was inspired slightly by Blackfeather's post[/edit]
[edit=2]IMHO; Recomending a limitation to 30 build points is slightly strong. I'd say "At GM's disgression, the number of points characters can spend on this system may be limited. A suggested limit is 25% of the character's starting build points."[/edit]

I think those are outstanding ideas and they even help fix one of the initial problems incurred about adepts being a 24 instead of 25 point start. I've tweaked the page to allow for those changes, more suggestions welcome. I made Magical Ability 5 simply because you HAVE to have a point of Magic to be Magically active, so it auto-gives you a point of Magic in the process.

Sphynx

Oh yes. Another point: can you still buy magic points using starting resources at 25k/piece?

Also do you agree with the idea of being able to buy magic rating up-to natural essence rather than a flat 6?

Lastly: With the reduction in cost of magic attribute; you may want to reduce the cost of adept power points above magic rating to 4/level rather than 5/level.

Okay, so I lied about the lastly bit:
Perhaps mention the prerequisites on using the enchanting skill?

What happens if someone with both adept and full magical abilities takes centering? Do they need to buy magician centering and adept centering as different metamagical techniques? I presume they could use the same creative skill, Yes?

Lastly (again) perhaps reorder the stuff so that generic magical costs (Magical ability, Magic attribute, Perception, and Projection) come first on the page with two subsections of Manna Manipulation (with Sorcery and Conjuring) and Manna Focus (with adept power points). Just to make it more clear y'know?

The ability to conjure spirits from multiple traditions is a pretty powerful ability, and one that in cannon has been restricted to GDs and IEs. However with the recent studies on Unified Magic Theory, it provides some reason for people born in this age to have this ability, and I've been looking for a way to allow for such a thing since I read about UMT. I don't know if Fanpro plans to release rules for playing a UMT mage at any point, but this is good groundwork to use.