Is it just me, or is stunball off the charts? Options

[Ddays]

So you roll sorcery + magic to deal force damage, ok.

But the drain is a mere F/2 + 1. A combat mage can pretty much end fights immediately with a force 12 stunball everytime. The drain is only that of a force 4 fireball. That's insane. Especially potent since it's no more difficult to land the force 12 stunball than a force 6 stunball, there's no reason to not go for the quick kill everytime.

Ok, sure, I can have every single fight draft a small squad of drones to defend against the stunballer, but where does that leave gangers? Instantly dead the moment they face a magic 6 caster? I basically can't have a magic using big bad cause the moment they show up, the PCs are either screwed because counterspelling failed once or they win without problems.

Maybe magic itself is broken, but I'm finding it harder and harder to keep the other characters into the game. Everytime is so fragmented, I can challenge the players individually, but as a group it seems they take turns rolling. Basically, a session goes: Matrix dude does his stuff, rolls independently of everybody else. Combat starts, mage goes off, wins. Combat starts, mage goes off, wins. Combat starts, mage sits out, Cybersammie wins. Matrix dude does his stuff, everybody else goes to grab a snack and waits for the result.

Is there no way to get all the characters fighting on the same front at the same time?

[Stahlseele]

first:magic is broken, allways has been . .
second:force 12 means body damage from drain, and how do you get to four? drain would be 7 because 12/2=6+1=7 if i ain't missing anything . .
third:damage compensator or pain editor or what's it called let's anybody and their cat ignore stun damage . . have a mage hit someone with a Force 12 Stun-Ball, and then watch them go white as their character sheet when the target does not even blink . .

[Ddays]

A fireball uses the drain of force/2 + 5, so a force 4 fireball also has a drain of 7.

And really, a drain of 7 is like 3 damage with an edged resist roll. So my mage can get 2 or 3 of these off each session without significant risk.

Magic being all or nothing is a big part of the problem. If you go all in, you can pretty much take it first round. I would prefer a system where magic hits and then gets damage soaked like guns, since it would favor longer fights.

[Karaden]

Since when do guns favour long fights? Usually with guns in real life it is whoever gets hit first loses, end of story. You may have some cercumstances where gun fights last longer, but this usually involves people in full combat armor baracaded in a fortified building with thousands of rounds of ammo or some such.

[Glayvin34]

Stunball is indeed quite badass. My Mage routinely takes out large numbers of enemies with high-force Stunballs. And given that the target needs to be awakened to get more than Willpower (3 to 6 dice) to resist something like 15S, it's just absurd.

My GM does several things to mitigate. For one, he usually spaces out opponents by quite a lot, so that I can only target one at a time.

He also has most opponents living by the GTMF (Geek Tha Mage First) doctrine, so if I poke my head out too far or leave myself too open I tend to take a bunch of physical, which makes the aforementioned overcast Stunball much less attractive. Depending on how big of a Drain dice pool the Mage has, some damage can really make casting risky.

Use of "Defense Mages" on the opposing side. In our game, most corporate security teams have at least one mage with counterspell 6, apparently.

Drones and the like are immune to stunball.

And finally, he expects small and/or undertrained opposing teams to be taken out quickly, and their physical strength rarely represents the main threat to completing the job. I.e., if a small sec team gets off a single communication, LoneStar will be on the scene in a few combat turns. Or if there is a single guard, he is monitored via the matrix by Agents, and if he is harmed they raise an alarm. That kind of thing.

But magic is overpowered during combat, pure and simple. If your Mage starts summoning Spirits of Man that can also cast Stunball, it gets ever more unbalanced. But that's why taking out the security team should only be one small part of the run.

[Ddays]

A 12 meter radius circle is pretty damn hard to stay out of I would say, especially if your mage has more than one initiative pass and can cast 2.

Also, the geek the mage problem just makes it even more advantageous for the mage to alpha, since if he doesn't, then he's pretty much guaranteed to be taken out of the fight first. I think it's more a cause of the problem than a solution.

And I understand the value of counterspelling, but I dislike the fact that it's all or nothing all the time. I already use 6 rating counterspeller and wards and stuff to protect my dorks, but it hoses the mage just as much when he's using his regular force spells as it does the alpha strike.

I think I'm going to try raising the drain of the stunball and manaball to a f/2 + 3 and seeing if it fixes things.

[Kyoto Kid]

...still, even if not overcasting, a stunball is pretty damned efficient. Take a mage with a 6 MA and 6 spellcasting casting a force 6 stunball OK that is 12 dice without adding any more for foci or Mentor Spirit modifiers. On an "average roll (4 hits), that means the target takes 9 boxes of stun damage. An average mundane with 3 Willpower gets 1 hit & takes 8 boxes. Should the mage get max hits allowable (6) that is 11 boxes (1 into physical overflow). A good chance the mundanes in the effect area of the spell are down for the count & out of the rest of the combat.

Meanwhile the mage only has to shake down 4 boxes with a pool at least as good as his casting pool and if the spell is on a fetish (and/or has totem modifiers) this adds to the drain dice. More than likely the mage will not even be winded.

Also, stun cannot be healed with either spells or First Aid. Furthermore, there's nothing stopping a sammy from going around and executing all the unconscious characters afterwards, I've seen it done a number of times.

[Glayvin34]

[Carver]

You can't stunball anyone you can't see, but airburst grenades don't have that problem...

[hyzmarca]

The Infiltration skill is the best protection from mages. If they can't see you then they can't hurt you, except with indirect spells.

[Fortune]

[Ddays]

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[Stahlseele]

the same reason ANYone is bringing along the combat monsters . .
'cause you can and probably WILL fuck up and they will have to take care of business because your stealthed ass won't survive a lucky shot . .

[Ddays]

[Stahlseele]

[Siege]

Pick any game system you like - wizworms are either useless or death on two legs. There isn't really any middle of the road.

As a compromise, bound spirits thrown against incoming spells might buy your NPCs a few extra rounds, but from a "realistic" point of view, the cost-benefit analysis just isn't there.

Wizworms are so rare, the average sec guard will never have any need for the amazingly expensive "magic armor". By comparison, kevlar is almost cheaper than cotton and protects against far more common threats.

-Siege

Edit: You could attempt to re-conceptualize the entire magical system, but runs into a homebrew set of rules and game world, which may not sit well with your players.

[Ddays]

[augurer]

The problem I've noticed is that the combat monsters tend to dominate combat so fast that the other characters don't get to do squat. And if you provide enough of a challenge for the combat monster, the non-combat monsters don't have much chance of contributing, as they're either not going to hit, or die extremely fast if the challenge focuses on them.

The most balanced encounters seem to require a lot of mooks to give the average runners something to shoot at, and a couple cyberzombies for the Troll/Ork weapons specialist to consume more than 2 of his IPs. But large combats just aren't that believable to have happen very often.

[Stahlseele]

i kinda allways thought it to be silly . . i'm playing the 3m tall, 300 kilo mountain of muscles carrying the LMG . . sneaking with maybe 8 successes (good roll there) and NOBODY noticing? naah . . . maybe the rules say otherwise, but untill i can get that image into my mind without wanting to paint my troll neon green and having him dance and sing through the check-point after such a roll, i'll not be seen spending too much points for that *g*

That's why the combat monsters are there in the first place O.o
because if the sneaky ones fuck it up someone HAS to be able to save their pathetic asses in a whole building full of potential enemies . .

[Ddays]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Stahlseele]

true, mages are overpowered even compared to combat monsters . . but if you want longer battles, have the mooks actually USE TACTICS . . with the SR4 kinda Matrix Style and stuff you'd probably be able to have a drop-down-view of the whole battle so it basically can end up like a game of chess . . with blood of course *g*

[Siege]

The other problem with a protracted battle is the situation under which the engagement happens - that is, breaking into a secured area.

The longer a battle lasts, the more likely it is that reinforcements will be alerted and consequently, everyone has a bad night.

Specialists will always dominate the focus in their area of specialization - this is true of riggers, deckers, mages, combat monsters and so on. A matrix run that only takes seconds in game time can take an hour of game time, which leaves everyone else insanely bored. Conversely, one trick ponies will usually be useless and insanely bored in situations that don't touch on their specialization.

Which is why PCs should always, imho, take meaningful levels in a skill or two that doesn't directly pertain to their job function. It means players will have more opportunities to do things in the game and as a practical note, it really sucks if the only guy who knew first aid was the one who found the landmine.

-Siege