mystic adepts should split their magic attribute. that would be fine.

Mostly refering to this part here: "(Well, best until the magician can cast and maintain increased reflexes 10 for that 5d6)"

Why would this be a benefit for the Magician, but not for the Mystic Adept?

Bye
Thanee

That's like it is now in SR4.

Bye
Thanee

It would reduce them to niche and underpowered characters. Mystic Adepts need to stretch themselves very thin already to cover their bases. In SR4, people did this by utilizing Restricted Gear:Power Focus R4 to compensate for the magic loss.

Nope, and Nope. Never once used a Power Focus to make up the split magic cost for my Mystic Adepts. Playing one now, with over 300 Karma, and Noone wouild ever have called him underpowered... Still does not have a Power Focus (though he is currently working on designing a Force 3 Netherworld Advisor Ally Spirit).

From what you told us so far about your group, you guys prefer well-rounded characters with DPs of 12+ in their core competences, which is different than the optimization standard of the average SR player, which encourages softmaxing, DPs of 18+ and mechanically trimmed/powergamed characters. The most common (experienced) SR players I've gamed with are more along the lines of Neraph in terms of powergaming, for lack of a better terms. The characters tend to be waterproof and airtight, with minimized weaknesses and iteration proofing. In those groups, a Mystic Adept often feels like a fifth wheel, with some wonky stunts required to carve out his niche where he excels.

Not that I dislike your style. It would be a refreshing change to play/dm for a group of well-rounded characters, but alas, I play the hand I'm dealt

*Hangs Head* Hi, My Name is Tymeaus, and I make Well-Rounded Characters.

No Worries, I get it. Though I have noticed that it is a bit more of a challenge to make a well rounded character with the Priority System of SR5, at least in the style I prefer, anyways.

Well the problem here is the following:

Every player with their characters best interest in mind, will make a mystical adept, instead of a making a mage. The has the upside of less astral journeying in the game, but the flavour is seriously broken. Just think about it: make a mage, say a summoner. And then switch over to MysAd. See, you only have to shift a couple of free Karma points and voila some extras to have fun with.

Indeed, there is no real "Cost/Consequence" with the Mystic Adept. Sadly.

whats so bad about having some "extra Powerpoints for Fun " ?

with a nextra Funny Dence
Medicineman

Nothing, as long as the others can have some extra Essence "for fun and profit."

I have not seen any characters with DP of 18+. In any of our games. 12-15 tops. One character had a 17 DP. What you see on Dumpshock is outside the envelope of normal games I've seen.
(SR 4A)

Indeed... My table is hardly the special snowflake that it is often portrayed as here on Dumpshock.

Yeah, why pay for anything at all? Just pick what you want.

Bye
Thanee

Indeed... That should solve all the problems.

I always thought it was weird that Mystic Adept are available at Priority C, same as regular Mages when if you think about they represent the next step up the chain so to speak, even with the loss of Astral projection.

To make them a bit rarer, why not bump the starting priority for a Mysad to B and try the following change:

Priority A Mysad: Magic 4, PP 4, Two Rating 5 Magical Skills, 5 Spells

Priority B Mysad: Magic 3, PP 3, Two Rating 4 Magical Skills, 3 Spells

They can still use their special stat points to raise the Magic stat. PP is not automatically raised to match, they still have to spend 5 Karma per additional PP with the max being equal to current level of Magic so if they want more they have to buy it up.
Likewise they can purchase spells for 5 karma each up to an amount of Magic x2 in spells for Chargen only, so max for Prio A is 8 spells unless they had raised magic during the creation phase with a cap of 12/14 (assuming someone went for that exceptional attribute) which would be 45 Karma spent just to max out starting spells which would be kind of silly when the 5-7 range will give you a decent start.

It is sort of a throwback to the earlier editions of magician adept to start, but they get a fair bit to start without having to shoot themselves in the foot karma-wise unless they want to be running hot out of the gate, but at the cost of not spending that karma on rounding out the character. They will grow faster since Initiation will help both the Magic and PP sides over time so they still have room to develop.

So how much Karma do you typically have free on your Magicians? It's pretty easy to spend 50 Karma for a Magician, after all. And it's not "a couple of free Karma points", it's 5 per PP.

I really don't think they are supposed to be "the next step up".

Full Magician is the top of the awakened types.

It's just that the rules for Mystic Adepts make them a weeeee bit too good.

They are supposed to be the "Jack of all Trades" magic type, not the "Yay! I got everything!" type.

Bye
Thanee

Well time to crosspost http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...p;#entry1257755 for another try at house-ruling the mysAd. This time not a band-aid.

Now, the increased Karma costs are definitely a band-aid, and an ugly one at that, because, as RHat pointed out, they disallow customization of your new mage. One of the good things that SR5 chargen brought us. But, even at increased costs, taking the mysAd over a full mage is a no-brainer, I am sorry to say. It just forces you to forgo all fluff on the character.

The Hot Patch errata for Missions proposes that Mystic Adepts must take the Power Point option when initiating to gain any Power Points after chargen. I rather like this option. It means that after chargen a pure Adept or pure Magician will pull away from the MysAd in their own way.

+1

(We really do need a +1, or like button )

... Unless the full mage spends his karma on something other than being a better mage, the Mystic Adept is automatically a worse mage. It's not so much a loss of customization, anyways, as it is a distinct opportunity cost - you can choose not to take 6 Power Points, after all.

Only if you consider not having Astral Projection as "being a worse mage." I do not , so.... You can have your Spells and Adept abilities too, and never actually suffer for it. And that is the problem.

I believe this is a major contributor to people viewing Mystic Adepts as too strong. If the key advantage of magicians over mystic adepts is not properly used, then of course they will seem weak in comparison.

Chalk me up as one who actually dislikes Astral Reconnaissance. It is just not that big of a draw for me. It is useful, to be sure, but it is not THAT useful, in my opinion. Not so useful that its loss is detrimental or crippling. *shrug*

Yeah, I guess because I'm kinda oldschool, I always ended up interpreting the Astral Recon stuff as, "Oh great, the rogue is off 'scouting' solo again. Lets go get some food while he monopolizes the GM for 30 minutes". The same later applied to the way I felt about integrating Deckers into an SR game. "Hey, Steve's doing matrix stuff, lets come back in 30 minutes."

Astral Recon in our games last all of about 20 Seconds. Long enough to Get a feel for what is going on, and make a Perception roll or two, and throw in the odd stealth roll. Descriptives follow and off we go. There is no need to spend minutes on such things.

Yeah, that's how we do it now too, usually just a glorified version of perception. But before, when it was actual recon, ugh....memories.

I think the point is while those PP are useful the mage will be spending those things on things like more spells, maybe bumping a low magic skill another focus or 2 that the mystake adept wont have making the mage a better mage. I think it is a bit overplayed since the mystic adept will likely be just as good at the core stuff and you are talking a couple spells and maybe a sustaining focus the mystake wont need since he has PP. You can't even move your magic from 6 to 7 with 30 Karma so if that is the "balance" I think it falls short by a wide margin. In game we will see the errata makes it a bit harder on the adept side.

As for astral recon, eh its okay and all but it doesn't do much more than the riggers micro drones. Any place that is magically interesting on the scout and not just perceive level is usually warded so I rarely see the value past perception.

The progression in the rules have magically aware characters more of an option. Spending the same character points, they won't be better at anything relative than a non magical character than the actual magic use...

My opinion, the only major issue is you now have an option between an augmented mage/aspected mage with a higher starting magic attribute, and a mystic adapt who can refuse augmentation.

Both just a little more unrealistic in SR4....

It is a matter of only a few spells, yes. In my experience, even with the Split in SR4A, a Mystic Adept is not all that far behind a Full Mage in effect, with Adept Abilities often providing things to the MysAd that more than compensate for losing a point or two of casting Magic.

Indeed... In fact, I often find that Rigger Recon is more comprehensive than Astral Recon is.

If you choose to stagnate the roleplaying potential of the rules then yes one element of the said rules will be more comprenhensive than another.
But calling the effort, results of playing a role playing game comprehensive? something based on a larger ruleset that essentially does not exist until it is created bt the playing group? It just says you prefer one guideline over another. Playing your way literally.

Perhaps... That is definitley one way of looking at it. Sadly, Astral Recon has just never really been all that much of a benefit to me. Has absolutely nothing to do with Stagnation. Even when we DID do it extensively, it just never really added anything. In fact, Due to Wards and whatnot, Drones are FAR more effective than Atral Recon ever was, as far as I am concerned. *shrug*

I'm going to see how they play out, but I think they will need a nerf.

In the end I'll probably make players pick whether they want to be more magic or adept focussed. Thus if someone picks adept focus with magic 6 they can have 6 power-points but only cast at magic 3 or vice versa if magician focussed. Then I'll probably get them to pay 2-5 karma (most likely 2) for each point of magic they have both during and after character creation.

I'm rather fond of having mystic adepts aspect their mage side while giving them full magic value for both casting and powers.

I'm perfectly content with my mystic adept in 4e. He is a great face, rocker, utility mage. I went 2 magic/4 adept and he works out great IMO. And most importantly with the new sustaining focus he just got, he rocks 20 dice in synth guitar.

Awesome... Mine is split 3 Sorcery and 2 Adept. He is a Face Occult Investigator. Speaks 13 Languages, and is a specialist in Protective and Manipulation Magic. And he is totally awesome. Doesn't play the Synth guitar, though. Sadly. Been trying to get with Harlequin (he was in Hong Kong for a bit) to rock a bit in the club and learn a thing or two about the instrument, though. *sigh* Maybe when we are done with the Artifact series, I can convince Frosty to put in a good word or two.

Funnily enough that is the series we are wrapping up now. I have to say, so far I've really liked the artifact series. I hope the conclusion lives up to the rest of the story.

Indeed... It has been an amazing ride so far. I have high expectations on the ending. No matter how it is written, our GM will make it an amazing conclusion. Sadly, no Shadowrun this weekend, due to the Convention that it is town.

personally, I like X-Kalibur's idea for addressing the Mystic Adept. I am not sure anything needs to change but if I have to house rule Mystic Adepts in my game that is the solution I will be trying. It's simple and easy to track with none of the I have four points in adept abilities and two in spell casting nonsense fourth insisted on using. Personal opinion only, I understand it worked for a lot of people and that's great. I just found it rather cumbersome sometimes.

Sorry double post.

I have to support the newer magic rules in SR5 also....

Weighing all options a force 10 or 12, or higher (gasp!) magician or mistic adept if he/she wishes can strike with great damage. With more risk of harm to self than any other character (due to drain).

But allowing total magic attribute for powers and magic just makes them more versitile. and if the rules of previous edition are an indicator, a mystic adept will most likely have to limit how their magic is used just by the weight of their choices in spells, powers, skills, etc, .....

So a mystic adept prefering illusions or chooses to improves skills not related to dmaging effects for example. They are nothing a group of runners or lone stars or corp guns cant handle with a few automatic weapons as is the norm....