[Tarislar]

So here is the thing, I'm debating an odd situation for a Rigger.

All other stats being completely equal.

What is the more powerful option ?
What is the more interesting-cool-RP option ?

Option-A:
Willpower-3
Magic-2/0
Reduced to 0 through Control Rig & other ware, but potential to "Re-Awaken" again later w/ Adept/Sorcerer/Conjurer powers through Karma.

Option-B
Willpower-5
Mundane.

Basically this is a debate between D & E for Magic or Attributes.

I don't know, the idea to spend 5 Karma later in life & pick up a full PP of Adept powers or summon low level spirits, kinda odd but appeals to me.
That said, giving up Spell Resistance Dice & a Stun Box is not something I ever like doing, especially to someone that will likely take stun damage while jacked in.


Thoughts, Ideas, Opinions, & Suggestions ?

[Csjarrat]

If you were going to do it, I'd take magic at a higher level, go adept and create a badass wheelman myself. He could get a hell of a dicepool done right!

[firebug]

Thematically, it wouldn't make sense to me.  You wouldn't be an unawakened person, it'd imply you were an adept or magician and then just totally ignored it in favor of being a rigger, and then lost it when you got your rig installed.  It's not really a thing, from what I can tell, for someone to have access to magic but just as a little tiny side thing they don't really care about.  Magic is often the equivalent of that person's religion, after all.  Sometimes literally their religion (shamanism, shinto, christian theurgy)  While not impossible, if I was GM, I'd make sure you had a real and indepth backstory explaining what lead up to that.

Mechanically, summoning wouldn't be worth it.  A Force 1 or 2 spirit can't do shit.  A point or two of Adept powers might work, but then you'd also lose them if you ever bought more 'ware, and there's always more 'ware a character can have.  Unless you are waiting to upgrade all your cyber to alpha or better before buying more.

What Csjarrat suggested is probably a different character concept than what you'd want, but it does work.  An adept can be absolutely beast at AR driving and gunnery.  You don't even need a rig since you can do your best work in AR.

[martinchaen]

1. Just don't ever go under 1 essence, or you burn out unless you've previously initiated
2. There are two schools of thought on this subject; one says you pay the karma cost of your unmodified Magic attribute, the other that you pay the karma cost of your modified Magic attribute.

In essence, this is to discourage exactly what you're talking about; starting with a magic score of X, taking cyber or bioware which reduces the characters magic attribute, and then paying the (lowered) cost to raise it back up. I would personally make you pay the karma cost of Magic 3 (2 to 3) in this instance, so you'll want to clear it with your GM first.

AR riggers do work, but the lack of a control rig (which enhances your sensor ratings and lowers your thresholds for all tests) might be a tough obstacle to overcome; essentially, at character generation a character can get a Used Rating 3 Control Rig, getting a +3 dice pool modifier to all vehicle tests, a -3 to all vehicle test thresholds, and a +3 to quite a few vehicle attribute ratings. That is not something to be easily overlooked, because all the dice in the world won't help if you handling attribute (and thus your limit) is a meager 2 and your threshold to succeed is 5 (difficult terrain with a stunt maneuver). It's far easier to make an effective VR rigger due to all the modifiers than it is to make an AR rigger, though it is still a viable choice.

Burnout mages do exist, so I could see the character concept working; I'm just not sure it would very well...

[Tarislar]

Thanks for the input so far guys.

My build concept would be the following.

Control Rig-2 (Alpha?)
Other cyber-toys.  Eyes, Arm, Reaction, etc etc.
Magic-0

He would have 0 magic at chargen.
I'm not interested in creating a Cyber-Adept that blends Cyber & Magic on the same frame at chargen.

Really it just came down to 2 Attribute Points at Chargen v/s, 2 "Future" attribute points in magic, and the abilities that those might bring.

I was thinking of it more as a "got VCR young before awakened" but still has potential to awaken later.


As for the type of magic,  Initially I figured Adept to help w/ Driving/shooting.
That said, the low power spirit just hit me as a way to have a "different" kind of Recon-Drone,  my Trio of Fly-Spies, & my Air-2 Spirt, etc etc.
Sorcery at that level really only comes down to ability to boost attributes w/ Foci/Quickening.  That or your just burning reagents like mad.