Getting Hosed By Magic Options

[Ryu]

Wouldn´t aluminium cease to burn real fast? Or is the reaction stable once it started?

[DocTaotsu]

make sense to me, I know that aircraft burn well for all the titanium, magnesium, and I suppose aluminum in their structures. Landing gear in particular burn spectacularly.

Of course that all happens when an aircraft is engulfed in a raging fuel fire.

So I suppose my mage could be running around throwing JP-5 on things and /than/ casting Ignite...

I think I'm going to use a cumulative hit rule suggested earlier. A player needs to get X amount of hits to light something on fire (after you subtract the object resistance threshold). X will be the body of whatever you are attacking, perhaps double the body to determine X. So if a mage wants to throw down on a body three cyberarm they'd have to get 4 hits just to overcome the resistance and at least 3 hits (over how ever many turns) to make it actually burst into flames. This of course is all limited by the "No more hits than force rule" I've just been made aware of. I guess this means a mage could hide in the bushes of a fuel dump and focus intently on a fuel container (body 10) for a couple of minutes to set it off. I could deal with that since it'd be easier to have a sami roll up with a Azzie Striker and shoot the damn thing.

I can't wait for him to set someone's hair on fire.

[Ian Argent]

I had forgotten about the inability to target discrete parts with magic.

In general, high-tech objects should be almost immune to delicate magic, and very tough against, say, powerball

[Eleazar]

What the hell do you all do with Ignite too? What's to keep a force 4 Ignite spell from lighting an entire tank or part there of on fire? It says in the description that it burns normally... last time I checked burning metal burns pretty damn hot and for freakin forever.

You did see the part about ignite being a permanent spell, right? Nothing catches on fire and no damage is done till it goes permanent. That is 4 combat rounds of doing nothing. You can't very well set something on fire when you are dead before the spell even goes permanent. Ignite is a highly ineffective spell in combat, unless of course you have time to burn. In 4 combat rounds, depending upon how many IP's the PC has, that tank would most certainly be destroyed within 2-3 combat rounds. That type of scenario is better dealt with by your heavy weapons specialist or infiltration/demolitions expert anyways. The best way for a starting mage character to take out a tank is by using a high force spirit. Of course, if the tank is being used by a competent individual, you better believe that tank is going be seriously warded. My own GM made sure of this when we were fighting elite mercenary force. Many of their expensive vehicles were warded. I was actually able to take out two helicopters with my air spirit, but that was only because the spirit was high force and was by a lucky roll(no edge), able to bypass the ward. I then just had the spirit engulf the pilot till he suffocated.

[kzt]

All you have to do is create an atomized cloud of aluminum heated up a bit. Like 3,000K. Or raise the 02% to above 30%. Crazy stuff happens in high 02% atmospheres.

[Madrigan]

I could deal with that since it'd be easier to jave a sami role up with a Azzie Striker and shoot the damn thing.

Speaking as the Sam in question, yes, that was a lot easier. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[DocTaotsu]

For those of you who couldn't understand the quote (such as myself) it was supposed to read:
"...have a sami roll up..."

I really don't want to know what a jave is. Have in espanol?

I nipped over to the "Why does magic seem so broke?" thread and got some outstanding ideas for making magic less stupid. In my last game I let my players kick the crap out of a bunch of Azzie soldiers because they (the soldiers) evidently weren't smart enough to pop smoke/glowmoss and ward their vehicles.

Pretty sure that won' t happen again.

The Azzie Striker/APDS sniper (applied libearly to an engine block) should still be a popular combination.

It sounds like I'm going to be shifting our mage away from straight up combat (where a cyber ninja/adept/whatever still rules supreme), and towards a recon/investigation role. Is that pretty much what everyone else does?

[MaxHunter]

Not necesarilly, but i sure ain't easy to have an effective combat mage. In the groups I Gm the casters can turn the tables in combat... once , then they are usually fried by drain and overcasting / oversummoning?

I guess the sounder tactic my players have is taking care of the mage, there is always someone keeping watch that the spellslinger doesn't get hurt. Usually the caster's role is to counter spirits and opposition magic, plus some recon, utility and combat aid. The brunt of the combat is on the hands of the samurais in the group.

Cheers,

Max

[DocTaotsu]

Ah, good point. The mage really fills a utility role, including being a man portable force 10 RPG if the situation requires it.

Remember kiddies, unlike your Azzie Striker, don't throw the mage away after you expend him.

[Cardul]

Ah, good point. The mage really fills a utility role, including being a man portable force 10 RPG if the situation requires it.

Remember kiddies, unlike your Azzie Striker, don't throw the mage away after you expend him.

*looks at the passed out mage with nose and ear bleeds from casting one too many Overcast spells in a desperate situation* What? But...but...The chopper is going to crash because we have too much weight...and he IS a troll!

(yes..that actually happened in an SR3 game once...)

[DocTaotsu]

"Maybe we could... i dunno, drag him or something?"

I would love, if SR was real life, to see stats on the number of runner teams that left mages behind. Especially amongst the bush league runners.

[Ravor]

Well I'd imagine that the numbers would depend if the world went Pink Mohawk or not, but all-in-all I'd think that fewer Mages would get left behind than other helpless teammates for the simple reason that you really don't want to piss off someone who can fry your brain no matter where you hide, at less a Sammy has to find you first.

But then again, I've never understood why Ritual Sorcery is seen as a throw-away skill, unless I've misread something you don't actually need to gather a team to use it (Although having a team does help of course.) and the shear versitility offered by not having to abide by the rules of LOS, especially when with a simple Metamagic you can draw a picture and use it as a focus makes the skill a must-have for any smart Wizard in my book.

[Whipstitch]

Why? I mean, really, what are you going to use it for? I simply can't think of that many spells that are terribly useful if I'm not even present in the first place. Clairvoyance and the like, maybe? Ritual Magic takes too long to perform to really be that useful in emergency situations as a means of support. I got some use out of a long distance Control Thoughts once and another time Turn To Goo was fairly useful, but that's two instances out of quite a few runs. It's simply not reliable enough for me to ever plan around, which is a shame because Ritual Magic by definition requires planning.

[Ravor]

Sure you have to plan around the ritual, but especially if a Mage isn't limited to the Mana Spells I can think of several evil things to do with Ritual Sorcery.

[Athanatos]

Ritually Casting something like Physical Barrier to keep the target from escaping, as well as some electronic jamming spell perhaps(Custom spell?) and send your small pack of force6+ Great Form Spirits after them? As well as a few watchers laughing maniacally in your voice? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Whipstitch]

See, if I was going to go through all that trouble I'd just get a group to help me and use a nasty Ignite spell instead. It's a decent one shot kill ritual spell, but as I've said, often times the applications are too narrow for me to bother spending points on. Then again, I'm such a big believer in the utility mage concept that I typically limit myself to only a single damage spell and use a lot of one shot utility spells that are really only good in emergencies. Killing mooks is for samurai; they enjoy it more anyway and in the meantime you're doing the actual important jobs like casting Fix on McGuffins, Healing people, pasting Spirits with Mana Static, turning the big nasty villain into a pile of goo and summoning Spirits to provide the Concealment and Movement powers.

[Athanatos]

Yeah, I have to admit having a spirit with Movement and Concealment can be extremely useful. I wasn't powergaming/Munchkining, but I did make sure that my first Ally spirit had Movement, Concealment, Telekinesis, and A few useful Abilities like innate spell heal and Elemental Attack. I've only had to be healed twice, but it was useful in that the other two awakened in our rather competitive group were a Shadow Way Adept and A mystic-Adept that focused on what I can best describe as rather unsubtle Attempt at being a DBZ character! (had to tell him that if he didn't spend time to remove astral traces I'd be giving him to Aztechnology after removing some less than helpful memories)

Being a Magician with the heal spell, that is rather prolific in the healing others department, it kind of sucked to realize that I had taken too much drain to realisticly heal myself without passing out first. Of course the GM running the game had lowered the cost of an Ally spirit using an alternative that was posted on dump-shock (After I pointed it out and promised not to ubergame it.) making such an Ally possible. I came to such an understanding with my GM, because the path of the munchkin does not at all fit me(I don't even Min/Max normally) and I RPed what I was doing better than usual and had a number of player deficincies to make up for. While the adept following the "Way of The Stealthy" was rather entertaining, it really didn't help that they were used to playing an insane rogue in D&D games. The type where they tend to say things that come horribly close to being like "I make a hide and Move Silent check and stealthily make my way to our employer," which of course makes it a little strange since he had to elbow his way thru a crowd. The somewhat over intense Mystic Adept had to be reminded of the Shadow in Shadowrun. The fact that the rest of the team was rather tactful seemed to be lost on said Non- So Super Saiyan for a while. The game has been rather enjoyable, though being the voice of reason in the party when you follow the Dark Goddess is kind of difficult.

Back to the topic at hand, magic can kind of be unbalancing. However, if you take into account that:
(A) You aren't the only Awakened in the 'Plex.
(B) You could be potentially unbalancing, but with the time and Karma spent becoming so, what has the rest of the team been doing? What exactly is the GM sending against you that your rise in power hasn't been atleast checked enough that you fear for your very existence?
© What is the fun of, already, being an all powerful Uber Runner? I myself find that I rather enjoy the fact that death is around just about every corner, our foes have many vengeful Connections, Pro Humanis organization know me by name and what they assume is my face(ELF POWER!!!) <<<< And that while being normally quite tactful lol. Lets just say I ran into way to many people that thought the hoodies were cool, and hardly ever bothered making willpower checks in such cases to escape the "Escalate the Conflict" mandate of the Mighty Goddess.
(D) The premise of much of the game is Magic Has Returned, what do you expect to be like the Sorcerer Hunters?!!!
(E) Um... Live by the Sword die by the Sword? I've never exactly thought of magic as being all that unbalanced compared to what is possible with other avenues of runner characters, unless you tend to play your games with every Magician going around with spells constantly sustained all Foci Glowing like a Mofo, and probably riding a Dragon/Great Dragon to boot!

[masterofm]

What other things does this guy use besides bind and ignite? I mean even if he binds up one person per combat action good snipers can cap two people a round. Personally if the dude rolled up a magic 4 mage you are not boned. Now if it was a magic 7 possession mage with mind control and possessed drones (drones with 14 hardened armor, consealment, movement, mind control, and stun ball).... that is a little more scary. Mages can have quite a bit of cheese attached to them, but in the end the more a mage specializes the less useful they can be in certain situations. Of course mages can always pull spirits out of their rectum if they have enough willpower to soak the drain, but a magic 4 mage is not a game breaker.

Think of everything as scalable. If a mage is badassed then they can easily attract the wrong sort of attention. If he is sticking his fingers in pies that he shouldn't be, slap him.

[Athanatos]

I was trying to make a similar point in that if magic is completely unbalanced in your game it means that someone is probably doing something wrong. I've mostly played Magicians of one sort or another and unless fortune is with me I usually end up running into someone that isn't going down to easily. But then I do actually play the game for fun rather than "The Ubermagix". I've had times where even pulling three Force 7 spirits outta the meta-planes did not slow down the opposition much, although, like I said before I spare the spirits if possible so I didn't have them get dispatched.
The highest I've gone before was a force 10. Through the wonders of Initiation I can pull that off without Phys, but it can still be a pretty bad problem when the drain hits while summoning and binding.

I've been wondering, If you purposely release a spirit in such a way that you intend for it to be able to become A free spirit, can it go free and if so does it still have to make a check for Edge? My GM pretty much rules it as they get to go free, but he's been powering the ruling of atts with pure handwavium(The greatest of all Elements known to Man!). I pacted with 1 that I had released while it still had a number of services left, supposedly I now don't age though at the rate I'm pissing of Humanis that isn't likely anyways lol! I pity the poor bastard that might look like my more frequently used Phys mask personas though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

As I mentioned before I don't tend to power-game, so the Spirit Pact forged was an IC(The Spirit evidently found me Honorable, go figure!) event, and the Force 10 Air Elemental was basically called down from above to stop the team from being eaten by a spirit summoned by what I, atleast from what I perceived, assume was a twisted magician following Wolf. I'm pretty sure that the GM didn't decide to seriously burn edge to save what was supposed to be a powerful, but by no means "End Boss" Threat. If he secretly did I wouldn't blame him though, I thought it was played out pretty well.

(I managed to prevent the team from being severly blitzed by magic, the Mystic Adept having pretty much no real counterspelling. Odd coincidence only the Trog took damage, I would've thought the 'dispeptic looking hacker' << *his personal description of his char* but evidently if the hacker knows anything it's survivin.)