Shoot the mage first?, Did it ever make sense in SR? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Switch to: Standard Linear+

[Rasumichin]

Recently, somewhere on this forum, the question came up wether security personell is still advised to "shoot the mage first", as was the case since SR2's Awakenings came out.

I'm not certain wether this doctrine appears anywhere within SR4, but it certainly is prevalent in the minds of many GMs who suppose it to be a choice for sec-guards both plausible from an ingame perspective and strategically feasible on the mechanic side.

I must admit that, after reading Awakenings back in the mid-90s, i found the whole concept to just make sense.
"Yeah, guards would act like that", i thought, "and it would make fights more challenging for the group".

Recently, though, i am more and more coming to the point of discarding the whole concept, at least from a mechanics-inspired metagamey point of view.

While within the setting, many possible opponents -those whose knowledge of magic is derived from watching Karl Combatmage- might actually fall for it, any opposition with serious training, all enemies able to keep a level head in a fight against a runner team, might actually not decide to target the spellcaster first.

See, in other RPGs, those where magical healing is something happening on the instant, not taking time to be upheld until it comes into effect, the most feasible choice would be to take out the healer first.
Otherwise, he will be able to foil or at least seriously hinder any attempt to eleminate other teammembers by instantly healing the damage done to them, buying his team the time to hack the opposition into pieces.
So, in D&D, the best advice for a group of enemies would be to go for the cleric.
Or, in RPGs such as DSA/TDE, where healing is also the mage's job, actually shooting -or slashing, or rending, or whatever- the mage first actually is the way to go.

In SR, the mage usually also functions as the group's healer, but will rarely be able to do so in mid-combat, as heal spells have to build up over several rounds.
Shooting the mage can also lead to one or more spirits going free, with completely unforeseeable consequences best dealt with under more controlled conditions.

So, if we do not target the mage, the next logical choice would be to target the group member with the highest damage output, as without the hindering factor of instant healing, he would pose the greatest threat.
And with a sufficiently optimized sam or with a well-prepared drone rigger, i have doubts that this group member will be the mage.

Another aspect to be taken into consideration is the importance of initiative in SR combat.
Would it be the most feasible option to shoot the party member first who...well, shot first?

These are just some ideas i speculated about during the last days.
What is your opinion on the issue?
Of course, there will be situations where one will not be able to apply textbook tactics for a group of sec-guards.
Where greatly varying, situational aspects mandate a certain mode of operation.

But in general, is there a reason to stick to the old motto of shooting the mage first?
Or do we have to replace it with another modus operandi?

[Dancer]

There are two reasons to "Geek the mage!", both of which are applicable to both SR and D&D.

First of all, mages tend to be relatively fragile compared to combat cyborgs. So an investment of a given amount of firepower will have a greater return when directed against the wizard than against the ork with only 10% of his original parts.

Secondly, given a moment to act mages can change the tactical situation drastically. They might summon a powerful spirit, or turn everyone invisible so they can escape, or just bring up an armor spell so they'll be much harder to shoot next round. You shoot them now because you can shoot them now - next round you've been possessed by a Loa or you bullets are bouncing off him or you don't know where to shoot. The gunbunny isn't changing the situation to his advantage, focusing instead on killing people - he won't be any harder to take down in 2 rounds than he would be now.

[masterofm]

It's called geeking the mage, and yes you pretty much always target and kill the mage 1st. Many if not most mages have a heal spell, which means although when they cast it they can no longer do any type of normal healing (baring extended care) on the wound inflicted it is pretty much done in a flash in SR4.

The mage is also the X factor. You don't know how powerful he/she is or how many spirits he/she has at his/her beck and call. Mages can throw down some serious destruction. Mages can have sustaining spells on other members of the party (buffs) that make them more badassed, or they can have sustaining spell foci and become a walking tank, or harder to hit, or you name it. Some mages have debuffs to an area, or can reduce your magic stat down to nothing. Some of the crazy spells are basically resisted with just willpower, others (like mana static) have no resistances at all, and if you have counterspelling you might be a little more fortunate in most areas, but it still might not be enough.

A mage at times can pull out 6 force 6 spirits that can throw down spells of their own. It adds up to insane hurt.

You kill or knock out the mage first, because you never know what kind of hurt they can bring. A sammie, or a rigger brings to the table an expected amount of pain, but a mage at times can bring it much harder then you could ever expect sometimes.

[Fleinhoy]

Besides, that early in a fight, how will the various parties know who has the highest "damage output" as you name it? They'll have had very little time to assess the situation before the time comes to decide who to put down first.

The mage is also likely to be the person dealing the most initial visible damage: a grenade needs preparation to throw, guns need to be drawn and aimed, the mage can cast his spells as quick as he can either think or waggle his fingers a bit, line of sight is his aiming device.

[Drogos]

Yeah the mage's ability to change the battlefield so drastically in the course of one pass means geeking them first. With spells as strong as Mana/Stunbolt/ball, Control Actions/Thoughts, Physical Barrier, etc. (I was just adding to those already mentioned). So geek the mage, yeah.

[xsansara]

Shoot the mage first, because he is most valuable and most fragile. Plus, if you happen to kill the mage your mage doesn't have to deal with this nasty countermagic. Same goes for Riggers with drones. They just tend to be easy targets.

Other than that: focus fire and biggest weapon first, fast characters next, techie and face last

[Sir_Psycho]

Don't forget, if the sec-team has a mage (which they should for game balance purposes) then geeking the mage negates the team's resistance to spellcasting. If the sam puts a bullet through the mage, then that mage's team loses half their spell resistance.

Also, you'd rather have a spirit uncontrolled then focusing on engulfing you.

And any magician who's putting himself in a combat situation is either a cyber-mage with initiative enhancement, or has an initiative enhancing spell cast and possibly sustained, so he's probably just as fast as the samurai.

Not to mention that if there is a samurai with an assault cannon coming at you, you shoot him first. Unfortunately, through overcasting, a mage has special eye assault cannons. Maybe he's just a healing mage, but I wouldn't take the chance.

[masterofm]

Player phase - IP 1 everyone shoots the cyber monkey and he ends up getting pretty hurt but probably ends up dodging or soaking most of it.
Enemy phase - IP 1 mage uses simple action and now has six force six spirits out and wailing on whoever they damn well feel like.
Player phase - IP 2 whoever is left standing is still shooting the cyber monkey and may or may not kill him.
Enemy phase - IP 2 spirits proceed to shred the hell out of whatever is left of the team.
Player phase - IP 3 You can't take it because you probably didn't survive IP 2.
Enemy phase - IP 3 the mage takes a sip of coffee.

Feel free to substitute the player phase for the enemy phase. It's pretty much all the same. To put things even more in perspective we didn't play out the tactic of geek the mage on our most recent escapade against a force 6 possession mage. Every single IP I could tell our GM had to hold back from bringing the big guns that the mage had.... or else it would have gone soooooo badly. If the GM hadn't pulled his punches we would have had at least 1 dead mage with a possibility of 2 (yes 2 considering the mage was not the only threat,) and one of the party captured. The last remaining party member in the scene would have quietly tried to exit stage left and would probably would have succeed. The situation is long and complicated on the reasoning why we didn't try and obliterate the mage outright, but the second mage broke down and finally overcast a force 12 stunbolt to KO the other mage. It just makes geeking the mage all the more obvious when you put it all into practice.

[ElFenrir]

Shoot the mage first, because he is most valuable and most fragile.

Most valuable? Yes. Most fragile? See, this is why I like using ork and troll mages in heavy armor. Heh. Time and time and TIME again...the PCs, even KNOWING that any race can...and does...have mages....ALWAYS think the orks and trolls the ones who won't be. Even though they PLAY ork and troll mages and have been proven wrong many times. I just don't get it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[masterofm]

Troll mages with a high body that specialize in overcasting spells are pretty vicious.

[Ryu]

Survival strategies on the part of the guards suggest to kill any summoners. You would run if you could, but spirits can not be contained by simple walls.

Equally important would be to kill the hacker, so that all technical security measures keep their value. Else the human element will have to deal with the whole threat.

Pure samurai are a reason to disengage and try again at a later time, unless you are talking the FRT dealing the final blow. Their job definition is removing guards from the equation. Security personell does not like that.

So yes, killing the mage first would be a good idea, if you intend to run afterwards. If you want to fight, drone spiders followed by samurai should have higher priorites. The mage MIGHT be dangerous as hell, the samurai with an LMG IS.

[Blade]

Geek everyone first!
High Initiative+Grenades are all you need!

[Rasumichin]

Couple of excelent points made here.

Let's take a closer look at some of the suggestions :

-battlefield control
Admittedly crucial to winning most fights.
Questionable here is wether in your typical SR scenario, the hacker isn't more important.
Basically, the hacker negates the corp's advantage of fighting on its own turf, even worse, turning your own turf into the runners'.
Not to mention other possibilities such as drone networks, hacking enemy equipment, preventing the hacking of the runners' equipment and so on.

What does a runner team do when it's stuck in a high security facility without a hacker, with the opposition controlling doors, lighting, surveilance cameras and drone networks?



-vulnerability of mages
Usually, soaking capability will be higher for sams, agreed.
But hackers and especially TMs might be forced to deprioritize both evasion and armour to a similiar degree as mages (that is, favourably not more than necessary- which will still pale in comparison to the amount of damage a sam can handle).
Of course, there might be exceptions, especially among hackers.


-counterspelling
A strong point for geeking the mage first.
I'd add that absence of a mage also greatly decreases the chances in fights with spirits.
One more point against the mage.
Certainly better to send in valuable magical backup after the enemy mage is geeked.
Which would unfortunately leave the team without counterspelling dice- however, one can work around this problem to some degree as long as there is a possibility to leave the own mage within line of sight, but out of the line of fire- which might be near impossible in some situations.
Or very easy, if the building comes equipped with one of those fibreoptic systems (one more reason to stock up on lasers).


-direct damage
Yeah, mana/stunbolts/balls are nasty.
Especially as it is a lot easier to come up with efficient protection against mundane attacks.

However, sams deal damage a lot faster, even if both the mage and the sam happen to have the same Initiative.
While the mage needs a complex action to drop one opponent with a bolt, the sam can shoot his sniper or assault rifle (or semi-automatic assault canon or whatever) twice.
Or, if sufficiently maxed out, can lay down a barrage from his LMG that takes out two enemies and seriously wounds a third one.

Yes, there's spells with area effects.
There's also semiautomatic airburst grenade launchers.
Once more, the sam shoots twice, the mage once.

Yes, the mage's damage is harder to soak, but the sam might have a higher damage code and DP to begin with, at least if he was twinked correctly
It's not that hard to bring AGI and a firearms skill to or at least one die below the augmented max.
Magic and Spellcasting DPs will, given the same amount of twinkage, almost certainly be lower at the start of the game, as will the spell's starting damage code in comparison to the sam's main gun.

This might change after a lot of karma, of course.
But it will take some time before the mage's body count surpasses that of the sam.
Frankly, direct damage to me alsways was a good reason to ditch the mage's Pistols or Automatics skill, but it was always a secondary consideration after using spirits, mind control spells and so on.


Still, at this point, i'd say the geek first list would read hacker/rigger/TM>mage>sam>face.
Control the terrain, destroy astral defenses, than take care of the rest.

[Drogos]

Or the team on the ground is relying on their own hacker/spider/IC to keep their matrix assets safe. Any facility that has a full security detail and wireless controls is most likely going to have at least a couple layers of IC to tie up any intrusion, at least to my mind. Of course, it's not a bad idea to drop the hacker either. Really, drop them all and let the janitor sort them out.

[Sir_Psycho]

Hackers don't even come into it. An AR hacker isn't nearly fast enough to do anything worthwhile to you in 1 IP. Hacking on the fly takes hours half an hour at best. The mage or sam/adept are your immediate problems.

[CanRay]

First rule of Combat: Geek the Magician.

Second rule of Combat: Geek the big ork with the big gun.

Third rule of Combat: If you're a big ork with a big gun, get a Magician Buddy to come with you into combat.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[ElFenrir]

Still, at this point, i'd say the geek first list would read hacker/rigger/TM>mage>sam>face.

This is exactly what inspired me to build my combat-face hybrid. The prettyboy elf isn't even looked at until he snaps half of the opposition's necks.

While the ''Kill Order'' is oftentimes debated between hacker/TM-Mage-Sam-Adept, the Face is ALWAYS at the end. Faces end up liabilities far more often than other team members for some reason...when they are by far, IMO, the easiest archetype to ''hybrid''.

Combat Faces make wonderful team members for this very reason.

Really, the best rule of Shadowrun is ''expect anything''.

Other rules:

Never let the prettyboy stand in the corner unattended. To quote Homer Simpson in the famous Mafia vs. Yakuza scene ''But Marge, that little guy's going to do something!'' Never let the guy ''just standing there'' do that, because chances are, he might just do something.

Yes, there is a decent chance the ork or troll with no gun IS a mage. People like their ork and troll mages.

The ''kill lists'' are good rules of thumb...but in a game where you can hybrid anything with anything just about(save technos...who have a bit of issues hybriding), you really never know.

[Ryu]

An AR hacker isn't nearly fast enough to do anything worthwhile to you in 1 IP.

You undervalue spoofing, and giving commands to previously hacked nodes.

[Rasumichin]

Hackers don't even come into it. An AR hacker isn't nearly fast enough to do anything worthwhile to you in 1 IP. Hacking on the fly takes hours half an hour at best.

Yes.
Which is why it is, if possible at all, done before physical entry, if the runner team is taking preparation seriously.
Which it absolutely should if entering a high-security corporate research facility.
Which might just mean that the geek in the electric wheelchair might have a fake admin account for your workplace's security system and can tell your LMG-equipped steel lynx guard drones that you are the intruder.
Should take about 1 IP.
As should locking you as a target for his own cadre of steel lynx combat drones...
Note that i am subsuming riggers and hackers under the same label, as it is usually done in SR4.

Of course, hacker threat depends on the situation.
If the hacker is locked in cybercombat and can't do anything in meatspace, geeking him won't be a high priority.
In such cases, one should be more concerned with physical and astral threats, of course.


@ ElFenrir : Actually, reading the responses to this thread made me think of a team that is composed entirely of members who look completely harmless except for all carrying an assault rifle and -on top of that- all look the same due to nanopaste disguise.
To mix things up even more, they could all constantly go hiding behind the nearest corner, changing positions to make it unrecognizable which team member is the sam, hacker, mage etc.

[sunnyside]

Also the Geek the mage first philosophy results in focused fire, which can be a good thing. Goons and drones are probably only throwing 7 die when they attack. Various modifiers can whittle that down fast too.

But by firing at one target they whittle down their dodging pool and shots start hitting home.

Anyway yeah. Geek the mage first!

[Muspellsheimr]

Hackers don't even come into it. An AR hacker isn't nearly fast enough to do anything worthwhile to you in 1 IP. Hacking on the fly takes hours half an hour at best. The mage or sam/adept are your immediate problems.

Hacking on the fly is measured in Complex Actions. In the span of one Combat Turn or less, a skilled hacker can completely fuck up the opposing teams communications, quite possibly smartlinks, and if they are stupid, their cyber. They can also do so before said opposing team arrives.

Mages, on the other hand, have at least equal damage output as a samurai against armored opponents. Sure the samurai gets to attack twice. They get to soak damage twice. Oh, the mage just multicast a pair of Stunballs & dropped all the opposition not behind cover, and half those that were...

When the mage hits at least as hard as the samurai's heavy weapons, with no test to stage down the damage, & is indeed capable of throwing 2 or 3 spells a round (with minimal penalties if using specializations & foci), s/he is the most dangerous opponent around - not counting the versatility. Also take into account that typically, the mage is going to take much more damage than the samurai from gunfire...

[Tarantula]

Couple of excelent points made here.

Let's take a closer look at some of the suggestions :

-battlefield control
Admittedly crucial to winning most fights.
Questionable here is wether in your typical SR scenario, the hacker isn't more important.
Basically, the hacker negates the corp's advantage of fighting on its own turf, even worse, turning your own turf into the runners'.
Not to mention other possibilities such as drone networks, hacking enemy equipment, preventing the hacking of the runners' equipment and so on.

What does a runner team do when it's stuck in a high security facility without a hacker, with the opposition controlling doors, lighting, surveilance cameras and drone networks?

Hacker is not nearly as important. I don't even know what you have going on in your head that a hacker is doing, but it'd take far far far longer than geeking the mage would to be a threat.

What does the runner team do? Keep the flare comp on, use low-light/thermo, and keep slaughtering all your sec guards.

-vulnerability of mages
Usually, soaking capability will be higher for sams, agreed.
But hackers and especially TMs might be forced to deprioritize both evasion and armour to a similiar degree as mages (that is, favourably not more than necessary- which will still pale in comparison to the amount of damage a sam can handle).
Of course, there might be exceptions, especially among hackers.

Armor is pretty easy to beef up. Hackers and TM are actually more likely to be hidden away in one of the horseman type vehicles if they're overly fragile. Good luck blowing that up.

-counterspelling
A strong point for geeking the mage first.
I'd add that absence of a mage also greatly decreases the chances in fights with spirits.
One more point against the mage.
Certainly better to send in valuable magical backup after the enemy mage is geeked.
Which would unfortunately leave the team without counterspelling dice- however, one can work around this problem to some degree as long as there is a possibility to leave the own mage within line of sight, but out of the line of fire- which might be near impossible in some situations.
Or very easy, if the building comes equipped with one of those fibreoptic systems (one more reason to stock up on lasers).

Fibreoptics give mages penalties, they're rather pathetic really.
Counterspelling is the reason to geek the mage first, their mage dies, your mage owns. Fairly simple.

-direct damage
Yeah, mana/stunbolts/balls are nasty.
Especially as it is a lot easier to come up with efficient protection against mundane attacks.

However, sams deal damage a lot faster, even if both the mage and the sam happen to have the same Initiative.
While the mage needs a complex action to drop one opponent with a bolt, the sam can shoot his sniper or assault rifle (or semi-automatic assault canon or whatever) twice.
Or, if sufficiently maxed out, can lay down a barrage from his LMG that takes out two enemies and seriously wounds a third one.

No, sams don't. Mage needs a complex action to cast his spells. Say, 6 spellcasting, + 6 magic, + 2 mentor, +4 focus = 18 dice. Split that between 3 spells, 6 dice a spell, average 2 hits. Most mooks will be lucky do get 1 hit on their willpower tests and suck the force +1 damage from the bolts.

Yes, there's spells with area effects.
There's also semiautomatic airburst grenade launchers.
Once more, the sam shoots twice, the mage once.

Mage can shoot up to his dice pool in sorcery, it just doesn't work as good. Mages still have more power than sams, you seem for have forgotten about multiple spells at once.

Yes, the mage's damage is harder to soak, but the sam might have a higher damage code and DP to begin with, at least if he was twinked correctly
It's not that hard to bring AGI and a firearms skill to or at least one die below the augmented max.
Magic and Spellcasting DPs will, given the same amount of twinkage, almost certainly be lower at the start of the game, as will the spell's starting damage code in comparison to the sam's main gun.

Sam does not have more damage. Force 6 + 6 net hits = 12 damage you take. Period. Sam gets 7P (i think off memory) for assault rifles, plus net hits (possibly more, but dodge pools are considerably higher too). Mages win for damage also.

This might change after a lot of karma, of course.
But it will take some time before the mage's body count surpasses that of the sam.
Frankly, direct damage to me alsways was a good reason to ditch the mage's Pistols or Automatics skill, but it was always a secondary consideration after using spirits, mind control spells and so on.

Spirits are nasty, but take time. Mage direct damage is scary, hurts, and most mages have it, which is why you geek them first. Mages geek sammies first, why? Cause sammies love to use willpower as their dump stat.

Still, at this point, i'd say the geek first list would read hacker/rigger/TM>mage>sam>face.
Control the terrain, destroy astral defenses, than take care of the rest.

[nezumi]

Geeking the rigger first is definitely best if you can manage it. Unfortunately, in most scenarios, if you can manage it, he's actually the decker. A rigger not safely in his battle wagon directing his drones is useless.

From a strategy perspective, it may be best actually to defeat the electronics expert or the decker. In a secure facility, this will eliminate the group's maneuverability (they can't get past locked doors) and advanced intelligence. It's a poor tactic, but an excellen strategy.

Also worth mentioning, wound modifiers mean you don't generally need to kill characters. A serious wound or, better still, mod wound/mod stun will greatly reduce their combat effectiveness. My NPCs generally get people to Serious wounds then ignore them, as they are no longer seriously contributing to the battle (contrast that to D&D). The exception is hermetic mages, who can still call up and order around elementals regardless as to wound modifiers. The hermetic mage must DIE.

[Moon-Hawk]

It's also worth mentioning that the whole geek-the-mage-first strategy assumes you can correctly identify the mage. It's not as if, of the five guys you're fighting, four of them are wearing plate mail and carrying swords and the fifth guy has a robe, magic wand, and a pointy hat with little silver stars on it. Often, if you're fighting security, of the five guys you're fighting all five of them are wearing security armor, helmets, and carrying SMG's, and you're pretty sure that someone, probably one of them, cast a spell. Of course, if it's the runners you're fighting it seems like more often than not there is one member of the team with feathers and other animal parts tied to his jacket dancing around and chanting, which does simplify the task of identifying the mage somewhat. Assuming it isn't a bluff.

[Muspellsheimr]

No, sams don't. Mage needs a complex action to cast his spells. Say, 6 spellcasting, + 6 magic, + 2 mentor, +4 focus = 18 dice. Split that between 3 spells, 6 dice a spell, average 2 hits. Most mooks will be lucky do get 1 hit on their willpower tests and suck the force +1 damage from the bolts.

[(6+6) ÷ 3] + 4 + 2 = 10 Dice per spell. You add modifiers after splitting.

Sam does not have more damage. Force 6 + 6 net hits = 12 damage you take. Period. Sam gets 7P (i think off memory) for assault rifles, plus net hits (possibly more, but dodge pools are considerably higher too). Mages win for damage also.

Force restricts Hits, not Net Hits. Your point still stands, however. 6 + Net Hits damage (Unresisted) vs. 7 + Net Hits damage (Resisted). I will take the former. This is also assuming the mage is not yet pissed enough to overcast.

Of course, if it's the runners you're fighting it seems like more often than not there is one member of the team with feathers and other animal parts tied to his jacket dancing around and chanting, which does simplify the task of identifying the mage somewhat. Assuming it isn't a bluff.

Or, in my case, an incredibly beautiful, pissed off gothic woman in a high-quality evening gown without any weapons, in Seattle.