Why shouldn't mundanes resist magic?, Make the Mage optional Options

[MYST1C]

Something i've always had to scratch my head about is the fact that Magic is Directly tied to Essence.. the more 'ware the less connected you are with the astral realm. In earlier editions it was incredibly hard to heal low essence samis, but attacking them with combat spells was the same. Let alone in the fluff of the book it states that mages attack your astral self not your physical body and thats why magic is "invisible".. but if 'ware takes away from your astral self... so wouldn't it in theory make it harder for magic to target you?

Explanation attempt, in-game-wise: Essence measures your "life-force". Lowering your essence actually means surrendering part of this life-force. Now, positive/constructive magic, like healing, builds upon that life-force, enhancing and focusing it. If your essence and thus life-force is lower than normal the healing spell has less "substance" to work with and thus gets harder to cast and/or has less effect.
A destructive combat spell on the other hand is meant to extinquish your life-force and kill you. To such a spell it would actually be positive if the target has lower essence. This does not manifest in the game crunch as any essence-based boni to combat magic would make cyberware less attractive and setting/style-wise characters are supposed/encouraged to have 'ware.

[Psikerlord]

For me, the problem with mages is not spells vs mundanes, it is spirits vs mundanes. This is not a big problem when it is just the one spirit. The game comes into problems however when you have multiple, powerful bound spirits ready to kick hoop. I think SR should basically scrap bound spirits, or limit them more severely (maybe bymp the optional dice penalty rule to -3 dice per spirit instead of -2).

[Dakka Dakka]

What do you consider High Power Spirits? A force larger than 6? If a Mage puts that much of his Resources into being able to bind many spirits of that force and surviving the drain, he is damn well allowed to kick butt with them. This tactic is a lot more expensive than a grenade launcher with airburst link or a HMG and a high skill in heavy weapons.

[Larme]

For me, the problem with mages is not spells vs mundanes, it is spirits vs mundanes. This is not a big problem when it is just the one spirit. The game comes into problems however when you have multiple, powerful bound spirits ready to kick hoop. I think SR should basically scrap bound spirits, or limit them more severely (maybe bymp the optional dice penalty rule to -3 dice per spirit instead of -2).

I think they're already limited by cost, they cost a lot of money. If a streetsam spends 30k on a superweapon, I'd expect it to kick butt. So too when a mage spends 30k to bind 5 force 6 spirits. And honestly, there are so many ways for mundanes to hurt spirits, whether it's stick-n-shock, white phosphorous, flamethrowers, lasers, elephant rifles, sniper rifles, assault cannons, rockets... And Stick-n-Shock is the only one you really need, 6s(e) means that one net hit breaks the Immunity of a force 6 spirit, 2 net hits breaks force 7, 3 net hits breaks force 8... And you can do it with a holdout pistol, if you want.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I always thought there should be more built in resistance to spells but maybe less add ons like hazing. For illusions I think you should be vs will or intuition + perception, for direct combat it should be a dodge stat and a soak the damage stat.

As is without seriously tweaking a character to be anti-magic you just roll so many dice against just there willpower that you will drop the person if you set the force at 9. Heck add in cover and I still expect to drop them every time, add in cover and counterspelling and I'm probably near the 50/50 range. And if you are going with stun spells 9 force is kind of easy to resist drain for.(though stun ball i expect to take a small amount of damage unless I build for drain)

[kzt]

To effectively soak magic with CM you need a team design. If your team can generate >10 dice for a countermagic teamwork test direct combat spells are not nearly as scary.

[Machiavelli]

And again i´m using the "Crap"-word. Like Glyph said, magic is ways less powerful than in previous editions. In SR4A it even get nerfed a bit more. What do you all want magic to become? For the entertainment industry (doesn´t work anymore, because the cams are possibly floating drones and i don´t think that a mage in this industry is capable or willing to kill itself with overcasting for a Trid) or just for the flavour?Passivly dancing aroung, sometimes seen as an useless NPC in a bar but not as an active part of the game anymore? Sorry, but if you want to get rid of the magic, play another game. You cannot be serious complaining that the mage is too effective while playing a 20-dice street sam with a weapon that fires 3 times a phase, with APDS-ammo that negates nearly your complete armor and doing 3 times the damage a mage is capable of WITHOUT getting killed by drain. Thats crap...nothing more. Sorry.

[Heath Robinson]

Ok, that is a really hard analogy to follow. Are you saying that mages are the only thing that can protect mundanes from other mages? Because for the most part, the streetsam will go before the mage, shoot him in the face, and win. It's not so much that the streetsam needs the mage's protection, it's that they both need each other. Mages will get geeked without someone fast on the draw to defend them, and streetsams need mages to defend them from spells.

Now, you're free to dislike the way the game is set up, but that's the way Shadowrun has pretty much always worked. Shadowrunners are glass cannons, dealing death left and right, but the one time they don't act first against a powerful threat and it's curtains. To the fastest gun goes the victory, and that's for both mages and mundanes. Of course, SR4A is more forgiving with the Full Defense option, but it's not like that really saves you, it just delays your execution. Once you start going on full defense, you're screwed as it is. Against magic, you don't have that same ability to delay the inevitable, but that's really the primary difference. I mean, who can really, with a straight face, say that an airbursting neurostun minigrenade isn't as good as, or even better than a stunball?

Assuming you get the accusation in first, the Lord says "oh, look, a token of Protection from Commoners". Then he turns around and accuses you, and you had best hope that your Lord is ready to protect you. Security Lords have more Commoners than you, and might look just like a Commoner until they begin accusing you. Assuming, of course, that you get the first accusation in. Because Lords also get Invisibility and Priests have Concealment.


Who even mentioned Stunball? Control Actions is F/2 and just plain negates the target. Painlessly (F4 = 2 DV). The Mob version is just F/2 + 2 (but you just need to cast it at F4 as opposed to the need to overcast Stunball for the same effect). Wait, why are we even looking at things that directly negate 'Runners when Magic is just superior in versatility to technology. Summon a Spirit of Man with Enhance Aim as an Innate Spell and get it to sustain it on your best shooters. They won't compare to the Sam, but there are three of them and one of the Sam.

Give your fellow Security Guards Combat Sense, or Deflection. Throw down Heal. Why always the refrain of "Direct Combat Spells are the be all and end all and must be forever"? That's more boring than the Sam who always just unloads his Machine Gun on things. It's the exact same thing, in fact.

Now imagine an awakended character with Magic 6(1) and ware worth 5 points of essence, counterspelling 6 and a houserule that lets lost essence affect the spell defense pool. Combine this with a fomori and magic is pretty much useless.

Yes. You spend over half your BP budget on being immune to Magic and, well, you damn well better be immune to Magic. Fomori is 45 BP. You spend 40 BP on Willpower. You buy Mystic Adept for 10 BP. You spend 24 BP on Counterspelling 6. You sink 20 BP in 'Ware. You sink 65 BP in Magic. Total Cost: 205 BP. Even without the houserule this build was immune to Magic. The houserule just made the build less counterproductive. You only roll 16 dice on Reistance rolls, you just take significantly less damage when it's a Combat spell. You still only have your Resistance roll when it comes to Mental Manipulations. You're also ineffective at other things thanks to sinking half your BP into being immune to Magic (with some side benefits).

Need I also remind you that you do not benefit from Magical healing, or buffs much. Sure, they can still summon Spirits to buff you, but that's only because the Critter power rules don't interact with the Spellcasting rules. At all.

For me, the problem with mages is not spells vs mundanes, it is spirits vs mundanes. This is not a big problem when it is just the one spirit. The game comes into problems however when you have multiple, powerful bound spirits ready to kick hoop. I think SR should basically scrap bound spirits, or limit them more severely (maybe bymp the optional dice penalty rule to -3 dice per spirit instead of -2).

I never stated that this would be restricted to just being Spell Resistance. People just put words in my mouth. Spirits were where I really wanted to point this, because rolling 2 stats against one to just negate people for a few Combat Turns is no exactly balanced.

And again i´m using the "Crap"-word. Like Glyph said, magic is ways less powerful than in previous editions. In SR4A it even get nerfed a bit more. What do you all want magic to become? For the entertainment industry (doesn´t work anymore, because the cams are possibly floating drones and i don´t think that a mage in this industry is capable or willing to kill itself with overcasting for a Trid) or just for the flavour?Passivly dancing aroung, sometimes seen as an useless NPC in a bar but not as an active part of the game anymore? Sorry, but if you want to get rid of the magic, play another game. You cannot be serious complaining that the mage is too effective while playing a 20-dice street sam with a weapon that fires 3 times a phase, with APDS-ammo that negates nearly your complete armor and doing 3 times the damage a mage is capable of WITHOUT getting killed by drain. Thats crap...nothing more. Sorry.

Direct Combat Spells are less powerful. Mental Manipulations still horribly rape Mundanes and Mages without Counterspelling. Mages get to give out buffs left right and centre. They get Invisibility. Making the Sam more resilient to being raped (quite literally) isn't going to break the game.

Your argument is crap. Sorry.

[Machiavelli]

Direct Combat Spells are less powerful. Mental Manipulations still horribly rape Mundanes and Mages without Counterspelling.

Your argument is crap. Sorry.

No it isn´t. Sorry

Wheres the problem with that? Is it all just about whining that there is something left you are vulnerable to? That part of the game chummer. Mental Manipulations are effective when you manage to cast them without trouble. But up to this point there is a lot of work to do. Mages need a complex action to cast anything, in the same time you can get killed 3 times by a sammie. Like we pointed out in another topic: who should you shoot first: the troll with the assault cannon or the mage? There are a lot of more terrible things than magic that can kill you easier. Nobodys whining up to now that APDS-ammo is too powerfull or that a character-creation sammie is capable to do 16D damage with an usual submachinegun, so why about magic? Is it fear that i smell? ^^

[Larme]

Assuming you get the accusation in first, the Lord says "oh, look, a token of Protection from Commoners". Then he turns around and accuses you, and you had best hope that your Lord is ready to protect you. Security Lords have more Commoners than you, and might look just like a Commoner until they begin accusing you. Assuming, of course, that you get the first accusation in. Because Lords also get Invisibility and Priests have Concealment.

Ok, dude? Drop the analogy. Lords? Priests? Commoners? Tokens of Protection? Please say what you mean.

The problem with "the fastest gun" is that you have to spend a Simple Action peiodically to remain situationally aware. Do your 'runners? They probably shoot things with that action. Even so, they're probably taking a -3 penalty even if they spend that Simple Action, because a Force 3 Air Spirit isn't all that difficult to summon and bind.

You do not have to spend actions to remain aware of the situation. Obvious things are observed with no action at all. Stealth is an Opposed Test, it is resisted as soon as you have a chance to perceive someone, it does not take up an action.

Anyway, you're tilting the situation to where the mage has had a chance to prepare, and the sammy hasn't. Sure, a mage who's got a spirit summoned up, and a clear approach to sneak up on the sammy will win. But a sammy could be equipped with motion sensors, could set up laser triplines, could have drones watching his back, whatever. Of course the mage wins if you slant all the odds in his favor. But in straight face off, the sammy wins. What you're saying should be obvious -- the person who's prepared and has the plan is the one more likely to succeed. That's not a flaw, that's a feature.

Who even mentioned Stunball? Control Actions is F/2 and just plain negates the target. Painlessly (F4 = 2 DV). The Mob version is just F/2 + 2 (but you just need to cast it at F4 as opposed to the need to overcast Stunball for the same effect). Wait, why are we even looking at things that directly negate 'Runners when Magic is just superior in versatility to technology. Summon a Spirit of Man with Enhance Aim as an Innate Spell and get it to sustain it on your best shooters. They won't compare to the Sam, but there are three of them and one of the Sam.

Magic is not superior in all situations. For instance, where there is a background count, it loses out. Guns are consistently effective while magic is not. Guns also do not injure their user, while spells can. Especially spirits. Ever seen a force 5 spirit roll 5 hits when it's summoned? It's not pretty.

Give your fellow Security Guards Combat Sense, or Deflection. Throw down Heal. Why always the refrain of "Direct Combat Spells are the be all and end all and must be forever"? That's more boring than the Sam who always just unloads his Machine Gun on things. It's the exact same thing, in fact.

I agree there, mages can do a lot more than direct combat. The thing is, this thread was an offshoot of one where people were pointing at direct combat being the be all and end all. I think you're right -- it's better than guns in some ways (silent, doesn't take ammo), and worse in other ways (subject to background count, drain). Mages are super useful. It's better to have one than not. But the question is, do they always automatically win? That would be a clear no.

And mental manipulations? Not as good as people say. You cast control thoughts with a complex action. Now you must let everyone else act out their init passes, which might include killing you, especially because you've got to sustain a spell. It takes a complex to cast and then a simple to command. That's two init passes to remove one guy from the combat. By contrast, a gun can remove two people every pass. And Mob Mind is absolute murder for drain, if you cast it at a high force it will hurt like hell, and if you cast it at low force it will be shrugged off by those with good willpower before you can give them a command.

It's not even true, so I have no idea why you're treating it like fundamentalist Christians treat the Bible.

Not sure what you're referring to here... Everything I say is my original thought though, I am not adhering to a dogma, I'm making it up as I go. A bit different from someone quoting a holy text as if the fact of the words on the page made them true.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Anyway, you're tilting the situation to where the mage has had a chance to prepare, and the sammy hasn't. Sure, a mage who's got a spirit summoned up, and a clear approach to sneak up on the sammy will win. But a sammy could be equipped with motion sensors, could set up laser triplines, could have drones watching his back, whatever. Of course the mage wins if you slant all the odds in his favor. But in straight face off, the sammy wins. What you're saying should be obvious -- the person who's prepared and has the plan is the one more likely to succeed. That's not a flaw, that's a feature.

A mage could set up tripwires, have drones watching his back etc as well. One of the key problems with magic is the mage loses virtually nothing in the mundane arena but gets the whole magic package. If I had my way some of the flaws that make it harder to work with tech like sensitive system(Which should apply to bioware as well IMO) and simsense vertigo would be built in flaws for all mages.

A mage wont be as good at mundane stuff assuming equal points spent, but having drones with hard to hack system running on there pilot isn't a high skill task, its just a little bit of money.

[Larme]

A mage wont be as good at mundane stuff assuming equal points spent, but having drones with hard to hack system running on there pilot isn't a high skill task, its just a little bit of money.

You're right that mages can use tech. But we're not arguing about mages vs. samurai so much as we're arguing about magic vs. technology. Will one or the other always win? That was the question that I was trying to answer. The mage, using only magic, will not always defeat the samurai, using only technology, assuming that each character has equal time to plan and set up.

And the point that mages can use tech doesn't mean a whole lot, IMO. Mages tend to have 0% build points left over if they want to be good mages, and they need to spend 100% of their karma and cash on magical resources if they want to stay competitive. Mages are not jack of all trade builds, they will not come complete with drones and technical skills and such, not unless they want to be really bad at magic. The theoretical possibility for them to use technology in all the same ways as a samurai ignores the limited nature of resources. The samurai, being as how he's got nothing but tech and skills to buy with money and karma, is always going to have the technological edge in an actual game. I mean, look -- every riposte so far has been, "Yeah, but what if the mage had some new advantage I just added?" The response is, of course, that the scenario is no longer balanced if you give the mage arbitrary advantages without letting the sammy have anything. We want to know, all things being equal, will mages always win? We do not care if the mage, with the odds slanted in his favor, would win. Of course he would! That's what happens when you slant the odds.

I don't know what you mean by a little bit of money, either. I guess that's true if you're talking about SR3 nuyen. But in SR4 nuyen, a pumped up drone is very expensive. 10,000 for a pilot 4, 6,000 for a Firewall 6, and then all you've got is an empty shell that takes some skill to hack but can't actually do anything. You'll need to spend a further 4,000 per autosoft, and then while you're at it you'll need an IC to defend your drone, which is 10,000 for a rating 4, plus a huge pile of money for all the programs, plus you'll need to buy some Agent autosofts from Unwired if you want that agent to be anything like a challenge for a hacker... Believe me, a drone that has souped up stats and a compliment of autosofts is NOT cheap, nor is a commlink that's actually hard to hack. No mage could have that kind of gear and still be worth a fart magically, not unless he spent a long time getting rich in-game.

[kzt]

The samurai, being as how he's got nothing but tech and skills to buy with money and karma, is always going to have the technological edge in an actual game.

For PCs this is true using the standard build rules. However NPCs don't pay pay points for gear, they get it from their employers. And as mages are expensive to replace, they WILL have all the cool stuff they need.

[Larme]

For PCs this is true using the standard build rules. However NPCs don't pay pay points for gear, they get it from their employers. And as mages are expensive to replace, they WILL have all the cool stuff they need.

Ok, you're saying that a mage who has all kind of extra resources for free might beat a PC streetsam? Your point? The question is, all things being equal, will the mage always beat the mundane? All things being equal should mean some rough equivalency, such as two 400 BP characters fresh from chargen facing off. If you take unequal power and resource levels, you're no longer asking whether magic or tech is better. Now you're asking, "what if a mage had all the odds in his favor, would he beat a streetsam?" Of course he would. Just like if the streetsam attacked the mage in an area with 6 background count, or if he was a cyberzombie and the mage was a 400 BP runner. You can't slant the odds in favor of either side to prove which one's better, all that proves is that odds are indeed odds, and slanting them does indeed work in favor of one side or the other.

[Heath Robinson]

Ok, dude? Drop the analogy. Lords? Priests? Commoners? Tokens of Protection? Please say what you mean.

Very simple analogy. Commoners = Mundanes. Lords = Mages. Priests = Spirits/Paracritters. Token of Protection from Commoners = Armour. I was beginning to blur the analogy in that post, but it's basically true that you rely upon your Mage to defend you against Magic and this creates a power dynamic that's not particularly healthy.

You do not have to spend actions to remain aware of the situation. Obvious things are observed with no action at all. Stealth is an Opposed Test, it is resisted as soon as you have a chance to perceive someone, it does not take up an action.

Anyway, you're tilting the situation to where the mage has had a chance to prepare, and the sammy hasn't. Sure, a mage who's got a spirit summoned up, and a clear approach to sneak up on the sammy will win. But a sammy could be equipped with motion sensors, could set up laser triplines, could have drones watching his back, whatever. Of course the mage wins if you slant all the odds in his favor. But in straight face off, the sammy wins. What you're saying should be obvious -- the person who's prepared and has the plan is the one more likely to succeed. That's not a flaw, that's a feature.

That's the thing - Shadowrun is a game where you have 2 situations that turn up with any regularity, which are both asymmetric in favour of the other person. You have the "I'm intruding into a secured facility" situation, and the "I'm in my normal life" situation. In both of these you can have prepared opponents. The fact that you can have passive preparation against one attack vector (guns and gases) but nother another (magic) is bad. There's not even a decent portable active preparation against magic because it can negate you as an actor with one opposed test between Stat + Skill on the part of the aggressor, and Stat on the defender.

Now, when you're intruding into a facility you should be wary of all these things. However, the rules make a Security Mage with a small number of spells and access to Air Spirits extremely hard to deal with from a 'runner perspective. Giving Magic all the cool things it has renders the entire focus of the game pretty hard to pull off in a world that doesn't rigidly obey tropes or a code of honour.

That's not the game I expect to play - one where people don't do things that are effective during their jobs just because you're the hero. That's not the tone I get from SRs material. Yet, it has to be that way because Magic synergises with itself too much. This is exactly the same problem that D&D has - Wizards get Wallmancy and multi-target Save-or-Loses. Clerics get massive buffs that all stack.

Magic is not superior in all situations. For instance, where there is a background count, it loses out. Guns are consistently effective while magic is not. Guns also do not injure their user, while spells can. Especially spirits. Ever seen a force 5 spirit roll 5 hits when it's summoned? It's not pretty.

Summoning a F5 spirit that rolls 5 dice is DV 5. If you're a sensible Mage that won't be above your Magic, so it's Stun. That heals pretty quickly. You also get a Drain Resistance roll. Sure, it hurts, but you get that Spirit for a while and we can just assume that a decent Sec Mage has a few useful Spirits bound - even low Force Spirits are terribly useful.

In the case of Background Count, you are right. Why a Mage on the defensive would deal with operations in that environment instead of Mundane security is beyond me, though.

I agree there, mages can do a lot more than direct combat. The thing is, this thread was an offshoot of one where people were pointing at direct combat being the be all and end all. I think you're right -- it's better than guns in some ways (silent, doesn't take ammo), and worse in other ways (subject to background count, drain). Mages are super useful. It's better to have one than not. But the question is, do they always automatically win? That would be a clear no.

And mental manipulations? Not as good as people say. You cast control thoughts with a complex action. Now you must let everyone else act out their init passes, which might include killing you, especially because you've got to sustain a spell. It takes a complex to cast and then a simple to command. That's two init passes to remove one guy from the combat. By contrast, a gun can remove two people every pass. And Mob Mind is absolute murder for drain, if you cast it at a high force it will hurt like hell, and if you cast it at low force it will be shrugged off by those with good willpower before you can give them a command.

You're putting words in my mouth. This is extracting what I saw as a valid point from Cain's diatribe of SR4bashing and admitting that it's actually valid - then suggesting something to help defuse the claim.

Mental Manipulations synergise extremely well with other Spells (like Invisibility) and Critter Powers (like Concealment). If you can avoid being noticed for the time period between casting and sending the order "turn around and use supressive fire on the team" then it's all gravy. That's the thing - you should be extremely paranoid because Mental Manipulation spells don't even require a licence and are, rightfully, considered more humane for Security and Police forces to use on suspects than Stunball. You can cast Mob Control 4 for a few boxes of Stun and command sections of a rioting crowd to present themselves for arrest and nobody gets hurt.

I also referred to the more Drain-efficient Control Actions and Mob Control instead of the other Mental Manipulations. They're F/2 and F/2 +2 respectively. Sure, you subtract the victim's Willpower from their DPs, but if you just want people to sit still or walk off somewhere? No tests. Street Sams are built to absorb pretty hefty penalties in the first place anyway.

Not sure what you're referring to here... Everything I say is my original thought though, I am not adhering to a dogma, I'm making it up as I go. A bit different from someone quoting a holy text as if the fact of the words on the page made them true.

My apologies. Was feeling pretty tired of so many people focussing on Direct Combat spells when I didn't see this as ever being about them. I was venting that.

[Falconer]

Heath, you don't know what you're talking about.

It's very hard to beat things when you get even one mage assisting counterspelling present. And you're pretty much not even using assistance tests to stack counterspelling. You're so focused on the one narrow case, where the guy is targetted w/o magical protection, that you've completely ignored the more common case of, mage or mages spirit present on run protecting him.

You also clearly don't know summoning and spirits. A force 5 spirits which rolls 5 hits is 10 drain, not 5. And I've been on the recieving end of fluke 14 or 16 physical drains. Instant way to render your mage unavailable for tonight.


You also completely ignore such basic things as not leaving behind materials which could be used to target you ritually and track you. Taking pains to be incognito so they don't know who to target. (assuming they are ameteurs and out for retribution, as opposed to, it's just business). There's a lot of things out there such as sculpting paste, ski masks, etc.


And really, given how badly things like illusions got mauled... what reason is there to nerf them even more?

You really don't have any perspective on how much magic has changed since SR1. SR2 was ugly (w/ grounding out and other abuses allowing a fully astral mage to pretty much screw you at will), SR3 got rid of that but still pretty damn potent (especially w/ the seperate spellcasting pool). Now you get to SR4 where mages have never been weaker.

You've pretty much ignored the tools the game puts forward for you to help resist magic, in favor of a broken mechanic which street sams (and to a lesser extent deckers/riggers) get for free.

[Larme]

That's the thing - Shadowrun is a game where you have 2 situations that turn up with any regularity, which are both asymmetric in favour of the other person. You have the "I'm intruding into a secured facility" situation, and the "I'm in my normal life" situation. In both of these you can have prepared opponents. The fact that you can have passive preparation against one attack vector (guns and gases) but nother another (magic) is bad. There's not even a decent portable active preparation against magic because it can negate you as an actor with one opposed test between Stat + Skill on the part of the aggressor, and Stat on the defender.

Ranged combat does the exact same thing, except for full defense. But you might notice that full defense is worth balls most of the time, it delays your execution but does not prevent it. When you're fighting Mr. Brutal Samurai with 22 ranged dice, your choice is between full defense and die later, or not and die now. Not all that different from a powerful mage who's got the drop on you, which means your only option is die now. Die now vs. die later, you still die, what's the big deal?

It's true that the only portable protection against magic is mages. So? Get a mage. That's how the game is set up. That's how it's always been set up. The debate in which you are engaging is as old as the game, and as Falconer says, the slide is tilted more in favor of mundanes now than it's ever been. There is a mechanical imbalance between defense against mundane and defense against magic, but it's a feature, not a flaw. It was designed that way, on purpose. But no matter how you slice it, magic does not make mundanity pointless in a game of limited resources. Mages take so much resources just to use their magic that it's all they'll ever do. You will need other people on your team, no matter how useful a mage is. In fact, mages don't so much as obviate mundanes as enhance them. Mr. Brutal Samurai is no longer vulnerable to magic with a mage friend on his side, and now his rapid fire death and destruction is truly unstoppable...

Now, when you're intruding into a facility you should be wary of all these things. However, the rules make a Security Mage with a small number of spells and access to Air Spirits extremely hard to deal with from a 'runner perspective. Giving Magic all the cool things it has renders the entire focus of the game pretty hard to pull off in a world that doesn't rigidly obey tropes or a code of honour.

That's not the game I expect to play - one where people don't do things that are effective during their jobs just because you're the hero. That's not the tone I get from SRs material. Yet, it has to be that way because Magic synergises with itself too much. This is exactly the same problem that D&D has - Wizards get Wallmancy and multi-target Save-or-Loses. Clerics get massive buffs that all stack.

They don't obey codes of honor. Any serious facility would have magical security. But magic is really expensive because it's incredibly rare. That's not a trope, that's supply and demand. Supply low, demand high, price big. Most facilities may have a middle-skilled mage with 3's or 4's, who will only be on call astrally, not physically present. Even though PCs tend to think of 5's and 6's as the baseline, a mage with 6's is not going to be a security guard except on very high level, essentially military security operations. They're just too rare and expensive to have guarding every warehouse. These are not tropes, these are scarcity mechanics. Just because something is super effective doesn't mean it's always available. You're right that they would use it 100% of the time if they could, but they most certainly can't.

Summoning a F5 spirit that rolls 5 dice is DV 5. If you're a sensible Mage that won't be above your Magic, so it's Stun. That heals pretty quickly. You also get a Drain Resistance roll. Sure, it hurts, but you get that Spirit for a while and we can just assume that a decent Sec Mage has a few useful Spirits bound - even low Force Spirits are terribly useful.

Yeah, as Falconer pointed out, that's DV10 drain, requiring 30 dice to resist, on average. And a force 5 isn't even that beastly. You need to talk force 8 before you can really make people soil themselves. And then, like Falconer said, you're looking at a possible DV 16P, which would be lethal to most casters. It's rare, but it's a risk that isn't present at all for samurai, their weapons never randomly blow up in their face and kill them. The worst that happens is on a critical glitch when the weapon just breaks most of the time (though I suppose a GM could rule that a critical glitch on plastic explosives blows you up; still doesn't compare to the danger inherent in summoning though).

You're putting words in my mouth. This is extracting what I saw as a valid point from Cain's diatribe of SR4bashing and admitting that it's actually valid - then suggesting something to help defuse the claim.

Mental Manipulations synergise extremely well with other Spells (like Invisibility) and Critter Powers (like Concealment). If you can avoid being noticed for the time period between casting and sending the order "turn around and use supressive fire on the team" then it's all gravy. That's the thing - you should be extremely paranoid because Mental Manipulation spells don't even require a licence and are, rightfully, considered more humane for Security and Police forces to use on suspects than Stunball. You can cast Mob Control 4 for a few boxes of Stun and command sections of a rioting crowd to present themselves for arrest and nobody gets hurt.

I also referred to the more Drain-efficient Control Actions and Mob Control instead of the other Mental Manipulations. They're F/2 and F/2 +2 respectively. Sure, you subtract the victim's Willpower from their DPs, but if you just want people to sit still or walk off somewhere? No tests. Street Sams are built to absorb pretty hefty penalties in the first place anyway.

I'm not quite sure what your argument is here about mental manipulations. Are you saying they are too powerful, or just right?

[Draco18s]

It's true that the only portable protection against magic is mages. So? Get a mage. That's how the game is set up.

Am I mistaken here, or was the original post lamenting the inability of the GM to supply NPCs with ways to counter magic in a world where mages are 1 in 100?

That is, gogangers won't have mages/spirits.
Small corporations won't have mages/spirits on their dinky little warehouse.
Etc.

[Kerenshara]

Am I mistaken here, or was the original post lamenting the inability of the GM to supply NPCs with ways to counter magic in a world where mages are 1 in 100?

That is, gogangers won't have mages/spirits.
Small corporations won't have mages/spirits on their dinky little warehouse.
Etc.

Um, Draco18s? Awakened (meta)humans are 1:100. Over half of those are adepts of some sort. Of the remaining ones, a significant portion are aspected, undertrained or untrained entirely. So let's call it 1:500. And if we're going by the RAW, MAGic is a stat, whose AVERAGE is 3 across those who have access to it in the first place. That's what the numbers are supposed to mean, right? In character generation, it is even treated in ALL respects as a normal stat (except being outside the standard caps). So if 50% of those 1:500 (now 1:1000) have an "average" magic statistic of 3, their TOP spell without taking PHYSICAL drain (and most mages, contrary to popular belief, will actually avoid that if in ANY way possible, if not at all costs) is going to be Force 3. That means the MOST hits they can get is 3. That means our commoner only needs three hits on their resistance to shrug the spell off entirely. But our "Average" magician also has only "average" sorcery, call it a 3 unless they are a seasoned professional, which they aren't in our example. That means on average they are only going to land 2 successes anyway, and there's a GOOD chance the commoner is going to roll up.
Now, how common are the "dangerous" mages? At LEAST 1:2000, if we define that as magic stat 4+. 1:3000 or higher of the Magic 5 and 6 runner types. And those would tend to cluster by their nature.

(I'm not disagreeing with you: I am trying to FURTHER emphasize your point!)

[Cthulhudreams]

They've actually changed the number of mages over the editions (decreasing it) orginally like 2% were mages, and adepts were extra to that.

Anyway, it is totally retarded that any mage doesn't work for the private sector. Big boats and planes are hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. Using the movement power on them for a living would warrant a luxury lifestyle no problem.

Given that mages do risk their life for a few bucks illegally, there are obviously more mages than 2%. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The ratio in the books is the suggested allotment of mages to mundanes (1:100)....
However, in a almost any game I have played, across a multitude of states and gaming groups, it does seem like there are more than that...

[knasser]

Anyway, it is totally retarded that any mage doesn't work for the private sector. Big boats and planes are hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. Using the movement power on them for a living would warrant a luxury lifestyle no problem.

I don't have time to reply properly to all the points in this thread and Larme is doing a great job anyway. So I'll just pick up on the above in passing and point out that the Movement power has been updated in the errata. It now starts reducing in effectiveness if if the Body of the target is greater than the Magic rating of the Spirit. Oil tankers zipping across the Atlantic are no longer a factor in Magiconomics. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

(We can probably thank FrankTrollman for that. Whether some of the devs like him or not, he's always been a wonderful crucible for them to refine out the kinks of the system in).

K.

[knasser]

You also clearly don't know summoning and spirits. A force 5 spirits which rolls 5 hits is 10 drain, not 5. And I've been on the recieving end of fluke 14 or 16 physical drains. Instant way to render your mage unavailable for tonight.

Just to back Falconer up with some actual mathematics, regular summoning of Force 5's is risky. There's a tendency in arguments like this for people to use an average result as the basis for their argument. E.g. a Force 5 spirit being bound will most commonly get 3.3 hits. You get 2DV per hit (ouch) so lets call it 7DV to resist on average. Most PC mages could soak that down to a little bit of Stun which would clear up in a few hours. But the more often you do this the more likely you are to get outlying cases. Heath is arguing from the point of view of this being a common strategy. Lets say in the life of the PC mage, he does his summon Force 5 trick thirty times.

Out of those, you'll average 6 bindings with only 4DV drain - hooray! But you'll average 7 of those trials where the drain is 8DV and 3 of them where the drain is 10DV. That's not inconsiderable. You'll also see a couple of Binding attempts where the drain is 12DV. Beyond that the chance of a drain value occuring drops below an average of 1, but in your 30 attempts, you're looking at a 60% chance of hitting DV14+.

Incidentally, bump the Force to 6 and the drains you'll probably encounter jump markedly.

Additionally, I know it's been mentioned but its such a large point that it bears emphasizing, each of those Force 5 bindings is a 2,500Â¥ hit to the credstick. If the mage used up an entire F5 spirit per run, then he could be halving his cut of the profits each time. Our 30 bindings over the life of a PC totals, 75,000Â¥. The samurai's bullets and grenades aren't going to come close to that.

Of course, the team might chip in for the spirit, but in my experience, that's pretty uncommon as each player normally accounts for what capabilities they bring to the table themselves, and if other PCs do chip in, they'll certainly be rather conscious of how much the magician is costing them.

[Blade]

Mundanes have a hard time resisting magic just like everyone but prime runners have a hard time resisting the attacks of a street samurai, everyone but negotiators have a hard time not agreeing with a face and everyone but hackers have a hard time when a hacker have fun with everything around them.

Runners are dangerous.

[Psikerlord]

Just back on spirits for a moment, I'm not sure how stick&shock deals with them, so I'll check that out... But hmm yeah I agree multiple bound spirits cost a lot of money... but they are also pretty much game winners. They are better then grenades or white phosphorus and stuff. But, yeah, point taken, in comparison to those mundane things, they are mucho expensive. Right you are then! <tips hat>