Quickening is a double edged sword for a mage.
The advantage, we have all seen. what with the host of spells that add great buffs to a mage.
The disadvantages are also large, if not directly spelled out. I will list a few below:
Social:
Some spells have an obvious effect (like the armor spell) which can be rather unsettling to the general population. Especially in a good area of town (Zone B and up), and unsettled people call the police. A city isn't a Vacuum, and while magic is rare, those that have it generally also have "power". Meaning they have good paying jobs, live in good areas of town. It also means they have a chance to spot a mage running quickened spells.. and rat him out to the police (again!). Police forces employ a host of spirits and astrally projecting mages that patrol the city, assisting other officers in the line of duty. Which means, one of the spirits or projecting mages have an extremely high chance of sporting the quickened mage, as his spell enhanced aura makes him stand out from other awakened, let alone the teeming masses of mundane.
So.... does the Mage have a SIN? What quality is it? Is he registered as awakened on his SIN? Does he have a licence for an (R) rated quickened spells WITH a good reason why he needs them running? (and possibly a permit to run them) Does he have a license to practice magic?
Basically, he is making his own life a living hell as every time he tries to go anywhere important in the city, he is running in problems due to his quickened spells. Now if he has the right permits, licences and alibi he might be able to get away with all this with a simple SIN challenge (meaning no game play effect, as the check takes less then 5 seconds and could be done from blocks away.... but again fake SIN test time...) But that doesn't stop individual shop owners or businesses from refusing to do business with him. I mean really, manatech is getting to the point that detecting magic is getting cheap (AKA Glo-wand!), and the mage just "glows" with it, (his own awakened nature, plus the quickened spell(s), plus foci). Important places like high end stores, casinos, corporations, etc just have a mage on staff to give "glowies" a once over, and thus deny him entrance. ("If someone looks like they are expecting trouble, that means they are going to start trouble. So they can be someplace else with their trouble")
In short, he is attracting attention.
Karma intensive.
When one thinks about the level of security in the 2070s and the dystopia, coupled together with territorial fracturing, he could be denied entrance to large parts of the city (each on an individual basis) unless he "drops" his quickened spells. That means he has just lost that karma, and has to re-spend that karma to re -quicken those spells at a later date. Dropping a spell could also be the only option for a mage trying to evade capture as well since (as stated above) the quickened spells make him stand out and "unique" in astral space. Quickened spells can be dispelled. It may not work every time, or every tenth time, but even if it works once every twenty times, it still costs karma to re quicken that spell.
Some places, like banks, federal and corporate buildings will be warded (or partially warded). So now the mage has the problem of either risk having his quickened spell collapse, or dismiss the spell, or risk destroying the ward (and alerting the mage who set it instantly). He can try to "slip" past the ward, but this get tricky, and again can lead to suspisious behavior, thus the social element (again). This also makes his "off the clock" activities limited... no going to the museum or art gallery as they would be warded up. No recon for that mage has his odd antics while slipping a ward (if he's not glowing from a magical effect) kinda draw attention.
Hard to Hide from the First rule of Shadowrun.
Face it, when you are all magically glowey from magic, it's hard not to get tagged with the label "mage".
The FIRST run of shadowrun is? <waits for you to say it...>
"GEEK THE MAGE FIRST"
So that means when combat starts, everyone shoots at him, and shoots him till he stops moving. Gangers and deadbeats, donut cops and mallrats are not an issue, any mage will mop the floor with this trash. It's when the HTR team with magical and astral back up shows up that the mage is dead. Seriously. He's dead. I don't what spells he's got quickened, Once the "pros" come out and focus on him, he is going down. AND the sad thing is, he did it to himself, by standing out and making himself that target. Once the HTR teams comes out, they also tend not to stop. (It has probably become a point of pride and revenge for the cops at this point
)
the other points have been brought up
