Magic got some?, SR4 Options

[TheOOB]

I've played a few mages who ended up being combat heavy, a few things I've noted:

-Body is important, a higher body means better damage resistance, heavier armor, and more damage boxes(more overcasting).
-Take stunball and stunbolt if you can. They are very cheap drain-wise, and most foes have a lower willpower than body.
-Don't underestimate firearms, a pistol loaded with stick-n-shock can win many fights, and doesn't risk drain(or leave an astral sig)
-Get a high edge if you can, edge is important for magicians. Since you tend to use fewer, but more powerful attacks, getting the most out of them is important, as is resisting the drain on that force 12 powerball.
-Spirits are important. Spirits of elemental attack are great fighters, especially if your GM allows you to pick what elemental type they use. Spirits of Air, in particular, are quite good, especially with an electric attack. Spirits of man with spells are allright, but elemental attack can be just as powerful(if not better), with no drain. Remember, most spirits won't overcast for you.

As for the numbers, those are easy. Get as high of a magic and spellcasting as you can, maybe pick up a foci. A magic 5 character with 4 in spell casting is plenty deadly.

[Octopiii]

(not covered... twink method... buy a nice high body, then shapeshift into say an orc or troll to raise your physical stats w/ sustaining penalty/focus)

Pretty sure Shapeshift says you can't use it to change into a metahuman.

Forget illusions... needing to beat Object Resistance 5 anymore makes it a no go (3 for a raw sensor, but a drone is OR5 and those are what you need to worry about). That's a SR4a change which has rendered illusions laughable. Maybe invis to sneak people past guards though or to make things 'disappear' from view (like that command detonated grenade you left by the door).

What does a drone see the world with? It's sensors. Use OR 3 for illusions, OR 5 to powerbolt it. Simple.

[ Spoiler ]

Ork Mage (20)
Body 4
Agility 2
Reaction 5
Strength 3
Charisma 2
Intuition 5
Logic 2
Willpower 5
170 points

Edge 5
Magic 5
Cost 70

Skills
Spellcasting 6
Counterspelling 4
Summoning 4
Assessing 3
Perception 4
Infiltration 4
Ground Vehicles 1/3 (Wheeled)
Cost 114

Spells
Heal
Levitate
Stunball
Powerbolt
Stunbolt
Increased Reflexes
Physical Mask
Influence
Physical Mask
Improved Invisibility
Awaken
Cost 33

Qualities positive
Mage
Mentor Spirit
Cost 20
Qualities Negative
(Whatever) -35
+ 15
Sustaining Focus 3 (30k + 3bp = 8bp cost)
(390)

You have 10 bp left over. Not enough for a Power Focus, but sufficient for a contact and a fake sin, lifestyle, and some armor. Oh, and you have 6 edge. Who needs power foci when you have 5 edge? Suck, it world!

[Meatbag]

Um, CHA determines how many Spirits you can BIND, not SUMMON! You would be spending a boatload of BPs/Karma to bind that many spirits. With the exception of watchers and Bound Spirits, you can only ever SUMMON 1 spirit.

SR4A, p.188
Summoning
A magician may only summon the chosen spirits of her tradition (see Traditions, p. 180). Summoning a spirit requires a Complex Action, and only one spirit may be summoned at a time.

Obviously. Slight semantic error on my part, I was referring to Bound Spirits, of course.

Summoned spirits also only last until the next sunrise/sunset, so you have to summon those 6-7 Force 12 spirits twice per day. That's a lotta drain.

Main book, page 177: "A spirit will perform the services it owes until the next sunrise or sunset. At that time, regardless of
any remaining services or what it was doing, the spirit will depart and return to its home deep in astral space."

That's why we bind them. And yes, I realize that binding Force 6-12 Spirits is non-trivial. Do keep in mind that you only need one service out of each, though.

But, since he's NOT asking for hideous twinkery, I'll bow out here.

[The Jake]

Am I the only one that DOESN'T like humans?

Not to detract from the awesomeness of Edge, but Edge 2 doesn't help THAT much. Edge 2 also doesn't offset a higher body, strength, willpower - all of which you get with a dwarf, or a higher agility and charisma of an elf. You also will be lacking the points to pay for an increase in Edge to a respectable level anyway.

An elven comat voodoo houndan, using Charisma + Willpower for drain, will have a higher base DP than a dwarf. Agility linked skills means even when defaulting, he/she will have an advantage over every other race when it comes to combat skills.

For more twinkery, build a Voodoo version which allows summoning Plant spirits (not difficult when you look at the 101 variations of Voodoo depending on which region of the world it is practised). At the end of chargen you can at least summon a decent spirit and get Immunity to Normal Weapons, even if you can't directly control the spirit, beyond giving simply orders. Once you initiate and get those two metamagics, you have a lot more granularity and power.

Once you initiate go Invoking and Channelling metamagics (in that order) and you can summon high Force Plant spirits with Regeneration and soak an insane amount of damage. You also get awesome unarmed combat + dodge equal to the Force of the spirit. This also allows the build space to grow.

I would rather have a high Agility and Drain dice pool as a combat mage than a higher body. Even a dwarf at least has more flavor - an increase in body and strength means that if you want, you can have a dwarf slinging around an assault rifle or Lt. Machinegun (whatever suits you). If you're going to carry a gun and skillpoints are in short supply I would almost lean towards Automatics or Heavy Weapons - I mean you already have plenty of weapons at your disposal normally anyway. If you need a gun, you need something decent.

I'd also look at cyberware - trauma dampener, platelet factories at a minimum. Look at cybereyes, muscle toner, synaptic boosters to fill in the rest depending on your personal preference.

At the end of the day, my view is that if you're having to rely on your own natural Body attribute (or armor for that matter), then you fail as a mage.

- J.

[easl]

Obviously. Slight semantic error on my part, I was referring to Bound Spirits, of course.

That's why we bind them. And yes, I realize that binding Force 6-12 Spirits is non-trivial. Do keep in mind that you only need one service out of each, though.

Meat,
Spirits are awesome and I'd agree that any serious combat mage should have a summoned or bound spirit ready to be called as part of their arsenal. However, relying on bound spirits is a "one shot" strategy. Many runs are doing to involve multiple combats, and its not like you can stop for 6 hours mid-run to rebind.

Shinobi's build is good for a starting combat mage, but I wouldn't neglect the Dodge skill. In priority I might even put that 2nd after Spellcasting.

[Falconer]

Octopii...

1. I'm not out to just slam chars together just for the sake of slamming them together. it was intended as an object lesson
2. he asked for human, he got human
3. orks pay EXTRA for that last point of edge
4. he asked for a lot of broad base... so I tried to make sure I included a spell of every school
5. Doesn't matter, standalone sensors (like a security cam are OR3), but an armed drone is OR5. We're talking RAW here.

6. I've watched people use shapechange for years. "non-paranormal critter" then they now define it as non-human, so yes you are correct. (typically this was used to change their face for disguise purposes). Though I'm going to make note to research a new version of the spell now! to keep it RAW.

[Screaming Eagle]

Though my first referance here WAS an elf my favorite "build" for a combat mage is Troll - yes they get gimped a bit on the drain resistance summoning etc., but that extra body is good for taking punishment and soaking up overcasting damage. Hand them a low foce - high reach weapon focus, A polearm or some such, and they are unholy in the damages (foci dice and reach also help offset lowish agility/ lowish astral stats). Start play with limited spells - say 4 or 5 - stun/mana ball/bolt, mask or invis., heal and one or 2 others - spellcasting group 4, summoning 5, magic maybe as low as 3 or 4. Toss saved points in the general directon of gun, melee, stealth and dodge skills. This is usually a fairly flaw heavy/ edge light build to make ends meet - you could very easily end up living on the street with a focus that could be a good down payment on a house... oh Shadowrun

Alternativly to weapon foci/troll combo an unarmed of 3 to 5 (+2 touch) with some touch range stun/mana spells isn't a bad idea on any almost mage - the drain is a joke even at high (10-12) force and you can hold your own in a straight up fist fight, you still shouldn't go toe to toe with a Melee Sami - but you might last a few more seconds for help to show up and the standard rent-a-cop or ganger goes down pretty quick.

I've always favoured tazers on my spell slingers for ranged - 1-3 in pistols (+2 tazers) gets good milage and if your facing another spell slinger they may well inflict additional stun on themselves before you get there - good times. And unless I'm mistaken they can knock down drones and "stuff" with them as well.

[Octopiii]

Octopii...

1. I'm not out to just slam chars together just for the sake of slamming them together. it was intended as an object lesson
2. he asked for human, he got human
3. orks pay EXTRA for that last point of edge
4. he asked for a lot of broad base... so I tried to make sure I included a spell of every school
5. Doesn't matter, standalone sensors (like a security cam are OR3), but an armed drone is OR5. We're talking RAW here.

6. I've watched people use shapechange for years. "non-paranormal critter" then they now define it as non-human, so yes you are correct. (typically this was used to change their face for disguise purposes). Though I'm going to make note to research a new version of the spell now! to keep it RAW.

3. Yeah, my bad. I had him as a human originally, then changed him to an ork so I could fit the sustaining focus in. I dropped his edge to 5.

5. That's not how I read the Object resistance table. P. 183, SR4A: "Spells cast on non-living objects require a success test". You could read that as not requiring a test at all for any spell not cast upon the non-living object. However, I choose to interpret that as the OR you are required to beat is the OR of what you're trying to manipulate. In the case of illusions, you're trying to manipulate how a sensor sees something.

[Megu]

He has his sheet, so I don't have the specifics, but one of my players is running a combat magician build that's running roughshod over everything. He's playing a Romany sorceress using Traditional Hedgewitchcraft as a template, which is a Possession tradition. Basically, he has a big nice summoning focus, summons a spirit into himself, and then has ItNW and really high strength and proceeds to beat everyone to death. He has spells, sure, the usuals, but they don't come into play often. Granted, this mostly works as a melee build, you really got to have someone else on ranged. Once he gets Channeling metamagic, though, he'll be able to shoot and use swords while in spirit-enhanced super mode. So, this might be an approach you could try, possession magic as a melee build.

[The Jake]

He has his sheet, so I don't have the specifics, but one of my players is running a combat magician build that's running roughshod over everything. He's playing a Romany sorceress using Traditional Hedgewitchcraft as a template, which is a Possession tradition. Basically, he has a big nice summoning focus, summons a spirit into himself, and then has ItNW and really high strength and proceeds to beat everyone to death. He has spells, sure, the usuals, but they don't come into play often. Granted, this mostly works as a melee build, you really got to have someone else on ranged. Once he gets Channeling metamagic, though, he'll be able to shoot and use swords while in spirit-enhanced super mode. So, this might be an approach you could try, possession magic as a melee build.

You could easily combine this with the troll idea above, some limit cyber (to support overcasting) + weapon focus for an utterly terrifying combat magician.

Imagine a troll with a body of 6+ bumped to 16 thanks to Force 10+ spirit, with 20/20 armor and a weapon focus with a +3 reach (Nodaichi) would be scaaary....
That goes double once you get Channeling and Invoking.

- J.

[Falconer]

Megu:

You're a new poster... I suggest HEAVILY.
1. you audit his sheet very closely. (keep a copy)
2. Read up on possession traditions and spirits... then read it again, and again.
3. Familiarize yourself w/ spirit powers. Note that most of them roll 2x force vs. willpower only (my GM recently got tired of this and invoked a houserule that spirit powers are subject to counterspelling just like mage powers... magic by any other name is still magic. The houserule seems to work well so far).
4. Most people I know outright ban possession traditions for the cheese they bring. But you seemingly have it under control.

There are a LOT of gotcha's in there. Such as without a specific metamagic... summoning a spirit into himself means he loses control of his own body as the spirit does what it will (you already realize this). But he has to 'order' the spirit to do something... the old DnD wish rules are in effect, the spirit may interpret ambiguous wording in a way he doesn't necessarily like.

ItNW DOES NOT STACK (emphasis DOES NOT STACK) w/ worn armor, use the higher value. Keeping the hardened armor damage threshhold to ignore light damage. This goes a long way towards stopping them from becoming nigh invulnerable gods who either ignore damage or soak it down to nothing otherwise. (I had the ItNW bit wrong for a long time too, until I reread it carefully and realized it lacked the operative phrase which every other stacking armor source has 'cumulative w/ worn armor').

You can still seriously hurt him w/ a lot of things (other magicians, other spirits, assault rifle loaded w/ APDS on wide burst to eliminate most of his defense pool, grenades). At least until spirits start getting silly stupid.

Read the section on summoning spirits... spirits can spend edge to resist, but they really only do it if there's good cause. The reasons listed in street magic & BBB are, caster has regularly abused his spirits in the past, spirit bane negative quality, Attempting to summon something far beyond his own magic power (generally we consider this to be, more than 50% over his magic attribute). However, generally avoid this unless the player is abusing things.

Best of luck.

[Cthulhudreams]

3. Yeah, my bad. I had him as a human originally, then changed him to an ork so I could fit the sustaining focus in. I dropped his edge to 5.

5. That's not how I read the Object resistance table. P. 183, SR4A: "Spells cast on non-living objects require a success test". You could read that as not requiring a test at all for any spell not cast upon the non-living object. However, I choose to interpret that as the OR you are required to beat is the OR of what you're trying to manipulate. In the case of illusions, you're trying to manipulate how a sensor sees something.

Most of everyone else consider it whatever object you are casting the spell on.

Any physical mask is bad ass - you can look like other people which is nice in a game about infomation, because you can also appear as a guy not carrying a tricked out fully automatic grenade launcher.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Most of everyone else consider it whatever object you are casting the spell on.

Any physical mask is bad ass - you can look like other people which is nice in a game about infomation, because you can also appear as a guy not carrying a tricked out fully automatic grenade launcher.

LMAO! That would be very helpful!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Cthulhudreams]

You could easily combine this with the troll idea above, some limit cyber (to support overcasting) + weapon focus for an utterly terrifying combat magician.

Imagine a troll with a body of 6+ bumped to 16 thanks to Force 10+ spirit, with 20/20 armor and a weapon focus with a +3 reach (Nodaichi) would be scaaary....
That goes double once you get Channeling and Invoking.

- J.

The other option is take the reading of the rules where ITNW doesn't stake with normal armour, because it says it counts as normal armour in damage checks - which is entirely reasonable to say therefore it doesn;t stack with normal armour.

[Falconer]

CthulthuDreams:

One... that is the exact RAW reading of ItNW. It explicitly lacks the 'stacks w/ normal armor' clause found in every other stacking armor source. So without an errata or wording to the contrary it does not stack. (I originally thought it stacked and argued against possession traditions as broken... I've since changed my mind, but only if the GM is intimately familiar w/ the magic rules/system).


Two... You roll a physical mask w/ 4 successes...
Most people looking won't see through the mask as they won't roll 4 successes on the wil(+counterspell) check. (including cybereyes... they spent essence on them, same as a mage gets cybereyes benefits when casting).
A security camera is OR3... it will not see through the illusion
A drone WILL see through the illusion as you need at least 5 hits to beat object resistance.

The resistance is, whatever is looking at the illusion in this case.

There was a lot of discussion on this thread. And it's right there in the illusion spell section:

"Physical illusions are effective against technological systems, assuming the caster achieves
enough hits to meet the Object Resistance threshold"

[Megu]

Whoa, didn't see I had a response. Thanks for the hints Falconer.

Part of the reason I hadn't been worried about munchkinization is the player's new too, and has even less idea what his stuff does than I do, but I do see how it could get out of hand regardless. Like, ItNW not stacking is really good news, because I was getting tired of dealing with that.

It's also helped that his character refuses absolutely to bind spirits, so we're only dealing with one of these at once. Also hasn't initiated or gotten Channeling. We've essentially been treating it as though the spirit is smart enough to run somewhere or hit something, but just doesn't have the skill knowledge for much anything else. Is that about right?

[darthmord]

CthulthuDreams:

One... that is the exact RAW reading of ItNW. It explicitly lacks the 'stacks w/ normal armor' clause found in every other stacking armor source. So without an errata or wording to the contrary it does not stack. (I originally thought it stacked and argued against possession traditions as broken... I've since changed my mind, but only if the GM is intimately familiar w/ the magic rules/system).


Two... You roll a physical mask w/ 4 successes...
Most people looking won't see through the mask as they won't roll 4 successes on the wil(+counterspell) check. (including cybereyes... they spent essence on them, same as a mage gets cybereyes benefits when casting).
A security camera is OR3... it will not see through the illusion
A drone WILL see through the illusion as you need at least 5 hits to beat object resistance.

The resistance is, whatever is looking at the illusion in this case.

There was a lot of discussion on this thread. And it's right there in the illusion spell section:

"Physical illusions are effective against technological systems, assuming the caster achieves
enough hits to meet the Object Resistance threshold"

Actually, the drone works likes so against magic...

To affect the Drone, one must overcome OR 5.

To fool the drone's Sensors, one must overcome OR 3.

It is literally no different than casting against a person in this regard.

The big thing is to recognize that living targets effectively have a variable OR rating while non-living objects have a fixed one. Why do living ones have a variable OR? You roll Will+Spell defense against a spell. All successes count. The casting mage needs to beat that number to have the spell successfully affect the target. No difference than casting against an OR.

It's not like you are using your body to resist a Mana spell that is mind affecting. So why would you use the drone's OR to resist a spell that is affecting its sensors (which have their own OR)?

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

You can now sustain any six spells on yourself, I like Improved Agility, Improved Reflexes, Improved Reaction, Deflection, Extended Mindnet and Extended Detect Enemies. A Spirit's magic is equal to its Force, so we're looking at Force 12 spells on average, Force 24 max.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they finally got around to closing this loophole in SR4A? Innate Spell is no longer overcastable, IIRC.

[Falconer]

darthmord:
In that case, you're making up a house rule. The RAW clearly indicates drones (and all portions of them) have an OR of 5.

Put another way, you can't specifically target the rubber tires to get an OR2 to burst them w/ a spell. You have to target the vehicle as a whole.

One thing, a lot of people don't understand. I'm not saying that because I like it... (OR5 is hard for any non-twinked mage to meet). But simply because I'm acknowledging that's what the rules actually say. Just because we don't like them doesn't make it so.



Megu:
The lack of bound spirits isn't a huge problem for you. As he needs to have vessels prepared to place them into on the material. In astral, he simply lacks the astral attack pack. He's also missing out on some very usefull services that only bound spirits can provide. Granted binding spirits can be expensive.


No that isn't correct on how a spirit would react. The spirits attributes depend on the force of the spirit, including it's intelligence. So a force4 spirit has sapience and is as intelligent than most characters. The primary limitation is the number of services owed. He's going to need to issue a lot of orders to keep himself possessed. Though you are right on one level... spirits don't have knowledge skills... so they're pretty much idiot savants... extremely intelligent at high forces but w/ little to no practical knowledge to apply it to.

The player must word his services correctly... This is where the 'wish' wording comes into play. If he orders the spirit to engage a certain target... and then other targets appear, he'll have to give another order. If he gives a vague order, then it's up to the spirit as to how it'll interpret the orders (or what it prioritirizes.. which might be different than what he prioritizes). I've given orders only to have to change or suffer some minor inconvenience when the situation changes later.

[Cadmus]

one combat mage i did, I forget the stats off the top of my head, good body and reaction, lots of body armor, with a 5 or 6 on spell casting but a lot less dice on binding and such (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) 14 drain dice total in the end and 1 essence point of cyberware,

only had a 4 magic but he could take a hit and pump some spells all day

[Megu]

The player must word his services correctly... This is where the 'wish' wording comes into play. If he orders the spirit to engage a certain target... and then other targets appear, he'll have to give another order. If he gives a vague order, then it's up to the spirit as to how it'll interpret the orders (or what it prioritirizes.. which might be different than what he prioritizes). I've given orders only to have to change or suffer some minor inconvenience when the situation changes later.

Don't I recall reading, though, that combat only counts as one service regardless of how many foes there are in the combat?

[Falconer]

No, that's under the 'services' section where it lists what costs one service....

Normally, one use of a spirits power counts as one service. That's a special clause which allows the spirit to use it's powers multiple times but only for purposes of executing a single service. EG: one combat could be 4 uses of the elemental attack power and then the spirit deciding itself (not the player) to use it's fear power to scare things off... that isn't 4 services but one.

But in that same section "If the parameters of a spirits service are changed, for example..., another service is used". So if he starts the fight ordering one thing, then the combat situation changes and he needs to change the order (such as directly telling the spirit target priority)... that's another service.


Yes a service can be to fight in a combat. But how now did he word his orders to the spirit... Like I addressed the spirit is intelligent and sapient and may not see things the same way he does. (who knows one of the foes might have spirit bane... and the spirit just has to take him out first even though he's a mook rather than decapitating the other mage).

My point is... if you order the spirit to do one thing... "Kill 'that' guard..." that's a service... if more guards show up... it'll take another service to order the spirit to engage them in anything other than self-defense. And self-defense for the spirit, could easily include vacating the body once 'that' guard is dead leaving a very vulnerable mage now standing in the middle of a bad situation.

The more vague your order is... "follow him (the street sam), knock out anything he attacks, and knock out anything which attacks you" The less services it'll take you to accomplish your goal, but the more control you cede to someone else or to the spirits discretion.


See my point.

[WyldKnight]

On the topic of spirits how would spirit affinity come into play? I have a combat mage build I'm working on and thought since I want him to be a parahunter of sorts, I got an image of him, his hunting rifle, and a beast spirit for tracking, I would want him to have spirit affinity. Then I actually read and I'm kind of confused how it would be implemented into the game.

[Shinobi Killfist]

On the topic of spirits how would spirit affinity come into play? I have a combat mage build I'm working on and thought since I want him to be a parahunter of sorts, I got an image of him, his hunting rifle, and a beast spirit for tracking, I would want him to have spirit affinity. Then I actually read and I'm kind of confused how it would be implemented into the game.

There are no rules on how it works. Its up to the GM. If its not your summon it will try not to kill you if given the choice. If it is your summon you should get a bit more mileage out of your services.

[darthmord]

darthmord:
In that case, you're making up a house rule. The RAW clearly indicates drones (and all portions of them) have an OR of 5.

Put another way, you can't specifically target the rubber tires to get an OR2 to burst them w/ a spell. You have to target the vehicle as a whole.

One thing, a lot of people don't understand. I'm not saying that because I like it... (OR5 is hard for any non-twinked mage to meet). But simply because I'm acknowledging that's what the rules actually say. Just because we don't like them doesn't make it so.

I'm not making up a house rule. This was from one of the SR4 devs on another thread here. I want to say it was Adam or Synner who mentioned it. Now this is from SR4a, not SR4. So there may be a few differences.

The example that was used in that previous thread was a drone vice the drone's sensors. The drone and the sensors have their own OR separate from each other. If you wanted to fry the drone, you used the drone's OR. If you wanted to fool the drone's perception, you used the Drone's Sensor OR.

As I recall, the thread was filled with a lot of angst about the increased OR chart which was later reduced a notch to make it a bit more reasonable.