Anti-mage tactics, A Street Sam primer Options

[mfb]

drugs. hit 'em with a DMSO/whatever cocktail, to raise their TNs. but if you can shoot them with a squirt, you can shoot them with a bullet.

[Lantzer]

[Ranneko]

That said, the rule of thumb is if you can see through it in the physical, you can see through in in the astral. The only exception to that are wards.

[Samaels Ghost]

[Zen Shooter01]

Strike fast and hard. That's what samurai do. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[Aaron]

Chances are, you're going to have more IPs than the magician. So stay behind solid cover for your first IP, then go get 'em. If the magician doesn't cooperate and delays her action, toss a grenade or something to get her to dodge, then smite her.

[Samaels Ghost]

[JonathanC]

[Samaels Ghost]

Let me expand on that then. Take cover, throw a grenade on your second to last action, then attack. If I see a grenade coming and I can't take it out or get behind cover, then I'm going on Full Defense when that thing goes off. Which will give the sammie the edge.

[hyzmarca]

You can't rely on having more initative passes. Increased reflexes in a sustaining focus is still a viable.

[Jaid]

well, look, if we're gonna give the mage unlimited resources (oh noes! he has 50 different spells sustained on himself with foci) then we may as well just end the thread now, because it's just getting silly.

sure, you can go on about how "any decent mage is gonna have X", but quite frankly, that isn't always true. not everyone *has* 20,000 :nuyen: to just toss around you know, mage or not. not everyone knows increase reflexes either... this is for dealing with mages, not pure combat mages who make it their life goal to nuke everything in sight.

and anyways, i personally would assume that increase reflexes is a lot like wired reflexes in terms of flavor text... that is, it's really annoying to have it running all the time.

iiiiiiittttt fffeeeeeeelllssssssss liiiiiiiike eeeeeveryyyyyooooonnnneeee iiiiissss taaaaalllllkkkkiiiiiinnnnnngggg rrrrreeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyy ssssssslllllooooowwww, for example.


and it would get annoying after a while. then, when it's time for combat to begin, they may very well not have time to cast over and over until they get max sucesses, and each time they do retry gives you time to set up, and costs them drain.

so, sure, if we're dealing with a situation where the mage literally has everything going in their favor, then you're screwed. but this isn't just about situations where the mage has 9 bound spirits, all of his stats raised to racial maximum, 4 IPs, and a force 10 ally spirit. it's for situations where you're dealing with reasonable mages who aren't purely specialised to kill you.

i personally have made mages before that i intended to be capable in a fight, but they didn't have increase reflexes on their spell list. just as the runner team's mage can be a combat mage without being the main damage dealer, a combat mage may very well want to do other things with his karma than turn himself into a killing machine. the mages you go up against can just as easily be built around supporting allies as around nuking stuff.

[toturi]

[JonathanC]

I honestly think that it is reasonable for a combat mage to have a force 3 sustaining focus (30k), or to simply walk around always sustaining an increased reflexes spell at force 3, giving him 4 initiative passes. initiative passes are very important to combat; a mage specializing in combat would be ill advised to ignore such an important spell. I've seen some mages who go so far as to have both an armor spell and a physical barrier spell sustained on them. But that's going a bit far.

A reasonable configuration for a combat mage would be something like an armored vest (6/4 armor; I'm assuming the mage didn't go higher than 3 on their body, and doesn't want to take the penalties for armor encumbrance), has a sustaining foci for their Increased Reflexes (+6 reaction, 4 initiative passes), and as soon as they sense trouble, will cast a decent armor spell on themselves.

That's the bare minimum to expect from a combat mage, IMO. A serious combat mage, say, one heading into what they know is trouble, would have the armor spell up to begin with, possibly a physical barrier as backup, or maybe the combat sense spell.

But forget about that. Let's assume our mage went light on his physical stats, say a reaction 3, and an intuition of 4. So he's already running around with an initiative score of 13 with his foci on. You can't assume that your street sam is going first, unless you invested in edge points. And if you do go first, consider that he's rolling about 9 dice in reaction to defend against your firearms test, more than that if he's got a decent dodge skill and is willing to abort to a dodge (thus giving up his complex action...actually a good thing, since you'll have him on the defensive). But with 9 dice and an armor rating of 9 (on par with a street sam), he might be willing to take his chances to drop you with his next spell.

A combat mage is a bear to deal with, and a well-twinked combat mage is an absolute nightmare. Your best bet is either using another combat mage, sending drones after them, or running them over in a car with tinted windows. 8)

[Slithery D]

[lorechaser]

That mage with Inc. Ref going in his sustaining focus 24/7 is a great candidate for focus addiction....

[Critias]

[SL James]

[2bit]

[DireRadiant]

Flash paks.

Granted flash comp is cheap and easy, but did they remember to get that?

[Samaels Ghost]

Having a camera record what you're seeing or double checking your eye recorders is a great way bypass mana Invis and Phantasm. The spells won't affect the hardware, so the recording will be clean.

Think about how a sammie can deal with each type of spell category and spirits too. Spirits are just as much a part of an encounter with a mage as spells are.

Combat - LOS limitation, usually taking cover. Indirect spells can be dodged, but enhancements to your armor like Nonconductivity can save you from most of the damage from these spells. Manabolt, not so much. Good luck with that one.

Detection - A good Will roll can make some of these spells vague. Even Clairvoyance can be made more vague by sneaking, so don't get discouraged when you know there's a mage looking for you. You still have a good chance to evade his watchful eye. These spells aren't a catch-all.

Health - The offensive ones are touch, so this is a no brainer. Don't get close and, like others have suggested, shoot 'em dead. Mage buddies that are buffed by these can't be too powerful. To make them uber they need lots of spells sustained. Unless they have just one Inc Reflexes. In which case deal with it.

Illusion - above^

Manip - Pain Editor is a great piece of bio, grab it for the extra Will. Someone Controlling your Thoughts has free riegn, however. That one is tough, does anyone have a counter for that? Besides counterspelling support and LOS tricks as mentioned above? Manip is tricky, as it can do so much. It's not usually immediately deadly like a Manabolt is, though. You'll probably get a chance to shake them.

[Ranneko]

[Samaels Ghost]

Inc Reflexes is a non-issue. Keep in mind this is a thread about countering mages. Assume your enemy is just as fast and take the chance to pop a shot into the mage every chance you get. Damage might make him drop the spell and if his has a sustaining focus then there's not much you can do. Just keep him on a defensive.

A lot of that can be said for any character in many situations. Stick to Sammy vs. Mage tactics and strategies, favoring the sammy of course :D

[Butterblume]

Basic infantry tactics work well against mages.

• Spread out
• Cover
• Concealment (Stealth)
• Covering fire (in SR terms, suppressive fire and delayed actions)

+ a lot of things mentioned before.

Of course this works only in groups, but someone mentioned his NPCs chewed by Mages. And, Manipulation spells are still a tough nut.

[Samaels Ghost]

Good, that's more of what I'm looking for. I've delayed summarizing because I'm still getting suggestions. Once this degrades into talk about something completely different and I can't keep it on topic, then I'll wrap it up.

Thanks to everybody that has contributed something useful thus far :D

[maeel]

i'd prefer the squirt or a capsule round (they will be in arsenal, wont they) with DMSO and a decent toxin, splash grenade(arsenal) or flyspy equipped with a chemical deployment system, if the target is in hiding.

Reasons: wether or not the mage got more than 1 IP, most mages will have spirit ready or summon one to protect them, so if u don't take em down right at the beginning, u will very likely face a pretty pissed force 5 spirit (good luck). u stun the mage the spirit is still after u, u kill the mage, spirit goes bye-bye.

spirits are ur major concern, plus the possibility of the target (mojo-tosser) being decently armored in mundane and magic ways.

"geek the mage first!" ain't a sayin just for kicks....