[rayous]

, and can sleep off the effects (or use a medkit on yourself if it is physical)

Hate to be that guy, but medkits can not heal drain damage, last part of drain section on page 278 of the base book.

[Whiskeyjack]

, and can sleep off the effects (or use a medkit on yourself if it is physical)

Hate to be that guy, but medkits can not heal drain damage, last part of drain section on page 278 of the base book.

Yeah I consider that one of the big changes from 4th.

[Kincaid]

Force 3 Healthy Glow, Medicine, and Quick Healer seem to be the standard approach now.

[Triskavanski]

Healthy Glow?

[Kincaid]

Every three hits on Healthy Glow adds one die to First Aid/Medicine tests.  The First Aid part won't help a mage, but it's an easy (Drain 2) way of tossing another die into the Medicine test to accelerate your natural healing.  Plus, it's a handy spell to have if you're the type of runner who spends too much time wandering through the sewers and you find yourself suddenly invited to a black tie event.

[Triskavanski]

What about the new quaility from Chrome Flesh that adds your essence to your natural healing rates?

[Kincaid]

I guess?  That's a question best answered by Wak.  Quick Healer is still a better deal from a cost ratio standpoint and they don't stack, so I'm not falling over myself to get it.

[Marcus]

Can't. Command is the only one that accepts healing spells cause..
 reasons?

Whomever wrote or edited it wanted tech to rule 5th Edition.

If that single rule was changed, Alchemy would be totally useful, and would find a place on nearly ever mages sheet.

[Triskavanski]

Odd, I tend to find it that Magic Rules.

Particularly the Mystic Adept.

[Mirikon]

Magic and tech are both still incredibly powerful, if you know what you're doing.

As far as Health spells and only taking command triggers, the simple answer is Balance. Because anyone being able to snap off Heal spells (by a Contact trigger, for instance) has major balance issues.

Personally, I like the way Alchemy shakes out. But you definitely have to go in with the proper mindset, and not all character types benefit equally from Alchemy. A combat mage would find alchemy utterly unhelpful in most cases, but an occult investigator, social-focused mystic adept, stealth-focused mages, and the like would probably get better utility out of Alchemy than normal spells, especially if they don't rely on spells for their offense. But you have to THINK and PLAN to use alchemy, which gives warm fuzzies to those of us who come from a D&D background, and loved playing our Wizards.

[Whiskeyjack]

Whomever wrote or edited it wanted tech to rule 5th Edition.

If that was a design goal, it failed.

[Facemage]

The heal alchemy preparation does not work, even possible change in rules to allow contact triggers (I.e. healing potions) does not help. Why? Because the order of recovery is always: first aid, magical healing and natural recovery. Because low damages are often stun (because of armor), you need to heal big physical damages. And if you use a healing potion (which heals 2-3 boxes) you have to survive the rest of the run with penalties... Only natural recover is possible anymore.

I started before a thread about alchemy in this forum. My result was that the only mildly useful way is to buff yourself or your team mates. I think that the best spell for that is increase intuition. Combat sense is worse. The drain is higher and you cannot get surprise bonuses because in the ambush situations the preparations is not typically in released state.

Manipulation, combat, and illusion preparations are waste of effort if there is a resistance test.

[Marcus]

Whomever wrote or edited it wanted tech to rule 5th Edition.

If that was a design goal, it failed.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one Jack.

As it stands I think they are right on target. Magic is way down, it's even down in missions. Alchemy is an epic trap. MA is currently more popular then traditional Magician. Which hilariously most people actually think is a good thing. Its like folk don't understand what an astral quest is anymore. Aspected Magician is dead as far as the meta is concerned.  The ways have never been as useless as they are in 5th. Book wise Chrome Flesh swept the field, in terms of pushing the curve. The tiny pdf released spellbook, was considerably more useful then the magic book was. Did I miss anything? Is there something that's stronger magic wise in this edition?

[Facemage]

I think that magician is still strong. Improved invisibility is still as good as always. In our table we cannot always use military gear. Well, you cannot go to hotel carrying missile launchers and assault cannons. Magician can still use hot potato and chaotic world. Heal and levitate are strong spells. Direct combat spells are very effective against highly evasive targets (dodge pool > 25) and tanks (armor > 30). With alchemy it is sometimes possible to rise your intuition, body, agility and combat sense before fight. Sum of your attributes is higher than anyone else.

Moreover, strong spirits (F>6) are still very deadly against pistols and melee weapons. Even assault rifle can be too small. If you do it correct, you can summon those spirits quite safely if you have summoning or power focus and your drain pool is 19 (human) or 17 (elf) by casting two increase attributes (focused concentration and spirit of man may needed). So, you need only a focus after chargen.

[halflingmage]

To the OP-

Alchemy is something that has uses, but its something you do in addition to your spell casting, not instead of it.  Alchemy lets you build magical traps, have spells go off when the mage is somewhere else, have spells go off on a timer even if the mage is there, and generally cause chaos.  To be effective it requires planning and creativity.  Its next to worthless if you get caught in a random bar fight or have to kill a devil rat in an alley.  Is not something I would stress heavily at character creation, but you certainly could invest some points there as you advance.