[RHat]

It's not free power points - you have to pay for them, and if you're paying enough you will be weaker, and notably so.  For example, if it was high enough that even Prime Mystic Adepts had to dip into negative quality karma to pay for those points...

Even if it cost every Karma they have at the normal level it isn't balanced.  This is 65 BP worth of physical adept powers for 50 karma and BP get you more for your buck than karma does.  6 PP in adept powers just will get you more than what the 50 karma would for the mage.  Then once they start improving their magic they get both which is just insane. And its not like positive qualities are gone forever, the mystake can still pick up whatever one is mage awesome like focused concentration in play.  Versatility should come with less power, there is no less power here.  It is more power and more versatility. 

Progression needs a separate look, but if (for example) it costs you all your possible chargen karma to get the full 6, that means:

- You get no foci to begin with, diminishing both your mage and adept sides
- You cannot take a Mentor Spirit, letting the Mage and Adept both pull out farther ahead of you (because Mentor Spirits for Adepts are now AWESOME, apparently)
- You have to get your Magic 6 via Priorities, meaning you have to use either Magic A or Magic B/C and a Metatype priority that provides enough Special Attribute Points to fill out your Magic, usually decreasing your (now very valuable) Edge.  Doesn't matter much to human characters, but it certainly does for, say, Ork Druid Mystads.
- You get no Positive Qualities to work with, which will again let pure Mages and Adepts pull out further ahead.
- You cannot take any more spells at the start than your Priority gives you
- You cannot take any skills/specializations or improve any attributes beyond what your Priorities give you
- Somewhere in all of this, you have to assign an E.  If you went Magic A, this will be a somewhat difficult choice.  If you went Magic B or C, this choice will SUCK, because you also need your Metatype priority to be higher; you'd be left with crap resources (no reagents, binding materials, and so on for you until you actually get some work - best hope for that advance), crap Attributes (hello horrible limits), or crap skills (best hope the spread of your core abilities is pretty minor - that's only a 6 and three 4's, plus your priority skills if you have any)...

There certainly IS less power here, and while the Mystic Adept can eventually catch up to the starting points of the Mage and Adept (mostly), by that time the Mage and Adept will be well ahead of that mark.

Having to split your Magic is not the only way to give Mystads less power.

[Makki]

Imho the problem is, we need some solution inbetween.
The half/half split in 4th ed made MAs pretty week. I don't say they sucked, but the number of playable options was limited and not every idea was convertable to a working build. You really needed to focus on good synergies between attributes, skills, spells (with low-force capability) and powers.
On the other hand, the current 5th ed version is too strong, no matter the cost of additional adept powers. Because, you can either afford them or not. If you can, you're awesome, if can't, you're a mage.

But where's the middle?
-One brief idea was, you can't have both at the same time and need to take a meditative ritual of Magic rounds to switch from mage to adept. Yes, you're still very versatile, but the fact of the matter is, you're not a MA anymore.
-second idea: able to constantly rearange the split with  e.g. a complex action. still not great.


still looking for the inbetween-solution...

[RHat]

Make having both at max horribly expensive, encouraging things like Magic 4 Mystads (which, of course, combines with the increased value of Edge and the fact that raising Magic past priority means not raising Edge)?

[Mäx]

Since we're on the subject of errata for Mystic Adept, any statement on the rule that Fringe refers to as stating Mystic Adepts automatically get Power Points for raising Magic, rather than solely from Initiating for Power Points as I recall someone stating somewhere (prolly a freelancer at dumpshock)?

It's not 100% clear, and it's also being looked at.

Well just don't go to far the otherway and nerf myss add to oblivion, like the SR4 FAQ writer tried to do.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Since we're on the subject of errata for Mystic Adept, any statement on the rule that Fringe refers to as stating Mystic Adepts automatically get Power Points for raising Magic, rather than solely from Initiating for Power Points as I recall someone stating somewhere (prolly a freelancer at dumpshock)?

It's not 100% clear, and it's also being looked at.

Well just don't go to far the otherway and nerf myss add to oblivion, like the SR4 FAQ writer tried to do.

We use the Faq rule and mystic adepts work great.  Just don't do even splits and you are solid.  My current character is a 4 adept, 2 magic character.  He is a face/rocker who uses low force spells like illusions to back him up. And I had enough left over to be a decent shot.  Now the problem I find is the same for all pure adepts.  Getting PPs is too expensive, 35 karma+ initiation is  really slow.  I wouldn't have minded a small boost, like my suggestionn of 2 seperate magic attributes 1 for the mage side, 1 for the adept side.  Advancement would be much quicker for people who split the pools as boosting a 5 to a 6 to get one more PP is a lot cheaper than going from 11 to 12.  I find the current 5 e version way too much.  And despite RHats list of things they could not buy I think 6 PP is actually more valauble than all the starting karma a character has. Its not something you can numerically prove though, so it comes down to a difference in opinion on where the balance lies. 

[Michael Chandra]

At 4 karma per PP, all I'd want is 1 or 2 other limitations on Mystic Adepts not being able to handle something Magicians can and they'd be balanced options in my opinion. Though likely people with more experience and playtesting will know better what way would balance them out compared to Magicians.

[Makki]

At 4 karma per PP, all I'd want is 1 or 2 other limitations on Mystic Adepts not being able to handle something Magicians can and they'd be balanced options in my opinion. Though likely people with more experience and playtesting will know better what way would balance them out compared to Magicians.

you know, what I could live with?
Regarding their magical abilities Mystic Adepts always count as Aspected Magicians and must choose either Spellcasting, Conjouring or Alchemy as their craft.

[Shinobi Killfist]

At 4 karma per PP, all I'd want is 1 or 2 other limitations on Mystic Adepts not being able to handle something Magicians can and they'd be balanced options in my opinion. Though likely people with more experience and playtesting will know better what way would balance them out compared to Magicians.

you know, what I could live with?
Regarding their magical abilities Mystic Adepts always count as Aspected Magicians and must choose either Spellcasting, Conjouring or Alchemy as their craft.

Yeah something like that would do a lot to balance them. 

[White_Ghost]

At 4 karma per PP, all I'd want is 1 or 2 other limitations on Mystic Adepts not being able to handle something Magicians can and they'd be balanced options in my opinion. Though likely people with more experience and playtesting will know better what way would balance them out compared to Magicians.

you know, what I could live with?
Regarding their magical abilities Mystic Adepts always count as Aspected Magicians and must choose either Spellcasting, Conjouring or Alchemy as their craft.

I could see the above as one of the things I would suggest.

Here are the priorities for magic:

A. Magician or Mystic Adept: Magic 6, two Rating 5 Magical skills, 10 spells
B. Magician or Mystic Adept: Magic 4, two Rating 4 Magical skills, 7 spells
C. Magician or Mystic Adept: Magic 3, 5 spells

Here are the fixes I propose:

1. Mystic adepts function as aspected magicians in addition to their adept powers (pp must be bought with karma)
2. MA's function as written but with a higher karma cost for PP (This is already acknowledged as a typo, so is already in the process)
3. The priorities are adjusted to reflect the difficulty of balancing the two sides. (Magic, skills, and spells reduced for balance)

I heavily suggest #3, mystic adepts, should in no way be as powerful as a full mage at character creation, they should have less spells known, or skill training. I wouldn't want to penalize magic, because choosing a high priority for magic should still be rewarding as an innate attribute. This way, a full mage would still have the advantage because they are focused. Doing both, as a MA should have a greater cost.

[quindraco]

That will NOT be effective in SR5, quindraco.

I sincerely hope you're right and look forward to reading rules that back up your assertion.

To begin with, ot's a question of Limits.  As they are the primary attribute for Physical and Mental limits respectively, dumping Strength and Logic is a hilariously terrible plan.

Why would the party's Magical Face care about those?  His job is dealing with Social and Magic limits.  Physical and Mental tasks are handleable by other party members.  If you were playing such a character, you simply wouldn't volunteer for certain tasks, like driving the car.

If Physical limits applied to firing or dodging bullets, it would have made designing the character decidedly more difficult, given the design spec of "magic face with some combat".

[White_Ghost]

That will NOT be effective in SR5, quindraco.

I sincerely hope you're right and look forward to reading rules that back up your assertion.

To begin with, ot's a question of Limits.  As they are the primary attribute for Physical and Mental limits respectively, dumping Strength and Logic is a hilariously terrible plan.

Why would the party's Magical Face care about those?  His job is dealing with Social and Magic limits.  Physical and Mental tasks are handleable by other party members.  If you were playing such a character, you simply wouldn't volunteer for certain tasks, like driving the car.

If Physical limits applied to firing or dodging bullets, it would have made designing the character decidedly more difficult, given the design spec of "magic face with some combat".

Apart from being entirely metagame thinking here are a few of the problems that these particular dump stats would give you:

• The inability to lift anything more than 15kg (33lbs) without a check
• The inability to carry more than 10kg (22lbs) of gear on your person. Without a check, or taking penalties.
• Low dice pools and limits for any STR action
• Being a complete simpleton of potato proportion.
• Low dice pools and limits for any LOG action including several skills important to mages, such as Sorcery, and knowledge skills.
• Low dice pools on remembering or reasoning attribute only checks.

So not only will you be unable to pull a teammate out of a firefight, you'd barely be able to carry your gun and armor. With your low mental stat, you would be less capable of understanding any magical effect or spirit, denying your team valuable intelligence in your specialization. You would even start with less Knowledge or language skills at character creation. Also as dm, I'd probably make you roll for dumb. Often.

[quindraco]

Apart from being entirely metagame thinking here are a few of the problems that these particular dump stats would give you:

• The inability to lift anything more than 15kg (33lbs) without a check
• The inability to carry more than 10kg (22lbs) of gear on your person. Without a check, or taking penalties.
• Low dice pools and limits for any STR action
• Being a complete simpleton of potato proportion.
• Low dice pools and limits for any LOG action including several skills important to mages, such as Sorcery, and knowledge skills.
• Low dice pools on remembering or reasoning attribute only checks.

So not only will you be unable to pull a teammate out of a firefight, you'd barely be able to carry your gun and armor. With your low mental stat, you would be less capable of understanding any magical effect or spirit, denying your team valuable intelligence in your specialization. You would even start with less Knowledge or language skills at character creation. Also as dm, I'd probably make you roll for dumb. Often.

Bear in mind I haven't seen the 5E rulebook, so I'm working with nothing but 4E knowledge, previews, forum posts, and sheer guesswork.  I wouldn't be at all shocked to learn I got some things wrong.  Your post raises some questions:

1)  Gear has actual weight now?  In SR4 armor simply required BOD to wear and just about everything else was hand-waved.  I'm pretty excited if 5E actually lists gear weights.  That said, what gear are you imagining the character needs?  He basically needs a smartgun, bullets, and armor - unless the rules for magical gear are wildly different and substantially more detailed, all of his foci, binding materials, etc can be declared to be something conveniently lightweight, such as aluminum body piercings.  His armor weight is already covered by the basic rules on how much armor you can wear for your STR (so yes, he won't be walking around with a +3 helmet).
2)  Sorcery is LOG based, not MAG based, now?  That fundamentally changes everything, and no mistake.  I'll have to take a closer look, but if you cast off of LOG now, the design spec is indeed too challenging to fulfil, and Shamans are kind of terrible since they don't have the same stat in casting and resisting drain.

Also, some answers for you:
1)  Of course he can pull someone out of a firefight, unless they've gotten rid of the appropriate spell.  I may be misremembering the name, but Lift (or something similar) could shift at least a hundred kilograms per point of Force.
2)  Language skills are largely a waste of time - there are too many languages around to learn them all, and it's too easy to use linguasofts instead.  A dedicated Face can squeeze out more points (and yes, linguasofts have downsides), but the design spec was for a hybrid, so some compromises had to be made.  The character is fluent in his primary language and rank 5 in two more if he needs to be, and if three languages isn't practically enough, more Logic won't solve the problem.
3)  Knowledge skills are, quite simply, someone else's department, most likely the party's computer expert, since, just like in the real world, it's far more practical to know how to look stuff up than it is to try and know everything at once.  This isn't a character with Astral Perception, so anything he can see he can show to the party.

I don't know what "rolling for dumb" is, but remember that the character is Intuition 5, which is reasonably wise, and also remember than Logic 1 isn't *that* dumb (I would start arguing with a GM who thought my character was any dumber than Forrest Gump).  It would be 100% reasonable to have the character fail to understand a menu in a restaurant, but 100% unreasonable to claim that he doesn't understand why it's a bad idea to run naked into busy traffic. 

[All4BigGuns]

2)  Language skills are largely a waste of time - there are too many languages around to learn them all, and it's too easy to use linguasofts instead.  A dedicated Face can squeeze out more points (and yes, linguasofts have downsides), but the design spec was for a hybrid, so some compromises had to be made.  The character is fluent in his primary language and rank 5 in two more if he needs to be, and if three languages isn't practically enough, more Logic won't solve the problem.
3)  Knowledge skills are, quite simply, someone else's department, most likely the party's computer expert, since, just like in the real world, it's far more practical to know how to look stuff up than it is to try and know everything at once.  This isn't a character with Astral Perception, so anything he can see he can show to the party.

I don't know what "rolling for dumb" is, but remember that the character is Intuition 5, which is reasonably wise, and also remember than Logic 1 isn't *that* dumb (I would start arguing with a GM who thought my character was any dumber than Forrest Gump).  It would be 100% reasonable to have the character fail to understand a menu in a restaurant, but 100% unreasonable to claim that he doesn't understand why it's a bad idea to run naked into busy traffic. 

Language skills are not a waste. There are times when you can't use that handy-dandy "Learn to speak <blah>" Linguasoft program, and the programs are simply no real substitute for actually knowing the language.

Knowledge skills are and should be everyone's area. One should have Knowledge skills relating to what they do on the team with a few that are for hobbies and interests (it is the GM's job to make sure they come into play).

That's the thing, a Logic of 1 does make the Logic 2 Forrest Gump look like a Rhodes Scholar. Gump may not have been that intelligent, but he could at least function somewhat in normal society. Logic 1 would be the sort who is too dumb to learn to wipe their own bum and has to be cared for by others as a result.

[White_Ghost]

I appreciate the response, also I'll try to include info about the new rules so you understand my opinion:

Concerning gear weight: No, SR5 does not have it listed for each piece of equipment. As you said, it's typically a "hand wave" issue. With a character with a 1 in STR however, it becomes something worth noting. You would likely have to travel light with your character, because even with the little equipment he would typically carry (armor, small firearm, ammo, foci) it would be possible to go over your threshold. In addition the armor rules you mentioned apply specifically for the "Bulk" of having additional armor peices and how that effects encumbrance. Weight is a separate issue.

Concerning Sorcery: Spellcasting checks are the same. I meant the knowledge application of the skill.

• 1. I can concede to that point, levitate or a similar spell would help in such a situation. And such a character would no doubt have to take it in their loadout to make up for their physical limitations.
• 2. The language question is highly situation on your run or GM. If it were to come into play, however, Linguasofts are rating x 1,000 ny. No small price for some runners.
• 3. Concerning knowledge, it's everyone's Department. With your high amount of charisma, you will likely be able to help with legwork. However, when it comes to your role in the team, Magic, you will be less knowledgeable for it.  He would likely need to invest in higher skills if you intended to make up for the low stat. Again knowledge within your specialty (Spirits, rituals, paracritters, parabiology, sorcery, wards, ect) I don't expect your character would be doing computer or hardware work, those I can agree are left to other players.
  
  In the same way you don't expect to need knowledge skill because it's someone else's department, the Decker doesn't expect to need magic knowledge skills because that is YOUR department.

As for the rolling for dumb. It was a little joke. And it would apply for knowledge, not common sense, as you said. I think you may have jumped to your own conclusion in your response. Forrest Gump is a perfect example for low logic high intuition. He's 'Not a smart man' But he's very observant and wise.

[RHat]

That will NOT be effective in SR5, quindraco.

I sincerely hope you're right and look forward to reading rules that back up your assertion.

To begin with, ot's a question of Limits.  As they are the primary attribute for Physical and Mental limits respectively, dumping Strength and Logic is a hilariously terrible plan.

Why would the party's Magical Face care about those?  His job is dealing with Social and Magic limits.  Physical and Mental tasks are handleable by other party members.  If you were playing such a character, you simply wouldn't volunteer for certain tasks, like driving the car.

If Physical limits applied to firing or dodging bullets, it would have made designing the character decidedly more difficult, given the design spec of "magic face with some combat".

If you actually get to decide that you never have to do things like, say, sneak in or out of somewhere, attempt first aid, use Perception, disguise yourself (A face who can't ever disguise himself?  Seriously?), and so on and so forth, your GM is doing a very poor job.