Over the top Force, Spirits, Concealment, and Mana Bolt Options

[Samaels Ghost]

I guess none of those Mods affect you if you're Astrally Perceiving, though, do they? Except maybe cover

[Moon-Hawk]

True. Although with a spirit that powerful running amok Lone Star will have astral mages present in under six seconds once they find out about it, and going astral opens you up to a world of hurt.
And don't worry. Once Street Magic FINALLY comes out and they reintroduce the background count and some other magic counter-measures everything will get much better.

[Geekkake]

[Geekkake]

[Nim]

[Moon-Hawk]

Regardless, I think the mechanic will be pretty predictable. I'm guessing -2 dice per point of background count, measured on the same scale as previous editions. I plan on implementing it immediately as a house rule and fixing it (if necessary) when Street Magic comes out.
Of course, this is useless for a by-the-book game. Personally, I think it should've been in the core rules if they were going to wait this long to get Street Magic out.

[Geekkake]

[Samaels Ghost]

Well, thanks for the advice. I think I just need to RP the spirits a little better. As for concealment I haven't heard anything but make everyone awakened some how. I get players leaping down my throat when there's too many Awakened NPC around. They're just gonna have to suck it up I guess, so long as they're using spirits so heavily

But once again, any help on concealment besides astral perception would be greatly appreciated.

[Moon-Hawk]

You don't need a guard mage for astral perception. You need one stupid watcher spirit that are farmed out by some 3rd party security company with a crappy weak summoner who does little else and is damn well paid for it.
Or more powerful spirits, aquired in the same way.
Or wards to stop the spirit from coming with you.
The thing is, in SR, magic is powerful and everyone knows that. Security is designed to take this into account. Every place has magical security. That doesn't mean they have a mage on standby, but it does mean wards, spirits, and probably an astral mage on-call. An on-call mage working for a security company can protect dozens of facilities at once, since only one actually needs him at any given time, and that's rare anyway. If he shows up and you're more than he can handle, he buggers off and calls Lone Star.

[Samaels Ghost]

Ooo.... good point. There really haven't been enough contracted summoners. Once those dinky Watchers go down their summoner knows somethings up too.

[Moon-Hawk]

Right, and his job is not to show up and fight to the death like an idiot, either. His job is to investigate, deal with the problem if he can, and notify someone more powerful than him if he can't.

[Shinobi Killfist]

this is just a house rule, but I like consistency so I came up with this. Notice how your attributes are maxed even with mods at x1.5 your racial max, notice how skills are capped with mods at x1.5 there rating. Well I thought it was wierd that magic gets x2 when everything else is at x1.5. While this doesn't fix the rpoblem it helps it a bit if the force of a spell and spirit are capped at x1.5 a spell slingers magic attribute. A starting mage fairly strong in magic might have a 5 magic so 7 force is his starting cap instead of 10. A force 7 spirit is still one tough mama jama but its not the out of control powerhouse a force 9 is.

[Aaron]

Concealment is a physical power. A spirit using Concealment for six (or so) shadowrunners would glow like a prom date to any observer on the astral plane.

[Samaels Ghost]

But how do mundane security guards deal with Concealed runners? in my experience they get wasted, quick. That's it.

[Aaron]

By 2070, I think it's safe to expect that any moderately secure location is going to have some modicum of astral security. A ward is cheap to maintain, slows down magical threats long enough to give the physical security time to detect it, and is a good way to use that one rare magician the company hired to cover multiple sites. There's also "shiver" detection, dual-natured paracritters, biofiber ... sheesh, just go read page 256 of your hymnal; it's all in there.

[Nim]

[James McMurray]

After a particularly harrowing run ask them what sorts of security they have on their homes. It's been my experience that players are vastly more devious than game designers when it comes to figuring out how to protect their loot.

[Samaels Ghost]

Actually, that's not a bad idea...

[Shrike30]

My understanding of the Concealment power is that it doesn't do much against some of the mundane detection methods. Things like pheromone sniffers, millimeter-wave radar (like what's used in cyberware scanners... common devices to install in doorways), and surveillance devices such as pressure plates and ultrasound sensors can all be used by the building's security rigger (or security program) to get pretty accurate locks on where things are. So yeah, your security guards will totally blow the Perception test to see the team... but when he's got a full mag of gel rounds, a clean backdrop, and the security rigger screaming at him to light up the red stick figures he's put on the overlay, any decently trained guard is going to shoot first and ask questions later.

Think about this for a second, folks. Magic's been around for decades longer than the vast majority of us have been alive. Every two-bit mage and his uncle have said "Oh, yeah, baby... get me some Improved Invisibility and a Spirit of Man running Conceal on me, and I can steal anything that's not superglued to a structual element." And the corporations have had just as long to figure out how to prevent this. You know all those nasty tricks that you, as a GM, don't want to use because it seems too nasty? The "rotary drum" type doors with the cyberscanners, the gas hallways, the gel-round miniguns set up for suppressive fire, the pressure plates, the laser beams, the ultrasound? The Awakened guard dogs, the astral overwatch mages, the spirits on patrol, the love beads draped in doorways? This is not "fucking with your players," this is "a reasonable response to the growing threat of magical intrusion and espionage." Any seriously hardened structure (that is, one that in modern days would have armed guards, cameras, motion detectors, and the like) is (in 2070) going to have the kinds of things that I suggested, and more, because magic poses such an incredible security problem that entire industries have grown up to counteract it.

Mid-force wards and watcher spirits are the kinds of defenses you're gonna see on a mom-and-pop store downtown that has an "astral protection" clause right next to the PANICBUTTON hookup and the cyberware scanner maintenance fee on their basic security contract. They're in place to let you know there's been a problem, and allow someone to respond, kind of like a burglar alarm. When you're putting together a security setup that's supposed to stop intrusion, not just be aware of it, you've got to plan a little differently. If your idea of anti-magical security is "one of the guards in the group is wearing ultrasound goggles," your players had better be trying to steal a car out of an upscale restaurant's garage, or something equally inane.

Competent security guards in secured areas are trained to deal with invisible or Concealed opponents because those are one of the major threats they face. They should be trained to respond to commands like "fire at the marker" because the bad people who get into these areas are often invisible. They should be trained to engage using sprayfoam, suppressive fire, or flashbangs because those allow them to somewhat effectively fight threats that they cannot actually see, and often times make it obvious where their opponents are, or at least disrupt the mage's casting and break the sustained spell. They should have magical types of their own on hand to respond in kind... you give guards guns because they might be up against people with guns, it isnt' that much of a leap that you give them magicians because they might be up against magicians.

If your Johnsons are hiring magically-talented groups to break into places that can't put up much resistance (IE, any PC who can summon a Spirit of Man can walk into the place like he owns it), they aren't going to last in the biz very long: they're overspending. Secure installations know about magical incursions, and they work very, very hard at making them impossible. Plan accordingly.

[WorkOver]

[Liminaut]

[Samaels Ghost]

Thank you!!! That's exactly the problem I've been having! other PC's are taking seat while the wizkids duke it out for themselves.

[ornot]

I think the best solution to that would be to limit the things the spirits can do and/or keep very careful track of how many services the spirit owes. I've not had this problem as in SR3 summoning elementals when you were a mage was prohibitively expensive, and none of my players are awakened in the SR4 game I've been running. The players have developed a healthy hatred and suspicion of anyone that even looks like a mage now! ^^

[Aaron]

Here's a question.

Have you been keeping to the time costs of summoning? Our magician summons spirits, but they often don't come into play right away. Consider:

Summon spirit: Complex Action
Call a spirit from the Astral Waiting Room: Simple Action
Command Spirit: Simple Action
Spirit Materialization: Complex Action

Not to mention that if you summon a spirit, it doesn't get into the fight until the next turn, depending on how you read the rules.

Let's assume that the spirit gets to act in the turn it is called. On the first initiative pass, the magician spends a simple action to call the spirit from stand-by, and it appears in the astral. She then uses a simple action to command it to beat up the bad guys. The spirit (probably) has a higher initiative than the magician, and so does not act this IP. In the second pass, the spirit spends a Complex Action to materialize, losing its third IP, and is done this turn.

If the spirit is Concealing a team, then it is already materialized; it has to be in order to use its powers on targets not on the astral plane. (Boyle et al. 176) This cuts down on the time needed to react to material things. However, one ward and it's bump-bump-grr for the spirit; the creator of the ward doesn't even need to be on-site, he can just call up the security chief when he feels something poking at his ward. Plus, an astral being (such as a projecting magician) can use the astral signature of the spirit to track its summoner down later.

[Samaels Ghost]

first, my PC's use all the powers they could possibly need before time contraints like Complex actions an such become a problem. "What, we're on site? Ok, Concealment on the whole party (Spirit included), plus as many Movements as you can, okay Spirit?" Poof, lightning fast characters invisible to most NPCs.

Spirits Manifest (ghostly, non-physical form) right next to the Summoner when summoned or recalled. but, yeah... you're kinda right there, except we all know PC's are notoriously overprepared and cautious. That Spirit is already Materialized most of the time.

Most Spirits we deal with can slip through wards no prob (It's Force x2 vs. Force x2). Plus just slipping through a barrier or even poking/ prodding it won't alert a magician. only attacking a barrier will. (pg. 185)