SR4 counterspelling, too powerful? Options

[Squinky]

Of all the tips given to you today, I think this one is the most important.

Ask your GM and the Mage character to actually read the magic chapter. I'm not intending to be rude, but things will start working right if they do that. I've noticed a lot of folks on the boards recomending house rules to fix problems that wouldn't be there if the rules were used correctly.

[Kyoto Kid]

[ornot]

Tom Kyoto Kid: When I GM I feel it is important to tailor a game to the players' characters. If they have no mage, then it is rare that they'll have to go up against one, certainly not one as powerful as a starting character mage can be, Magic people being super rare and all.

Sure, as GM you can throw 3 rank 2 initiates with stun spells in front of the party and watch the characters go down like skittles. There's nothing to stop you throwing a Great Dragon in their faces either, except that it would make a short and quite boring game.

Part of the skill of being a GM is tailoring the run to suit the players available.

Of course if your team does have a mage and he isn't keeping a proper astral overwatch then it's your job to school him!

[Eyeless Blond]

Also note that there is some controversy over whether Heal will even work on magical Drain. In SR3 it very explicedly didn't; in SR4 there just happens to be less said on the matter. If your mage is really cheesing up the place I'd try to get your GM to flop to the (saner) side of that debate, that magical healing can't heal magical Drain.

Three pegs.

Next, have your GM use Wards from time to time. They're relatively cheap to set up, though not as cheap as in SR3 as the average mage's Magic attribute has cut nearly in half. Those wards will force the mage to drop his sustained spells or have to take down the ward, which causes as many problems as setting off an alarm. Alternatively even a Watcher could be on the lookout for auras carrying powerful sustained spells; not even an idiot SR4 Watcher gimp could miss a guy lit up like a lighthouse on the astral. Oh, and don't forget hellhounds and the like love the taste of glowy astral mage.

Four pegs. :)

Mages trade Incredible Cosmic Power for a host of special weaknesses that affect only them. More of those weaknesses, like background count, will show up with Street Magic, but then so does more power, so it all balances out.

[Eyeless Blond]

But yeah, Willpower used to matter a lot more in SR3, where it also increased the TN to affect your character. Then, as now, only a fool will be caught with much less than the max level in that attribute (4-5 now, 5-6 in SR3) though now it doesn't help quite as much.

[Dr. Dodge]

[James McMurray]

[Tarantula]

[Glayvin34]

[Kyoto Kid]

[hyzmarca]

[Dr. Dodge]

[hyzmarca]

Exceptional attribute + Bonus Attribute Point + Albinism gives you an extra 3 willpower to start with and increases you racial maximum by 1 or 2.

[Xenith]

Meh. The whole "Magic is too powerful" thing is annoying really.

And an area effect spell can be resisted with Reaction in addition to everything else, so they're not all that overpowered.. in fact with that drain (and if you have a mage that rolls 20+ to resist drain... thats insane. I find 12 or 13 dice to be crazy frankly...) it makes up for it. If you as a GM think that a mage is too powerful... then level an intangible penalty on them... like background count in major structures, sami that geek the mage first because they know what comes next, or even... simply having a mage on the opposing team. Done correctly, the mages focus on each other and cancel each other out while still making both important. Ever read a few of the later sword of Truth novels? They bring up that point and I find that it makes alot of sense.

In fact... have them duke it out while manifesting on the astral plane... now thats something... watching two mages fight at the speed of thought... I would almost compare it to DBZ.... XD

Make the best of it and you might find that much of this complaining about how balanced it is matters nil. Bend it, break it, but don't dis it til you've tried it.

And I'm simply sarcastic, it wasn't meant only for you by any means.

[Glayvin34]

[James McMurray]

If it's anything like SR3, just firing a gun will cause a background count of 1. The mere act of casting an offensive spell causes background count.

[Xenith]

Psht. Easy enough to add to SR4 til replacement rules come out. Just temporarily reduce their magic by the background count rating. Generally places of horrible murder, experimention against nature (the hardcore kind), massive amounts of negative emotions (a riot of certain size could create something like that) and the mobile cyberzombie can do this just by being in a place for longer than an hour....

Basically anything that might horrify, sicken, or enrage you could give a background count... it just has to be strong somehow...

Alternately, you could instead apply a dice pool penalty equal to the rating... maybe even apply this to counterspelling dice.

And then theres the ever fun mana spike.... but thats for another day. :grinbig:

----
Edit: And non-elemental area spells are affected by perception mods... ;P
Even in SR3 it took something with a strong emotion... I generally take that to be something very strong and usual. Unique circumstances if you will. One murder won't do it unless the act invoked something twisted and wrong within either person. A bunch of murders over time in the same place generally require that insanity. And so on...
Also... defiling nature (ie heavy pollution of oil slick or radioactivity degree) could also create background count...

[Dr. Dodge]

[Eugene]

[fool]

In 3rd edition, the protected character had to be sithin magicx10 m.
and it used uop sorcery dice that could otherwise have been used for spell casting.
Spell protection in sr 3 was a real pain in the ass to track and deal with. The new system is much much better in that regard.

[Eyeless Blond]

[Lagomorph]

I agree with glayvin, the dynamic gets messed up. In every test for the rest of the game, you have an Attribute+skill to roll in any test, except when you're caught with out a mage and some one decides to stun ball you? And if that happens you'll on average only be able to roll 1/2 as many dice as your attacker? It seems like a violation of a fundamental and ubiquitous rule in SR4.

A way around this would be to allow any character to train the counterspelling skill for personal use only. So that just like dodge/athletics, if you don't have it, you don't have it. But if you do have it, you're on equal footing.

[James McMurray]

Compare spells to guns. Spells are all or nothing. Guns will almost always hurt a little if the shooter is any good. Guns have near infinite ammo, you just have to reload every now an then. Spells can hurt you when you cast them.

The two are about equal on paper, but having seen twinked casters and twinked gun bunnies, the gun bunnies always do a lot more damage. They don't need magic to give them multiple initiative passes. They can shoot two people per turn instead of one. If you go the AoE route they can do two big area bursts per round (or smaller area bursts if friendlies are near).

Combat spells and combat gear are fairly well balanced. Magic's real problems arise in only a few instances:

1) Mind Control. A well timed Mind Control spell will take several opponents out of a battle, open almost any door, and disarm even the burliest troll. It's even worse if they're willing to take the drain for a high force Mob Mind spell.

2) There's little magical opposition. Remember that anything the players can do the enemies can also do. Mind Control swings both ways, as do high force mana balls, mind probes, and Turning to Goo. But it takes magical foes to have that door swing.

3) The rules aren't being followed. This one is the most usual one I see. If you misinterpret the rules you can give the mage vast amounts of power. From things as crazy as allowing manifested mages to cast on the physical plane to as little as letting them walk anywhere they want to go with high force foci active.

[fool]

besides, when trying not to get hit by bullets or melee weapons, you still only get 1 attribute and no skill (unless on full defense in which case you don't get to do anything else.)
The topic of the post though wasn't whether magic is too powerful, but rather if counterspelling was too powerful, and I have to say no. Counterspelling is a skill only. You don't get magic+skill, just skill, and adding 4-7d just isn't that great of thing especially when you have to use up precious foci slots to get past that level of 4 or 5, and each focus only works on one particular spell category.
In other words, counterspelling will mitigate the results of another mages spells, but it won't completely erase most of them.
For example take your average starting mage (or mine at least) casting spells with 12 d (skill+m@5 and force 2 power focus) Now most of my targets are going to get 4 d to resist or 8/9 with counterspelling. I'm still going to frag with the fraggers, but I won't autokill them.

[James McMurray]

With bullets you get reaction + body + armor. The difference comes in that it's easier to get a lot more dice and higher base DV with bullets than with magic. And magic is completey negated if they get as many successes as you got or the force of the spell, whichever is lower. A bullet that gets 1 net success is almost gauranteed to do some damage.

And of course magic doesn't have a full auto option. :)