Then I would say if someone can even track that YOU'VE used the info, you're likely using it wrong. As far as seeing you get it in the first place.... they would have to be Astral, or dual natured at the very least to be able to identify the spell you cast, and in some cases that you cast one at all.
Which means they are as bright on the astral as you are, and just as visible, so observing you surreptitiously is a problem. Spy drones wouldn't see dick all, as they are drones, data recorders would only see the dude lost the fight and not you rummageing around in his mind, and that is only if you left them intact for retrieval later, cause if he's that important odds are he's smart enough to not run an open pan to cyberware in a hot zone.

Also who said I'm the one using the info. Sell it, store it, release it anonously on the internet if its really funny stuff, or perhaps just start building a data cache to be released so many hours after your pan goes off line just to blackmail people who originally owned the data and keep them from coming after you for it.
Depending on its value, and how you got it, I'm sure an info broker contact would be very interested in buying it.

They'd have to know you had access to the person with the information in question, and then they'd likely kill you anyway if they were so important. I honestly don't see a down side.

Well most people don't run around with semi automatic grenade launchers and MMGs, on top of that just because most people in your game toss 20+ dice doesn't mean most people toss 20+ dice. according to the polls its more like in the 12-14 dice range. If control thoughts required a similar level of specialization to pull off I don't think there would be an issue, problem is its so powerful you don't need it. All you proved is some other things can be broken to, whopedy do. No on ever claimed that you can't make characters insta kill machines in other routes. The big difference is control thoughts is insta kill right out of the gate even when playing a totally gimped mage. It even overpowers the other magic spells as in its not balanced within its own archtype.

The damage I listed was for an assault rifle which most runners do have.



That isn't even optimized. Nothing I listed was hard, expensive or rare. Most starting samis will likely have a 5 in their preferred fire arm, an agility of 5 with 2 points in some muscle ware. A specialization is cheap to get, smart guns are nearly ubiquitous, as is EXEX ammo.



People who can do this are far easier to make and use then a caster.



That gimped mage your talking about still takes a TON of bp to build, and as such should get something for its money.

And yet you still wont be running around with one much, any automatic is hard to conceal so is hard to run around with.




And yet, most people still don't roll 20 dice, odd.



No, the mage is far easier to make.



No the mage doesn't. The mage is absurdly cheap to make. Still overall I don't think magic is brokenly overpowered. Just this spell set. Given that they have out of combat utility it would be nice if these spells where a bit weaker than stun bolt but no they are easier to pull off and more powerful. Its not magic we are against just these spells which are far and away more powerful than any other spells in the game. If they invented a new cyberware initiative booster that let you have 6ip and +6 to your reaction score for 2 essence, I'd be complaining it is too powerful compared to other cyber gear. While overall cyber types are not unbalanced that piece of gear is. I personally think the semi auto grenade launcher is too powerful especially for a small weapon. If it were huge and obvious I'd less of an issue though it would still seem a bit over the top.(though in 4a and no extra DV for net hits not as much)

Really? One aditional attribute, 15+ BP Qualities, 3BP per spell, not counting BPs for skills noone else needs. For that amount you can get alot of 'ware. I still don't get, why these spells are more powerfull than a stunbolt/stunball.
Let's see:
Mage A casts a force 9 stunball at a group of WIL 3 Mooks. With his Magic of 5 and spellcasting five he is hardly optimised. All mooks with less than 3 successes with 3 dice drop unconscious. This takes up one Complex Action The Drain is 5P. Unless the mage has a big soakpool he'll receive some phyiscal damage.

Mage B casts a force 5 Mob mind with the same pool at a similar crowd. Everyone is under his spell after the fist complex action. He has to soak 6S. Unless he has 12 or more soak dice, 3 boxes of stun and remain and thus a -1 penalty is likely. Then he has to use a simple action to order the crowd, which then starts to kill each other, given that they are mooks it probably won't work in one round. During all this time the mage is at -3 (-1 drain, -2 sustained spell.) In addition he has the problem of being considered a mass murderer if someone detects his involvement. Mage A only faces several charges of assault.

I think that is pretty balanced.
Where do you draw the line? An Ares Alpha is better (and more costly) than an AK 98, would you like to ban that weapon as well?

First of all, the suggestions of changing the rules in response to a player using them to their advantage? Horrible. The GM controls the entire world, and can use any number of creative tactics to thwart a player. You can kill the player at whim in whatever way you choose, and your only recourse is to alter the rules? That's just lazy. "Sorry player, I don't want to challenge myself by thinking, I'll simply prevent you from doing what you're doing, even though I didn't warn you not to do it when you first made the character." Bogus. I didn't read anyone considering it as a serious solution, I just wanted to throw my 2 yen at that particular issue.

Anyway, it shouldn't be that hard to challenge the mage. For one thing, you have ambushes. The mage won't be able to remove the enemies from combat before they're a threat if they ambush the team. Also, if they get in close, Mob Mind will end up affecting the team as well, unless the mage restricts the area, which causes a big dice penalty. I figure that other team members won't like being controlled with Mob Mind. Group commands also won't be that useful either -- if the command is "walk away like nothing happened," then all members of the team will start going their separate ways... If you're forced to control the gangers individually with simple actions, then the ones who haven't been issued any commands are still free to act, and beat the tar out of the mage.

Also, there's the fact that Control Thoughts does take over someone's mind, but only until they shake it off. And once they shake it off, they don't forget what just happened to them. You only control their thoughts as long as the spell lasts, but once it drops, they'll realize that something just happened, and they'll raise the alarm. It's not like Influence, where they think it was their idea, and it's not like Alter Memory where they forget that it ever happened. They are fully conscious, and their memories are not altered, they are just forced to obey the commands while they are being controlled. Of course, if you see some gangers standing around in front of you, you can Mob Mind them and make them kill themselves. But if they're not standing around in the open like doofuses, if you can't catch them in the area without hitting your own team too, then that's not an option, and Mob Mind becomes effectively useless as a way to remove them from the combat.

Note as well that Mob Mind doesn't give you access to their mind. You can tell them what to do, but not know what they know. If you want to find out information, Mob Mind and Control Thoughts are pointless. IMO, if you tell them "Tell me the password," they'll just say "The password." If you ask them "Tell me where I can find the girl!" they'll just say "Where I can find the girl." They have to obey your commands, not answer your questions. That's what Mind Probe is for.

So, the short answer is, make the missions a little more complicated. Don't make them all situations where the enemies are clustered together in one place, and the PCs can walk up and neutralize them. Let there be ambushes, let the enemies get close before the mage can act, let the goal be more than "clear out the gangers and grab the macguffin." If the mage is breaking all your encounters, then the problem is with your encounters, not the mage. Keep in mind that even if there was no mage, if you've got a top notch set of PCs, the gangers wouldn't matter anyway. Instead of your mage clearing them out with a single Mob Mind, your combat characters would destroy them within 3-6 seconds of suppressed/silenced gunfire. They're gangers! I hear it a lot, but I'm always nonplused when a GM says "I'm using small numbers of crappy gangers as the main enemies in my current plot, and it's not even a challenge for my players!" Of course it isn't! Gangers are the small fry. Unless your PCs are also small fry, it won't create any seriously fun action when they have to fight gangers. The one time when gangers can really be a source of action is when there are a lot of them.

If you really want gangers to be dangerous, here's what you do. After the PCs have poked around and pissed the gang off, wait until nightfall when the PCs are outside. And then suddenly, what do you hear? About 25 motorcycles approaching fast. It's dark, so the mage has a pretty severe penalty. And what's this? Headlights from two dozen bikes impose a heavy glare penalty! If the mage has cybereyes to negate this kind of thing, change it from an ambush on bikes to an ambush out of a blind alley -- the PCs come down an alley and suddenly dozens of gangers pour out of dumpsters, windows, manhole covers, surrounding them before the mage can use his AoE spells without hitting his own team! They might suck, but if there's a lot of them then they'll get a huge Friends in Melee bonus to pound the crap out of your PCs. They'll have to run away, set traps, be a little clever for once... Clever GMing leads to clever playing, and uninspired GMing leads to boring playing. It's sad that so much rides on the GM being creative, but it does. You have to challenge yourself as a GM not to screw the players over by changing the rules to nerf them, but by creating situations where the rules already tilt the balance of power away from the players and they have to think creatively to succeed.

Control Mob Mage:

Human
Attributes:
2 in all of them (90 BP, including Edge and Magic).

Qualities:
Mage (15 BP)

Spells:
Mob Control (3BP)

Skills:
Spellcasting 2 (manipulation +2) (10 BP)

Total cost: 118BP

Effectiveness:
6 dice to casting Mob Control at Force 2 (average 2 successes or more, 60+% chance of success) vs. Willpower

I've already shown that the average NPC with Willpower 3 can't overcome a Force 2 mind control spell on the first resistance check, in which case the target(s) die. Doesn't do so well on resisting the drain (how much is the drain on Mob Control?) with only 4 dice, but he isn't going to fall unconscious.

Adding the cheese:
Spellcasting 6 (manipulation) (+16 BP)
Magic 4 (+20BP)
Improved Initiative (3BP)
Sustaining Focus 3 (don't know the cost offhand, under 20BP?)
Mentor Spirit (15BP? Get one that adds dice to Manipulation spells)
Total additional cost: 74BP (192BP)


Effectiveness:
14 dice* to casting Mob Mind at up to Force 8, though will need increased stats to mitigate the drain.
10 dice to casting Improved Initiative, decent chance for 3 passes, sustaining focus to keep it active.

I've just outdone your average streetsam in dice (12-14) without hard capping magic (+2 more dice for 16 total, grab a fetish?), and can keep up with your average combat monkey (getting 4 IP at chargen is near impossible--if you need it, there are drugs).

And I did it under 200BP.

*Edit: had a 15 here, either it or the 10 was a mistake in math, I could only find 14 dice when I went to fix it.

you can control their thoughts to "i should tell the mage <insert desired information here>" and they will then spill their guts.

you can also simply order everyone to stop fighting if you catch your allies in the AOE, then tell your allies to leave the AOE (which will then release them), then do whatever you like with the others. compare this to manaballing or stunballing the area... your allies come out with 0 boxes of damage taken in the mind control situation, and probably come out of it with several boxes of damage if you drop a force 9 stunball on the area, and potentially even go into physical damage instead of just stun.

Except that it takes a Force 5 or 6 Stunball to knock out the group, where as it only takes a Force 2 or 3 to Mob Control them.

I think my next character with have the spell knack Control Thoughts.

That might get my GM to ban the spell...which honestly I don't want him to do, but it would probably come to that.

With 4 or 5 net hits this is true, but consistantly gathering 5-6 gross hits needs a pretty skilled mage, not to metntion the weird optional drain rule of SR4AUnless someone rolls 2 or three hits on the first resistance roll.

with 3 dice (average opponent's willpower) it's very unlikely. even on 6 dice (3 willpower + 3 counterspelling) it's not all that likely to get 3 hits, let alone 4 or 5 if the mage decides to up the force of his spellcasting a little.

Errr.... no.

With 3 dice, you have a ~31% chance to get at least two 5's or 6's, and a ~6% chance to get 3. 31% is very, very far from "very unlikely". As a matter of fact, in a group of 5 people, it's ~85% likely that at least one person will completely resist the spell.

Its probably also reasonable to assume that the target continues doing what it's doing until its told to stop. After all, "stop what you're doing" is a command, isn't it?

As for social/reputation fallout, well... that's where the GM needs to start handing out Notoriety.

-paws

Great post. For me, everything is said in this text . If you let the player dance on the table, you are a lousy cat. That´t it.

First of all, the spell says you have to issue them commands. It might be called "control thoughts," but per RAW it's not really absolute control over their mind. You can't let the title "control thoughts" dictate the rules -- the title is pretty much fluff, the rules are listed in the spell description. The description says that the caster directs everything the target does by controlling their mind. "The caster mentally gives commands with a Simple Action and the target is compelled to obey." They clearly don't control everything the target thinks, they only control the target's actions by giving commands. You can't tell them "you think you want to give this person money." Or maybe you could, but it wouldn't do anything. They would obey the command by thinking "I want to give this person money." But since your command was not to give the money, they don't give it. The way to limit this spell is to follow a strict interpretation of the rules -- the targets obey commands literally, since the only requirement is that they obey the command. The requirement is not that they obey the command just like the caster wanted them to.

What you describe is actually illegal under the rules. You must give a command to them, which they must obey. You don't actually control their thoughts and make them want to do something, you command them to do something directly. You could command them "I command you to want to tell the mage everything." And then they would want to do it, but wouldn't do it, because that's not required to obey the command. Or you could command them "I command you to tell the mage everything," in which case they'd look at the mage and say "Everything." And you might even be more strict than that -- if you Control Thoughts on a guard outside of a door, you might tell him "Input the keycode and let us in," in which case he'd go over to the keypad and start punching "the keycode" using numbers. You could tell him "let us into this building," and he'd stand aside and say "you may enter this building." You might try "open the door" and then "let us in" with two simple actions, in which case he might open the door, let you in, and then sound the alarm once the spell wears off. You might try "Open the door," "let us in," and then "leave the area quietly," in which case he would open, let you in, and wander away. And then 2 minutes later when he shrugged off the spell, he'd come back and hit the alarm. Again, it doesn't erase memories -- as soon as the spell is off, they'll realize they let an unauthorized person into the building for no reason, and act accordingly. You couldn't command them to forget that you were there -- whether or not that even worked, it wouldn't work anymore the second the spell was off.

Everything I've listed here is 100% within the RAW -- it says that the target is required to obey the command, and that's it. As long as their actions do not disobey the command, it's within the RAW. Having the targets follow the commands literally allows the spell to be less broken without a house rule, as it's completely within RAW. Also, it means there's a reason to have more than just Control Thoughts. They might need Mind Probe, Analyze Truth, etc. to get information from people.



You could do that, but you can only issue commands to individual members or the whole group. That means you'd need to take a simple action per ally to have them "go 10 meters away from here" or whatever. By the time you're finished commanding them all, the targets may be out from under the spell and beating the tar out of you. Or, horror of horrors, they might be more than one group of badguys! Let's say some gangers with swords and clubs ambush your team and you have to Control Thoughts to stop them from beating on you. And then it turns out there are gangers on a nearby roof and they're going to huck molotov cocktails at you! In the meantime, your allies would be standing still, unable to help fight against the second group because you as the mage control "everything the target does," per the spell description (yeah, I know I supposed that they could still act independently earlier, but I changed my mind after reading that quote from the RAW). So before you can command all of your allies to leave the area one at a time, the second group of enemies sets you all on fire. Or they shoot you, whatever. The point is, very basic tactics such as "enemies in more than one group" tend to negate this spell pretty well. Of course, you could Control Thoughts one group of enemies and tell them "Attack that other group!" But again, they might do it literally -- they might attack with their hands and feet instead of their guns. They might pick up rocks off the ground and attack them with those. Or if the GM is clever and one groups on a roof and the other is in the street, they'll start rushing up or down the stairs, only to have the spell wear off partway through, and then they'll come back.

Regardless of the tactics that can defeat this, there's the simple matter of your teammates not liking it when you control their thoughts. I know that many mundane characters I've played would threaten an allied mage with bodily harm if they ever did that. Using Mob Mind on the team without their consent would be a definite blow to intra-team relations as long as the other team members have even a basic level of roleplaying skill. Also, using Mob Mind with the team in the AoE is a total buzzkill for the other players -- what are they, chopped liver? If some gangers ambush the team at close range, maybe the other team members should have a chance for once, and they should take care of it instead of letting the mage try to do it with Mob Mind, a tool which is very poorly suited to the task.

The last posts makes me wonder what would happen if a 1 IP mage controls a 2 IP guard and ask him (with his first action) to open a door for him: the guard will open the door with his first action... But what then? Is he free to use his second action as he wants?

Mage : "Open the door"
*Guard opens the door*
Guard : "What am I doing ?"
*Guard closes the door*
Mage : "Open the door!"
*Guard opens the door*
Guard : "Again?"
*Guard closes the door*
Mage : "Keep the door open!"
Guard : "I can't keep it open, it's closed!"
Mage : "Open the door and keep it open!"
*Guard opens the door and keeps it open during his first IP*
Guard : "Why do I keep opening this door?"
* Guard closes the door *
...

Open the door and keep it open is a valid order. The target is compelled to obey. If he closed the door again, he wouldn't obey the order any longer. While issueing an order take a simple action, the fulfillment of this order can take a lot longer, as long as the target remains in the area of effect and the spell is not broken.

Another issue came to my mind, how can a target expend a complex action to resist after Force turns if he is already doing something that uses his actions?

So you use a low force Mob Control and one or two resist completely.

The rest blow their brains out.

A group of 10 just became a group of 2. I fail to see the justification on how this is "ok."

What you keep doing here is inserting a bunch of quotation marks that don't exist into these instructions thus allowing targets to interpret orders in counter-intuitive ways.

You could just as easily argue that the command:

Shoot yourself.

can be interpreted :

Shoot 'yourself'.

resulting in the target opening a Dictionary and shooting the entry for 'yourself'.

You have allowed the target to stop parsing the command as instructions and to start parsing it as data to be acted upon by the preceding instructions.

You have done so arbitrarily at a point in the command where doing so supports your spurious argument with no other basis for so doing.

The caster directs everything the target does. Ergo the target does not do anything that the caster does not direct him to do.

Which means as soon as you are affected by these spells you stop taking actions of any sort until the caster tells you to do something.

Ok. I was suspecting something like this, but I didn't have the book to confirm it.
Too bad, I like these stupid scenes a lot. (Hopefully I still have Dying Earth to play these).

Since all Mental Manipulations are subject to this rule, I would assume it overrides the specifics of the spell, allowing the target to take a Complex action and wrestle with the magic, regardless of what the spell would otherwise have him doing.

I don't think that's a literal interpretation of the command. Shooting a word in a dictionary is not an accepted meaning of the words "shoot yourself." So no, you can't argue that "just as easily." By your logic, I'd have to think about, when someone asked me for the keys, whether they mean the keys that I have, or the word keys in the dictionary. A little far fetched, don't you think? And your example falls apart pretty quickly anyway, all I have to do is say "shoot yourself in the head," and there's no other possible meaning. Even if they interpret the command as "Shoot 'yourself in the head,'" that doesn't change the meaning, it's surplus punctuation that doesn't do anything.

However, "tell me the password" could just as likely as not mean to tell you the words "the password." The only way to tell the difference is if the person can see whether there are quotation marks around "the password," which they can't do. The caster controls everything the target does, but the caster is not granted access to the target's knowledge and memories, he can only issue commands. Think about it like a marionette -- it doesn't do anything you don't make it do, you can't start it dancing and then have it keep going on its own. The same with the target of Control Thoughts. They can't do something that you can't command. You don't know the password, so you can't command them to speak the password. If you tell them to, they'll just follow your command to the letter and say "the password." You cannot, using one simple command, cause them to act on your behalf as if they're willingly doing it, they are under deep mind control and will only perform commands to the letter, the very most basic way they can. If you want someone's death to look like a suicide, you're not going to get results saying "Write a convincing suicide note." They're just write down, "A convincing suicide note." You have to tell them each sentence to write, like "Write: Dear friends, I have grown tired of life. I will therefore now shoot myself. Goodbye forever." Of course, there's no guarantee that they'll write it with proper spacing or capitalization or punctuation. They can't see the words of your command in their head, they can only hear them, and while they must obey, the spell can't require them to be inventive and go for the meaning of what you said, rather than the literal interpretation. What I'm arguing, in other words, is that people affected by Control Thoughts follow the RAW, never the RAI. And they do it in the least useful way possible, within belief, otherwise the spell is too powerful.

I'm not saying that this is the only possible interpretation, I'm saying that it's best from a balance standpoint and still within the RAW.

There are only 3 reasons you'd want to use your interpretation instead of mine:

a) You are an SR4 detractor who argues broken interpretations as a matter of course, in order to use that as a means of attacking the game and those who like it. You can't accept a non-broken interpretation, because that means you'd be wrong about how horrible the game is, and wouldn't be able to use this as yet another "flaw" in the RAW to beat people with.

b) You like to play mental manipulations mages, and you don't want this spell to be nerfed, you want it to be all powerful so your characters continue to be all powerful.

c) You think the spell is still perfectly fair and balanced under your interpretation, there's no reason to require a literal reading of the commands because it's completely fair as it is.

If you don't mind my asking, which is it? That way, I can more directly address your concerns instead of just responding to your arguments tit for tat.

You keep putting this idea forward that the target has room to wiggle out of the effects of the spell, but they don't.

There is no room for creative interpretation.

"The caster seizes control of the target’s mind, directing everything the target does."


Not to mention that every target, everywhere, acting like this - and having the balls to continue to try to frustrate a mage with the power to seize total control of their mind - would be completely unbelievable and metagamey.

The stupid test:

However, "tell me the password" could just as likely as not mean to tell you the words "the password."

Is this stupid?

HELL FUCKING YES IT IS.

Shut up Larme.

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