Isn't the maximum force of a spell limited to the caster's Sorcery rating anyway? And I might allow you to default to Willpower to cast if you had Sorcery and learned a spell, but expect a +4 drain target number. That seems like a reasonable trade off to not worry about botching.

No. You can learn any number force spell you think you can roll the target number for. It just makes it easier having more dice to gain successes and reduce the time it takes to learn by having a higher skill and foci dice. (Yes foci can be used to learn spells per a recent e-mail received from the Shadowrun website.)

[EDIT]But this does introduce the same problem of an untrained magic user casting a spell when he or she was taught nothing of magic as is mentioned in the flavor text.[/EDIT]

Not really, since we don't know that they actually cast a spell per se. Rather they caused a phenomenon that looked like a spell. It is likely they built up some kind of charge (physical and emotional - which is why expression usually happens at puberty) that was released without any control. I wouldn't call that defaulting to an attribute personally.

Yes, you can. You always have the option of choosing whatever method you think will be most beneficial to you.

Not in my opinion because neither works like any other skill. No other skill causes drain (other abilities perhaps, but not skills). Neither should be useable without knowing secrets, rituals, rights, formulas, and etcetera that took hundreds and thousands of years to refine and just discover. The whole concept cheapens magic and magical flavor.

I really just don't agree with that. But then I think the game should require everything be learned in the manner of skill + specific use (Car + Ford Americar, Sorcery + Manabolt, Conjuring + City Spirit) or eliminate the secondary for only Sorcery. In fact, I'd be more willing to allow one to cast spells they don't know in a manner similar to defaulting than allowing one to default without having Sorcery at all.

I don't know about shamanic magic, but for hermeticism, it just wouldn't work since Knowledge is one of the major principals of Hermeticism (the others being Ability, Will, and Identity).

Consider hermetic theory like that of a road trip. The individual needs to have a car (the ability), the desire to get to where he's going (the Will), understanding where he's going (Identity), and a road map to get him from where he is to where he wants to be (Knowledge).

A Hermetic Mage can have all the desire to do what he wants, but without the road map of knowledge to get him from desire to action, there is no telling to where the Mage may end up, or what effects his attempt at magery might cause.

But as far as game balance, allowing it isn't going to cause some flood of munchkins.

I would say they do not do it from pure instinct. Rather it happens outside of their conscious control all together. It is a biological channeling of mana not a defaulting to their attribute. It's something more akin to Goblinization only the result of biological and chemical stresses on the body and soul of the person, not something of their mind or intent, which I feel is key to defaulting (or the use of a skill).

See, I would say that's exactly what the body is saying. Every ounce of stress in the body resonates with the pressure in the soul and releases something. If the body releases the mana you become a magician, if the body absorbs it you become an adept.

So after Dragons of the 6th World implying that dragons don't learn formulas and possibly just tap straight into mana and cast what they want to couldn't EVER possibly happen to anyone else even if unintentionally for a brief moment. Considering that the act itself makes the person aware of the magic and kinda surges in a since opening the channels of magic towards the type of mage/adept the person can be with "todays" magical knowledge/training techniques.

Edit] I would have to say that the initial emotional expression in the example is more along the lines implied by the magic dragons use to awaken the character in concept.

MitS also suggests that a child doing that is a rare event, and that it usually happens during a time of stress.

My best guess as to what's happening is that the desire or Will reaches a point in which Knowledge isn't needed to direct the Will to accomplish what it wants since anything will satisfy that desire. The mage will have no control over the effects, but something will happen.

To continue the car metaphor, it's akin to just getting into the car and driving, and there is no way to know where the mage will end up.

This can lead to a host of very many interesting stories, but it is not a way in which to default to an Attribute in order to cast a specific spell.

[/edit]

I've always had a little bit of a stiff with SR over it's direct seperation between hermetic and shamanic. That's all I'll say on that issue since it doesn't directly relate....

On topic:

It seems justifiable to pose that eventual mages have a tendency to be able to feel, show, or in some form or another suggest the inate ability to use magic.
Thus being the proposed case, could explain teachers and pupils, prodigies, and similar relations.

Anyone can be a musician, but there are some who simply have a lean towards it more than others. However, both the common and the prodigy musician can both become better at music with formal learning.

The natural ability in Magic:
A more direct comparison is to say that anybody can pick up a guitar and make noise on it. It most likely will not be anything resembling music, but rather notatable sound in a rather crude and un-nerving fashion.

The Prodigy:
Some of these people who will pick up this guitar (not many and would be more like a heavy costing Edge to be a prodigy in magic) can pick up a guitar and start off making pure horrid noise but shortly thereafter begin to play formatable patterns of notes and continue on within the week to making whole parts of simple songs.

The self learned mage:
The great multitude of people out there tend to self teach guitar rather than attend a class right off the bat to learn. Their musicianship may turn out to be rather crude for a year or a number of years depending on their ability (defaulting), but eventually simply from practice (though not academically) they become a "lamen-master" like many rock guitar "heros" (Kurt Cobain is a prime example of such a self taught musician who became a "lamen-master"). These style of musicians will usually never be as capable or formatable as their scholastic counter-parts, but it should never be mistaken that their music is not good. (much to say that a "lamen-master" of magic would be dangerous to assume as not-dangerous.)

The scholastic musician:
The most powerful musician is the scholastic musician as they have the knowledge behind the simple desire and "tinkering" to learn every angle of their art that they can so that they can be more versatile in their ability. Having a teacher forces them to practice aspects of guitar that they would otherwise shy away from because perhaps they are a lazy student (scales are a good example). At the end of the training a normal musician will be a formatable guitarist and a prodigy will be a near legend amongst many.

Conclusion
So using this comparison, a mage could be seen to be able to cast spells without studying them, but I would propose that, much like guitar where most self-taught musicians will either only be able to play their own music or only be able to play their version of a song, the self-taught mage or non-educated mage would be casting spells that are player/GM created spells and if they are trying to cast a spell that they might have heard about or seen somewhere then they would be casting a variation of that spell at (at least) 2 levels below the original version of the spell.

That's my study of the idea of this.

I actually was hitting on two aspects in the same analogy.

As Doc was saying earlier, which you are questioning now about needing skills,

I agree with Doc completely, but I'm seeing this ability to cast the spell in three levels.

1) No Skill.
2) Self-taught
3) Scholastic

*While 1 is a completely defaulted version of 3 and has a pretty severe penalty (possibly even a little more than +4?) to casting and/or has missing elements to what the spell normally does and/or has a higher rate of doing something you may not have intended (perhaps you only need to return half of your dice rolls back as ones to make a critical failure instead of all of them?)

*2 is where I reffer to the idea of a player/GM made spell because a self-taught spell is always going to be different than that of the Scholastic version. It is possible to make these spells less efficient in drain cost (because of the lack of "tips and tricks") as well so that no other balance system needs to be implaced to keep players from "ubermunching" Scholastic spells in a Self-taught version just so they can tweek an aspect.

*3 is finally where we see the standard issue of a Skill in Sorcery and learned spells with a formatable education in magic that is what we are used to as the SR norm for magic.

Psst. If you want to give a better example, point to the Aura Reading skill. Anyone capable of astral perception has the uncanny ability to read anyone's aura just by looking at them -- no formal training required whatsoever. And in fact, even if you have formal training, it still doesn't compare to your gut instinct since they only provide one additional success per two successes rolled while your natural ability (Intelligence) grants you succcesses on a 1:1 ratio.

Apparently, it's significantly easier to just sorta assume that a hazy blue pattern with sharp green spikes means so-and-so, but knowing that it means so-and-so is only half as effective. It's also easier to assume that than it is to follow the instructions listed for a spell formula and rely on your same natural instincts and ability to conjure it into existance. Go figure.

So Scholastic mages never learn a thing on their own? I've always just assumed type 3) mages, as you've described them, just have a higher Skill rating. It's not like you can't earn ranks in a skill through self-study; it's just not as easy as having a teacher.

The little girl casting Powerbolt I'd say was defaulting to Willpower for casting--which I agree with the others that say you can do that--and is casting a spell that she, somewhere down the line, learned without ever knowing she learned it. How did she learn it? Who knows; maybe she defaulted with Spell Design and came up with it on her own; maybe a free spirit taught her in her dreams, who cares? The point is, by the RAW you can't cast a spell you don't know, and unless you allow one of these Path of Will mages as a house-rule there really is no basis for a mage casting a spell without knowing the spell. So she must have somehow known how to cast the spell, without ever actually learning it. This is why cases like that are so rare.

As for the thought that spells can have different Drain codes and the like depending on the skill of the spell-crafter, I'm not sure I like that idea. Regardless of how skillful a mage is at crafting a spell, there is already an established minimum Drain for a spell; you certainly can't make a good roll on Spell Design and reduce, say, Improved Invisability's Drain Code to Light instead of Medium. I conjecture that spells, no matter how well or poorly worded, will always end up having the same--or at least, not noticably different--effects for the same amount of Drain. The backlash seems to be, in the RAW, a direct consequence of the spell itself, a law of magical physics that you cn't get around through art.

I answer with my proposed concept...

No. You are looking at 1, 2, and 3 as if they were a red brick, white brick, and black brick.
I am looking at them as if they are child, teenager, and adult.

The idea was based off of the analogy that I gave of the guitar learning.
Comming from no skill at something but relying on raw natural ability and moving on up to self-teaching, and furthering that off with scholastic teaching.
Could this be represented in the already present 1-6 skill ratings?
Yes, of course it can. That was somewhat the aim I think.

Can it be flurished better to what Gilthanis is looking for?
Yes, it can. Quite easily if you change your perspective a little bit on what 1-6 skill level means. You just make it mean 1-6 Scholastic points (or rather years in formal learning type of concept.)

Remember, no one is saying that SR is absolutely broken.
A player is saying that they don't like the present way it exists in a given aspect and that they would like something else for it.
We, as a helping community, simply have the ability and (personally I like to think "obligation") to help them figure out a positive, and functional alternative to the standard they don't like.

My final point is this, "No" is not a valid reply to Gilthanis' threaded question simply because he wants a different system. You can't very well tell him "No, you can't have one.", but you can help him find the best one that makes credible sense in a comprimised manner between cannon and what he wants.

Usually book-burning represents a confinement of thought or oppression.
But in this case... ...burn it.

You're right...No one has said he can't have it. I went a little far there.

But pretty consistant are the posts that simply restate the canon ruling on it basically implying that it can't be done because it's not canon.
I agree with you on needing it stated...but over and over?

Also, I'm keeping my personal choices on this rule out of it, as I usually like to do, so I won't say what I think of the idea itself.

Now we're getting somewhere. Discussion.

Is there anyway that this concept could be made possible? (whether you like it or not personally...just look for balance )

On the contrary, it doesn't seem that he particularly wants to make a bunch of house-rules so much as he wants to make the rules themselves consistent with his perception of the SR game world. What I'm trying to show is that the rules themselves *are* already internally consistent, and that it's much easier to simply alter his own interpretation of the flavor text than it is to perform a rewrite of the rules.

As for considering your "proposal", well, what proposal? All you've offered up so far are a series of half-formed assertions which you're trying to pass off as flavor text for an alternate ruleset. You advocate no actual concrete alternate ruleset, and you provide no arguments as to why your absent ruleset is better than the canon one, or if it is at all. What is it you want us to consider?

(Edit): Perhaps I should be more specific. You mention *maybe* changing the drain code one or two levels (Drain levels? Drain Power?) if a "self-taught" mage casts a spell he has received no formal trainning in. Does this mean your proposed self-taught mages can learn these inefficient spells for free? less/more Karma than "scholastic" mages? or do they not need to learn them at all in order to cast them?

You also mention changing skill levels in Sorcery to "Scholastic points". What does this mean? What effect does it have? How/why is Sorcery or magic skills in general so special that self-teaching these are different than self-teaching other skills?

Ah...great stuff, now discussion.

The idea is not to let the "self-taught" mages learn the spells for "free", but to instead be ...alotted?...only a certain amount of them (maybe like adpets and powers????) ...(perhaps to complex on that...) anyways, the idea is for the spell to have a higher drain on the caster than it would normally have since the caster has no skill at controlling the spell.

"Scholastic" was a term I was using to make a seperation between having a skill and not having a skill, where having a Skill 1 would be to have learned some taught form of magic.

ok...I can breathe...

Anyways.
Doc. I'm thinking that 3 might be a bit steep because it limits the TN possibles.
Rolling for 3's becomes dangerous and that's a simple TN to aim for.

Perhaps 2's?
Or perhaps say you only need to have half of your dice return as 1's?