[firebug]

I don't follow your logic--  "It isn't until you get stupid amounts of karma" isn't really okay.  How about something that just doesn't?  Or at least does so at the same pace as the rest of the game?  Drakes need a fix if they're underpowered.  Offering them an OP tradition is not the way to make them better.  Even if you feel like everything the Draconic tradition offers isn't really that big of a boost in terms of game balance, it still just shouldn't be that way.  Traditions are meant to present limited options in spirits.  Also, getting Centering twice is pretty powerful.  It is alternatively akin to getting a free metamagic (as you could just never invest in Centering), which is also pretty damn powerful.  I'll admit that having a Draconic Tradition mage won't split your first run in half and skullfuck your plot like I implied it would.  But it's still just blatantly offers much more than normal traditions do.  Yes, it's for Drakes only, but like I said...  If you think Drakes are underpowered, then the Drake quality and mechanics are what should change.

Tell you what.  I personally haven't invested much into how Drakes work, but if you send me a PM with the aspects of Drake you think most stand out as being underpowered/problematic/unacceptable and any suggestions you have, I'll take those, add my own opinions and suggestions, and bring that up with the rest of the errata team.  Sound good?

[ShadowcatX]

That sounds amazing, but let me take a couple days getting to you so I can have it coherent.

And yes magic as a drain stat is powerful, but centering is a fair metamagic (as in not busted) and available for 13 karma. Would I pay 13 karma to change my drain stat to magic? I don't know. It would be an interesting option for a positive quality.

[PiXeL01]

But changing your drain attribute to Magic would mean a power focus would apply there too, meaning it would be too powerful.
...
The Romani drain attribute is also confusing me a little. Who would honestly suggest that?

[SpellBinder]

Just don't forget that as a GM anything can be disallowed, and if you've got a good reason you really shouldn't get that much grumbling from your players.  If you think drakes and their magic tradition is OP, then deny it to your players.

Heck, I know a guy that does shadowrun games set in the 50's, and Dunkelzahn never runs for POTUCAS in his stories.

And yes, if a practitioner of the draconic tradition has a power focus, it double taps into your drain.  First at where Stun becomes Physical, and then again in dice to resist it.

[ShadowcatX]

But changing your drain attribute to Magic would mean a power focus would apply there too, meaning it would be too powerful.
...
The Romani drain attribute is also confusing me a little. Who would honestly suggest that?

I had not thought about power foci. That is a problem.

And what confuses you about will x2 for drain? For aspected magicians, that would be a power boost that might actually make them a legitimate choice.

[firebug]

Will + Will is also a bad design, if only because it's just better than using two attributes.  Willpower is already a pretty great attribute.  Logic is rarely that useful for non-hackers, so especially compared to that, being able to focus on just Willpower is strong.  Especially when you consider that "Hey, using Increase Attribute [Willpower] means I get twice the bonus to my drain pool!"  I regularly make spellcasters with 4 Will just so I can get a F4 Sustaining Focus or R4 Focused Concentration and always sustain that spell, because 8 Will is great, and so is +4 drain.  But a Romani Dwarf taking the -2 to sustain a F7 Increase Attribute spell to give themselves 11 Will and 22 Drain Resist out the door is frightening.  And that's before you even consider the Quickening metamagic.

Aspected Magicians got a lot of love in Forbidden Arcana, one of the few things I can say I like.  Dedicated Spellcaster (or whatever it's called) is great, though while it "fixes" the lack of spells aspected magicians get in chargen, it shouldn't be required for the archetype to work.  Unfortunately, Dedicated Conjurer is not really strong, it just breaks lore by granting access to more spirit types, which I dislike, and even though they gave Enchanter its own priority, they still didn't give it any preparations to start with so I'm pretty sure it's reasonable for me to say "fuck you" to that one.  The one thing people complained about and everybody knew was annoying since the CRB came out, and they set themselves a place to fix it, and then just didn't.

[ShadowcatX]

Will + Will is also a bad design, if only because it's just better than using two attributes.  Willpower is already a pretty great attribute.  Logic is rarely that useful for non-hackers, so especially compared to that, being able to focus on just Willpower is strong.  Especially when you consider that "Hey, using Increase Attribute [Willpower] means I get twice the bonus to my drain pool!"  I regularly make spellcasters with 4 Will just so I can get a F4 Sustaining Focus or R4 Focused Concentration and always sustain that spell, because 8 Will is great, and so is +4 drain.  But a Romani Dwarf taking the -2 to sustain a F7 Increase Attribute spell to give themselves 11 Will and 22 Drain Resist out the door is frightening.  And that's before you even consider the Quickening metamagic.

In general, mages are still going to want intuition, intuition is probably a better attribute than will, since it covers initiative and perception. Yes, you can bump a single attribute instead of two attributes and get double the drain resistance, and that's nice, but keep in mind, that's 1.333 successes on drain rolls and that's really all it is. But the moment either mage steps into a level 1 background count his spells are worthless and level 1 background counts are everywhere.

Aspected Magicians got a lot of love in Forbidden Arcana, one of the few things I can say I like.  Dedicated Spellcaster (or whatever it's called) is great, though while it "fixes" the lack of spells aspected magicians get in chargen, it shouldn't be required for the archetype to work.  Unfortunately, Dedicated Conjurer is not really strong, it just breaks lore by granting access to more spirit types, which I dislike, and even though they gave Enchanter its own priority, they still didn't give it any preparations to start with so I'm pretty sure it's reasonable for me to say "fuck you" to that one.  The one thing people complained about and everybody knew was annoying since the CRB came out, and they set themselves a place to fix it, and then just didn't.

I disagree that aspected magicians are fixed. An aspected magician, that casts spells, can spend 5 karma to get fewer spells than a regular mage gets for free with their magic of 6. They are still straight up weaker, given that the regular mage has conjuring, enchanting, and astral projection. IMO aspected magicians shouldn't be straight up worse than standard magicians, even with a fix.

But let's imagine that the dwarf aspected magician is running along side the full magician. The aspected magician, because he has 2x willpower to deal with drain, can cast more than the standard magician. The standard magician, however, has other tricks he can rely on. Suddenly one isn't astoundingly better than the other, they're both good, they're just good in different ways.

[firebug]

Oh I definitely meant to imply that they weren't really fixed (hence the quotation marks).  There's really no reason for Aspected Magicians to get less of anything than normal magicians when they're already giving up two skill groups and astral projection.

That 22 Drain Resist on a full magician is more what I was taking about.  1.3333 more hits on average means a higher point of Force on every spell they cast, which seems pretty great to me.  If I told me that I could pick a free option as a Street Samurai that added +1 DV and -1 AP to every gun I fired, and it cost me nothing, I'd say that's unbalanced.

Though the theoretical dwarf gypsy wouldn't have only 4 higher Drain Resist; that'd be if their LOG/INT/CHA could also be a 7.  Keep in mind you can't have more than one attribute at your metatype cap at character creation, too.  So that dwarf gypsy will have at least 6 higher drain resist than someone with 7 WIL and 5 in their other mental attribute.  And this is didn't come at a significant cost over other traditions, they can just cast every spell at about 2 higher Force.

[ShadowcatX]

That 22 Drain Resist on a full magician is more what I was taking about.  1.3333 more hits on average means a higher point of Force on every spell they cast, which seems pretty great to me.  If I told me that I could pick a free option as a Street Samurai that added +1 DV and -1 AP to every gun I fired, and it cost me nothing, I'd say that's unbalanced.

You can, homemade ammo. But what does that really get you, the vast majority of enemies are either going down in the first hit either way or taking two hits to go down either way. It makes a little bit of a difference. Beyond that, since we are talking about my idea, it does cost you something, it costs you the ability to summon spirits, to enchant items, and to astrally project. That's a pretty big cost.

Though the theoretical dwarf gypsy wouldn't have only 4 higher Drain Resist; that'd be if their LOG/INT/CHA could also be a 7.  Keep in mind you can't have more than one attribute at your metatype cap at character creation, too.  So that dwarf gypsy will have at least 6 higher drain resist than someone with 7 WIL and 5 in their other mental attribute.  And this is didn't come at a significant cost over other traditions, they can just cast every spell at about 2 higher Force.

Not really though it looks that way on paper, doesn't it. In practice, the dwarf is probably going to go 6/6 with intuition and can, if it so chooses, have a spirit of man cast increase spells on it, so it gets a 20 to your 22, but it has a significantly higher initiative, and you are sustaining a spell they are not. (Though they are using 2 services off a bound spirit.)

[firebug]

We're talking about the Romani Tradition's Will + Will in comparison to Will + Log/Int/Cha of other traditions, not being Aspected, when we discuss 22 Drain Dice.  That's where I'm coming from, nothing about Romani restricts you to be Aspected.  Why would I say that a single tradition that has no impact on the power of Aspected Magicians compared to Full Magicians makes Aspected Magicians more powerful than they should be?

Hand loaded ammo, in comparison, requires a lot of time to renew the supply (as it isn't endless), only gives -1 AP or +1 DV, and does actually increase the cost of the ammo.  Otherwise though, you're right, it's comparably the same thing for a different archetype.

I feel like it's not a forgone conclusion that that every magician will max Intuition and have a Spirit of Man sustain Increase Attribute spells, but if that's where you're coming from then I don't really have a counter-argument.  Not much I could say against that logic.

[PiXeL01]

Basically what firebugs said about the Romani tradition. Having the same attribute used twice in the equation means that all costs to improve the result are cut in half and benefits are doubled. No other tradition can do this. Isn’t that a problem?

[Rosa]

Plus it just doesn't fit with the fluff about the tradition as its written. The Romani tradition is mentioned several times as being nature oriented and akin to shamanism. ...ok,ok, that's cool i can dig that, so naturally they would be using charisma as second drain attribute, yeah ok. ...gypsies. ...Charisma. ..yeah that works, wait, what now? Willpower times two, where did that come from? Errrrr. ........

I mean with the draconic tradition I can see the reasoning behind it, eventhough I still consider it a mistake, but with the Romani tradition it just seems special for specials sake.

[firebug]

I'm actually convinced it was a typo.  Someone, burnt-out after typing for hours straight, mindlessly adds "Will + Will" without realizing it.  It's just unfortunately got weird, game-play affecting results, unlike other, more amusing typos.

[ShadowcatX]

I'm actually convinced it was a typo.  Someone, burnt-out after typing for hours straight, mindlessly adds "Will + Will" without realizing it.  It's just unfortunately got weird, game-play affecting results, unlike other, more amusing typos.

I doubt it. it's a really bad tradition other than double will.

And I'm sorry I wasn't clearer earlier, I think double will is acceptable for aspected characters, not full mages
 I think as a house rule it gives aspected mages something that makes them at least worth considering.

[firebug]

Unfortunately, it being bad otherwise doesn't make me think it must not be a typo.  Several of the other traditions are just objectively bad, like any of the Norse variant Awakened, or Norse Adepts, if you try to follow Forbidden Arcana.