[Zilfer]

I personally don't really see Quickening as unbalancing, since its so karma intensive and can be more trouble than its worth without metamagics from 4th edition (Extended Masking/Spell Masking).

It's less karma-intensive than getting the spells and sustaining them through Foci.

Is that "At First" or.... "In the Long Run"

I'm assuming 5e you only need to bond with a Foci once right?

[Michael Chandra]

Correct. However, we should note that there's two tricks here.
1: Sustaining Focus of the right Force. Downsides: High cost, Focus Addiction risks.
2: Force 1 Sustaining Focus, using Reagents to keep enough hits: Low cost, no Focus Addiction, small cost for every cast spell. Also, available at chargen.

For example, say you want Increase Initiative at 4 hits. You can get a Force 4 Sustaining Focus, which costs 8 karma and 16k nuyen. Let's assume we have a game where the Karma<->Nuyen rule from Missions is present, then we're basically talking the equivalent of 32k nuyen. On the other hand, it's 8k for the Force 1 Focus, and 80 nuyen per cast. If you cast the spell 300x in your career, it's the same costwise, with the added avoiding-addiction advantage.

Now let's look at the Quickener: He spends 1 karma, the equivalent of 2k. If he loses the spell he has to pay it again. So if he loses the spell 15x in his career, he's equal in costs with the Force 4 Sustaining Focus. If he loses it 4x, he's about equal with the Force 1 Focus in the short term.

With Increase Attribute spells, the Force-1 Focus method won't work. So at best you can boost 2 attributes without Focus Addiction becoming a problem. This means that both the nuyen advantage of the Quickener happens faster (no short-term low cost alternative this time), and by Quickening he gains a massive advantage, namely being able to have a lot of boosts active without getting addicted to Foci. But we're talking purely karma-intensity here: The 8 karma + 16k nuyen vs 1 karma per time lost.

If we assume the GM allowed overcasting, then at Force 12 even high-level wards will only have a ~20% chance to shatter the spell. If we assume the player is careful (or has an adept running point) and the GM doesn't often throw unexpected wards at the party, he might have to fight one every 5+ sessions. If he has to fight (not run into but bash into) one every two sessions, he'd lose the spell once every 10 sessions. Which means that only after 150 sessions, would he start being more expensive than the other solution. If the GM doesn't wield Wards as Ares Predators, it's >300.

There are of course the costs of taking Quickening instead of another Metamagic. But with a lot of spells, that's spread out quite nicely. So once you have Quickened, say, 2 Increase Attribute spells and 1 other, you're already less karma-intensive than through Sustaining Foci. So I'd say it's less karma-intense almost-at-first, and in the long run, with an arsenal of spells, still better. Only when we are getting into the >1k karma characters is the Quickener starting to lose his advantage.

[Ryo]

I have no idea why you're trying to compare it to sustaining foci, as that's a completely ridiculous and horribly inefficient method to do anything. A better comparison would be to the other characters in the group, and what a mage that wasn't built to quicken an entire spellbook on himself could do.

Sure, he has every attribute at 7, but what does that actually get him? Is he even using his 7 Strength for anything? If he's a Shaman, what about his Logic? Did he put skills at B and is trying to be a jack of all trades? He's spread very thin, and it doesn't seem likely that he is getting full advantage of all of those attribute boosts. Not only that, but that's 8 fewer spells than he would have otherwise, significantly reducing his effectiveness and versatility as a mage. Quickening his two drain stats on himself would be one thing, but spreading out across the entire attribute array makes me wonder what spells he has that aren't quickened. Does he even have any? In addition to the 8 increase spells, he's apparently quickened Increased Reflexes, Combat Sense and Armor (that last one being an incredibly stupid move). That's 11 spells total, so all 10 of his Magic A spells, plus he bought an 11th. With Magic 7, he has a maximum of 3 additional spells, all of which he would have had to buy with karma. He may very well not have any other spells at all, which would mean he has no use for his Spellcasting skill unless he gets dispelled.

Assuming maximum hits have been achieved, he'd have an initiative of 22+5d6, would dodge with a pool of 14d6+Combat Sense hits, soaks damage with Body 7 + Armor Jacket 12 +Armor hits, possibly with a shield or helmet thrown in, and is presumably using a Combat Axe or Katana to take advantage of that Strength 7. So he's a combat monkey, good for him. One that will be focus fired like all get out. Even with all that, I'd honestly be surprised if he survived a single gunfight.

And God help him if he walks into a Background Count.

[Zilfer]

Correct. However, we should note that there's two tricks here.
1: Sustaining Focus of the right Force. Downsides: High cost, Focus Addiction risks.
2: Force 1 Sustaining Focus, using Reagents to keep enough hits: Low cost, no Focus Addiction, small cost for every cast spell. Also, available at chargen.

For example, say you want Increase Initiative at 4 hits. You can get a Force 4 Sustaining Focus, which costs 8 karma and 16k nuyen. Let's assume we have a game where the Karma<->Nuyen rule from Missions is present, then we're basically talking the equivalent of 32k nuyen. On the other hand, it's 8k for the Force 1 Focus, and 80 nuyen per cast. If you cast the spell 300x in your career, it's the same costwise, with the added avoiding-addiction advantage.

Now let's look at the Quickener: He spends 1 karma, the equivalent of 2k. If he loses the spell he has to pay it again. So if he loses the spell 15x in his career, he's equal in costs with the Force 4 Sustaining Focus. If he loses it 4x, he's about equal with the Force 1 Focus in the short term.

With Increase Attribute spells, the Force-1 Focus method won't work. So at best you can boost 2 attributes without Focus Addiction becoming a problem. This means that both the nuyen advantage of the Quickener happens faster (no short-term low cost alternative this time), and by Quickening he gains a massive advantage, namely being able to have a lot of boosts active without getting addicted to Foci. But we're talking purely karma-intensity here: The 8 karma + 16k nuyen vs 1 karma per time lost.

If we assume the GM allowed overcasting, then at Force 12 even high-level wards will only have a ~20% chance to shatter the spell. If we assume the player is careful (or has an adept running point) and the GM doesn't often throw unexpected wards at the party, he might have to fight one every 5+ sessions. If he has to fight (not run into but bash into) one every two sessions, he'd lose the spell once every 10 sessions. Which means that only after 150 sessions, would he start being more expensive than the other solution. If the GM doesn't wield Wards as Ares Predators, it's >300.

There are of course the costs of taking Quickening instead of another Metamagic. But with a lot of spells, that's spread out quite nicely. So once you have Quickened, say, 2 Increase Attribute spells and 1 other, you're already less karma-intensive than through Sustaining Foci. So I'd say it's less karma-intense almost-at-first, and in the long run, with an arsenal of spells, still better. Only when we are getting into the >1k karma characters is the Quickener starting to lose his advantage.

However the Quickener probably one be loosing 1 stated buff but a whole host of them. If you have the Foci for it ever time they get dispelled it won't matter for they can just recast it into the foci.

How bad is the getting addicted to foci? I've yet to read that part however, I thought most mages have high will and will be able to resist it.

[Ryo]

Having checked the rules for wards, this guy is totally screwed there, too. When sneaking past a ward, you roll Magic + Charisma [Astral] vs. Force*2, and you can bring a number of sustained spells with you equal to your net hits. So in order to get past a ward, any ward, he'd need 11 net hits to bring all his spells with him. That's not happening. His Astral limit is 10 tops. So his remaining options are to walk through the ward and do his Force*2 roll 11 times against the ward's Force*2, or attack the barrier and destroy it before going in.

The first is a terrible idea, as even with 20 some odd dice on the roll, his chances that he'll flub at least one of those goes up every time he does it, and nobody wants to watch this guy make 11 rolls every time he encounters a ward. The second is more viable, but requires a few rounds of astral combat. Either way, he is immediately spotted and alerts the magician who set up the ward, so this character is completely useless on infiltration and stealth if a ward is ever involved.

In summary, he is the least subtle character I've ever heard of (especially with Armor quickened), and would realistically last maybe 10 minutes as a shadowrunner before he is either killed or gets enough sense smacked into him to completely reconsider his life choices as a magician.

[Michael Chandra]

I have no idea why you're trying to compare it to sustaining foci, as that's a completely ridiculous and horribly inefficient method to do anything.

Because we were talking about a buff-build with a lot of buff-spells, and you then called Quickening karma-intensive. So I pointed out that compared to a Sustaining Focus version of the same build, Quickening is far less karma-intensive. And if you want to compare it to other characters, we can do that too: 6 karma for a Quickened Increased Attribute, vs 128k nuyen (~64 karma) for +4 Agi, 6 karma vs ~19.5 for +3 Reaction, or 12 karma vs ~142.5 for +3 Reaction and +3d6 Initiative, which is by far outmatched by +4 Reaction & +Xd6+2X Initiative. Also the only way to get an extra +4 defense through Intuition. So while Armor is silly, for the rest you're far cheaper off karma-wise compared to the street sams. So a Quickened build gets it quite easily.

However, I do still believe Quickening comes with risk and a price. But unless you handle it well, and I strongly recommend houseruling it for that purpose, then the only ways to keep it balanced involve either destroying the character or destroying any other tactical magical option, because suddenly wards are so common that you can forget about astral scouting and material links and the sustaining foci peeps have to constantly recast their spells.

Zilfer, if you're a Quickener you can also just recast the spells if they get lost, and Quicken them at once, as long as you keep the karma at hand for it. So that's not really the problem. As for Focus Addiction, we're talking 1 failed check every dozen runs, so your character would start burning out long before Quickening becomes more expensive than Sustaining Foci.

[Ryo]

I have no idea why you're trying to compare it to sustaining foci, as that's a completely ridiculous and horribly inefficient method to do anything.

Because we were talking about a buff-build with a lot of buff-spells, and you then called Quickening karma-intensive. So I pointed out that compared to a Sustaining Focus version of the same build, Quickening is far less karma-intensive. And if you want to compare it to other characters, we can do that too: 6 karma for a Quickened Increased Attribute, vs 128k nuyen (~64 karma) for +4 Agi, 6 karma vs ~19.5 for +3 Reaction, or 12 karma vs ~142.5 for +3 Reaction and +3d6 Initiative, which is by far outmatched by +4 Reaction & +Xd6+2X Initiative. Also the only way to get an extra +4 defense through Intuition. So while Armor is silly, for the rest you're far cheaper off karma-wise compared to the street sams. So a Quickened build gets it quite easily.

However, I do still believe Quickening comes with risk and a price. But unless you handle it well, and I strongly recommend houseruling it for that purpose, then the only ways to keep it balanced involve either destroying the character or destroying any other tactical magical option, because suddenly wards are so common that you can forget about astral scouting and material links and the sustaining foci peeps have to constantly recast their spells.

...Okay, sure, if you're comparing what this guy is doing with Quickening to a completely nonviable build involving 11 Sustaining Focuses, then it is much less karma-intensive...

Why you make that comparison, I do not know, but whatever you say, man.

As for the other options you listed, those things all have the benefit of being largely unnoticeable, and cannot be easily negated, unlike Quickening. An adept with Improved Reflexes has those permanently and that cannot be taken away. A street sam with wires just needs to watch out for cyberware scanners. Quickening is a quick and relatively cheap way to get those perks, but it has significantly more drawbacks and gets a lot more attention.

As for wards, they actually are incredibly common. A ward is cheap. A single magician with Magic 6 can ward an area of 300 cubic meters. It takes him one day's work to do, and only needs to be renewed every couple of weeks, or with a karma expenditure, it lasts forever. Any run against any organization capable of having a Magician on staff, or who hires any kind of astral security, should have wards in place. It is the most basic form of magical security.

And to the OP, I actually think your main problem is that you're missing a number of important rules, either getting things wrong or ignoring certain rules altogether.

We've got a PC that took Priority D in attributes, spread out evenly (so very average stats for the race, like 3s/4s for human).

Priority D is 14 attribute points. Over 8 attributes, that divides into 1.75 points each. So at the most even distribution, he'd have six attributes at 3, and two at 2. To get an even 3 across the board would require Priority C, and to get any 4s without having 2s would require Priority B.

He started with MAG 7 (from exceptional attribute positive quality), and with 11 spells he eventually quickens; armor, combat sense, increase reflexes and all 8 increase attribute spells. He spent his first 13 karma to get Initiate Grade 1 (quickening metamagic) and his next 11 karma to sustain all 11 of those spells (spending 1 karma each). He spent plenty of time (and edge) during the character's downtime to keep recasting these spells before quickening (to maximize hits), which comes to (say) roughly 7 hits per spell (on Force 7 to Force 10 spells).

I'm extremely curious how this character survived enough runs to earn 24 karma. Even assuming you're generous with the karma rewards, that takes 4 runs, and this guy would have been completely worthless prior to getting all these spells set up.

After this 24 karma, this character already has the trappings of uber sauce, being close to (or at) augmented attribute maximums (natural +4) for all 8 stats, and nice armor/defense/initiative. And thus far, the PC appears to be reasonably safe from losing these spells (and the karma invested) from dispelling and astral intersections.

Augmented maximum is +4. It doesn't care what your natural attribute is, the maximum you can augment any attribute by is +4. I have a feeling you're letting this guy augment by a lot more than that, since with his Priority D, he should only have 6s and 7s in every attribute if he's got 7 hits on those spells. The extra hits don't do him any good, as Increase [Attribute] specifically states that additional hits above the augmented maximum are ignored.

And you're definitely wrong about astral intersections, but we'll get to that in a second.

The dispeller's dice pools seem to be around 12-15 dice (if they even have counterspelling, which many don't seem to have) vs. the PC's 15-18 dice (MAG 7, Force 7 to 10, +1 karma/quickening). With the PC's edge added in, he has been able to keep things running. Add the fact that mages are supposed to be rare to begin with, and its not like awakened NPCs are going to be showing up every fight to dispell (presuming they even have counterspelling). And I'm not trying to go out of my way to take this PCs benefits away. I like the concept of quickening.

Sounds about right.

For astral intersections, I'm assuming Force 6 or Force 7 wards would be considered fairly decent against starting characters. Those would have 12 or 14 dice, vs. the PC's 17 dice (MAG 7 + 10 CHA). The PC has been able to handle this, and toss in edge if it gets close.

And here is a clear indication that your player is ignoring some important rules. First and foremost, there's no way in hell this guy has Charisma 10 at Priority D Attributes. Only way that works is if he's got five attributes at 2, two more at 3, a natural Charisma of 6, and +4 from his Increase Charisma spell. If you allowed him to get +7 Charisma from the spell, you are not following the rules correctly.

Secondly, if he's trying to pass through a ward, he rolls Magic + Charisma [Astral] vs Force*2, and he needs 1 net hit per spell he's bringing with him. That means 11 net hits on 14 dice. Even with you allowing him to have +7 Charisma, that's still 11 net hits on 17 dice. That'd be hard to pull off unopposed, let alone against 12 to 14 dice opposed.

As for an Astral Intersection, he's not rolling his Magic + Charisma against that unless he's dual natured at the time. His spells, however, roll their Force *2. They don't even get his Magic or the karma he spent on them; those things are specific to dispelling. So every ward he tries to cross this way would trigger 11 dice rolls against the Force*2 of the ward.

Now let's fast-forward well beyond the karma we have now to when the PC is a high level initiate and has (say) a MAG rating of 11 and a spellcasting pool of 25 or better. So this mage now recasts and requickens all these spells at higher force with more hits, making it that much less likely for them to be dispelled or disrupted... and giving very large boosts to armor/defense/initiative.

I'm certainly not saying this PC is better than everything else, but I'm struck by the many things this guy has, and it just smacks of being too good in too many areas.

Are you experiencing any of this?

Getting from Magic 7 to Magic 11 would cost 190 karma, not counting the fact he'd need to initiate at least 4 times first. And even with higher spellcasting ability, his attributes aren't getting better than his current rating +4. The hits based spells could get better, but I seriously doubt this guy is going to survive to see 190 karma.

[Michael Chandra]

...Okay, sure, if you're comparing what this guy is doing with Quickening to a completely nonviable build involving 11 Sustaining Focuses, then it is much less karma-intensive...

Why you make that comparison, I do not know, but whatever you say, man.

Apparently because you're an ass. Let me know when that changes.

[Zilfer]

I have no idea why you're trying to compare it to sustaining foci, as that's a completely ridiculous and horribly inefficient method to do anything.

Because we were talking about a buff-build with a lot of buff-spells, and you then called Quickening karma-intensive. So I pointed out that compared to a Sustaining Focus version of the same build, Quickening is far less karma-intensive.

Zilfer, if you're a Quickener you can also just recast the spells if they get lost, and Quicken them at once, as long as you keep the karma at hand for it. So that's not really the problem. As for Focus Addiction, we're talking 1 failed check every dozen runs, so your character would start burning out long before Quickening becomes more expensive than Sustaining Foci.

Yeah, I understand but it's a Continued Expense Vs a Static Expense. You pay the Karma for the Foci once... for the quickened every time it goes down you 'repay' the expense. You'd have to keep the karma on hand and the Edge on hand for the the OP described in the topic to break the limit right?

I just think in the long run the Foci would be a better idea.... what's the threshold for addition for Foci? And how often do you need to make the check? Isn't there a way to get "rid" of the addiction by not using it for a good amount of time? Like the downtime between missions or the 'lay low" part after a mission goes hot? Sometimes can take weeks to a month for things to calm down. Though YMMV....

Edit: Not trying to be rude Michael just trying to understand your side.... (wanted to make that clear because of your last post. )

[Michael Chandra]

Zilfer, you don't need Edge to break the limit really, almost every Quickened spell suffices at 4 hits. And no, getting rid of addiction also costs karma. And you might want to reread my earlier posts, I included repeated upkeep costs in the equation, Quickening still wins out unless kept in check through other means than constant wards. It's an easy 1k~5k karma character by the time it becomes more expensive.

Now, leaving aside the personal insults, I edited my earlier post before I noticed that Ryo is not interested in my involvement in a proper debate. You may want to take a glance at it. And with that I'm out.

[Reaver]

I think Ryo touched on something....

Page 316 SR5 Astral intersections


If this happens, each astral form makes an Opposed
Test: living beings a Magic + Charisma [Astral], and
non-living barriers and objects a Force x 2 [Force] test.
The participant with any net hits remains normal and intact,
while all others are disrupted—on a tie, all participants
are disrupted.

unless the mage is astrally perceiving when he hits the ward, his quickened spells resist with Force(x2) VS the Force(x2) or the ward....

[Michael Chandra]

If we assume the GM allowed overcasting, then at Force 12 even high-level wards will only have a ~20% chance to shatter the spell. If we assume the player is careful (or has an adept running point) and the GM doesn't often throw unexpected wards at the party, he might have to fight one every 5+ sessions. If he has to fight (not run into but bash into) one every two sessions, he'd lose the spell once every 10 sessions. Which means that only after 150 sessions, would he start being more expensive than the other solution. If the GM doesn't wield Wards as Ares Predators, it's >300.

[Zilfer]

Zilfer, you don't need Edge to break the limit really, almost every Quickened spell suffices at 4 hits. And no, getting rid of addiction also costs karma. And you might want to reread my earlier posts, I included repeated upkeep costs in the equation, Quickening still wins out unless kept in check through other means than constant wards. It's an easy 1k~5k karma character by the time it becomes more expensive.

Now, leaving aside the personal insults, I edited my earlier post before I noticed that Ryo is not interested in my involvement in a proper debate. You may want to take a glance at it. And with that I'm out.

Ah, I thought they were casting low to resist a bunch of drain during the session so they wouldn't easily be knocked out or killed.

I didn't know getting rid of an addiction costs karma thanks for letting me know. Since someone's going to have one in my game I'd better check that section out. 

[Shinobi Killfist]

Yes its broken. And IMO its broken in the worst possible way, the kind that gives the illusion of balance because if the GM is in constant fix it mode its sort of balanced.  End result of quickening if the GM isn't torching them absurdly frequently  the mage will end up more augmented through quickened spells than the characters whose entire gimmick is getting augmented. Personally I just would not allow it except maybe for area illusion and manipulation spells.  Hey put the permanent stink spell on the bar that kicked you out Ricki, sweet.  Drop 5 karma and have more augments than the street sam, not fine.  And quite frankly I don't want my game to revolve around the tactics i am going to use to balance one character. 

[Reaver]

You have a point Shinobi. If the GM is playing the setting pretty loose, not playing up the check points, and security of the good areas in relation to the poor ones... yes things can get pretty screwed.

As for "constantly throwing wards at a team". I design my security systems well ahead of my runs for the team, If there are wards, they are there logically. And sometimes there is no wards at all (as in when magical security wouldn't be used).


sounds more and more like you deal with this "mage" as you would any other beefed up Sammy....