[Shinobi Killfist]

A rating 6 power focus may be “only” 36 karma but it’s also 108,000 nuyen at availability 24. It isn’t every runners toy
Edit: math correction.

Which is still far cheaper than real upgrades to cyber. And it’s not like mages have other things to blow their money on other than a pimp lifestyle. They gain both money and karma at the same time. They may get the karma first if they were on a direct path for that but odds are they will initiate a time or two first and then by the time they have 36 they already have the cash.

[Lormyr]

One thing to keep in mind is that since I couldn't begin to comment on what an "average" home game look likes across the broad spectrum of players our hobby has, my perspective is colored from a Missions lens.

Chicago had over 80 Missions. Neo-Tokyo is going to have at least 30 at minimum. That is the opportunity for quite a lot of karma/nuyen if you consider the average take away is about 6.5/10,000 per Mission before being adjusted by working for the people/man.

That makes raising magic, initiating, and spending karma and nuyen on foci a guarantee. Even in very short game of maybe 5 sessions I would still be throwing my money at initiation and foci because there is literally nothing non-magical that I could purchase that would enhance my character a fraction as much as those two things would. That is just me, however, as I tend to be more than a little bit of a min/maxer.

Shinobi brought up a point I find interesting, which is that he likes the mage to be the swiss army knife. My experience in most every game has been that pretty much all classes/archetypes/builds/ect. can be more than acceptable at killing things if you spend your creation resources to do that. Combat is such a big part of most games that the ways you can successfully build a killer are staggering. Many time, especially with the combat oriented sorts, you wind up with little capability outside of killing. So when you build that skill focused face or decker in shadowrun, that ranger/rogue in dnd to maximize your skill points, that knowledge and lore dot specialized Brujah scholar in vampire but the mage/mage/blood mage (respectively) just cast a spell (or usually ritual in vampire) and do what you do, often better than you do, it really sucks the wind out of the sails of other utility PCs.

I liken the perspective to "Man, I sunk 1/3 to 3/4 of my character's starting resources into being able to do these things for us, but that mage does it all as well or better with just 3/10 of his spells.".

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Every edition of Shadowrun has its problems with being MagicRun.

5e though seems to be the most egregious to me.  But maybe that's just because it's the current edition.  Still though, there's literally no niche in the game that can't be done better by a magician than by a mundane.  Obviously you want a mage to be on point dealing with spirits and hostile mages, sure.  But you need a driver?  Who needs a Rigger when you can just summon a spirit with the movement critter power.  You want some drones to go scout out or help in combat? Lolz, don't be silly.  Spirits are way better at both.   What about a hacker? Pssht, step aside Decker.  The mage has Analyze Device and Enhance Logic/Intuition spells. You're not needed in Shadowrun, either.

If 6e tones down mages, it'll be for the betterment of the game.

[Michael Chandra]

Technically under RAW Movement cannot be used on others because Critter terrain/domain is not defined. But yeah, I screwed up on trying to balance out Movement, and Drones are expensive as heck.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Sort of long and rambling but it’s early morning and I haven’t had coffee yet. But yeah especially how spirits worked in 5e mages were broken. Some spells broke the game as well. Though things like mask I think worked great. As on its own it’s just a disguise. But you still have to talk to people, you won’t know passwords, your dna isn’t on file etc. it’s a supplement to help the team do things, buffing the face, decker so all there stuff comes together better. It’s a great teamwork spell.

Thing is I’d like to change that everyone can easily build to be really solid in combat. Competent sure, but a street sam focussed on combat should stand far above a mage, decker, face even if they put resources into it.

 The ease of which a mage can branch out is a issue. Which is why I would want a prerequisite system for spells, so it’s not just 5 karma and now you are super good at hiding. Something like to learn improved invisibility you need to know 5 spells in the illusion category. Honestly I’d like more skills for mages like illusion spells was its own skill, but since they went the other way I already know they didn’t do that.

One thing that worries me is from the play example the teams mage took qualities that let her sustain 3 spells without penalty. I think that’s the wrong direction. I would have changed focused concentration to a reduction of the penalty but there would always be one like in previous editions. The metamagic where you could burn people through focusses I’d have made core without a metamagic so mages had to worry about focusing up.  Basically what I always thought grounding should have become instead of just removing it.  And astral attacks would be able to permanently destroy focuses having you lose money/karma.(can’t remember if they could in 5e)

This may be a table thing but when they removed grounding I saw a massive spike in mage power as suddenly they all had spell locks(sustaining focusses) for a pack of core spells making them combat monsters. Earlier editions none of the mages at my table risked it. Grounding had other issues with spirits but my players usually played shamans and role play wise wouldn’t do that.