[Dracain]

Remember that you only get 10 "free" spells if you take Magic as Priority A.  The mystic adept I was building was most efficiently optimized with Magic B or C, so he would have either 5 or 7 spells.  A full magician would almost always be better off with Magic A, so he'll start with the max number of spells.  It reminds me of D&D, to be honest.  Magicians are like wizards.  Huge spellbooks.  Mystic Adepts are more like warmages.  They had a much smaller spell selection, but they had added physical combat capabilities.

You make it sound like astral projection isn't useful in all situations.  Do you only think it's useful for metaplanar quests or something?  Not the stealthy scouting, not the fast travel, not the etc. etc.?  I've never done a metaplanar anything, but I've certainly used astral projection before.  On the other hand, I've never played an adept because they just didn't appeal to me.  If I wanted a punching machine, I would make a cybered sammy.  Mystic adepts lose astral projection in exchange for the privilege of taking adept powers.  Note that it's not in exchange for actual powers... just the ability to take them.  That's like...  Actually, I can't think of any realworld equivalent.  I don't know of any situation in real life where you sacrifice something real for just the possibility of gaining access to something else.

I totally forgot that all indirect spells get -AP equal to the Force.  Sorry, I spaced on it.  As for damage, I'm not sure what to suggest.  I'm afraid these changes were entirely intentional.  They wanted direct combat spells to be weaker than a mosquito.  They wanted indirect spells to be used in combat.  Mostly, they wanted people to stop bitching about A) Magicrun, and B) Direct vs. Indirect drain.  They did it, now people just won't use direct spells, and indirect spells are much, much weaker than weapons.  Personally, I always thought that damage should depend on the spell.  Area spells should do less damage, since it's spread over a large area.  LOS spells should deal more, and touch should deal the most.  Maybe for indirect, it could've been something like "T = F+2; LOS = F; AOE = F-2", with net hits boosting it as normal.  Then for direct spells, we could make it weaker than indirect(to satisfy whomever was unhappy with the balance between the two) with a scale like "T = F; LOS = F-2; AOE = F-4", again with net hits boosting it.

Think non-combat for the minimum drain.  I would happily cast a low level non-combat spell if it meant a lesser chance of getting dinged by drain.  As it is, there will be an absolute perfect Force for casting any spell.  If the drain code is F - 3, then the spell should always be cast at Force 5 or higher, as anything less is wasteful.

I see what you're saying, but most of my response it just conflicting opinions, what I really want to address is when you say indirect spells are much, much weaker the weapons.  I think that is just silly.  Casting a force 7 firebolt does 7P with -7AP, plus a decent chance to set someone on fire, which means they can either drop an action, or burn, and the drain is only 4, which shouldn't be too hard to resist most or even all of.  This is only at character creation, and you can cast this option without much difficulty as a Combat Mage.  In indirect AOEs, you also get to add net hits on scatter tests to damage, unlike with grenades, rockets, missiles, etc.  While I agree direct sucks big time now, indirect is quite effective if used intelligently, you just need to use the right element for the right job, and you can wreck armor, have enemies on fire, or even stunned and losing initiative. 

You make it sound like astral projection isn't useful in all situations.  Do you only think it's useful for metaplanar quests or something?  Not the stealthy scouting, not the fast travel, not the etc. etc.?  I've never done a metaplanar anything, but I've certainly used astral projection before.

My experience is that astral projection has limited use for scouting. It's fantastic at game start when the facilities have no magic security or little. But once they have a ward up the fun and games are over until you are very good at Masking. Also, there's been several incidents of our mages getting jumped by spirits and combat mages, which makes them nervous to use this ability for anything but scouting outside the facility. (Which could be done with Sneaking or Invisiblity fairly well anyway) But then our mages often to neglect things like magic weapon foci and focus on things like spellcasting and summoning. Maybe 5th will be different.

I agree with GiraffeShaman, that is how I've seen astral projection used mostly.  It seems that in a lot of cases, the ability isn't utilized very often, not is it requires to be, and thus, the loss of it isn't really that big.  While it would be nice if astral projection was this big thing, that doesn't seem to be the case in many games, and it is often up to the GM and mission, which is why I think it just doesn't mean much as the big bonus Mages have over Mystic Adepts. 

Here's a thought, what if we use MC's idea about needing to buy PP the whole game, but instead we change the priority slightly.  Priority would stay the same for Mage, but for Mystic Adepts, priority C would be Magic 3, 4 spells, 1 PP.  Priority B would be Magic 4, two rating 4 magical skills, 5 spells, 2 PP.  Priority A could be Magic 6, two rating 5 magical skills, 7 spells, 3 PP.  This would mean that Mages started off slightly better on the Mage side of the field, while Mystic Adepts started off with some PP, instead of needing to buy it all.  Karma-wise, this all balances out, and it makes a bit more sense (in my opinion) that a Mystic Adept starts with some PP. 

[mtfeeney = Baron]

For your example spell, I'll assume you mean flamethrower since I don't see firebolt in the book.  We'll assume you're a 6 Magic + 6 Spellcasting + 6 everything else caster.  You're casting a Force 7 LOS Indirect Elemental spell.  That's F-3 Drain, meaning every time you cast it you have to resist 4 physical damage.  That gives you a spell that deals 7P damage at -7 AP.  -3 AP is equivalent to +1 DV if the target is wearing armor.  That puts your spell damage at 9.3P assuming they had 7 points of armor to negate.  A Predator deals 8P with -1 AP.  The Ares Alpha does 11P with -2 AP.  The Desert Strike does 13P with -4 AP.  I'll stop here.  You can easily see the pattern.  Weapons were scaled up a LOT from SR4 to SR5.  Meanwhile, magic stayed the same.  Now you're overcasting just to be a pistol.  To match the assault rifle, you'll need to cast at Force 10 for 10P and -10 AP, so 13.3P IF they're wearing 10 points of armor to negate.  Meanwhile, you're sucking up 7P damage yourself from drain.  Good luck resisting that.  As for the "bonus damage" from AOE spells, did you look at the test?  Out of chargen, you'll throw 12 dice for that test.  You'll average 1 net hit.  That means you'll get +1 damage.  Don't get me wrong, +1 damage is good, but it's not as amazing as the phrase "add nets hit to damage" implies.  Obviously it'll increase as you boost up your skills and initiate and add foci and whatnot.

Now, in case I haven't been clear, I don't mind this change.  The game is the game.  I'm more than happy to accept it as it is.  I'm just pointing out a change that made combat mages less viable.

For your suggested alternative priority system amounts... sounds good to me.  The end result will most likely be the same, but it makes more sense in-universe.  Good idea.

[Tiamat]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here but I have been studying abroad in another country and somehow JUST found out about 5th edition. I downloaded the pdf from the battleshop, however pdfs are hard to navigate when you dont know what it is you are looking for.

So, originally I came to the belief that Mystic adepts in 4th edition where over powered because, using the original context of the original 4th ed book, one of my members made a mystic adept that used the full magic stat for both adept abilities, power points, and magic points, and applied ALL of his powers towards reducing the effects of drain by boosting the anti-drain stats, et el. Ergo, you could be tossing high force value lightning bolts while hovering in the air and have no care in the world about drain.

I have seen a lot of people talking about the added physical side in here - but I have done a lot of skimming. Those of you are discussing this, could you look at the mystic adept from the perspective of using the adept powers to boost the drain-reducing stats?

Is there a limit to damage outside of force? Is there a limit to the force of a spell? What is the overall difference to the casting system of 4th and 5th edition?

[Dracain]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here but I have been studying abroad in another country and somehow JUST found out about 5th edition. I downloaded the pdf from the battleshop, however pdfs are hard to navigate when you dont know what it is you are looking for.

So, originally I came to the belief that Mystic adepts in 4th edition where over powered because, using the original context of the original 4th ed book, one of my members made a mystic adept that used the full magic stat for both adept abilities, power points, and magic points, and applied ALL of his powers towards reducing the effects of drain by boosting the anti-drain stats, et el. Ergo, you could be tossing high force value lightning bolts while hovering in the air and have no care in the world about drain.

I have seen a lot of people talking about the added physical side in here - but I have done a lot of skimming. Those of you are discussing this, could you look at the mystic adept from the perspective of using the adept powers to boost the drain-reducing stats?

Is there a limit to damage outside of force? Is there a limit to the force of a spell? What is the overall difference to the casting system of 4th and 5th edition?

First of all, that isn't how 4th ed Mystic Adepts work, someone misread something.  Using adept powers to boost drain reduction stats is just fine, but mages can boost drain reduction stats as well with sustained spells.  The limit to the force of a spell you can cast is your Magic stat x 2, the overall differences are rather numerous, the two big ones are that they changed drain and the nerfed direct spells a lot as well as changing up indirect spells a bit.  Ritual casting works quite differently as well, that one can be quite important.  I really suggest you just check out the chapter in the book, it'll give more info then I can. 

My response to mtfeeney = Baron will come soon, need to double check some stuff so I don't make a mistake and look silly. 

[Tiamat]

First of all, that isn't how 4th ed Mystic Adepts work, someone misread something.  Using adept powers to boost drain reduction stats is just fine, but mages can boost drain reduction stats as well with sustained spells.  The limit to the force of a spell you can cast is your Magic stat x 2, the overall differences are rather numerous, the two big ones are that they changed drain and the nerfed direct spells a lot as well as changing up indirect spells a bit.  Ritual casting works quite differently as well, that one can be quite important.  I really suggest you just check out the chapter in the book, it'll give more info then I can. 

My response to mtfeeney = Baron will come soon, need to double check some stuff so I don't make a mistake and look silly. 

I certainly know that, but its hard to argue with a rules troll and not derail the entire game. The wording was poor to begin with... Anyways, we are in 5th edition now.
So looking at this from a subjective, "I just saw this thing what the hell is this view", it looks like that if drain is physical is outside of your control. Direct spells do direct damage, indirect spells can be resisted. All that seems fine...until I roll over to the gear section and find armor to be doubled, and guns/melee weapons doubled. Hah!

Anyways, it will be interesting to see where this goes or if I can get a game in with people.  I am not entirely sold on the mystic adept issue in this edition, but I will know for sure when the rules troll gets ahold of it.

[Dracain]

First of all, that isn't how 4th ed Mystic Adepts work, someone misread something.  Using adept powers to boost drain reduction stats is just fine, but mages can boost drain reduction stats as well with sustained spells.  The limit to the force of a spell you can cast is your Magic stat x 2, the overall differences are rather numerous, the two big ones are that they changed drain and the nerfed direct spells a lot as well as changing up indirect spells a bit.  Ritual casting works quite differently as well, that one can be quite important.  I really suggest you just check out the chapter in the book, it'll give more info then I can. 

My response to mtfeeney = Baron will come soon, need to double check some stuff so I don't make a mistake and look silly. 

I certainly know that, but its hard to argue with a rules troll and not derail the entire game. The wording was poor to begin with... Anyways, we are in 5th edition now.
So looking at this from a subjective, "I just saw this thing what the hell is this view", it looks like that if drain is physical is outside of your control. Direct spells do direct damage, indirect spells can be resisted. All that seems fine...until I roll over to the gear section and find armor to be doubled, and guns/melee weapons doubled. Hah!

Anyways, it will be interesting to see where this goes or if I can get a game in with people.  I am not entirely sold on the mystic adept issue in this edition, but I will know for sure when the rules troll gets ahold of it.

Remember, with spells, the AP is equal to the force of the spell.  I still think Combat Mages are doable, I'll post my reasoning here in a little bit, still checking and making sure of things before I pop up with a misread rule and look like an idiot. 

[Tiamat]

NP I have no means to really make an argument here, since I dont even have a group to playtest this with at the moment and some other changes apparently have chased off those I normally play with.

But I am willing to listen to the discussion!

[Dracain]

Ok, before I start saying why I feel Combat Mages are still viable, I would like to say I have an alternative to the Mystic Adept priority tables I mentioned earlier that I think is an improvement.  Instead of giving a set value for how many spells or PP a Mystic Adept starts with, we just give them karma for spells or PP and let them sort it out.  So magic priority C would give 25 spell or PP karma, B would give 35, and A would give 50.  The skills and magic attribute would remain the same, just the Mystic Adept can choose their starting spells/PP ratio. 

OK, onward to Combat Mages, though I am going to call them Combat Spellcasters, as Mystic Adept can do quite well in this role as well, and in fact, may be the best choice for this (from character creation, later on it becomes less sure). 

Now, I am going to set some parameters for this experiment.  We will be counting 3 dice to equal 1 hit, instead of 4, because that is more mathematically sound (the chance to get a 5 or 6 on a D6 is 1 in 3), and since we cannot default on this test, there is no point using the default conversion rate.  We will round to nearest whole number (I wanted to round down at first, but that just gave the CS an advantage, and I don't want people thinking I am letting favoritism take over). 

First, the tests will take place on enemies with 5 body, and 12 armor.  The 12 armor is because most enemies have it in the sample grunts section, and armor jackets are fairly common, and the 5 body because it makes for better tests if the enemy has a decent body score.  The enemy will have a reaction of 4, and an intuition of 4, meaning to hit them, you'll need to beat 8 dice. 

The test comparison character will have 12 AGI (8+4 for augs) and 6 automatics with an extra +2 for a assualt rifle speciality, meaning 20 dice to hit the target.  The test comparison weapon will be the Ares Alpha, because it is an effective assault rifle, and a weapon likely to be used by players at this time, we will be assuming they are using the smartlink, so the stats are 11P damage, -2 AP, and 7 ACC.  Let's look at how it hits our test target.  The shooter gets 7 hits, the target gets 3, that is +4 damage.  The modified damage value is 15P, and the modified armor value is 10, so the attack remains physical.  The target resists 5 damage, taking 10P damage, leaving 1 hp standing.  We will do this same test, but with our Combat Spellcasters (CS) instead of our gun-nut street samurai, and see how they hold up.  We will not apply elemental effects, even though that is one of the major advantages of combat spells.  We are just checking damage and drain in comparison to a street samurai to test the viablity of a CS. 

As mtfeeney = Baron has shown, the drain does make this rather difficult, but it is still quite doable.  Now, let us look at our test CS, an Elven Mage. 

[spoiler]
Race-Elf

Charisma-based magic tradition

Health
P[][][][][][][][][][]
S[][][][][][][][][][][]

Attributes
BOD-3-2
AGI-2
REA-4-3
STR-1
WIL-5-4
LOG-3-2
INT-5-4
CHA-8-5

Limits
Mental-6
Physical-3
Social-9

Special attributes
EDG-3
MAG-7

Skills 0/0
Spellcasting (combat)-6 (
Counterspelling (combat)-6 (
Summoning-6
Banishing-6
Something-2

Positive qualities-5 karma
Mentor Spirit (wolf)-5 Karma
Exceptional Attribute (Magic)-14 Karma

Negative qualities
Bad luck-12 karma

Bonded foci
Spellcasting focus force 4-8 karma
Sustaining focus (health) force 4-8 karma (for Increase Reflexes)

Gear 6,900¥
Spell focus force 4 x2-32,000¥
Armor Jacket-1,000¥
Helmet-100¥
Fake SIN rating 4-10,000¥
Fake spellcasting license rating 4-800¥

Spells
Increase Reflexes
9 others

2 karma

Priority
A-Magic
B-Attributes
C-Metatype
D-Resources
E-Skills

When casting combat spells this character has 21 dice (Magic 7+Spellcasting (combat) 8+spellcasting focus (combat) 4+Mentor spirit (Wolf) 2=21), and resists drain with 13 dice (Cha 8+Wil 5=13)[/spoiler]

We start with our CS casting their spell at force 9 getting 7 hits, against our targets 3, which is +4 to damage, and since the spellcasting roll does not go over our magic stat, the drain is stun.  The modified damage value is 14 the modified armor value is 3.  The target resist 3 taking 11 damage in the process.  Now for the important part, drain.  The drain is force-3, so in this case, 9-3=6.  The Mage resists 4 drain, taking 2S drain damage. 

Other notes:

• If someone wished to, they could mess with the character a bit to get 8 more karma and 11,100 more nuyen, they could drop 1 point of Willpower and use the Increase Willpower spell to get a net total of 3 more drain, leading to 16 drain resistance, which leads to 1 more die using this calculation system. 
• A Mystic Adept could use PP to increase their drain stats, giving up to 7 (if they use Exceptional attribute) more drain, however, this is VERY expensive. 
• The example Street Samurai had maxed out their AGI, which means their progression was a lot smaller.  As the game went on, the mage would get abilities that let them resist much more drain, and do much more damage.  Remember, with a CHA based tradition, playing an Elf, without using exceptional attribute, you can get up to 22 points of drain resist, and all it takes it getting the right sustaining foci. 
• While I didn't do full AOE tests, I can sum them up rather quickly.  While a good CS will likely beat most grenades (Using the system we used before, the net hits on a scatter test would lead to an extra +4 to damage), rockets, especially anti-vehicle ones, will out damage them, though that may change as time goes on, and the AOE of a CS will likely cover a large area. 

In conclusion, even without adding in the elemental effects, a Combat Spellcaster is quite viable character type, that can lay down the hurt with the best of 'em. 

[RHat]

1: Add APDS or EX-Ex to the street sam's weapon; it is not valid to assume that the sam is using lesser quality ammo then is available to him.  Also factor burst fire.  And expected hits rolled should never be rounded, because the difference between 2.67, 3, and 3.33 is relevant.

2: Tiamat - that player had to be actively misleading your group on the mystic adept rules; not only is it not possible to read the rules to say that, but adepts cannot boost mental (aka drain reducing) attributes with powers.  The powers to do that simply do not exist, as their attribute enhancing powers are specifically and explicitly limited to physical attributes.  This continues to be the case in SR5, so in fact the MystAd CANNOT get better at resisting drain through powers.

3: if you actually compare like to like, the combat spellcaster does notably less damage compared to the Street Sam, who doesn't risk damage when dealing it.  The viability of the combat mage is in the other options they bring to the table.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

First off.  *golfclap*  A sincere golfclap to both Dracain and RHat.  To Dracain, I like the way you think.  I wasn't really considering a mystic adept completely built around combat spells from chargen, so it didn't occur to me to stack on specializations and foci and such.  They make a serious impact.  I'll withdraw my original stance and modify it to say that combat mages are less viable than in SR4, which mostly means nothing and has no bearing on anything.  To RHat... yeah.  Exactly what he said.

Now, Dracain pointed out a change in SR5 that I forgot.  Drain is physical or stun based on the spellcasting hits compared to your Magic.  Wouldn't this make the system abusable?  If I have 7 Magic, and I cast every spell at Force 14...  but I have 1 spellcasting dice, my 8 dice are never going to have more hits than my 7 magic.  Meanwhile, I'm throwing around 14 DV with -14 AP.  The 1 Spellcasting is an exaggerated situation, but all you have to do is get 1 net hit, right?  Or do you just have to tie them?

[Crunch]

1) Only indirect combat skills benefit from Force other than as a limit.
2) Force still determines drain amount. So in the case of a lightning bolt with a force of 14 the Drain would be 11. Even if that's 11S that's still pretty stiff.
3) Indirect spells are opposed by reaction+intuition and must generate positive hits to do damage at all.
4) Area Indirect spells are not opposed, but must meet a threshold of 3 and suffer more drain. 13S is non trivial.

[Malex]

My thoughts on Mystic Adepts.

Good idea, poor implementation.

[Dracain]

1: Add APDS or EX-Ex to the street sam's weapon; it is not valid to assume that the sam is using lesser quality ammo then is available to him.  Also factor burst fire.  And expected hits rolled should never be rounded, because the difference between 2.67, 3, and 3.33 is relevant.

2: Tiamat - that player had to be actively misleading your group on the mystic adept rules; not only is it not possible to read the rules to say that, but adepts cannot boost mental (aka drain reducing) attributes with powers.  The powers to do that simply do not exist, as their attribute enhancing powers are specifically and explicitly limited to physical attributes.  This continues to be the case in SR5, so in fact the MystAd CANNOT get better at resisting drain through powers.

3: if you actually compare like to like, the combat spellcaster does notably less damage compared to the Street Sam, who doesn't risk damage when dealing it.  The viability of the combat mage is in the other options they bring to the table.

I did roll to nearest, I was just trying to keep it clean, I'll keep that in mind next time .  Adding APDS gives the weapon an extra -4AV means that the street sam does the same damage as a force 9 spell (before elemental effects).  Adding explosive rounds means the weapon does 12P, -1AP, and if you critically glitch, you take damage from your weapon and the gun is destroyed.  Explosive rounds on the test means the damage is 16P and the target resists 4.666666666666667 damage (see why I rounded?) meaning he takes about 11P-12P damage.  I'll plug the bursts into my experiment later, when I have more time, for completions sake.  I might also include reckless spellcasting as well. 

Thanks for pointing out that obvious mistake I made with Mystic Ideas.  Lastly, I realize that Combat Spellcasters bring other things to the table but I am just comparing straight up damage in this case, just because I wanted to show their raw damage potential. 

[RHat]

Just round to two decimal places, that's sufficient for pretty much any context.

As for bursts, let's say Full-Auto; the defenders dodge dice are just gone.  Alpha provides RC2, and let's say Strength 7 for 6, Shock Pad for 7, Gas Vent 3 for 10 and if we really want to go all out (which we do, since we're comparing to Force 9), a gyromount for 16.  So, not really concerned with recoil penalties.  Basically, just increase the damage by the amount the dodge roll reduced it by.

[Raiden]

I think they are fine.