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The way I understand it, a magician at 8th circle can only have a total of 4 matrices compared to 6 in the third edition.

Is it correct?

Yes. They would have 2 Standard and 2 Enhanced.

I believe if you wanted more spell matrices you can pick up extra magician disciplines. While you do not get the free 1st circle spell matrix talents, my understanding is that you can use the talent options of the 2nd/3rd/4th magician disciplines to get extra matrices.

That is one way.

Matrix items would be another.

Casting raw magic and praying is the other method I find myself stuck with at times.

Dale you made my day

So in 4th ED there is no limit on how much matrices magician can have? If they obtained it through talent options or versatility?

There is a limit. There is one Standard Matrix available as a Novice talent option, and one Enhanced Matrix available as a Journeymen talent option.

If a magician picks up a second caster Discipline, they don't get the "free" matrix talents again, but they can pick up the talent option one from their new Discipline if they wish. I would say that a human learning matrices with Versatility would be limited to one of each type; so one Standard, one Enhanced, etc.

What about caster with 3 disciplines? He can also get matrices as options so it increases by another 2

I think that versatility restriction to matrices should be somewhere in the book

I personally wouldn't put any restrictions on picking up matrices through Versatility. There are far, far more useful Talents to be using Versatility on, especially since you can pick up additional matrices with Thread items. If a player really wants to spend their primary racial advantage just to have a few extra spells at hand, I won't stop them.

Yeah, to be honest, that's one of those things that I think would be better decided by individual groups.

Versatility doesn't allow you to pick up anything indicated as a "Free" talent, but you can pick up options. Practically speaking then, you could pick up 4 Standard Matrices (one from each magician Discipline), and 4 Enhanced (again, one from each Discipline). If somebody really wants to spend Versatility slots (and the Legend Points that go along with it)... that's their choice, and I don't think it is [i]that[/] crazy.