With only a few exceptions, the only gun my gun bunnies have ever needed was a pistol. Usually an Ares Predator. Automatic pistols aren't necessary.

But anyway, the answer to your question is that, everything else being equal, spells need to do more damage to offset the risk of drain. Although there are ways to twist the system for better results, for the most part combat spells (direct and indirect) don't produce the damage output to make them viable combat options. You're frequently better off shooting someone.

Where spells are more useful is doing what guns can't. For example, area effect, elemental effects, and the ability to ignore armor are cases where spells have an advantage. What that means is guns are better for straight-up damage, but spells are more versatile and are better in corner cases. They have different roles. That's what makes them "equal"-- they're equal in utility, not DPS.

It was technically possible in SR1 and 2. The skill web led to all kinds of silliness. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

Do don´t pay karma for your your weapons, your armor, your attributes that cannot be raised by cyber, you don´t have to deal with drain (which is our ammo), with background-count, and so forth, and forth, and forth. So i would say that the sides are equal. The mage CAN be the swiss-army-knife of the team, i agree he has a lot of advantages but you pay for them and it comes also with massive drawbacks. The sam has his part in the team as every other class has and i haven´t seen any class outshining another if you play right.

I have. The adept in SR5 can outshine the sammies at everything they could possibly do. They're simply better in just about every objective measurement, and have a bundle of non-objectively-measurable advantages as well.

I don't think drain values are the only explanation, though those certainly played a part.
There's also the fact that direct combat spells are a lot less iconic, i can certainly understand an incentive to give indirects more use than the odd anti-vehicle application.

Since for a lot of players the only incentive that really works is the nerfbat...

Ok, than is THIS the new problem and we can agree that mages are over-nerfed and everything was fine before except that the drain for direct spells was too low (which i absolutely agree to)?


Can you point that out a bit more detailed or transfer me to a topic that might discuss this problem at the moment? Is it just a long-term problem (means at SOME point the Adept outshines the sam or is it already a character-creation-level-problem?

Sorry for the massive use of the word "problem". ^^

Overnerfed? I'd say without reagents they'd be nerfed just right. With reagents? Still quite OP.

Please don´t start this dicussion again. We just came to a spot where we agreed that we have different point of views. ^^

I'll help you out.

Adepts and mages are fine.

It's Mystic Adepts that have the problem.

Build an adept. Doesn't matter how.

Now replace "adept" with "mystic adept." Lose nothing, gain a fuckton of other abilities. Same priority, same karma costs, same abilities with the same dice pools and same limits. But now you have spellcasting.

Ah, ok. Of this problem i was aware. But with common Adepts everything is fine? ^^

Less Iconic for whom? Magic Missile is THE Iconic Direct Spell...

Reagents are just stupid, in my opinion... *shrug*

Except that ti is NOT the same SKills and Abilities. Since you have an Adept that just changes over to Mystic Adept, his spellcasting abilities are completely nonexistant. Also, his Adept abilities are ALSO non-existant unless you spend the Karma to purchase them back (as a Mystic Adept you do not start with them by default). So No... You DO lose a lot from a pure Adept with just a replacement. However, if designed with the Abilities of a Mystic Adept in mind, then yes, they are the default archetype. They are an Adept+, or a Magician+ depending upon your viewpoint, to be sure. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thank you for proving my point. Yes, they lose in a minor way by having skill ratings a point lower in some areas, but in general they are Better than being pure mage or pure adept.

You are welcome... They are broken, is what they are. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

In a long-term-point-of-view every awakened char. is broken because the theoretical limit oif development is non-existent, but the REALITY shows us, that it comes with the price of being not-so-good at the start and this is what equals them out compared to mundane ones.

Sadly, they are only inequal at start if you design them that way. You CAN make a starting Adept that is better than a Street Sam, depending upon your design goals of both. Same goes with a Magician vs. Street Sam. Yes, the Awakened will have some drawbacks the Mundane's do not ever deal with, but that is often beside the point, if you actually plan for those situations, which you CAN do, especially since the most common drawback (Background Count) is moving from a detriment to a simple Dice Penalty in SR5.

I haven´t read about the changes in BC in SR5 up to now. If it really is only a dice-pool-penalty anymore, i agree that the balance is switching the wrong way. BC was a good way to control awakened chars and made the Sam THE reliable force to save your ass. If this barrier falls...it would make Sams obsolete which is bad.

Actually as a dice pool penalty BC got more usable because it wasn't "Oh you lose X points of adept powers, X points of magic/force, spells get reduced by X amount, and you take X amount more drain, and you lose X dice, and...unless the BC is the same kind as your casting, in which case you gain those benefits, and..."

SR4 background count more than rating 2 was devastating to an awakened character, but should have been all over the place (cough, large city, cough). So they ended up being unused except for rare situations.

While they're not as much of a hindrance any more, they are FAR more usable mechanically.

We use Background Count a LOT in SR4A. It is very usable... Now, it is only a nuissance, at best, and not even that when planned for.

I've had it come up twice in games I've played, ever.

Once as Mana Static (cast at the PCs) and once as Astral Hazing (on a PC; who we actually hurled at a low-force spirit on one occasion).

And once again the MAIN-RULE of SR needs to be mentioned: a balanced game stays and falls with the skills of the GAMEMASTER. If he doesn´t use the options of the game, the different classes run wild.

Or as someone's signature points out:

"The less the GM understands the Matrix rules, the less powerful the Hacker archetype. The less the GM understands the Magic rules, the more powerful the Mage archetype."
My GM could really push the Matrix fairly well. There was still the Pizza Problem, but at least he could make the matrix useful to a degree that a Hacker didn't feel useless. On the other hand, he didn't run a lot of the magic stuff in a way that hurt power gamers.

Taking this statement as true, that "The sam has his part in the team as every other class has and i haven´t seen any class outshining another" then why are we discussing mages being over-nerfed? Surely if that statement is true then they've been nerfed just right and everyone now has an equal place?

I should have added the phrase "in SR4A". ^^ In SR5 mages ARE overnerfed. ^^