Awesome, then we're on the same page. The fixer that the team is using thinks along those lines.

My issue is that Shadowrun is known for one thing : A run never goes as planned. I like to give the players this feeling, or I would like to give the players this feeling, but it has to be done carefully. I don't want to force something to just screw with the players but I'd like the world to naturally take care of this itself; perhaps in the form of traffic jams, gangers, enemy runners / corps, etc. Otherwise our games would be very bland.

Two games ago the players broke into a place, evaded security, and got the data without every being discovered. Cool, it was an impressive feat, but appeared to be a milk run due to it's ease (and excellent planning). But milk runs don't make for a good series of games, IMHO at least. And due to my gamers' intelligence every game can be a milk run if I don't toss in a monkey wrench occasionally.

The mage issue is going to cause me all sorts of new headaches though. A mage-centric monkey wrench can easily kill the PCs. Going to have to think about this one.

We found that being dual-natured or going astral was often very bad. Because all the astral crap that can't bother someone on the physical plane can kill you dead in a heartbeat. For example, Manabolts from an atacker inside a ward is hugely deadly on the astral, because your PC mage can't see through the opaque barrier that a ward is on the astral, while the mage or the spirit can see out. Without LOS mana spells don't affect you, and you can only cast mana spells when you are astral.

Do you mean, "When you are astral, you can only cast mana spells," or did you mean to say mana spells can't be cast when you're physical?

In SR4 mages get huge advantage for minimal cost. However it was a lot worse in SR3.

Anyhow, we started seeing PC teams made up completely of mages. The spell defense and astral stuff are independent of how many point of magic you have. Given the right spells you can do some very clever things without a lot of points of magic.

The former. Sorry for the confusion.

Duplicate.

Mages can be quite game-breaking. Must be why I love playing them, ahem.

Good news is that while it's not as easy as with Technomancers to deal with (turns power off, shuts down stuff) there are still ways of countering Magic, as a GM, without being too overt.

1) Background Counts
2) Wards, Barriers, and more Wards. Use the various tricky kinds in Street Magic, so just in case one goes Astral for a little recon...
3) Mundane use of Bio-fiber walls and so on can inhibit spirits.
4) A confluence of cheap cameras and drones. For added fun, these merely send reports back to a central node, checking in once an hour as they do their patrols. They're in constant contact, but they can't be hacked easily (in case you had a hacker nearby). This means OR5+ for multi-sense illusion spells, which is doable.
5) Corpsec should be mostly nonlethal, so they'd be all for the use of SnS ammo, which is great for (or rather against) Spirits. It may do diddly against your Nonconductive-wearing runners, but their drones and spirits will get a shock.
6) Grenades. Be liberal with them.

You can always ease off if your players start doing badly in a fight. But it's harder to escalate and then judge just how much extra force is necessary to scare them.

But Background Counts do wonders, as does Mana Static for your wagemages.

Also, don't neglect the magical investigation angle. Spell auras and spirits do linger and can be traced. Making life hell for the Mage when not on the run should be one of the GM's pastimes.

Damn it, I've been putting off Street Magic. Time to man up I guess, I just read so freakin slow. And thanks for the other suggestions. I'm a bit weak on wards and background counts so I'll start studying those.

There are a bunch of ways to nerf magic to some degree, but you have to have a pretty good idea what is possible using the rules before you want to do this.

First thing to think about is that the visibility mods ALSO affect magic. So if it's dark, raining, etc the mage loses dice on combat spells.

In terms of nerfing, here are a few ideas, there are many other ways to do this. But don't do this as a first recourse.
Direct combat spells are the obvious, you can allow regular damage resistance to them. You can increase the drain. You can make overcasting prohibited or much more dangerous.

You can make mana barriers much more effective. Instead of it adding force as a die modifier, have it provide threshold=force.

Spirits. Have powerful spirits be really annoyed that some puny mortal is summoning them. A force 12 spirit is smarter than any metahuman.... You can reduce the effectiveness of their armor. You can increase the drain done by summoning.

Most players that have read the fluff know that things go wrong on runs. They expect it and start to suspect things when things go smoothly.

Some less experienced players get complacent. After a few smooth flowing games, they assume they know it all, get bored and they get sloppy. They skip the legwork, or don't do a thorough research. Things then come apart. Happens to almost everyone new to my GMing style.

How about keeping him busy on the astral? When an enemy mage starts throwing spells at the players from the astral, it's the mage's duty to step up and duke it out... leaving him dead weight in the meanwhile.

As for spirits materializing inside vehicles I don't think it would always be as easy as it sounds. The spirit must obviously be able to move at the same speed as the vehicle, I would also be tempted to have the spirit make a skill roll in order to match the maneuvering of the vehicle.

A rigger cocoon with 20 armor would foil even a high force spirit and by the look of things renders the occupant more or less immune to LOS spells and critter abilities since it has a structure rating.

Any larger, expensive vehicle would probably have built-in extinguishers. Especially if the vehicle is expected to resist gunfire. For example the M1A2 battle tank has a built in halon extinguisher and most aircraft and boats have something similar even if it's just hand held extinguishers. No one wants to burn to death in a metal box after all. If a fire spirit materializes in such a vehicle and is struck by the extinguishers then it'll have to resist a powerful attack that counts as a severe allergy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

When the spirit is on the astral vehicles can not move fast enough to evade them nor does the armor protect the spirit from flying inside. From there it can manifest and gut the vehicle and incinerate it's passengers. And if fire doesn't do it for you any other spirit can be almost as destructive. I wish it wasn't that easy, but for most vehicles, it is. There are ways of getting around it but I don't see it happening often.

Marwynn gave a good list.

Don't forget that drones should be much more important in security than most GM usually have them be. (They cost less, won't run away and hide, cause less problems when destroyed... and there are ways to reduce the probabilities of hacking). They can be quite problematic for a mage.

Also consider that even if there might not be a squad of patrolling mages in every place, a lot of places will have passive astral defense that can detect astral/magical intrusion and off-site astral backup can arrive very quickly with spirits and projected mages.

Finally, my way to deal with mages is to have them become toxic/crazy/twisted for or because of their powers. It doesn't prevent them from being very powerful, but it adds some side-effects to this power. A mage PC will often want to get more spells, more Magic... often this means more karma. But this can be done faster with some pacts, or by attuning yourself to that "violent death" background count that tend to be around when you fight, so that you get a +1 Magic modifier rather than a -1.
And when you can control minds, you don't just use that power during runs. Come on! You've got a way to cut the line, to get a discount, to get a date with that nova-hot girl, to have her remember your night together as the best of her life...

Is your mage using Invisibility, or Improved Invisibility?
If he is just using Invisibility, then having a Security drone
with the security team works..just have it on Autopilot, following
the guards on their route, and its dog-brain is set to alert the
buildings Spider on encountering muzzle flashes or anyone in
the facility who is not broadcasting correct credentials. Guards should
also have biomonitors that, again, upon death or unconsciousness,
alert the Rigger and appropriate other assets in the facility.

Also, does not attacking make invisibility get dropped?

Do the runners also remember to put their commlinks in Hidden Mode?
Does the Samurai have the wireless on his Cyberware disabled? Do
they make sure to run a Tag eraser over their clothes? It can be amusing
for them to be going through the building, the Sam invisible, except for
the AR broadcast of "Jacket bought at Weapons World! On sale until XXXX, only 300 Nuyen!"
around him (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Even Gangers should have little "pet" drones. Drones are everywhere, and so are image links. Regular Invisibility should be no real problem to counter.

I've got to say that spirits using edge after force 4 is a good possibility. Force 4 means willpower 4 which makes for a willful being. I'd flip a coin to see if they fully resist at that force range (barring good roleplaying,) but 6 or more should always throw edge to resist summoning. A force 6 spirit has a genius intellect and a heroic will. It should not be content to be ordered around.

Here's another idea for messing up the mage if anyone ever gets a bead on him. Equip response teams and drones with strong spotlights or diffuse lasers designed to cause blindness/disorientation. Without flare compensation, directed light can cause huge vision penalties on anyone. Much in the same way, sonics can be used on anyone without dampers installed. For instance, give him negative modifiers to sustain spells with alarms blaring.

I think the question is how materialization works. It's a complex action isn't it? Can it be done smoothly in a maneuvering helicopter without appearing with your head inside the rotors by accident?

Also if any spirit can materialize anywhere while going at astral speeds then a mage could ask a spirit to materialize in front of an enemy while going at 100+ metres per second. I don't have the books with me, but if you count it as a ramming test then even a low force spirit could do something like 20DV...

What are the options for mundane characters when it comes to fighting spirits, manifest or otherwise? The Immunity to Normal Weapons on a high force spirit makes damaging it worse than attacking some vehicles. A spirit that doesn't manifest is essentially untouchable by a mundane. Are there weapons a mundane can use to fight the astral, or that are specifically targeted at manifest spirits without allergies? Our groups mage is running the next session, and we've lost all our magical backup...

Your best bet is either APDS ammo or Stick-n-Shock and various Tasers, but yes that requires manifestation.

If it's on the astral it can't really hurt you. It can't cast spells or attack your astral forms if you're not astrally perceiving or projecting. So don't, if you can. Now, those Possession spirits are something else.

There are various drugs that'll let you become dual-natured for a bit, if you really want to punch a spirit. I don't know if that's worth it.

AV Rounds and AZ-150 Stun baton handles the manifestation portion, I guess. Not pretty, but better than nothing.


Now THAT... is an awesome idea. Does it only allow for unarmed attacks, or can you use a weapon foci to attack astral while you're Under The Influence?.. Assume I have no Magic rating at all.

Weapon Foci have to be attuned to you, and only Awakened can use them.

I forget if the drugs let you use unarmed in place of astral combat.

Hrm. Ok, a related question... Magical Compounds are listed as being usable by Mundanes or Awakened (Street Magic p88). Most of them give Critter Powers. I cannot find a power rating for these compounds. Since critter powers are based on a critter's magic rating, does this mean a mundane is SoL? Or is there a clause somewhere I'm missing that specifies the power of the compound? The price listings for the Compounds don't specify a strength or rating either.

Edit: Drugs let you use unarmed or weapon foci. However, your stats are based on willpower and charisma, not your physical stats. It sounds like going astral or dual is a bad idea for a street sam. Best to keep things in the physical world for now. However, magical compounds used by mundanes would be just plain fun.

You can't toss spells at the mundanes from the astral. What we've seen is that when the mage does his astral perception bit he gets manabolted from the astral. We've been on both side of this. It pays to be the guy laying in wait....

Ayeohx, since you have two players you have an opportunity to create a very deep and detailed setting for your players. For my own games the way I deal with spirits is to treat them like NPCs.

I detail where the spirits are from, what their motivations are etc. For example, my Mage player likes to summon Fire Elementals (mainly because he has a binding focus for them). In my games all of the Fire Elementals are from the same Meta Plane, but from two different factions. Some are from the Bronze City others are from the Black Castle (yes I've clearly stolen ideas from Arabian Nights, and yes all the spirits have vaguely Arabian sounding names.

They also have a very strict caste system, so say a force one spirit may be a slave and a force nine spirit a powerful lord. Also they are all different sizes. The force nine spirit would stand eleven feet tall, have the head of an elephant and bright blue skin, with all sorts of gold jewelry and pierces, and perhaps a huge flaming scimitar.

Once you establish this kind of detail, you could play around with it. Spirits from the Bronze City will fight those from the Black Castle if given half the chance. They may refuse to work with each other or end up yelling insults at each other during a run. Also a spirit from a higher caste may treat other lower caste spirits badly, refuse to work with them, or attempt to command them to do things.

All of this the Mage must manage.

A powerful spirit may take its time materializing, coming into the material world in a flashy matter (a Fire Elemental may slowly materialize from a swirling smoke at first then glowing embers appear finally flames and then a huge roar as the ten foot tall monster is finally materialized screaming "Great Sulaiman I come to do your bidding!" Also may not fit in helicopters, or at the very least if it does it may tear the thing up, bring it down from the sky exploding and destroying the spirit as it does so.

The Concealment Power I like to tie somehow to the Spirit itself. For example an Air Elemental using the Concealment Power would conjure up a thick fog. It may take a few minutes for it to build up and it would move with you, concealing all within it. Useful in many circumstances, but if you are sneaking around inside a secure facility, a thick obscuring supernatural fog may not be all that subtle.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Ok, just skimmed the thread but it seems to me that you need to lower the general dicepools and start imposing things like background count and reasonable "anti-Runner" security setups such as turning out all of the lights, strobing flashpacks, blaring loud music, and in more secure facilities, venting in smoke and fugi spores to make everyone's life more miserable.

Really Mages are powerful but virtually everything they do with their mojo leaves an Astral fingerprint that can really screw them over, you aren't giving them all of the time in the world to clean up after themselves are ya?