Anti-mage tactics, A Street Sam primer Options

[Samaels Ghost]

Sammies tend to whine a lot about spellslingers. But this comment in another thread got me thinking

[krayola red]

3) Shoot them in the face with a assault rifle.

[Jaid]

hiding is also quite good. it even works against astral perception. and most any sammy should be able to hide at least a little, many of them will be very good at it too ;)

in comparison, not too many mages will max out their perception (not that they'll never have it at all, just not likely maxed out).

[JonathanC]

How exactly do LOS penalties affect spellcasting? I mean, smoke only subtracts a number of dice from visual perception tests...and if the mage has cybereyes, wouldn't that remove that penalty for the most part?

Plus, couldn't the mage just activate their astral perception and target you that way?

[hyzmarca]

Just about anything that will counter a gun will counter a combat spell. Magicians don't suffer range penalties but they do suffer all of the visual penalities that other characters do.
Darkness is less useful due to astral perception, but thermal smoke works very well, as does taking cover and shooting from a fully concealed position using a smartlink camera or a grenade.

Large amounts of living material can make astral perception difficult, as well. Since all life has an aura it is difficult for a magician to pick out a single astral target in a jungle, for example. Hiding in foliage is very useful as is decorating your abode with far too many potted plants. Dual-natured plants are even better since the an astral being will not be able to move through them and won't be able to see or attack through them if they are sufficiently dense.

Background count is almost a requirement for the discerning samurai's home. You know how homes where grizzly murders and mass suicides took place usually sell for far les than their actual value today? Well they'll go for far more than their actual value in the future because those grizzly murders and mass suicides will make it far more difficult for a magician to kill you in your home.
If you can't buy a home with a Background count then you can always make your own. You don't have to be a twisted magician to gain benefits from torturing and murder a few children every day. Remember, a murder a day keeps the spirits away (except for blood spirits because they like that sort of stuff).
It is also important to know where the background counts are and what they are. If you keep up with the latest geomancy journels and almanacs then you should know the safest places to battle a mage of a specific tradition are and you should make sure the battles take place in those locations.


Then there are Free Spirits. Remember, anyone can summon a free spirit, even a mundane. It is quite possible for a samurai with a decent willpower and edge to bind a Force 1-3 free spirit and keep it on call for emergencies.I really wound't recomend this because it tends to make the spirit angry and angry free spirits aren't good for mundanes. However, a samurai should be able to safely rebind a force 1 spirit indefinitely.
Likewise, a mundane can make a spirit pact just like anyone else. A samurai doesn't need nearly as much karma as a magician does so he can benefit from karma trading far more easily. Power Pact: Magic Guard is of particular use to the anti-magic samurai since it would allow him to learn and use counterspelling.
A savy samurai with knowledge of spirits could bind a force 1 free spirit with the magical guard power and force it into two pacts, first a formula pact (so no one else cound bind the spirit; immortality is a plus) and second a power pact for magical guard. As long as the samurai keeps the spirit bound and renews the power pact daily he can learn and use counterspelling as if he were a magician. When the power pact is disolved the counterspelling skill would become a far less useful knowledge skill untill another power pact is made.

A samurai could also purchase wards and anchors from magicians who make them for a living. This cound get expensive, especially if the anchors are used often, but there are some great benefits. A samurai could buy an anchored mana static spell, for example, and use it whenever he goes up agaisnt a magician.

Specific spells can be countered specific ways. Invisibility can be defeared wirth ultrasound, for example.

Also, drones can be used to defeat or bypass certain spells or to just stay out of danger. Drones are far cheaper now and any samurai with a comlink can use them. Due to the OR threshold even the smallest drone is nearly immune to all low force spells and drones are naturally immune to some illusion spells such as forboding and orgasm. A single skimmer with a brick of C4 strapped to it can do in a mage far more cheaply and easily than some other methods.

[Critias]

I'm a big fan of the "beat them with your superior initiative, shoot them in the face" plan. If, for some reason, that doesn't work out, I've yet to fail with the "spam thermal smoke grenades, then hurl high explosive or incendiary grenades into the cloud of smoke."

Mages tend to not soak damage real well. So the street sam's old standby of "kill shit" is often the answer.

[Jaid]

[edit] this is in response to JonathanC's post, for the record [/edit]

well, if the mage has cybereyes, then he's already got a penalty to spellcasting.

secondly, cybereyes won't help against thermal smoke (and i can't imagine anyone bothering with normal smoke, to be honest... thermal vision is too common)

thirdly, if the mage fails a perception check to see you (provided one is required), then he cannot target you with spells. with the possible exception of the high-drain indirect AOE spells, depending on your GM's opinion at present (rules can be interpreted either way), and even then they need a general idea of where you are to target you.

so, for example, if a mage has intuition 3 and perception 2, and you give him -5 or more to his dice pool to see you, then he has 0 dice in his pool... and therefore, he cannot target you with any of his spells.

as another example, i personally recommend electrical damage. most sammies will have some stick'n'shock ammo... and mages often can't afford as high a body as they would need to resist the secondary elemental effect =)

[edit] oh, and about astral perception... that works great against invisible targets and the like. it does absolutely nothing to help you spot someone who is hiding behind stuff, or to help you see through a smoke cloud. [/edit]

This post has been edited by Jaid: Sep 6 2006, 06:02 PM

[Shrike30]

Smoke works on the astral the same as it does on the physical.

Cover is incredibly useful against mages. Unlike sams with guns, you can't "blind-fire" a spell. Get some remote information feeds piped in, and being behind a solid object isn't a problem. Sure, the mage can get behind cover, too... but he's less likely to have a weapon capable of reaching *around* cover.

Smart characters will know that mages are incredibly dangerous. The smart character, when faced with a mage and not having a good shot will find cover, prepare for a possible spirit attack, and get their own mage/hacker/rigger online to nail the opposing mage indirectly.

[Firewall]

My personal favourite is the Ranger Arms SM-3 but any rifle with enough range will do the job. Shoot, repeat until they are down, shoot one more just to be sure. Remember that 500m is great for most people but not very far if they have any kind of elemental or astral servant.

Alternatively, there are a variety of knock-out gas grenades. A simple respirator will allow you to approach the now-unconscious mage and remove any items that look like sustaining focuses. Complete this with a few well-place bullets, coups-de-gras if you will.

The most spectacular I ever saw involved a rating 10 Fire spell of some description... That was how I learned the GM was a twinky bastard...

[Kyoto Kid]

...superior firepower, cunning, and a called shot to the head is always a good solution.

Just hope the offending spellcaster isn't a troll though (as has been the case too many times in runs I have been on). That would take a PJSS (with EXEX), Panther Assault Cannon or light anti tank weapon to bring down in one shot.

[Shrike30]

[Whizbang]

Seems that tinting windows tends to be helpful, getting into the whole need line of sight thing.

[Shrike30]

Making your windows one-way glass (reflective on the outside, transparent on the inside) would help too.

Is there any actual RAW text on whether or not you can see through glass on the astral? I've always played glass as an opaque surface.

Actually, glass = opaque doesn't make any sense. How do mages use binoculars, otherwise?

[JonathanC]

[Moon-Hawk]

Yeah. Unliving matter between you and what you're trying to see. Kinda like a wall is unliving matter between you and what you're trying to see.

[Samaels Ghost]

I like the electrical damage, but what it is really useful for is knocking out their buffs. A mage has to make a check when damaged to hold his sustaining. If you you're hit with a spell that saps your abilities or are faced with a mage or his buddy that seems to be affected by a spell, electrical damage makes it really hard to keep up spells (the roll they make is Body+Will (3) i think).

Buying wards for your team van and your apartment is a neccesity. I'm pretty sure Demonseed Elite said that you can ward a vehicle.

Drone sappers are a good idea to have for any team in many situations, so I don't think it really counts... But I love the idea :D


Hanging up curtains in a hallway is a great way to limit visibility that can't be countered with Astral Perception. Any thin, unliving barrier that can be seen through with Thermal vision is a good idea for killing mage LOS.

[DireRadiant]

Send in the armed drones. Object resistance tests are horrible.

[JonathanC]

[Samaels Ghost]

This is important. Read these carefully.

http://www.sprawledout.com/?p=15
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=14230

The second will take awhile to find where they start really talking about moving wards, but just search with your browser within the page and you'll find it eventually.

[Kyoto Kid]

...so, (using the case of the warded shipping container) if a ward were cast on the body shell (not the wheels or drivetrain) of say, a Bulldog Van or Conestoga Trailer unit, it would not come down when the vehicle moved?

[Samaels Ghost]

[Dudukain]

Street Samurai cannot beat mages at longrange. A fireball or lightning bolt will fry you. You MUST close to melee range, and if you have wired reflexes, it should be simple from there to hack them up with a sword.


Fireball>Gun

[JonathanC]

True, but I'd put money on an Adept carving up a street sam in melee, if both men are specialists in the area.

[Samaels Ghost]

[lorechaser]

In d20, the grapple is the ultimate mage killer, but that doesn't seem to be the case in SR so much. Is there a way to slap a blinder on a mage, though, given that they will tend to have weak physical stats?