When a magicians way adept initiates do they gain a metamagical technique in addition to a power point or do they have to choose between the two?

No. They have to choose between them. They really get the shaft when it comes to initiation.

You can find a more detailed answer here. It's basically just a clarification of the stuff in MitS.

ta very much, also what is the general consensus on the reflecting meta technique as it sounds pretty damn useful to me.

Mechanically? Shielding trumps it for purposes of protection. There's no comparison. Roleplaying-wise? It's totally groovy... nothing like snagging an opponents spell and hurling it right back at 'em.

Of course it can also be bloody annoying if you're evil enough. Team is hired to snatch magical researcher, burst in on her at home only for her to throw off a manabolt at the mage who's in the lead. Mage is trying out his nifty new reflecting power he got last session and promptly reflects it right back onto the target who hadn't had a chance to raise her spell defence yet. Cue frantic attempts at first aid and magical healing whilst they try and exit the place.

personally I hate the rules for PhysMage, sure yo can create a potent character but saying that you can't leatn metamag tech? whats that all about ? I say they should be able to learn, why? well you are just learning a technique.
And there are many ways to learn Meta, Astral Quest, another intiate, or a free spirit.
So just fora Physmage o talk to one of these sources he has to spend the Karma just to learn it.
Sorry but in my games Physmages can learn the Tech cause the cannon Rules are retarded.

Um he CAN learn it, he just cant learn a technique and gain a magic point during the same initiation, he has to choose between them.

Yeah, but an ordinary adept gets both. But the poor physical magician, simply because he bought the Magical Power adept power, is somehow mentally retarded when he initiates and can only learn one or the other, even though his increase in Magic has no effect on his Magical Power whatsoever unless he spends power points on improving it.

If being able to buy Magical Power didn't cost more build points or was the same Priority as a typical adept, I can see some kind of limitation like that. But as it stands, they get shafted both ways and the whole initiation bit just doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever.

The "Poor" physical magician, who has all the powers of an adept and most of a mage. The Poor Physical Magician chose his path, and should face the consequences. I don't feel that his really only fault should be mitigated. He chose his path. If the player was not willing to play with the consequences of his choices maybe he shouldn't play a physical magician.

In short, I feel it is balanced just fine.

I don't mind penalties that make at least some amount of sense. This one doesn't.

The way I've always interpreted it is that the PhysMage increases his magic power by the very act of initiating, and then, in addition to the normal options available to an initiating mage of altering astral sig or gaining a metamagical technique, the Physmage can choose to instead gain a power point. This interpretation is based on the fact that things like power foci increase the effective magic attribute granted by magic power, and doesnt seem to be in contradiction of the wording.

Thank the Great D, for house rules.

Most of the time, power points seem to be much more useful to physads than magic points are to mages. There are only a few things that the magic rating directly impacts, and even then the additional magic is only one factor among several. Magic rating is included in calculating spell pool, but you'd have to initiate 3 times to increase your spell pool by 1. It can be a much bigger deal to add 4 counterstrike dice.

The real value to mages in initiating is the metamagics. Masking, Centering, and Shielding all kick major booty, and make up for the fact that going from magic = 6 to magic = 7 is mostly meaningless.

But a physmage gets the best of both worlds. Increases in his power points hugely impact his power level, and also getting access to the uber-metamagics can potentially make him way more powerful than the other characters. Granted, he's not able to project, but that's not always an overwhelming obsticle, and is necessary to keep him from possessing any astral thing that moves without breaking a sweat (possession metamagic+enhance skill(unarmed)=scary). The only thing that really holds him back is making him advance more slowly by making him choose between power points and metamagics.

Actually, in my scheme it would work like this:

Magician Adept: Magic Power 6 (Magic 6)
Grade 1: Magic Power 7 (Magic 7) + Metamagic Technique OR Magic Power 7 (Magic 7) + Power point.

There is no third option in this case, because Magic Power can not be increased beyond the overall Magic attribute. In fact, I would eliminate the distinction if the two ever became equal, because they would never have the opportunity to become unequal thereafter. A better example of what I'm talking about would be if the Physmage only spent 5 points on Magic Power:

Magician Adept: Power 5 (Magic 6)
Grade 1: Magic Power 6 (Magic 7) + Metamagic Technique OR Power 6 (Magic 7) + Power Point OR Magic 7

Unfortunately, that's not how it works. You're basically describing normal initiation with a choice between a metamagic technique and a second Power Point (since the first is already being applied to Magical Power automatically).

Hence the "in my scheme" bit, and all the disclaimers about how this is "my interpretation" and "in my games." However, as I mentioned in an edit, I think this is reasonably close to the original intent of the rules, as it explains why they included the bit about the "extra" power point.

As a final disclaimer: this is how *I* run Magician Adept initiation in *my* games. I am happy with how it works out. YMMV.

Dr Funk: I wasnt really trying to argue with you. It was more along the lines of pointing out specific details in what you were saying that I disagreed with, and demonstrating how changing those details affected the way I handle things. I apologize for any confusion.

I tend to agree with Eyeless Blond.

Mage: After 4 initiations, I go from Magic 6 to Magic 10, and learned Shielding, Masking, Divining, and Centering. The Metamagic's great, but going from Magic 6 to Magic 10 doesn't really give me much besides one additional point in my spell pool. It will only come up if I ever manage to learn a spell higher than force 6 (uncommon with TNs over 12). I can cast good spells, but I'm still the slowest member of the team, and am unlikely to have any high-level non-magical skills.

Physadept: After 4 initiations, I go from Magic 6 (6 Power Points) to Magic 10 (10 Power Points). I still can't do any of the super cool things that mages do, like levetation, invisibility, stunbolts, or whatever, but I can rule the roost in stealth, athletics, melee, and have attribute enhancements to make me better able to survive the gunfire.

Physmage: After 4 initiations, I go from Magic 4 (+2 Power Points) to Magic 4 (+5 Power Points) and learned Shielding. My 5 points of adept ability don't allow me to be as physically capable as the adept, but I can out-class the adept's distance strike with my stunbolt, out-climb his improved athletics using my levitation, out-stealth his improved stealth using my improved invisibility, etc. Unlike the mage, I'll only be able to cast spells at force 4 without getting physical damage, but that's high enough to cast lots of spells effectively, especially the unresisted ones.

So the physmage can't do physical things as intensely as the physadept, but more than compensates with his spells. He can't cast as well as the mage, but he's more survivable and faster.

Looking at it that way, would I trade 3 points of magic and 3 metamagics for 3 power points? Maybe, depending on the circumstances.

You left out the part where the normal adept also has four metamagic techniques. Masking, Centering (Physical and Magical), Centering (Ranged), and oh I dunno Divining. Now no one other than a more powerful magician will be able to tell if he's an adept, he's fantastic with his Divination ability as well as his Physical and Ranged Combat skills, and he can predict the future.

The magician adept has nothing. Except being a very weak adept with a fraction of the powers the normal adept has, a very weak magician limited to Force 4 spells and spirits (unless he wants to take Physical damage), and a single metamagic technique. Anyone with astral perception will be able to tell everything about him, he won't be able to get past wards without dropping all of his powers and spells and deactivating all of his foci, and he can't see brief glimpses of the future like the normal magician or even more detailed glimpses like the adept. If the normal adept has Astral Perception, he's even superb with that thanks to Centering, too. Oh, and the adept magician can't project like the full mage, and he has to blow another two power points just to gain astral perception.

So, it's a comparison between
Physadept:
10 power points
4 metamagical techniques (excluding those linked to sorcery or conjuring-invoking, possession, shielding, reflecting, absorbing, channeling, etc.)

-versus-

Physmage:
5 power points
1 metamagical technique
The ability to cast force 4 spells
The ability to conjure force 4 spirits or elementals.

Doesn't seem so lop-sided to me, but then I've always thought that spells were over-powered in the game anyway.

This time you left out:

Magican Adept:
-5 Build Points vs. the adept
Limited to Force 4 ward creation
More vulernable to Magic Loss
More vulnerable to geasa breakage

...not to mention...

Full Magician:
Astral Projection
Astral Perception for free
Magic 10
Ability to cast up to Force 10 spells
Ability to summon up to Force 10 spirits
Ability to create Force 10 wards
4 Metamagic Techniques
+5 Spell Points over the magician adept
Less vulnerable to geasa breakage

Here's the thing you're missing: They start off balanced against each other. Whatever advantage the magician adept gains, he loses something in return. Compared to an adept, he had to sacrifice another 5 Build Points and a full power point for each level of Magical Power he desires. That's a power point not spent on something else. Compared to a standard magician, he loses astral perception and astral projection and will, at absolute best, be equal to them in spellcasting and conjuring ability.

But with each and every single initiation, the standard magician or adept gains a large advantage (either another metamagic technique or a power point) over the magician adept. At grade 1, that's a single power point or metamagic technique he's behind. At grade 2, it's two. At grade 3, it's three. At grade 4, it's four.

I don't know why you can't see it.

Doc Funk, how many PCs have you seen actually learn a force 10 spell? And you still won't be able to summon the force 10 spirit, you can only summon up to charisma, not magic rating, before taking physical damage.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter. I understand you don't think it's balanced. I don't share your opinion, but I understand it.

About as many as I've seen walking around with other characters on the Grade 4 spectrum of power toting only a pathetic little Force 4 spell or Force 4 spirit. None. But don't get upset with me just because you kept skewing your posts towards the magician adept while ignoring all the other penalties they have.

I don't ignore the penalties. I agree that they can be extreme. But my perspective prioritizes things differently than yours.

The only thing that makes a lot of difference between high-level initiate mages and non-initiate mages is the metamagic. So, a level 10 initiate will kick the ass of a level 5 initiate because he's got more metamagics, and the metamagics he's got are more effective. But the Magic Rating doesn't have much impact. Unlike your previous post implied, it doesn't impact the level of spirit you start taking physical drain on, charisma does that. It raises the level of spells you can cast, but nobody learns them higher than 6 anyway. So initiating as a mage only focuses on one thing: Metamagics.

If I'm a physmage and I grab a metamagic every time in lieu of a magic point, I only fall slightly behind the full mage in terms of practical power. The mage has a higher magic rating, but he doesn't really doanything with that stat.

Assuming you actually stayed around long enough to initiate more than 5 or 6 times, the metamagics start getting boring. At this point the full mage starts getting less bang for his buck, but the physmage can then start sinking his karma / additional initiations into more adept power points.

I did leave off the "except," largely because I dont think its particularly valid. While the physmage can make his centering skill more useful than a full mage can, it takes multiple metamagic purchases - something that is crippling to his overall power progression. Furthermore, the level of usefulness physmages can theoretically achieve via centering will not in any way lead to a "whomping" of any sort, much less a silly whomping. Centering is a nice ability, but its not *that* nice.

Yes, Physmages, in theory, given hundreds of karma, will become more powerful than either mages or adepts... I'll buy that. I doubt this is a relevant concern for the vast majority of games, though.

When a Magician's Way adept initiates, it says that the adept must choose between obtaining a power point or learning a metamagic technique. But other adepts get both a power point and a metamagic technique when they initiate. Is this correct? Why the difference?
Yes, that is correct. A normal adept (not on the Magician's Way), has these choices for initiation:

Raise Magic attribute by 1 + gain a power point + learn a new metamagic technique; or
Raise Magic attribute by 1 + gain a power point + alter astral signature; or
Shed a geas.
When an adept on the Magician's Way initiates, the adept has these choices:
Raise Magic attribute by 1 + gain a power point; or
Raise Magic attribute by 1 + learn a new metamagic technique; or
Raise Magic attribute by 1 + alter astral signature; or
Shed a geas.
Magician's Way adepts initiate differently because unlike regular adepts and magicians, they receive the advantages of both worlds. The modified initiation rules prevent them from becoming unbalanced and overpowered.




taken from www.shadowrunrpg.com. Seems pretty black and white to me.

What isnt "black and white" about that, to me, is whether the raise in magic attribute includes a raise in the virtual magic attribute for purposes of spellcasting. I say it does.

i originally houerules that they get the power point and metamagic, and can use the point on magic rating but i had no idea they got one or the other, so i didnt know it was a house rule.

they still werent as good as a mage or adept, but they weren't broken like people would think.

why do they get the shaft anyway?

The way we rule it is that the magic attribute for the purposes of spellcasting is equal to the number of points of magic the adept has spent on Magical Ability.

Something I'm unclear about on physmages: are they allowed to choose physical centering (as in what adepts do) or the magical centering (like mages), or do they just get one, or the other?