Wasn't this changed in 3rd edition? I thought all Priority B characters (excluding physads) can perceive, but not project.

Well, you can, but that would waste the rest of your abilities.

IIRC, only 2nd Ed (and 1st Ed I think) had Enchanting Adepts. Now anybody with access to Astral Space (perception or projection) can Enchant.

To my knowledge, there is no enchanter aspected magician. What would rules be like for enchanters anyhow? Asides from saving on nuyen, with the right materials and a high enough skill you can bond foci with less karma than you would with off-the-shelf foci. Unless an enchanter adept gets other magical skills, to my knowledge they can't reap the benefit of any foci (save a weapon focus). So what would distinguish an enchanter aspected magician from a full or aspected magician who emphasizes the enchanting skill?

They're Physical Adepts. Magical Power is a physad power.

Anyone else remember Astral Adepts?

Even more hairy is the fact that First Bonding requires the focus to be paid for by First Bonding Karma in order for the focus to work (if the enchanter or the person being First Bonded lack the necessary Karma, the enchantment aborts and materials are wasted). Since the only foci an Enchanter can bond are Weapon foci (and arguably, Power Foci, since the Magic Rating increase is useful to them), they are required to find another Awakened individual if they want to create other types of Foci.

If I were to create a house rule Enchanter aspected magician, I'd have the character able to create and bond all foci for the purposes of First Bonding. They wouldn't get a benefit from the foci (unless it was a Weapon focus, of course), but it would allow them to complete the rituals needed to enchant foci.

As Far As I Know

That was in 2nd edition, I'm guessing. In 3rd edition, you can only summon up to twice your Magic Rating in force of any single spirit. If the spirit's Force is greater than your Magic Rating, then you take physical rather than stun. Charisma is still used to resist drain and to determine the staging of the drain damage code.

Well, aspected mages still get 10 extra spell points, which is worth something for a starting character. And you "get" to specialize in your area of magic... because an aspected mage is a specialist, he/she tends to be better within his/her circle of magical abilities.

In what way? How is a Conjuring Adept with a skill of 6 better at Conjuring than a full Mage with the same skill level? How is a Sorcerer Adept with Sorcery of 6 better than a similarly skilled full Mage (barring the extra 10 spell points, which you listed as a seperate benefit)?

They are not 'specialized' ... they are 'limited'!

Vaguely rings a bell, but I can't seem to think why. Care to enlighten us?

Add 100 more Karma. Wash, rinse, let's see how it turns out. Conjuring Aspected Mage with a Conjuring of 10 or more (with a couple of Ally spirits, perhaps), full Mage Conjuring still of 6 or maybe 7 (all that Karma being burned for Sorcery and more spells).

They are limited. But it provides a focus for character development, and focus tends toward extreme specialization. Specialization is both a weakness and a strength.

Are these the guys that only got Astral Perception or some such?

They can be more specialized. There's nothing stopping a full Mage from concentrating solely on one of the two main magical skills after chargen, thereby keeping even with the Aspected Magician in their specialty, while also gaining the benefits from the other skill at the original chargen limits.

Sort of. They have astral perception...but they have to pay 1 good karma each time they use it. Ouch!

True. Hasn't happened in my games yet. Versatility is a sweet sweet fruit to taste, and specialization breeds weakness. But when you are forced to specialize, you make the best of it.

It was 2nd Ed., but I later converted him over to 3rd and played a few games there. The physical drain didn't bother me, all I had to do was just stay concious after conjuring them and then just rest in game. It makes for a nifty turning of the tables when you call a F6 elemental to back you up in a nasty combat.

As for specialization breeding in weakness, there's advantages and disadvantages to both. Being a full mage demands that you're a jack of all trades type of magic user, which is good when you need to cover all your bases, but it also means it makes for a slow progression. A specialized mage gets more juice up front and can progress faster, but they're obviously flawed in one aspect of magic and in the lack of astral projection. I think the ultimate would be a team that includes both a Conjurer and Sorcerer. You're still lacking in the Astral Projection, but as a GM I always used a house rule that stated that if you were magical (of any type) you could meditate for X hours and then you could project. Granted, it isn't as easy as a full mage doing it instantly on command, but it just doesn't make sense to me that someone with magic couldn't Astrally Project at all.

I'm guessing your full magicians are not getting intiated at least once to get access to the metaplanes? Then they go on astral quests to reduce the karma cost of new spells (plus more dice for learning them.) A 100 karma character could be intiated once, know 40 Force 5 spells, and have a Force 5 ally (if nothing else acting like a Force 5 power focus for all his conjuring and sorcery needs.)

When the aspected mage initiates, how is he learning metamagics? Either the GM is cutting him more slack than the full mage who can astral quest for them himself, or he is spending more time tracking down a way to learn them, which should extend his learning curve.

Not having access to astral space is a huge laibility in the long run.

Every single mage that we've had who dodged the metaplanes to get Karma reductions on spells have died in our games. *cheesy grin* Not the first time, but usually the 10th or 11th time... that pretty much restricted those Karma reductions. We have horror stories (and in some cases involving real horrors). It's too bad you can't "jack out" like in the Matrix from an astral quest.

As I've repeatedly stated, I understand that aspected magicians are limited, and that forces them to specialize. The specializations of an aspected mage, while not nearly as powerful as a versatile full mage, do provide some character focus, and to ignore the strength of specializations is as foolhardy as not seeing the limitations and weaknesses.