Protecting your guards from the all-powerful manabolt, Since the other thread went to hell... Options

[Cain]

Cain, how did your guys handle the Yama King btw?

Troll archer with high Edge and explosive arrowheads. We haven't converted to SR4.5, so the only cap is the augmented strength max.

It's a security firm, not a one man operation. I'm sure the firms have several riggers working shifts at all times.

That's a different setup than what you first proposed, where you had one rigger operating a lot of sites. Now you've got multiple riggers operating dozens of sites. It's also a much. more expensive setup than what you originally proposed.

The same goes with magical security firms. The mage doesn't need more than one bound spirit, as there are probably two or three mages working with the firm, each of whom can have up to their charisma in bound spirits.

That still means that the facility has no magical security until they get a call off. Disrupt communication, and they may never get that spirit. It's safer and more effective to use long-term Binding to semi-permanently keep a spirit on site. However, it's also much, much more expensive, since the mage has to spend Karma.

This also assumes that the sec mage can even summon a spirit with Magical Guard. .

I don't follow your point. That a hacker can steal drones? That's kind of a staple of the game. We're not talking about a large, well funded facility here - I imagine that a mid-size facility probably has one person whose job is to moniter cameras etc, which would include drone status. This person does not have the skill of a dedicated Rigger. Should hostiles enter the facility, it is this person's job to hit the panic button to bring the Rigger into the location. Should the drones become subverted, they may choose to shut down all drones. None of this pertains to off-site v. on-site Rigger however. I imagine combat drones are switched off until it becomes necessary to deploy them - so a hacker turning them on remotely is going to raise danger signals, which will necessitate calling the off-site rigger, who will then fight the team's hacker in matrix combat to re-control the drones, or failing that, just reboot all automated security. How is any of that less secure than an on-site Rigger?

The mind boggles. First of all, you only need to fool one person, who can't even fight back if you steal a drone. Assuming that the attacking rigger can't subvert the kill switch, you can instead have the team decker Spoof a few signals, causing Bob the rent-a-cop to panic and shut down all the drones. Now, you've got a cakewalk, since your magic-hardened defenses are switched off. If the combat drones are kept switched off until needed, again, all the runners need is one good ambush and the anti-magical security may never come into play.

Now, this setup might work if you have a lot of live guards, any of whom can trigger the panic button. But that's also more expensive, and they're still vulnerable to a manaball.

* Off-site magical security: having a security mage/spirit on site 24h might be expensive for a lot of places, but I'm pretty sure you can get off-site magical security for a relatively cheap monthly fee. As soon as there's a magical alert (triggered by the ward, or some manatech or by a security guard), they can send one or two astrally projecting mage(s) and/or spirits right away. The magical security can be on site just a few seconds later.

Astrally-projecting mages are severely limited in what they can do. Spirits aren't, but I already discussed the limitations of off-site spirits earlier. Low to mid force spirits are also vulnerable to Manaball as well.

You can also have all guards have a pet Nimu Salamander.

In addition to being expensive, I don't think Nimue's Salamanders exist yet in SR4. They're purely a SR3 critter.

[HappyDaze]

It's safer and more effective to use long-term Binding to semi-permanently keep a spirit on site. However, it's also much, much more expensive, since the mage has to spend Karma.

Regular Binding and use of Remote Service/Loaned Service will cover the needs without any spending of Karma.

[HappyDaze]

A higher-powered option involves the use of Invoking with a Guardian Spirit. By way of Endowment, one service can provide (Force) guards with their own Magical Guard (which they can then use to cover both themselves and others) until the next sunset/sunrise. These guards split up among squads providing Counterspelling goodness for everyone. This would require 2 services per day, but it's pretty damn efficient use of a single Spirit. The Spirit doesn't need to maintain LOS to keep the power up, so it can stay nice and cozy deep in the facility while guards are now capable of defending themselves.

EDIT: Actually this won't quite work. The guards will get Magical Guard, but they won't have Counterspelling so strictly speaking it's useless to them. Oh well, having a Force 5 Spirit put out Concealment on 10 guys that can then each use Concealment on themselves and four buddies is still a damn useful ability since it makes noticing them astrally harder too.

EDIT II: OK, so the Concealment only covers astral detection if the user of the power is dual natured. I guess this works best if you have a bunch of ghouls around...

[Blade]

Astrally-projecting mages are severely limited in what they can do.

They can cast manabolt the astrally perceiving/projected mage and if the mage stays in the physical world, they can follow the team everywhere it goes and summon spirits to ambush them at the right time.

Low to mid force spirits are also vulnerable to Manaball as well.

You don't send low to mid force spirits against a mage able to manaball them to death! (or if you do, you send better spirits afterwards, or a lot of spirits).
Compare with the same situation in the mundane world: if the intruders are Shadowrunners, the security firm won't send a regular cop with a tonfa and a light pistol.

[crizh]

I might be mistaken, but I don't remember that FAB2 offers any protection against spells.
You can also have all guards have a pet Nimu Salamander.

Aerosol FAB II merely slows Astral Forms to a crawl. FAB II in a container forms a Barrier equal to it's Rating.

Standing behind a Force 10 Barrier isn't a perfect defence but it's a start.

Assuming the bacteria in it's nutrient suspension is at least partially transparent it might even be possible to penetrate illusions using it.

I have no idea how viewing an illusion through a Barrier works, time to hit the books.

[Cain]

Regular Binding and use of Remote Service/Loaned Service will cover the needs without any spending of Karma.

We discussed the problem with that earlier. If the sec mage never gets the alarm, you get no magical security. And disrupting communications should be part of any shadowrun.

They can cast manabolt the astrally perceiving/projected mage and if the mage stays in the physical world, they can follow the team everywhere it goes and summon spirits to ambush them at the right time.

Summon *a* spirit. If it's a bound spirit, you could have sent it instead of you. If it's just summoned, it's unbound and therefore you can only have one.

You don't send low to mid force spirits against a mage able to manaball them to death! (or if you do, you send better spirits afterwards, or a lot of spirits).
Compare with the same situation in the mundane world: if the intruders are Shadowrunners, the security firm won't send a regular cop with a tonfa and a light pistol.

Most mages can't summon spirits over force 3-4 without overcasting. More powerful spirits are certainly available, but they cost more. The point of this, I thought, was to show inexpensive and effective ways of protecting your guards from magic. So far, I've seen effective methods, but they're all expensive.

[The Jake]

Astrally-projecting mages are severely limited in what they can do. Spirits aren't, but I already discussed the limitations of off-site spirits earlier. Low to mid force spirits are also vulnerable to Manaball as well.

This reminds me: can an astrally projecting magician manifest and still cast spells?

- J.

[Chibu]

You people and your mana static. My (magically active) characters would kick all of your characters in the face for messing up the astral like that. It's a good thing CGL has stated that they aren't going to be continuing any of the ED-esque storylines, or the Horrors would be eating all of your mages pretty soon.

[Mäx]

I sent literally hundreds of gangers

How exactly did you mage kill hundreds of gangers with three manaballs.

[DireRadiant]

Get more guards. Give them more guns. Hard to run out.

Or, ritually sacrifice lots of your own guards to create a nice aspected domain for them to work in. "The sacrifice is for your own good men!"

[HappyDaze]

So far, I've seen effective methods, but they're all expensive.

Compared to what? What's the base cost for a trained security officer (including training, equipment, insurance, pay, etc.)? I'd imagine that bound spirits even at moderate force and in bulk are going to look cheap by comparison.

[HappyDaze]

We discussed the problem with that earlier. If the sec mage never gets the alarm, you get no magical security.

No. The Spirit is assigned to the facility on a permanent basis with instructions to defend it as directed by designated members of the security force. If the spirit is disrupted/destroyed the mage gets a call and replaces it per his contract.

[HappyDaze]

Most mages can't summon spirits over force 3-4 without overcasting.

You can keep on saying this, but if we look at published products, then this doesn't appear to be the case. Most statted magicians - be they corporate, cop, gangers, whatever tend to be a bit stronger than that. It doesn't quite fit in with the normal range of Attribute values, but it's Magic so I'd expect that it shows up a bit differently.

[Larme]

You can keep on saying this, but if we look at published products, then this doesn't appear to be the case. Most statted magicians - be they corporate, cop, gangers, whatever tend to be a bit stronger than that. It doesn't quite fit in with the normal range of Attribute values, but it's Magic so I'd expect that it shows up a bit differently.

Even if most statted magicians suck, why would you send them against PCs who don't suck? PCs whose power level is far beyond that of the average run wouldn't and shouldn't be attacking average facilities. Mlikruns like that are boring, a waste of their time, and if they could RP at all, they'd turn them down for the payout being too low for them. The elite runners get hired to attack the hardened facilities with actual magic security that actually doesn't suck. Cain's theory seems to be that, even though the books are chock full of really dangerous, assholish security measures that the corps can take, they essentially never take them. And he's right, as long as you continue doing milkruns for your entire career. But there are multiple power levels in Shadowrun, things graduate all the way up to the epic. If you've got powerful characters who refuse to play runs of their own power level, and have to be railroaded into them or they won't do it, that's not really a system problem. It's a player/GM problem. The system is designed to pit PCs against opponents who can provide some kind of challenge. If you deliberately fail to do that, that's your own fault.

[Blade]

Most mages can't summon spirits over force 3-4 without overcasting. More powerful spirits are certainly available, but they cost more. The point of this, I thought, was to show inexpensive and effective ways of protecting your guards from magic. So far, I've seen effective methods, but they're all expensive.

Do you have the official statistics to support this? Besides, a strike force of two force 4 spirits and one mage can be enough if they use good tactics (a spirit harasses the team and dematerializes, the opposing mage goes in the astral to look for the spirit and gets astrally kicked in the astral neck by the mage.)
And the whole point of off-site security is that a lot of small offices/houses pay a monthly fee so that they have decent teams ready for intervention. I think that a small monthly fee should let you have a decent protection.

But it's a fact: an effective way to protect your guards from a mage Shadowrunner will be expensive. Just like an effective way to protect your guard from a streetsamurai Shadowrunner will be expensive, just like an effective way to protect your secretaries from being conned by a face will be expensive and so on.
It's just a matter of matching the runner's target with their skills.

[Apathy]

Cain - While I have Ghost Cartels, I don't have it at work with me and don't remember the mission. Would you mind giving us a basic sketch of the situation so that we can visualize it a little better? Hundreds of junkies coming after the runners... are they all massed together in a single field when the team encounters them? Is this in the Hong Kong slums, which I always imagined being full of constricted, winding passageways and tall buildings? Do the runners have to go into any buildings during their assault? Do the junkies have any sense of tactics, or do they just charge mindlessly towards the runners (in the style of the rage zombies in 28 Days Later)? Do the junkies have any firearms or explosives, or are they just wielding improvised melee weapons like pipes and rocks? Do any of them have superior positioning (i.e. rooftops, covered firing positions)? How motivated are the junkies - do they care about collateral damage, or (at the other extreme) are they willing to set fires and demolish buildings?

[Cain]

This reminds me: can an astrally projecting magician manifest and still cast spells?

No.

The Spirit is assigned to the facility on a permanent basis with instructions to defend it as directed by designated members of the security force. If the spirit is disrupted/destroyed the mage gets a call and replaces it per his contract.

That's not what Octopiii was suggesting, which was having a mage with (originally one but now a stable) of F3-F4 bound spirits, sending them out for magical backup as needed. Long term binding to a site is a different matter, but that also costs a *lot* more, since the mage has to pay karma to pull it off.

But there are multiple power levels in Shadowrun, things graduate all the way up to the epic.

Not every run can have epic power levels. You have to keep things realistic. Realistically, hundreds of ganagers on kamikaze and a Yama King should be more than enough.

Cain - While I have Ghost Cartels, I don't have it at work with me and don't remember the mission. Would you mind giving us a basic sketch of the situation so that we can visualize it a little better?

The book has them massing in a street and making a banzai charge. I split them up among three streets, to multiply the challenge. Many were on kamikaze, and the rest were crowded together, so firearms were useless. I could have split them up more, have more coming down winding passageways, but that would have just meant more manaballs and grenades.

To further up the challenge, I sent in a heavily armed, magically defended runner team to assassinate the VIPs the PC's were supposed to be guarding. They were spotted on the way in, and went down to grenade fire and manaballs.

[Traul]

Why does everybody want to send spirits on patrols? That would be a perfect job for a rookie mage.

Nowadays, the basic middle-level security involves a contract with an external security, an silent alarm system that directly wrans the company in case of intrusion and a few agents that keep patrolling from one facility to another at night.

This job could be done much more effeiciently by a mage: as he is not restricted by walls, he could have a look inside the building instead of just checking the entrances and lights. It might not even be that much more expensive: since the mage travels much faster from one spot to another, it takes less headcount to keep an eye on the whole sprawl.

If the mage spots intruders, he just gets back to his body and send an intervention team, providing them with any threat evaluation he got from assensing.

[Octopiii]

That's a different setup than what you first proposed, where you had one rigger operating a lot of sites. Now you've got multiple riggers operating dozens of sites. It's also a much. more expensive setup than what you originally proposed.

/Sigh. Despite the fact that I think you're being willfully obtuse so as to refuse to admit you're wrong on an internet forum, I'll engage you anyway on this point: What part of "Magical Security Firm" indicates a lone mage? The fact that I said "mage" instead of "mages"? "rigger" instead of "riggers"? How is that set-up any more expensive? If the firm is covering enough small to mid-size facilities, it will bring in tons of profit - you seem to imagine that said firm can only restrict itself to one facility, which is bizarre. I'm certain they have actuaries in 207x - (probably better ones than we have now, with Math SPUs and VR assisted speed) - any decent firm will maximize their coverage and minimize the personnel dedicated to handling said coverage so as to bring in the most profits.

That still means that the facility has no magical security until they get a call off. Disrupt communication, and they may never get that spirit.

Golly gee, that's part of what Shadowrunners do, isn't it? Gives them a reason to do leg-work and set up before charging in; how awful! Your PCs deserve a cakewalk if they can cut off communication in such a way as not to trigger an alarm from the contracted firm. "Boss, we no longer are in contact with facility Q." "Interesting. Our contract requires us to check up on them in the instance of an unscheduled outage; add the charge to their bill and send Mystic Jimmy in the astral to have a look."

The mind boggles. First of all, you only need to fool one person, who can't even fight back if you steal a drone. Assuming that the attacking rigger can't subvert the kill switch, you can instead have the team decker Spoof a few signals, causing Bob the rent-a-cop to panic and shut down all the drones. Now, you've got a cakewalk, since your magic-hardened defenses are switched off. If the combat drones are kept switched off until needed, again, all the runners need is one good ambush and the anti-magical security may never come into play.

Again, sounds like what Shadowrunners do. Finding ways to shut down security is a good thing for PCs, no? If they've done enough legwork to discover a facilities security procedures and how to manipulate them - again, they deserve a cakewalk. Your flaws are less flaws and more part of the inherent problem for any facility's defensive system. Besides, the drones can always be turned back on when the off-site Rigger shows up to evaluate the situation - which will take seconds, as he's coming in via the matrix. If the runners can keep the guards from hitting the panic button, they deserve the reward. I don't see the problem.

[nezumi]

In reply to the original post, I've drawn on real world material and have said that tin foil helmets help against most spells that target intelligence or willpower, so all my guards (and runners) wear tin foil hats or helmets at all times.

[Octopiii]

Why does everybody want to send spirits on patrols? That would be a perfect job for a rookie mage.

Nowadays, the basic middle-level security involves a contract with an external security, an silent alarm system that directly wrans the company in case of intrusion and a few agents that keep patrolling from one facility to another at night.

This job could be done much more effeiciently by a mage: as he is not restricted by walls, he could have a look inside the building instead of just checking the entrances and lights. It might not even be that much more expensive: since the mage travels much faster from one spot to another, it takes less headcount to keep an eye on the whole sprawl.

If the mage spots intruders, he just gets back to his body and send an intervention team, providing them with any threat evaluation he got from assensing.

Mages are expensive, even the bad ones; and many don't take well to boring routines such as astral patrols. With my set-up, the mages don't ever need to be in the office, which will be a good selling point for the security firm: "Why work a 6-7 job like the other suckers? You're special, and your job should be special too! Come work for Asset Protection, Inc and you'll never again need to clock in on time or worry about brown nosing the boss!"*


*Job entails being on-call 24/7 with rare risk in the form of potential astral combat. Requires commitment to summoning and binding spirits, and the occasional astral foray. New hires will be given a binding Foci of a type considered appropriate by API; cost of said foci can be taken out of wages at a low monthly rate with reasonable interest charges.

[easl]

Most mages can't summon spirits over force 3-4 without overcasting. More powerful spirits are certainly available, but they cost more. The point of this, I thought, was to show inexpensive and effective ways of protecting your guards from magic. So far, I've seen effective methods, but they're all expensive.

I think what you're asking for is cheap while practically perfect defense. That's not going to happen (thank goodness for the runners), but having an off-site mage get a "ping" either when a ward is breached or a spirit notices a mage is pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.

Wards can be built into physical structures. Build it into your walls, have one door, and have an understanding with the magical security firm that they are not to report a breach if the door is opened between 8-9am weekdays or closed during 5-6pm weekdays. Any other open/close, they report bock to the corporation. The corporation pays them very little for the "on call" service because the mage is never in any danger. SR corp.s have their own security personnel they can dispatch. You just wake up the day shift and pay them overtime. Its cheap & reasonably effective.

If I have one beef with the rules as written its probably that wage mages are overpaid. 100Y an hour is fine to create a ward, but to be "on call" for that amount is ridiculous. That works out to 16,000/month just counting 8 hours/workday. A mage could plunk down one ward and live a High lifestyle off of it. I think it'd be more balanced/realistic to have your "on call" magic security firms charging 1/10 or 1/100 of that for notification.

****

A much simpler alternative for GM's is simply to model magical response off of the docwagon system. Guaranteed 10-min response, with increasing levels of service depending on the security rating. Magewagon!

[kzt]

This reminds me: can an astrally projecting magician manifest and still cast spells?

Only on the astral, just like if you are not manifesting. Manifesting allows you to appear on the physical, but you are not ON the physical.

That requires materialization, like a real spirit has.

[Apathy]

The book has them massing in a street and making a banzai charge. I split them up among three streets, to multiply the challenge. Many were on kamikaze, and the rest were crowded together, so firearms were useless. I could have split them up more, have more coming down winding passageways, but that would have just meant more manaballs and grenades.

To further up the challenge, I sent in a heavily armed, magically defended runner team to assassinate the VIPs the PC's were supposed to be guarding. They were spotted on the way in, and went down to grenade fire and manaballs.

So, you recognized that the threat level of your team was higher than the threat level that the challenge was designed for, and you were willing to increase the numbers of the opposition in response, but wouldn't change any of the rest of the parameters of the attack? That's like saying "One infant is no match for a grown man, but 100 gurgling infants should be able to overwhelm a grown man with no problems." As long as opposition stays bunched together in the open with no visibility modifiers and shuffles forward like mindless zombies you could have lined up a thousand of them and gotten the same result. On the other hand, if they had scattered, running into buildings to snipe at you from windows, crashing cars into the party, using molotov coctails to set fire to the buildings around you, waiting until you get close to jump out from behind cover when they have a decent chance of getting into close combat with you (and incidentally then being within the spellcasting diameter of you team so you can't manaball without also hitting teammates.), then it gets more interesting.

• You can't F10-manaball the junkies who emerge from the doorway 5 meters away without hitting yourself and your teammates as well.
• If you have to cast 25 manaballs during the engagement because you only see 3-5 junkies at a time, sooner or later you will go down with poor drain rolls. Especially in a BC3 environment.
• You can't hit opposition that you don't have a line of sight to, and in the winding streets of Hong Kong there will be lots of places to hide.

[Disclaimer: Apoligize in advance if I'm mischaracterizing your scenario. I wasn't there to observe what really happened. But it seems like the opposition acted really stupidly and ineffectively and it was their lack of common sense that got them killed more than anything else. Seems like you could have waltzed through this scenario almost as easily using an LMG on supressive fire.]

[Dumori]

The lack of sense may come form the fact thee are on Kamikaze and K-10 they do send people berserk.