Introduction

It seems unusual in a world with such variety as Shadowrun that the magical potential of every Awakened character is so homogeneous. If you are a magically active character, you start with a flat six points of magic, regardless of your potential. Essentially this implies that every mage, shaman, aspected magician and adept in the Shadowrun world has the same amount of raw magic ability available to them once they've tapped their power. It's like saying that everyone has the same intelligence, is equally stubborn or equally strong. That's patently untrue, so why should the situation be any different when it comes to Magic?

The current rules do not provide any scope for starting characters beginning with a Magic rating of less than six (without Essence loss from cyberware)-or even greater than six, for more powerful games. Using these rules for variable starting Magic ratings allows for greater variety and flexibility within the scope of starting characters.

Less Magic

It is feasible to say that many magical characters do not come into their power in one rush. After discovering or unlocking their magical potential, for most characters it becomes a slow process of development to expand their magical abilities as well. Mages and aspected magicians would slowly build their Magic rating up to the final, stable level that represents their full magical potential (excluding Initiations). Adepts would gradually expand their abilities, learning new adept powers until all their power points had been spent.

To assume that, at the end of this process, everyone comes out on the same level seems a trifle unrealistic, given the huge variety between individuals in every other area of (meta)human ability. To represent this, players may sacrifice initial starting Magic points to play a weaker magical character, receiving additional build points in exchange. This applies for any character with a Magic rating. As by standard Shadowrun rules, a character who sacrifices all of their Magic rating in this fashion becomes irrevocably mundane.

Sacrificing points of Magic in this way has no effect on the character's Essence or Body Index. It doesn't represent the effects of cyberware, drug addiction or anything else on the character; they simply have less magical potential without Initiation. (If a character also has cyberware, their lower-than-normal Magic rating is reduced by the Essence cost of the cyberware just as normal.) A player might want to explain a lower Magic rating by saying their character took a Deadly wound at some point in the past and that's why they have less Magic, or that they never focused on their Magic and their power atrophied; alternatively, it might be "just because."

Dave is playing Rock, a beginning earth elementalist. Aspected magicians cost 25 build points, but Dave decides that Rock was hit by a car when he was nineteen and the resultant injuries that nearly killed him (a Deadly wound) reduced his magical power. The loss of the two Magic points returns six build points to Dave, so playing an aspected magician with a Magic rating of 4 costs only 19 build points instead of 25.

Building Up Your Magic

Note that a player may also choose for their character to start the game with a certain number of Magic points unspent. This is possible whether or not the player has chosen to sacrifice Magic points as described above. Effectively, the character has a certain ability for Magic, but hasn't developed all of their potential yet. The unspent Magic points can be spent in play just like points gained from Initiation; depending on how the GM chooses to play this, they generally require no training to develop-only a reason to use more of the character's potential.

Jane is playing Whisper, an adept. She decides that Whisper only has a maximum Magic rating of 5 (and gets three extra build points for the sacrifice) but has only spent three of her five Power Points as she's still learning about her power. In play, Whisper can develop another two Power Points' worth of abilities before needing to initiate; the powers may be learnt from watching another adept, or could spontaneously blossom if Whisper's in a stressful situation.

Playing a scenario like this doesn't really require rules; it's an option to add extra 'flavor' to a beginning character and can be discussed between the player and the GM.

More Magic

Although Magic 6 may represent the upper limit of standard magical abilities, in the same way that 6 in Quickness or Strength is the normal human maximum, there are always instances of extraordinary individuals whose abilities exceed usual limitations. This is represented by the Exceptional Attribute Edge, which permits characters to spend build points on increasing attributes beyond the normal maximum for their metatype. Expanding this Edge to apply also to the Magic Attribute becomes unbalancing, as it is too inexpensive to increase Magic like other Attributes using build points. Thus, a new Edge has been developed to represent supra-normal magical characters.

Adam is running a rare high power campaign, and Chris wants to experiment with an older magic user mentoring some of the younger magic users in the campaign. Adam allows the character to have a magic rating up to 8 but no higher. Chris' mage with a Magic rating of 8 will cost 46 build points - 30 to become a mage, and an additional 16 for two levels in the Exceptional Attribute: Magic edge.

This Edge should only be allowed at the gamemaster's discretion, as it may significantly alter the power level within a game. Use of Exceptional Attribute: Magic should be monitored particularly closely in the case of adepts, as an increased Magic rating brings more Power Points and thus affects their power much more directly than with mages or aspected magicians. Gamemasters may wish to restrict access to this edge to non-player characters.

A character with this Edge still only begins with six Essence, before any Essence loss from cyberware. Cyberware still reduces their Magic rating as normal too; a character with one level of this Edge who gets two Essence points' worth of cyberware begins play with Magic 5 and Essence 4.

Exceptional Magic isn't intended to replicate the effects of Initation before the campaign begins. Characters with Exceptional Magic are not Initiates; they don't have access to metamagic or Initiate-only powers. They just have abnormally high Magic, for any number of in-character explanations. Perhaps the character was born in an area of high magic, was conceived on a ley line, or their mother cast a lot of spells while the baby was in the womb. Who knows? It's Magic, after all.