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[Mardegun]

It seems to me that a starting mage can take out anyone, especially any other starting character.

It is a numbers game, a mundane or adept attacked by a mage only get their attribute to resist, while a mage has his skill + spell pool.

Most of the time a mage can take out any character without much trouble and still not take drain.

For example a mage with
quickness of 4
intelligence of 5
willpower of 6
Reaction of 4 (9)

Increase reaction sustain focus, force 6 (+5 to reaction)
Improve reflexes + 3 sustain focus, force 1 (+3d6 to initiative)
Mana bolt 5(D)

This mage on average can take out two of the street sams listed in SR3. Why? Because the street sam is a little slower and only has a willpower of 3.
Street Sam's reaction is 11 + 3d6 = 20, where the mage has 9+4d6 = 21, so on average the mage will win.

On take of that if the mage only uses their sorcery of 6 to cast the spell, they will still take out the Sam with ease. This is because the mage will get an average of 4 success and the Street Sam can only ever get 3 success ... it is unlikely that he would even get 1.

On top of this, the mage would take no drain at all if they use 3 dice from their mage pool. 2(D) with 9 dice mean you will get 8 successes ... which will take a Deadly Drain to nothing.

This mage is so powerful that they could take out TWO Street Sams in one action. Imagine the same example above expect add a +2 tn for the mage.

The mage would add 1 from their spell pool to roll 7 dice against the willpower of the Street Sam 3 + 2 = 5. A TN of 5 with 6 dice means that the mage will get about 2 success ... while the street sam still has to get 2 success with 3 dice with a tn of 5 ... very unlikely.

Now the mage rolls for drain, 2(D) with 6 dice from willpower + 2 from spell pool. On average the mage will get 4 which will give the mage a light stun ... they might even take no stun at all.

Now this is just a starting mage. This mage isn't initiated or even using limited spells. This mage would only become stronger where the Street Sam has almost hit their peek.

Heck, another type of mage could be created that only uses combat sense, armor and mana bolt. This mage could soak most of the damage from a Street sam and still survival ... and then blow the sam to bits. Am I missing something here?

Here is my solution ...
My thought is my not add a +1 modifier for ever 2 full essence a character has? This will make it more difficult for the mage to effect the average character, but they still can reduce drain to nothing. On top of that an initiated mage can use centering to reduce the modifier.

Also another thought is that any individual that has a magic rating, but no spell pool uses their magic rating instead of essence for this modifier. This way adepts who are masters of magic within their own bodies can better resist magic.

So for example a adept with willpower of 5, would possess an tn of 8 for any mage who wants to target them with a mana bolt ... assuming the adept's magic rating is 6.

Another version is instead of creating modifiers, you give the victim +1d6 for every point of essence they have to resist.

[spotlite]

Mardegun:

In the Lone Star supplement it does provide all the magical division's details, but I don't have it at my house. I beleive they are out on patrol on their own or with watcher spirits. No way are they going to patrol with elementals as standard - each time uses one service assuming they don't run into anything, and the ritual to get more services or another elemental is hideously expensive when mounted up over even a ten man force doing 8 hour shifts in rotation for, say, a month with force 4 elementals. 4 grand per spirit, which takes four hours out of the relevant mage's shift, per summoning ritual. Watchers yes; to send for help, mob astral attackers, and provide general aid; and with elementals on call, certainly. But I reckon they'd only be patrolling with them if they were expecting trouble or policing a specific event.

The rules are all screwy on astral perception. The target number to spot anything that isn't mundane is its force/magic rating. The more powerful it is, the harder it is to spot or gean information from. The latter, yes, but the former just doesn't make sense to me. If someone could explain how that works I'd be obliged - is Lilt right about the two types of test? We've always treated all astral perception tests basically as assensing checks, not as 2 seperate things. Have we been doing it all wrong? I'll happily accept correction on this one.

Under SR2 I had a really really good handle on the in-game rationale for how the magic rules worked. Under SR3 its much more 'these are the rules. The in game rationale may just be wrong as it is based on belief systems instead of a rigid science' which is fine, but does make extrapolating new and house rules tricky at times. Having said that, a lot of other things make more sense to me under SR3, like spell casting. I generally do prefer the SR3 system, but the in game information was much more consistent under SR2.