A Mage and his Buffs, magic limitations in perspective Options

[James McMurray]

The general idea is the same, but Mind Control completely controls their actions, not implanting suggestions. Influence may or may not be able to kill someone under the RAW, but Mind Control and Control Actions can both do it pretty easily. It's just one small bit in the overpoweredness of the Mental Manipulations.

Of course, if it's a group you're fighting, "Kill those guys" is almost always better than "kill yourself."

[maeel]

the worst nightmare u can come across IMO, is a combat monster that is not a mage but a mystic adept, who focuses on combat and summoning.

Taken the fact u allow the custom Positive Quality "Initiate" and give him the metamagic channeling plus a possession based tradition.
Give him improved reflexes 2 and 1 level of combat sense both geased and u have 2-3 magic points for summoning. plus mentor spirit bonuses, if any.

even with a level 3 or 4 spirit, this man is going to be a nightmare. all his physical stats will be boosted with the spirits force, he will be immune to normal weapons and has spirit powers.

he will most likely dodge most attacks, and if hit soak most of the damage.

[James McMurray]

Sounds like one of many reasons to follow the rules of "no initiating during charcter creation." One has to assume they playtested several different initiation through BP schemes and couldn't find one worth keeping.

[lorechaser]

Yeah, that's a horrifically broken special quality, combined with an optional rule (geasa on adept powers).

So yeah, unless you give Sams a "Break restriction limit" and boosts to their weapons, you won't see a balance there....

[maeel]

i agree, on the other hand, u dont need the channeling....

about the geas, well its optional, sure, but hey it might even work without it.

in general i dont like the discussion, shadowrun is a team based game, if u wanna be a solo hero, stick to computer games...

personally i consider mages to be more useful as support and recon.

if i was a mage and wanted to kill a sam, i'd summon a spirit take him to the sam on the astral and let him do the dirty work.

if i was a sam and wanted to kill mage, i'd use a sniper rifle and a well placed shot with EX-EX.

good tactics a more viable to survival then pure number crunching.
shadowrun is dangerous there is no 100% safe way of running the shadows.

plus, as a side note, "...overspecialize and u breed in weakness!"- Major Kusanagi Ghost-in-the-shell.

[Cold-Dragon]

At least they brought back the 'use your force of personality to hurt spirits' in the SM. Gives Sammies some backup, even if it's biased to the mages anyways.

Alternatively, Something to consider is that old Chinese television saying "Magic must defeat MAGIC!" (2 karma to whoever quotes it first) ;)

Sad but true, this comes up at this point in time until you can supply the mundanes with a true blue method of spirit defense. Spells to temporarily infuse things like bullets or weapons with enough magic to bypass weapon immunity doesn't seem far fetched by spell creation standards - alternatively, make a magical compound from the alchemists that one can use to help fight spirits! (a handy little thing that costs little for the alchemist and thus could be a fairly common buy for the sammies).

I like that last idea, actually...

[Mistwalker]

The next resource rush?

would it only affect materialized spirits/mages, or those still in astral as well? (a whole new meaning to blind fire)

[Cold-Dragon]

Well if the spirit is on the astral, it's not hurting you unless it's sustaining something. :P

So it's a physical plane sort of protection. If you want to cover other bases like cheap shots like that, make the compound lessen the characters connection to the astral plane (gonna be some nasty side effects though). The harder it is for the spirit to keep a connection on you, the more likely things will fail methinks...


theory anyways.

[Samaels Ghost]

Astral concealment that you can wear like gear or charms/enchantments that have a portable (negative) background count. Like Haven Lilies but portable. Nothing too powerful, but useless to mages.

If you want to make it rare or uncommon, make the compound made out MAGES! Think Witch Hunter Robin, the orbo they used that protected them from magic. Carring too much can screw with your brain and so can injecting it, though carring a little is okay (up to -3 mana ebb). Carring too much (above -3 count) can affect you the same way focus addiction does or even damage your aura/lifeforce (Essence Drain attacks against you). Injection would result in everything above plus the effect is personal (your support mage can still cast spells along side you) and it is treated like a drug that damages you after use some way.

Instead of using Background count, the Magic Resistance quality could be used instead, for a max of 4 levels. The only downside to that is it provides less protection against spirit manfestation melee attacks. This stuff would be illegal, of course and very hard to make. Although, giving it at higher levels with hefty penalties would probably be okay.

Should it be made using the Chemistry skill or the Enchanting skill? I think putting magical protection in the hands of the mundane could be very important, but that may make it too easy to obtain the stuff. Maybe a Life Gem has to be a compotent of the mixture? If the enchantment is magical in nature and you find it too powerful a bonus, you can just change the mechanics and blame it opn the cycle of mana :] Problem solved.

[Shrike30]

I'm still working on specs for biofiber body armor, and how it would affect magic use. :vegm:

[Jaid]

well, dual natured stuff bypasses immunity to normal weapons doesn't it?

if so, then bullets which are actually containers of FAB II should do the trick.

[Cold-Dragon]

I don't think it'd hurt that much, but it would definitely cause some difference. I'd either say that the force rating is subtracted from their adjusted armor for the purpose of judging what the range weapon has to deal with, or else you ignore the bullet and treat it like fighting a charged ward?

It has possibilities at least. :)

[Jaid]

well, to be fair it's probably at best the equivalent to a gel round unless you really load up the container to absolute maximum capacity, since it's going to compress a little...

and of course it may cause the bullet to pop.

now of course, if you're really crazy you could bust out a weapon that fires bullets full of FAB III

of course, the team mage probably won't be willing to stand anywhere near you. but hey, guarantee he'll be able to counterspell you, cause he probably won't let you out of his sight =D

[Cold-Dragon]

nix what I said. I was being half silly for some reason. :P it's nice stuff, but by itself it doesn't have immediate results. Still has potential to making a means though.

[Jaid]

hmmm... just had another thought...

the idea still has some potential, just it's only against non-materialized spirits.

you see, a materialized spirit has immunity to normal weapons, which grants double it's magic in hardened armor.

a non-materialized spirit has no such benefit.

so, here's the plan:

1) get yourself an ares alpha.
2) get access to the armorer skill (through a friend works fine)
3) aquire some FAB, strains I and II.
4) aquire a gas grenade, and some hollow bullets.
5) fill the gas grenade with strain I. fill the bullets with strain II.

so what does this mean? if you can figure out the rough location of a spirit (within 10 meters), you can fire the grenade into that area, thus causing your target to be visible. then, with your other simple action, you can fire a 4-round burst at the spirit, and the spirit gets no benefit from it's super armor. (this works better if you have friends with more bullets and grenades of course... as soon as one person finds the spirit's location, the rest can just empty their guns into it).

and of course, this is an interesting way to make astral scouting a little more scary for mages too.... =D

[Samaels Ghost]

Wouldn't the Strain and the spirit contest for the space like when forced into a ward? I would think that'd be how it would work. They would oppose each others' Forces. That would have to be high Force strain to knock around a spirit of decent power.

[Jaid]

why would the force of the FAB matter?

lead isn't exactly an indestructible substance, but it works just fine in bullets. a slightly malleable bullet should still work also. if it was really malleable, i suppose it might count as a gel round for the purpose of affecting spitits, but that sounds pretty appealing to me anyways =P

of course, i suppose you could make a case for sufficiently high force FAB to count as "APDS" if it was properly shaped (i understand material is one of the things that makes armor piercing rounds armor piercing, though i am sure there's other stuff like shape of bullet and probably other stuff involved.... not too worried about specifics really).

but why would you need armor piercing abilities? the whole point is that you're shooting a spirit when it has no armor...

[Cold-Dragon]

A spirits body is also essentially one big blob of magic - there is (in theory) no gaps whatsoeverinside that APDS can pointlessly fly through before it pops out the back.

That said, an APDS round would technically cause extra damage from burrowing into constant spirit 'flesh'. The issue, however, is wether or not that really matters to the spirit.

And of course, you then have to consider if spirits can also be not-so-solid while manifested.

headaches, whoo!

[Talia Invierno]

[mfb]

all you would get from a FAB-filled bullet would be, maybe, a chance for the FAB to make an astral attack against the spirit. the damage of the bullet itself wouldn't matter. personally, i wouldn't even give it that because i don't believe astral physics work that way. this topic has been argued to death here, for your viewing pleasure.

the FAB-II grenade as a lighter-upper is a good one, though.

[sunnyside]

It's alive!

And I missed it the first time.

One thing that balances things out is the "Geek the mage first" mantra of most security forces. (Actually most everybody). Their abilities are powerful and particularily scary. Also it's just good tactics. Not only do you get the advantages of focused fire without having to spend time figuring out who to shoot, but mages tend to go down a little easier. Alos if you only wound them they heal right up again, so it's best to lay it on thick.

So, for example, when the security guards who aren't retarded hide amongst the planters in the foyer and get the drop on the team, most of the tracer rounds from their delayed actions will be cutting through the guy with the obvious armor spell up.

Of course a mage could have just sent an illusion out ahead. Or they could have gone invisible in the first place. Or had a band of spirits clear rooms before the team enters, or any number of things. Because mages are powerful like that, but the threat that someday it actually will be them is ever present.

It's sort of a sword of Damocles situation.

[Whipstitch]

Geek the mage isn't terribly useful if the mage isn't doing anything to make it particularly obvious that he's the one in the group magically active. It's part of the reason why my newest hermetic generally eschews maintaing spells himself. Of course, he's chock full of skillwires and casts ONLY utility spells that have effects that cannot be replicated through mundane means (Mind Probe, Mana Static, Sterilize, Shape Material etc), so he depends on his wits and summoning ability than most mages.

[CyberKender]

[sunnyside]

Mental manipulations are crazy powerful. Especially the mob versions.

But again the geek the mage first thing comes in. If the mage does mob a group there is a delay where those guys are just standing around waiting for the mages next action to tell them what to do. If someone else outside the spell radius or someone who rolled lucky on resistance hoses the mage in that time all the guys are free to go again.

Also the manipulations are a little slower. You have to cast the spell as a complex action, then next turn use a simple to command them, meaning you can't cast another spell. Wheras if you dropped a combat spell you'd be free to cast another right then or be free to go on full defense when shot at.

Also I use a fair number of drones, which are immune to that stuff. I also have security personel fire around corners/over walls using their smartlinks a lot (you all know that's what you would do in that situation!) which makes them immune to the manipulation spells.

Though again the mage still has an arsenal of options including elemental AOE and spirits. Or again sustained invisibility, which really does solve a wide range of problems.

[streetangelj]

I can't believe nobody picked up on the Uncle quote, but heck, I use him as an NPC Talismonger in my Denver Game (CAS Chinatown).

"One more thing..." a smart mage in my game has at least a point of cyber (usually reflex boosters and cybereyes w/smartlink) and is geared up like most of the non gun-bunnies on the team, so the "geek the mage" mantra is slightly less effective because the Npcs aren't positive who he is until he's already unleashed whatever spells he plans on using (usually a high force stunball).