[Senko]

I've been trying to make a mage but whatever I do I seem to wind up having to sacrifice something somewhere and so I'm wondering are the enchanting, disenchanting etc used often ingame or could I leave them off and simply be unable to use those 4 skills (right now only the unlimited range ritual seems useful for example and enchanting requires a lab and karma) whereas leaving them off would save me 12+ skill points.

EDIT
Actually extend that to all 11 magic skills which ones aside from the obvious (spellcasting, summoning, counterspelling, assessing and arcana) see regular use?

What I'm currently looking at is street kid learnt by doing/occasional tutoring by spirits. So right now the spells I'm thinking would be taken are spellcasting, summoning, assesing, arcana (all would see regular use as they grew up), counterspelling and banishing (wouldn't see regular use but seems too useful  after the game starts to leave off) and dropping the rest.

[Dinendae]

I'm not using Binding on my Shaman, for both flavor reasons and because I figure it'll be less hassle just summoning when I need to. I do plan on picking up both Enchanting and Alchemy, but I only had so many points to play with, even at Skills A. Disenchanting I might get as well, if only to break down something I'm not interested in to get raw materials for Enchanting (assuming I can do that). Banishing I am avoiding, as it seems to be easier to banish a spirit by tearing it apart with mana spells. Originally I took Astral Combat, but once I discovered I could still cast in Astral form, I used those points elsewhere.

[OneofSorrow]

I've had a player that actually was a Talismonger for the group who would either sell custom ordered foci or reagents he had gathered.  He was a mystic adept so he took skills like tattooing to do Qi Foci Tattoos and then a couple of crafting knowledge skills and played to his specialty, namely bone carving.  He was also good to have around when prepping for a meet with the Johnson or just a general insertion cause he would make potency, basically one shot potions that give their rating to a certain attribute such as charisma, agility, and what not for a either eight or so hours once more depending on how he rolled.  Seeing how our group had a mage, a shaman  mystic adept(Hiim), social and gun adept(Me), decker and a rigger we got alot of bang for our buck and he give us discounts on our magical goodies.  It is just the mage and the shaman had to be ready to heal his ass if he screwed up making magical items, he nearly killed himself turning his monofiliament whip into a force six weapon foci.  He also did my tattoos. 

[farothel]

Most of the time when you are the only mage, ritual spellcasting is not used.  In fact, I've never used it before and most of the time I don't take the skill.  I even had a mage with the flaw incompetent (ritual spellcasting) for fluff reasons and it never bothered me much.

[Furious Trope]

I LOVE ritual spellcasting.

It's a bit clumsier than spellcasting, but well applied can wreck some fantastic havoc.

Even alone, watchers and the health spell circles can do some awesome stuff.

I used the SR NPC Puck in a game I ran in Denver. Gave him an underage magician girlfriend with a focus on health spells. She used rituals to boost up his mental stats to their augmented limit. Which makes him hell on wheels as a technomancer.

Using them effectively as a player requires a bit more finesse and planning, but there are at least two serious arguments for any mage to have it in their toolkit: Watchers (crappy spirits you create to look for things or guard them) and wards (astral walls). Watchers are great for risky situations where you want to check something out in the astral without putting yourself or a more valuable spirit in jeopardy. Wards are delightful because they let you protect a place from astral intrusion and, unlike dual natured ivy/bacteria, they can have a little extras added in. In SR4/3 you could make crossing a ward very dangerous. Those rules aren't in SR5 yet.

As long as you've got someone willing to play spotter, you can wreck quite a bit of hell or gather considerable information via prodigal Spell/Remote Sensing rituals. Lets say your group has two magicians both with magic 6 and a mundane stealth specialist. You want to find a guy you were introduced to last week, whose skipped bail. You have the appropriate lodge and whatnot and an idea where he usually is. So you cast the ritual at force 1 (and use edge to remove the limit). At the beginning of the ritual, your stealth guy heads out to around where you think he might be.

At the end of the hour you finish up and cast Detect [Your "buddy"]. Because you're using a ritual, you get a 1.2km radius (12 total magic performing the ritual *100m * 1 for force) centered on the spotter and, lucky day, you pinpoint him with much more ease than you would have if you tried to track him down on foot. Everyone resists drain, including the mundane spotter, and we all go home with a little extra cash in our pockets and hopefully minimal nose-bleeding.

This also means, if you've got advance warning about where someone is, you can slam them with a high-force combat spell from a mundane. Astral signature could still be a problem, of course, but there are other ways around it.

Basically, it's a specialist's tool.

[Whiskeyjack]

I don't find astral combat/disenchanting/banishing to be useful at all compared to other options. Ritual spellcasting is pretty handy for watchers though (that's mainly what I've used it for) and I know it has some far-reaching other implications, just haven't gotten into that yet.

[Tarislar]

I wouldn't say any of the skills are "useless" so much as some of them are clearly niche use &/or can very much wait for post-chargen Karma.


12 Magic Skills into 3 Categories.


VERY-Useful  (Must Have at Chargen)
Sorcery
Summoning


Fairly Useful &/or Situational Dependant
Alchemy  :  Do you want to pick your own reagents or make potions ?
Arcana  :  Research Spells &/or Initiate
Assensing:  Like Perception skill but for Astral.
Binding  :  Costs Cash but can make you a "Spirit Army" over time.
Counterspelling  :  Spell Defense against Mages.
Ritual Sorcery  :  Special "utility" castings &/or Extended Range castings.


Limited Use
Artifacing
Astral Combat
Banishing
Dispelling


The first category is simply a MUST have.
While the Last is going to see very minimal use IMHO

What it really comes down to is that middle group of 6 skills.
Those are the areas that will add "flavor" & "role" to your magician.
Are you in command of an Elemental Army,  or are you able to protect your entire team from ALL incoming magic attacks.
Do you plan on adding more spells to roster & initiating OR are you passing out potions to the rest of your team & gathering your own reagents to save cash?
Are you doing Astral Recon & checking out everyone's aura or wards  OR  are you searching for your target from 1/2 a mile away underground?

Basically what is it that YOU want to do and then from there grab a selection of the 2nd group IMHO.

[Whiskeyjack]

I would call Counterspelling must-have, personally.

Binding, I think it's fair for it not to be must-have, but it's certainly very, very good especially if you need a huge alpha strike/nova.

[Tarislar]

I would call Counterspelling must-have, personally.

Binding, I think it's fair for it not to be must-have, but it's certainly very, very good especially if you need a huge alpha strike/nova.

I didn't want to try & create 4-5 different categories.  Which is why most of them are in the middle as "good, but it won't kill you if it waits 1 run before you get it".  Counterspelling is GREAT, IMHO, but it is situation dependent in that if the GM doesn't throw Mages at you, well, its not very useful at all.  I also agree that Binding is awesome, but, it does cost quite a bit of cash & it only ADDS to the base ability of summoning which gets you that first spirit all the time.  So it too could wait for post char-gen karma if you were really tapped in skill points.

[Senko]

I thought survival was used to gather reagents for some reason, ok alchemy got a bit more important.

[SlowDeck]

Ritual magic can be great for setting up temporary safehouses or dropping attack spells on someone from afar.

[Whiskeyjack]

I would call Counterspelling must-have, personally.

Binding, I think it's fair for it not to be must-have, but it's certainly very, very good especially if you need a huge alpha strike/nova.

I didn't want to try & create 4-5 different categories.  Which is why most of them are in the middle as "good, but it won't kill you if it waits 1 run before you get it".  Counterspelling is GREAT, IMHO, but it is situation dependent in that if the GM doesn't throw Mages at you, well, its not very useful at all.

Maybe so. I dunno. Lack counter spelling and you may not even make it through that 1 run It's dangerous to try and hedge your bets with the GM like that on certain skills.

[Davidvs]

The mage at our table get great millage out of Alchemy. He makes stuff before runs and then rests and thus saves a ton of stun.

What about taking your mage thought your last game session (in your mind) and think about how they would react/solve problems they encounter. Then take those skills and if you find you want something later get it in game.

I find that there is way too much stuff to try to do everything so pick those skill that you can do without and take what is left over.

[DigitalZombie]

I agree with Tarlisar, with the added comment that arcana and assenssing are also must haves, with at least a few skill points. Although those 2 arent essential for a starting character.

Im planning on buffing artificing with the ability to upgrade existing focii and the ability to choose whether to use karma or nuyen when crafting stuff (at the rate of the standard karma/nuyen exchance rate)

I see arcana as a rather lacklustre necessary evil when initiating. I plan on allowing it to upgrade existing foci formula, to be used together with artificing.

dispelling is rather underpowered, especially in those groups were they have ruled, that a damaged lynchpin destroys the spell bound into it. I mean whats the point of the skill if you could just poke at the "fireball lynchpin carpet" with a stick to destroy it?

[callmedinosaur]

I don't know, personally i've always though of arcana as niche, but still really useful even outside of initiating, as basically the magic equivalent of computer (minus the data search)