The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Ignimortis]

D&D has kept the versatile Wizard (outside 4e, I think), but, to hear several posters talk, one would think ShadowRun didn't go far enough with niche protection, compared to what they want for D&D.

Because it didn't. Shadowrun mages can still do anything and often get spells as better versions of things that mundanes get as augmentations. The only severe exception to that would be armor - stacking armor is far easier on a cyborg than on a mage or a mystic adept (but if you want to be a bio-borg, then mages get the better deal here too). Initiative, bonus dice, bonus stats - all require a spell and some amount of investment (less than augs in karma-nuyen equivalents) into sustaining or quickening, and they have higher potential than augmentations, too. The only thing mages can't do well is the Matrix because Spellcasting doesn't do anything there, and even then a mage who really wants to deck can just buff their Logic and Intuition in the meatspace and carry that over to the Matrix.

Quickening is Permanency on steroids, btw. You pay some EXP and you have the spell always up with no sustaining penalty and bonus dice to resist dispelling which put it into "basically forever" mode unless a more powerful mage comes along and spends some time dispelling your stuff. And you can get it at proverbial level 2 - spend 13 karma (2-3 sessions in general) on an initiation, grab Quickening, you're done. Each run afterwards gives enough Karma to quicken another spell at Force 6 or 8, which should be plenty. A baseline augmentation to increase AGI by 1 costs 31k nuyen, which is usually 3 sessions at least if your runs pay well. So a mage gets +6 to their Agility for 13+5+6 Karma (initiation, the spell itself, and quickening it), and their only problem is that their buffs are visible in Astral. A mundane, if they get that same Karma in nuyen, so 24 x2k = 48k, can get +1 AGi and is close to getting +1 more. While having to deal with Availability issues and Essence caps. Initiative buffing spells are even more insane, because they can exceed what the best augmentations give you (+8+4d6 raw Initiative on the best version vs +3 Reaction+3d6 Initiative).

And I disagree with your viewpoint on "mages who only do one thing are lame". If you're a mage who can do everything, then your magic power must suffer for it. You MUST be worse at every task than someone, even mundane, who is a focused specialist in that task. A generic Wizard should have invisibility that's worse than expert Stealth, detection spells that aren't on par with maxed Perception, and Charm Person that doesn't do as much as great Diplomacy. If you want those things to be equal or better to skills, you should pay in versatility. You can only do illusions and enchantments? Yes, but at least your illusions resist True Sight and your enchantments are subtle and might even work better than Diplomacy sometimes.

Sure, a mage who can only set things on fire is kinda lame. But focused mages needn't that far on the scale of versatility. It's just that a fire mage won't be able to shapeshift into anything but a fire elemental or a salamander.

[Florian]

We´re talking in circles here and SR is a good example of why.

if we accept that "combat" is the universal game everyone should be able to contribute to, while niches are the exclusive mini game that can only be opened up by specialization, then this is a basis to be considered when it comes to design.

Let´s get that point out of the way first: SR is insofar a failure, as the "mundane range", aka cyber and bio, is limited by essence, which comes with a 1-6 range that cannot be "broken", only "gamed" by understanding that more Nuyen means access to higher grades, which in turn will need less essence.

Contrast this to the more or less open-ended nature of magic, which doesn't have a fixed range and can be developed to the point that you can actually afford to take the hit and "cross over" into other territories, depending on you playing the same character long enough.

As a hard example, start with MAG 6, advance to MAG 11 by spending karma and hoarding Nuyen, grab enough augmentations to also be a fully-fledged samurai or rigger by spending 5 of your 6 essence, then you're back at your starting position (MAG 6), but still have the option to advance to your prior point again.

[Ignimortis]

We´re talking in circles here and SR is a good example of why.

if we accept that "combat" is the universal game everyone should be able to contribute to, while niches are the exclusive mini game that can only be opened up by specialization, then this is a basis to be considered when it comes to design.

Let´s get that point out of the way first: SR is insofar a failure, as the "mundane range", aka cyber and bio, is limited by essence, which comes with a 1-6 range that cannot be "broken", only "gamed" by understanding that more Nuyen means access to higher grades, which in turn will need less essence.

Contrast this to the more or less open-ended nature of magic, which doesn't have a fixed range and can be developed to the point that you can actually afford to take the hit and "cross over" into other territories, depending on you playing the same character long enough.

As a hard example, start with MAG 6, advance to MAG 11 by spending karma and hoarding Nuyen, grab enough augmentations to also be a fully-fledged samurai or rigger by spending 5 of your 6 essence, then you're back at your starting position (MAG 6), but still have the option to advance to your prior point again.

Yes. SR is a failure at that. But I like the approach the earlier editions took - combat is NOT for everyone to contribute in. You get into combat, and you're either a combat specialist, and you get the spotlight and kick ass and take names (after all, all those other guys had their own spotlight, doing legwork, negotiations, hacking stuff), or a decker/face/whatever, and you hide behind cover and pray your guy wins, maybe take a few potshots at the enemies if you feel that's safe enough.

Later editions, like 4e (a bit) and 5e (a lot) have watered that down, introducing options for non-combatants to contribute in combat by using their specialty - Faces get to be the leader and give small buffs, Deckers/Technomancers get to hack enemy stuff (and the only things you can't hack are magic and melee weapons). Mages, as always, got to contribute in everything, but 4e and 5e made casting more consistent and way more safe.

But back to your argument - that's a big failure, you're right. And my proposed solution (my GM hasn't decided on whether he likes it or not) is thus: all Awakened take 200% Essence costs and any grade except Used is Standard for them in terms of Essence (so always x2 Essence costs). Magic has a hard cap of 10 (11 with Exceptional Attribute). You can only initiate 5 times, but you can buy metamagics (except for Power Points, those come free with Initiations) for 15 or so Karma outside of initiations. Quickening is either banned or significantly reworked.

This way you get a cyberarm on a mage - and you lose 2 Magic forever. You'll never see it again. Your maximum potential is now 20% lower. You grab a Pain Editor - well, you can now ignore Stun drain for a long time, but that comes at an actual price instead of "oh well 30 Karma to get my MAG back up". Etc, etc. Sure, you can be a cyberninja with magic, but you'll be mediocre at magic forever, and you can pack in a lot less 'ware than a proper samurai would. A real hybrid at 50/50, not 100% of both.

P.S. Adept powers are mostly rebalanced and are either cheaper or have greater impact (i.e. +1 phys attribute is now 0.5 instead of 1). So even at 16 maximum power points you can max out your physical stats, initiative, and have a good grab-bag of goodies.

So that's niche protection like it should be done, IMO - if you can do X, then your Y is either nonexistent or worse than someone who can only do Y. Mages in Shadowrun can do X, Y and Z, and the only limiter is their resources, which isn't a particularly good design element.

[Willie the Duck]

We´re talking in circles here and SR is a good example of why.
…
As a hard example, start with MAG 6, advance to MAG 11 by spending karma and hoarding Nuyen, grab enough augmentations to also be a fully-fledged samurai or rigger by spending 5 of your 6 essence, then you're back at your starting position (MAG 6), but still have the option to advance to your prior point again.

To be fair to Shadowrun*, hoarding Nuyen is a non-trivial thing. It makes this advancement effectively high-end equipment; and plenty of modern/future RPGs have equipment be advancement separate from whatever experience-point-spending/levelling mechanic they have.
*Note that I am assuming this is still somewhat similar to SR 1&2, which is when I last played.

[Cluedrew]

if we accept that "combat" is the universal game everyone should be able to contribute to, while niches are the exclusive mini game that can only be opened up by specialization, then this is a basis to be considered when it comes to design.

I really don't like it when combat is given special status compared to the other arenas.

There are a couple of reasons for this. I find strapping combat specialty onto other character concepts a bit of a chore and yet if I don't I am sitting out for a good hunk of the game. (This assumes that when you make combat universal and special it gets more time. I have never known this trend to brake.) On the other hand, playing a character who was focused on combat never felt so good as when there was a reasonable chance I could have taken on the rest of the PCs and won. Not because I wanted to, but because it meant that they actually relied on my character for combat. There was a scene where it was monsters, me and then everyone else. And if the monsters made it by me everyone else was probably dead. And yet everyone contributed, if a single member of the party wasn't there we wouldn't of made it.

And that is what I want, characters may have their moments of glory but in the end everyone is needed. Well "needed" is weird when I also think failing and things going unexpected ways is part of the appeal. So maybe everyone should be effecting the way the game goes?

[Ignimortis]

To be fair to Shadowrun*, hoarding Nuyen is a non-trivial thing. It makes this advancement effectively high-end equipment; and plenty of modern/future RPGs have equipment be advancement separate from whatever experience-point-spending/levelling mechanic they have.
*Note that I am assuming this is still somewhat similar to SR 1&2, which is when I last played.

Not really, no. SR1 and 2 times are long gone. The 5e corebook presumes that you get about 4-7 Karma and 8-12k nuyen for Street Level sort of run (which is supposed to take about 4 hours of IRL game time), because actual "standard" runners built with any proficiency at all will steamroll these and not even have any sort of challenge. Upscaling the numbers for standard runners probably would add another 2 Karma and 8k nuyen on average into the mix for a total of 6-9 Karma and 16-20k nuyen.

So presuming an advancement rate of 20 Karma and 30-40k nuyen per month isn't too much if you play at least somewhat regularly and your GM understands what exactly those payouts are supposed to represent. Moreso, there is a commonly used Missions rule that allows you to trade in 2k nuyen for 1 Karma and vice versa every run, up to 5 Karma/10k nuyen.

If you do want to amass resources for some purpose, you can do so. Not quickly, and you'd better not die halfway, but it is possible if your play is consistent.

[Willie the Duck]

Not really, no. SR1 and 2 times are long gone. The 5e corebook presumes that you get about 4-7 Karma and 8-12k nuyen for Street Level sort of run (which is supposed to take about 4 hours of IRL game time), because actual "standard" runners built with any proficiency at all will steamroll these and not even have any sort of challenge. Upscaling the numbers for standard runners probably would add another 2 Karma and 8k nuyen on average into the mix for a total of 6-9 Karma and 16-20k nuyen.

So presuming an advancement rate of 20 Karma and 30-40k nuyen per month isn't too much if you play at least somewhat regularly and your GM understands what exactly those payouts are supposed to represent. Moreso, there is a commonly used Missions rule that allows you to trade in 2k nuyen for 1 Karma and vice versa every run, up to 5 Karma/10k nuyen.

If you do want to amass resources for some purpose, you can do so. Not quickly, and you'd better not die halfway, but it is possible if your play is consistent.

So you are performing runs, and risking death, to get this money? That sounds like adventuring to me. Or am I mis-reading this and you can, if you want, just tell the GM 'we spend 6 months saving up income, such that we have enough to get this upgrade?'

[Florian]

So you are performing runs, and risking death, to get this money? That sounds like adventuring to me. Or am I mis-reading this and you can, if you want, just tell the GM 'we spend 6 months saving up income, such that we have enough to get this upgrade?'

Perform runs. Thing is, that SR5 has higher standard payout _and_ the ability to convert between nuyen and karma on a limited scale, meaning you can potentially save up even faster when you know what you're doing and can accept the trade-offs there.

[Rhedyn]

Idk, I think Savage Rifts does a decent job balancing Ley-Walker and Hobo-with-a-shotgun.

The Hobo starts off at a much higher level with better gear.

[Telok]

Not really, no. SR1 and 2 times are long gone. The 5e corebook presumes that you get about 4-7 Karma and 8-12k nuyen for Street Level sort of run (which is supposed to take about 4 hours of IRL game time), because actual "standard" runners built with any proficiency at all will steamroll these and not even have any sort of challenge. Upscaling the numbers for standard runners probably would add another 2 Karma and 8k nuyen on average into the mix for a total of 6-9 Karma and

That's... Far more generous than the last time I played SR. It's at least double the rewards for straight forward, standard, runs. I remember being a good five or six runs in before a face/medic/mage-lite/misc. skills character could even think of initiating, which would have been the very first time he'd spent any karma (new players had built quite competent combat characters, it was a nice challenge for me to cover multiple other roles in one character). And a flat 15 karma for a point of magic sounds insanely cheap by those old standards.

Of course by the standards of someone who grew up on AD&D getting to 2nd level after the party beats up maybe 20 kobolds over two days seems pretty 'easy mode' too. But while that may be just personal preference and style it does sound like the last edition or so of SR has done what D&D has been doing, removing restrictions on magic to make it 'more fun' and not really considering that that does to gameplay after the first couple on intro levels.

[Ignimortis]

So you are performing runs, and risking death, to get this money? That sounds like adventuring to me. Or am I mis-reading this and you can, if you want, just tell the GM 'we spend 6 months saving up income, such that we have enough to get this upgrade?'

Well, yes, you're risking life and limb, probably. No runs equals no income. But that "per month" meant "per IRL month". You can do 2 runs per ingame months quite easily if they don't take you out to the boonies or across the world. The point is...in an IRL year you get 240 Karma and perhaps 400k nuyen at this rate.

Unless your GM is a nice person who allows you to get "upgrades" (not RAW, but you pay the difference in price, that's it, done), that 400k nuyen is gonna go poof the second you decide to get that elusive Synaptic Booster rating 3, because it's 285k baseline and RAW you're not getting compensated for that level 2 SynBoost that's getting ripped out of you. By RAW, you just dumped 9 IRL months into +1 REA and +1d6 initiative. Sure, you can try and turn 100 Karma into nuyen, and maybe get another outrageously pricey upgrade, like Muscle Replacements 4 (and since you don't wanna be a cyberzombie, make that at least alphaware, so 120k), and maybe that nice anti-tank rifle for 40k that does almost as much damage as that Force 8 Spirit the mage has been binding since day 1? Ammo expenses, Lifestyle, maybe repairs if someone got lucky and bricked your cyber... It all adds up. 140 Karma goes towards finishing up your stats - BOD 6 costs 30 Karma, and so does AGI 6, and so does REA 6... Getting +2 dice for a major skill like sneaking and shooting will also cost you 30 karma. If you need STR, well, moving 5 to 6 for all four physicals is 120 Karma.

What has the mage done with that? Well, they dump half that money for Karma, because mages don't really need much nuyen, you can buy half a ton of reagents for 10k (that's 500 drams, you're set for a year), pay your Lifestyle forward for a year for 60k, and maybe get nice shiny +4 Power and +4 Centering Foci for about 110k, giving them +4 dice for all the rolls they need to make relating to magic, which, as we know, does almost everything. That's 200k minus 180k, they've got 20k for those neat little purchases everyone makes sometimes, like a Suzuki Mirage, or something. Meanwhile, those 200k nuyen are +100 Karma for them. 340 Karma mage can get to MAG 10 with ease (246 Karma in total), giving them +4 dice to everything they do, again...plus four metamagics: Quickening, Masking, Centering and whatever they want. Rolling 20+ dice to soak Drain is fun. The rest goes into Quickening and Foci binding. You quicken Improved Reflexes at Force 8, giving you better speed than the SAM, and two Increase Attribute for BOD and REA at Force 6, giving you +6 to both (making you likely to hit the cap). Now you're rolling 14-15 dice to dodge, can spare 10 initiative for Full Defense with ease, and summon spirits at Force 8+ like they're your lackeys. Quicken Armor at 8 hits and get to 30+ soak, you're immune to small arms fire. Have I mentioned that a Force 10 Fire Spirit is basically better than a Street Samurai could ever hope to be before deltaware?

TL;DR = mages are cheaper and don't have any proper limits in Shadowrun. Mundanes do, and the prices are usually worse for them, because they actually need both Karma and Nuyen in almost equal measures to advance, despite many people saying otherwise.

[Ignimortis]

That's... Far more generous than the last time I played SR. It's at least double the rewards for straight forward, standard, runs. I remember being a good five or six runs in before a face/medic/mage-lite/misc. skills character could even think of initiating, which would have been the very first time he'd spent any karma (new players had built quite competent combat characters, it was a nice challenge for me to cover multiple other roles in one character). And a flat 15 karma for a point of magic sounds insanely cheap by those old standards.

Initiation in 5e scales with (flat 10+3 per grade), and doesn't increase your magic by itself, it gives you a metamagic and an increase to your MAG cap. Still, it's 48 Karma to get to MAG 7, and get a metamagic out of it. Since metamagic often scales with initiate grades, you are actually served well by initiating as often as you can. Advance MAG a few times at 5xNew Rating (so 35, 40, 45...), and you're directly increasing your effectiveness in basically everything you do. Imagine AGI, but it also governs almost all skills you use, aside from Sneaking and Perception? Yeah, that's how good MAG is.

But yes, going by the corebook rates, you can initiate after two or three sessions, and raise your MAG after another four. You can gain significant improvements every two months of regular play, more or less. The thing is, everything is dependent on MAG...how high of a Force you reasonably should use, what spirits you can summon without much fear of taking the drain for nothing, how many Foci you can bind, etc.

[Cluedrew]

Any thoughts on how things turned out this way? I mean I am acting on the general assumption that the designers of ShadowRun (and other systems with this problem) did not decide "hey let's make this archetype outstrip the other for giggles" so it must have happened accidentally. Do you think you can weave a story as to how?

[Quertus]

The logic behind this only got destroyed by folks like our Quertus insisting that things can de researched

I guess I haven't had a problem with this, because - aside from Wizards who discovered the same spells, and subsequently built similar derivative spells (or similar counter spells) - my Wizards have all developed unique spells.

This is where most of martial characters are right now though.

That's what I'm trying to fight. Because, clearly, muggles cannot contribute to anything, as evidenced IRL.

I really don't like it when combat is given special status compared to the other arenas.

There are a couple of reasons for this. I find strapping combat specialty onto other character concepts a bit of a chore and yet if I don't I am sitting out for a good hunk of the game. (This assumes that when you make combat universal and special it gets more time. I have never known this trend to brake.)

On the other hand, playing a character who was focused on combat never felt so good as when there was a reasonable chance I could have taken on the rest of the PCs and won. Not because I wanted to, but because it meant that they actually relied on my character for combat. There was a scene where it was monsters, me and then everyone else. And if the monsters made it by me everyone else was probably dead. And yet everyone contributed, if a single member of the party wasn't there we wouldn't of made it.

And that is what I want, characters may have their moments of glory but in the end everyone is needed. Well "needed" is weird when I also think failing and things going unexpected ways is part of the appeal. So maybe everyone should be effecting the way the game goes?

Combat should be more interesting than, "roll combat, DC 15". And, in most systems, it is. And, IMO, this is a good thing. For this interesting minigame, IMO, everyone should get to participate, albeit not necessarily equally. And, happily, that is usually the case.

Thing is, replace "combat" with bloody anything, and you've still got my opinion (kinda).

That is, you want to convince the king to deal with the orcs. It should be more than "roll diplomacy, DC 25". There is - or could and IMO should be - a whole host of pieces to manipulate, from reputation to evidence to blackmail to his daughter to going through intermediaries. Show me someone who cannot participate in any of those minigames - or in discussions choosing between them - and I'll show you someone who cannot think. Even my sentient potted plant could have ideas, suggest not to feed the vegetarian steak, or laugh at Taserface.

Now, I say "kinda" because, many groups I've played with, some or even many of the players will only be a detriment to any minigame where they try to "help". So, optimally, they would do nothing, and not earn a "participation" ribbon… and, realistically, if they *did* participate, they would get voted off the island (ie, in character, there would be no reason for the other PCs to want to keep them around if they exposed both the extent of their detrimental stupidity and the lack of wisdom to keep their mouths shut).

But, yes, normally, both in a game and IRL, you want everyone to participate, to help, to pull, if not "their weight", at least as much weight as they can. And, yes, I agree, how much weight each individual character can pull should vary, perhaps drastically.

[Florian]

Any thoughts on how things turned out this way? I mean I am acting on the general assumption that the designers of ShadowRun (and other systems with this problem) did not decide "hey let's make this archetype outstrip the other for giggles" so it must have happened accidentally. Do you think you can weave a story as to how?

There're two things coming together here: Essence sets the hard limit for how much you can cram into a "mundane" character until you reach the functional peak.Magic/MAG is explicitly designed to have no upper limit. This becomes especially absurd when talking about Mystic Adepts, who have to split their MAG between adept powers and regular spells.

The other thing I already mentioned above: SR has some very hard niche protection in place (astral space, cyberspace, rigging, spirits ....), but is shy about protecting the other major niches in a similar way (combat, social...). These asymmetries are made worse by allowing archetypes that already have a protected niche to infringe on the non-protected niches with relative ease.

Result is basically that you can sit around and watch the specialists at their respective solo game as part of the prep phase for a run, then go "dungeon crawling" together as a team, which is quite annoying when your archetype doesn't feature a "solo game" and there's a good chance that you are outperformed at your chosen specialization.

And here's the point: "Dungeon crawling together". Either get rid of all the other solo games, or make the social and combat stuff into a solo game.

That's what I'm trying to fight. Because, clearly, muggles cannot contribute to anything, as evidenced IRL.

The main point we´re talking about deals with "Fighter" on the purely game system level. No players skill, not cool use of the environment or items, because those two are not a given, player skill varies and a lot of other things vary by mood and competence of the GM and so on. So the focus here is what can be hard-baked into the chassis.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's what I'm trying to fight. Because, clearly, muggles cannot contribute to anything, as evidenced IRL.

IRL, everyone is a "muggle".

[Ignimortis]

Any thoughts on how things turned out this way? I mean I am acting on the general assumption that the designers of ShadowRun (and other systems with this problem) did not decide "hey let's make this archetype outstrip the other for giggles" so it must have happened accidentally. Do you think you can weave a story as to how?

I think this thread documented the typical thought process well enough. When it comes to magic, the only limiter people take into consideration usually is "why not?".

Furthermore, limits on Magic have been dropped significantly over time. Shadowrun 1e to 3e had you losing Magic for various things. Got hit with Deadly damage? You might lose a point of MAG. Cross your totem as a Shaman? You might lose a point of MAG. Lose in Astral Combat? Hey, guess what, this is a -MAG check time! Yes, initiations gave you MAG for free, but it was more of a game of keep-up if you weren't supremely careful or winning all the time. And yes, spells could Drain you with Deadly damage, so

The only thing that makes you actually lose MAG in 4e and 5e is Essence loss, which is 99% of the time a voluntary choice, and 1% of the time you got captured by a vampire who actually got a few minutes alone with you. Initiation doesn't give you free MAG, and it costs about three times as much to gain the same benefits in the end...BUT you're not losing Magic, realistically, unless you choose to. Oh, right, critical glitches on Artificing also can damage your Essence, but you don't actually NEED Artificing, because you can just...buy Foci. Or you can just get 12 dice for that and you'd have to be infinitely unlucky to crit glitch (12d6, of which 7 need to be 1s and none can be 5s or 6s).

IC restrictions also apply. 1e-3e, openly wielding powerful magic is a criminal offense, and some spells are outright illegal and the rules say so, IIRC. 4e and 5e? Sure, the fluff says something about that (rather quietly), but mechanically any spell can be bought with an availability of no more than 8R (which is like, a good heavy pistol?). Having a Fireball spell is literally less illegal than a combat assault rifle or a full-auto shotgun. Having any spell is less illegal than having combat-worthy augmentations, really (anything that blocks pain/reduces wound modifiers is Forbidden, and most stat/init boosters go up to 20-25R Availability easily).

Force of spells is another thing that got a straight buff. 3e? You learn a spell at specific Force, and you can only undercast it. So if you learn a Fireball at Force 4, then you only have access to Fireballs of Force 1-4. 5e? You learn a spell, that's it. If you learned a Fireball at chargen and now you're at MAG 10, you can very well cast a Fireball at Force 10 without much trouble. Or you can overcast it up to Force 20, although the Drain is very likely to knock you the hell out even if you're a high initiate of the 5th grade with Centering and Foci. But you don't need a Force 20 Fireball. Force 12 already kills everyone who's not a soak tank very well (can't be dodged and does about 16 damage with AP of -12). For soak tanks, you have Manabolts...which are also better in 5e, because they're still Willpower-soak only, but you attack with Spellcasting+MAG (3e had you casting with the average of INT+WIL+MAG instead, and MAG is uncapped, remember?)

Basically, it's very similar to how D&D magic got out of hand. It started off rough and somewhat unpleasant to be a mage, and then over time their weaknesses eroded away, the significant differences between mages and shamans also eroded, leaving spellcasters with the best of both worlds (spirits are better than elementals, in general, because they're not dumb as a sack of bricks, and mentor spirits are now for everyone), etc, etc.

[Florian]

For SR games that are really strict about legality/availability ratings, which is more a concern for bio, cyber and weapons, really, there's always the adept/mystical adept. Adept powers don't come with a rating attached, can always be learned and will eclipse cyber when the upper versions / grades are unavailable.

Anecdotally, I've played a "low-key" mystic adept in a SR5 campaign. Concept was more or less a mix of tribal warrior (Sioux) and "combat medic", so an initial 4/2 split of the MAG, with the 2 points going into spell casting of healing type spells and status effect removal, the adept powers going into straight combat prowess, especially boosting initiative, strength and accuracy. Heaviest available armor, variable STR composite bow with speciality ammo, couple of tomahawks and kyujutsu made this the functional equivalent of the razorgirl some other player had.

[Ignimortis]

For SR games that are really strict about legality/availability ratings, which is more a concern for bio, cyber and weapons, really, there's always the adept/mystical adept. Adept powers don't come with a rating attached, can always be learned and will eclipse cyber when the upper versions / grades are unavailable.

Anecdotally, I've played a "low-key" mystic adept in a SR5 campaign. Concept was more or less a mix of tribal warrior (Sioux) and "combat medic", so an initial 4/2 split of the MAG, with the 2 points going into spell casting of healing type spells and status effect removal, the adept powers going into straight combat prowess, especially boosting initiative, strength and accuracy. Heaviest available armor, variable STR composite bow with speciality ammo, couple of tomahawks and kyujutsu made this the functional equivalent of the razorgirl some other player had.

But SR5 doesn't do the MAG split for MysAds. You get your full MAG for casting and for Adept powers (you do have to buy PP at chargen for Karma, but, well...it's still the best deal you could get). Mystic Adepts are outright bulldrek in SR5, because you only lose astral projection...and gain a full box of adept powers for 30 Karma. Spend 1 PP out of 6 on Astral Perception, voila, you can also see Astral, you just can't go into it. But you can get 12+4d6 initiative on a mage out of chargen even.

SR4 did the split between "powers MAG" and "casting MAG", which made Mystic Adepts rather useless, since 4e was, generally, better disposed towards mundanes with prices, Essence rules (you can have about 7 points of Essence in 'ware, if you balance it really well, like "4.5 cyber and 2.8 bio", because the lower of the two got treated as 1/2 Essence cost), and so on. 4e has lots of problems, but I find that it's the closest to mundane-friendly without just hitting everyone over the head with legality rules.

[Florian]

But SR5 doesn't do the MAG split for MysAds.

I simplified that for those who don't know SR5. Could as well have written that a regular adept gains a full complement of PP equal to MAG and will automatically gain PP when pushing MAG, while the mystic adept has to buy PP separate at creation and initiation. They information that "I invested the initial points in such a way that the functional equivalent would be as if I only had 4 MAG, because I have only bought 4 PP and aus if I only had 2 MAG, because I invested only in three spells" would be correct, but not overly helpful. So, huge Karma sink, but also three whole "tracks" available, "mundane stuff", "adept stuff" and "spells".

Edit: Speaking about PP, those are the currency to buy adept powers with. Again, they start out in parallel to Essence for "mundanes", with a functional maximum of 6 at creations and roughly equivalent costs between adept powers and cyber/bio (Reflex Booster III/Boosted Strength IV and the equivalent Adept powers cost around the same), but then again, cyber/bio costs money and while Essence can only ever go down, the MAG rating, therefore available PP, can go up. As usual, there's stuff tech simply isn't allowed to do. Even a relatively normal physical adept can pick up astral perception and the ability to effectively fight astral or dual-natured creatures along the way.

The equivalent in 3E D&D would be a full Sorcadin build with full MC-XP-Penalties in place, including for the PrC used - slower overall progress, but higher floor and ceiling than most everyone else (and the slower progress doesn't mean a lot when you hit the level cap of 20).

[Ignimortis]

I simplified that for those who don't know SR5. Could as well have written that a regular adept gains a full complement of PP equal to MAG and will automatically gain PP when pushing MAG, while the mystic adept has to buy PP separate at creation and initiation. So, huge Karma sink, but also three whole "tracks" available, "mundane stuff", "adept stuff" and "spells".

The equivalent in 3E D&D would be a full Sorcadin build with full MC-XP-Penalties in place, including for the PrC used.

It is a large Karma sink, but I think the metaphor for 3e is kinda wrong here. The difference here is that you only pay 30 Karma for a huge chunk of adept stuff. Like if all the Paladin stuff you actually would care about wasn't in class levels, but a LA+1 template and a Sorcerer ACF for some feature you might not necessarily care about, like your familiar. Astral Projection is better than Familiar, but it's still not really necessary.

Edit: Speaking about PP, those are the currency to buy adept powers with. Again, they start out in parallel to Essence for "mundanes", with a functional maximum of 6 at creations and roughly equivalent costs between adept powers and cyber/bio (Reflex Booster III/Boosted Strength IV and the equivalent Adept powers cost around the same), but then again, cyber/bio costs money and while Essence can only ever go down, the MAG rating, therefore available PP, can go up. As usual, there's stuff tech simply isn't allowed to do. Even a relatively normal physical adept can pick up astral perception and the ability to effectively fight astral or dual-natured creatures along the way.

Adept powers are better at boosting initiative and granting unusual stuff (3.5 PP for Improved Reflexes vs 5 essence for Wired Reflexes, and you can only grab the magic version at chargen without extra spending). Augs are better at boosting armor (mostly cyberlimbs though, bioborgs only get orthoskin, and dermal plating is just bad), and raw stats (Muscle Replacement is 1 ESS for +1 STR/AGI, while Improved Physical Attribute is 1 PP for +1 STR or AGI). Bioware is more expensive, but even less damaging: 0.25 ESS for +1 to STR or AGI...which is why Adepts usually grab Rating 4 and get +4 to stat for 1 Essence, which loses them 1 PP = one initiation fixes that.

However, since you can get infinite power points with Adepts in theory (and in practice about 15 is very achievable), you need deltaware to even compete (x0.5 Essence cost means you can cram in twice as much, so it's like you have 11.99 Essence). Suffice to say, Adepts get 15 Power Points after investing about 300 Karma into initiations and MAG. 600k nuyen, the equivalent, won't even pay to "upgrade" from standard to delta, much less a full suite of deltaware (that comes out to about 2-3kk last time I checked).

Oh, and guess what? Deltaware clinics are GM approval only. The setting explicitly states that only megacorps and some aug-focused AA corps have those, there's less than 15 in the world, and the waiting list begins and ends with "not you". Betaware isn't much better - you can only hope to get access as a reward for a run.

...Oh yeah, adepts can also buy and bind Qi Foci. A qi focus gives them access to an adept power with a PP cost of Force/4. An adept can safely bind up to their MAG in Foci Force. So that MAG 10 adept can also buy (with some nuyen (less than good augs) and a little bit of Karma) another 2.5 PP worth of powers.

[Florian]

At this point, I think it´s simply fair to agree that this is indeed an example of "The Man" pushing the mundane down into the dirt.

- We have the mundane and magic spectrum, both start out in parallel, but the mundane spectrum has a floor/ceiling based on modeling some sort of in-game reality (cost, availability, essence and such), while the magical spectrum starts at the same floor, while the ceiling is way higher and defined by being able to eclipse the mundane.
- In the long run, a magic specialist will always overtake one or more mundane specialists. Reason here being that the ability to raise MAG means you can engage in a zero sum game for a while, raising MAG, while also lowering MAG by investing in cyber and bio at the same rate, means that as long as you keep one full point of Essence intact, you can recoup your losses and still grow MAG beyond that. (The aforementioned 15 MAG total could as well be 10 MAG and a full 5 points in cyber/bio). A "Face" and a "Face Adept" have an asymmetrical position, as the "Face Adept" has the chance to eclipse the "Face" when the limits for growth are reached.
- The only point where we have some sort of balance between both in floor and ceiling, as well as in sinking resources (both, Karma and Nuyen) is when we are talking about the hardcore protected niche of cyberspace and hacking. This is the one area that magic can't infringe on, but then we got the Technomancers and.. well....

Things I learned from SR5:

- The barrier between "Awakened" and "Mundane" hurts the game more than it helps create a sense of verisimilitude, as it comes down to system mastery and the usual numbers game.
- Grod is wrong. It´s fully acceptable for power to come with a price, when operating at a ceiling that is way above the "mundane", with the stipulation that the "mundane" is more then enough to do the job.
- The "Sim"-approach is often not helpful, especially when talking about parity between archetypes and options.

[Kyutaru]

What ever happened to "With great power comes great fragility?" -- good old Uncle Sven.

You're describing all the points that make magic's spectrum superior in strength to the mundane one but why is there not a counterbalancing weakness to magic as well? One of the games I'm playing, Low Magic Age, actually has this in the sense that wizards are one of the first things to die every combat from basically any kind of ranged attack. Yet the wizard is the most powerful commander of destruction and debilitation in return.

What was that one game where you could have a max of 1 hp with nigh godlike powers?

[Ignimortis]

At this point, I think it´s simply fair to agree that this is indeed an example of "The Man" pushing the mundane down into the dirt.

- We have the mundane and magic spectrum, both start out in parallel, but the mundane spectrum has a floor/ceiling based on modeling some sort of in-game reality (cost, availability, essence and such), while the magical spectrum starts at the same floor, while the ceiling is way higher and defined by being able to eclipse the mundane.
- In the long run, a magic specialist will always overtake one or more mundane specialists. Reason here being that the ability to raise MAG means you can engage in a zero sum game for a while, raising MAG, while also lowering MAG by investing in cyber and bio at the same rate, means that as long as you keep one full point of Essence intact, you can recoup your losses and still grow MAG beyond that. (The aforementioned 15 MAG total could as well be 10 MAG and a full 5 points in cyber/bio). A "Face" and a "Face Adept" have an asymmetrical position, as the "Face Adept" has the chance to eclipse the "Face" when the limits for growth are reached.
- The only point where we have some sort of balance between both in floor and ceiling, as well as in sinking resources (both, Karma and Nuyen) is when we are talking about the hardcore protected niche of cyberspace and hacking. This is the one area that magic can't infringe on, but then we got the Technomancers and.. well....

Technomancers are slightly better in that regard, because they can't do their matrix magic stuff while using a regular deck, and not using a deck comes with certain vulnerabilities (which can mostly be negated due to Kill Code content, but it still takes a lot of time and Karma to get there). Also, their matrix magic doesn't do anything a decker couldn't do in the meatspace, aside from "hey I can buff this gun to shoot better" which works but isn't exactly the best way to use a Techno.

A Face Adept is outright better than a non-Adept Face. Their FLOOR is more powerful than any mundane Face can hope to be with augmentation or without. 20 dice on social skills at chargen isn't out of reach for an Adept Face. Mundanes? No actual way to get there.

But yeah, Shadowrun magic is always better in the long run, and isn't that much worse at chargen, either.

If we take what people are often saying about Mages, their protected niches are: the whole Astral space, dealing with spirits, dealing with other mages, dealing with combat monsters, dealing with anything magical at all, dealing with meatspace problems without personal risk through spirit intermediaries... What are a street sam's protected niches? Combat? Adepts do it well too. Well, perhaps tanking is a street-sam somewhat protected niche...until mages get there and shoot Manabolts at you, which ignore everything you did to become unkillable. Or pull out a spirit with Hardened Armor 20 who also only dies to magic.

What ever happened to "With great power comes great fragility?" -- good old Uncle Sven.

You're describing all the points that make magic's spectrum superior in strength to the mundane one but why is there not a counterbalancing weakness to magic as well? One of the games I'm playing, Low Magic Age, actually has this in the sense that wizards are one of the first things to die every combat from basically any kind of ranged attack. Yet the wizard is the most powerful commander of destruction and debilitation in return.

What was that one game where you could have a max of 1 hp with nigh godlike powers?

The same thing that happened to D&D wizards - developers gradually removed the magicians' weaknesses while leaving their strengths intact. Upthread are a few notes on how much harder it was to be a mage in SR back in 3e. Then you can look at 5e and there will be none of these.

[Kyutaru]

What are a street sam's protected niches? Combat? Adepts do it well too.

Money-based advancement. Adepts are the long game. Street Samurai is Pay to Win.

[Florian]

Money-based advancement. Adepts are the long game. Street Samurai is Pay to Win.

Which...ummm.. doesn't work out because of the hard cap involved?

And correct me if I'm wrong because I've found nothing in any edition of SR (and I started with 1st) that allows you to recover Essence. Once you have, say Move-By-Wire installed, the Essence cost is paid and even if you have the Nuyen to potentially upgrade the path thru alpha, beta to gamma, you don't recoup the initial loss in essence.

Now that would be an argument to start out as an unaugmented go-ganger or something, snort/push combat drugs and deal with the side effects and addiction until you have saved up enough dough to go for the good stuff, but then again, only 15 gamma-level clinics around and you're on their "unfriendly list".

Edit: It´s only really the case when it comes to Riggers. Money can buy you quantity and quantity has a certain quality of its own.

What ever happened to "With great power comes great fragility?" -- good old Uncle Sven.

Got replaced by "With great power comes the ability to cover fragility". As in D&D.

[Ignimortis]

Money-based advancement. Adepts are the long game. Street Samurai is Pay to Win.

And to win, you need WAY more money and contacts than the Adept needs in karma equivalency. Like, not even x1.5 or x2, but somewhere around x3 to x5 as much. And you start off pretty equal anyway. As far as SR 5e RAW goes, there's very little reason to play anything but Mystic Adepts, Full Mages and Deckers, except for style.

I mentioned real progression rates that the game presumes are followed. If you're going by them, by the time the streetsam gets his deltaware, the adept has initiated 8 times and has also invested into some choice cyber, because he gets money too, but since adept powers can cover for cyber's weak spots, Adepts get to pick and choose what they want from each side. There's no Pain Editor for Adepts, true, but nobody says you can't just buy it anyway.

Which...ummm.. doesn't work out because of the hard cap involved?

And correct me if I'm wrong because I've found nothing in any edition of SR (and I started with 1st) that allows you to recover Essence. Once you have, say Move-By-Wire installed, the Essence cost is paid and even if you have the Nuyen to potentially upgrade the path thru alpha, beta to gamma, you don't recoup the initial loss in essence.

Now that would be an argument to start out as an unaugmented go-ganger or something, snort/push combat drugs and deal with the side effects and addiction until you have saved up enough dough to go for the good stuff, but then again, only 15 gamma-level clinics around and you're on their "unfriendly list".

Edit: It´s only really the case when it comes to Riggers. Money can buy you quantity and quantity has a certain quality of its own.

There are ways to regain Essence lost to augs. It costs 110k per procedure and takes a month, and repairs 0.1 Essence. But only if you have an "essence hole" - basically, lost Essence that isn't tied up in any augs. In short, it doesn't work for samurai - it's for mages who had to use cybereyes for a while and can now afford replacements and therapy.

Also, there aren't any gamma-level clinics around. (There probably are a few, but they're 100% secret and you will probably only see them as part of a run to steal a prototype piece of tech). Actually, getting access to alpha-level clinics is a feat in itself, but it's something a shadowrunner can probably manage with their connections. Beta-level? You'll have to do runs for a large corp and not get betrayed, but you can get there someday. Delta? Forget it, chummer. Maybe if you're a legend and you do a really big job - the kind that pays for retirement.

[Florian]

Meant delta, sorry.

I´ve more or less given up on SR, so I'm writing everything from memory, might be a little bit outdated. My last point of reference was that you could buy alpha grade at character creation, beta grade on some (insignificant) low level stuff and get the equivalent of beta grade when you grab an alpha grade "cyberware suite" because of the already included "suite"-bonus. The major thing in 4th and 5th was the capacity rating of certain pieces of ware, so how much you could cram into cyber eyes or a cyber arm while keeping the Essence cost down for the "vessel" by paying for a higher grade.

Now I know this particular treatment existed in 4th, but to the point I've kept up with 5th, I haven't seen the equivalent.

Edit: And in lieu of the topic we´re discussing, it´s another wench with "verisimilitude" printed at it thrown between the legs of a prospective martial player. Assuming you could make the switch of a major piece of cyber from regular to delta in one go, that would reduce the Essence cost by half. For a major piece of cyber, like the aforementioned M-b-W system or a high-grade control rig, filling up the "hole" of the difference between 5 and 2,5 will cost you a quarter million and around 25 month of downtime - while the mage goes for the LSD and runs around the desert butt-naked for a weekend, gaining "insight" by raping gophers, so to speak.

I guess I haven't had a problem with this, because - aside from Wizards who discovered the same spells, and subsequently built similar derivative spells (or similar counter spells) - my Wizards have all developed unique spells.

D&D-style magic is heavily modeled on Dying Earth. That carries some very heavy implications with it. After the "Fall" of whatever kind, the fundamentals of what is magic and how magic functions and such have been completely lost. A "spell" is more or less the equivalent of a print-out of a Wikipedia page. Solid knowledge, but no context beyond that.
It´s like cavemen finding a crate of grenades after their civ. has degraded down to the point: Useful, but nothing they can understand.

[Ignimortis]

Meant delta, sorry.

I´ve more or less given up on SR, so I'm writing everything from memory, might be a little bit outdated. My last point of reference was that you could buy alpha grade at character creation, beta grade on some (insignificant) low level stuff and get the equivalent of beta grade when you grab an alpha grade "cyberware suite" because of the already included "suite"-bonus. The major thing in 4th and 5th was the capacity rating of certain pieces of ware, so how much you could cram into cyber eyes or a cyber arm while keeping the Essence cost down for the "vessel" by paying for a higher grade.

Now I know this particular treatment existed in 4th, but to the point I've kept up with 5th, I haven't seen the equivalent.

In 5e you can only get alphaware at chargen, too. But even if you could get deltaware at chargen, you wouldn't be able to, because it has a +8 Avail tag (12 max at chargen) and x2.5 price, which means that at best you can get very low-avail cheaper augmentations. Like rating 1 cybereyes with no higher avail mods, I guess? Deltaware high-tier augmentations are one of the rarest things in the game. I am currently looking at a theoretical all-deltaware build with a total price-tag of about 3kk, and there are no augmentations with an avail of less than 20. Most of them are in the 23-28 spectrum. That's about as hard to get as the best combat aircraft in the game (GMC Gryphon VTOL, 28F). And costs about the same, too. You are a walking fighter jet expenditure-wise. Remember how much an F-35 costs IRL? Yeah, that.

Awakened only run into these problems when they're trying to boost their already heightened innate power, with Foci. Rating 5 Power Focus is 20R, sure, but it's +5 dice to all rolls involving magic. All of them except Drain Resist. Summoning, spellcasting, banishing, etc... A +6 Centering Focus is 18R. A Qi focus equivalent to 1 PP is 12R, available at chargen. And even then there are no requirements outside of "beat the availability check", which a mage with 12 CHA total might just do quite well. The GM might invent them, but the setting doesn't talk about that much.

Edit: And in lieu of the topic we´re discussing, it´s another wench with "verisimilitude" printed at it thrown between the legs of a prospective martial player. Assuming you could make the switch of a major piece of cyber from regular to delta in one go, that would reduce the Essence cost by half. For a major piece of cyber, like the aforementioned M-b-W system or a high-grade control rig, filling up the "hole" of the difference between 5 and 2,5 will cost you a quarter million and around 25 month of downtime - while the mage goes for the LSD and runs around the desert butt-naked for a weekend, gaining "insight" by raping gophers, so to speak.

5e doesn't have installation times, thankfully, only recovery time. You take Essence Cost x3 damage boxes (never into overflow) to both physical and stun, so recovering might take anywhere from a day to a week or more. Initiation takes a month, too, but you can overshoot your Extended test by a lot of successes and condense that down, per extra success, to two weeks, then a week, then 3 days, then 1 day, IIRC.

[Florian]

(For people not knowing ShadowRun, we are talking about the mechanics that regulate/simulate what is generally available, what is available at a risk and what is not available because of gatekeeping. The ratings we talk about describe how difficult it is to find something on the legal and black market. The number we talk about is equivalent to rarity, the codes after the number are equivalent to legality status. 8L is something quite common and with a legal status, while the equivalent of 8R is equality common and easy to get, but quite illegal because it is restricted. In this case, you could go to your normal arms-dealer and buy a Mossberg shotgun and have it registered. It´s also as easy to get into contact with someone selling you a full-auto AK-47 and.. not get it registered. 12R would be the same AK with an under-barrel grenade launcher attached.... )

Edit: Interestingly enough, we tend to end up with the same problem in D&D/PF and SR.