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

[knasser]

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.

Traul: I think you might be under the impression that people are talking about having the spirit patrol while it is manifested. Just your comment about the astral mage not being "restricted by walls" and having a "look inside the building." A spirit in astral form can do exactly the same as the magician.

You make a good point though about the speed of Astral travel. We've been talking as if mages and spirits are bound to one site whilst at the same time acknowledging that they can jump across cities in seconds. You could have a spirit guarding multiple sites in the same way that a mundane security guard watches more than one room in a building. After all, an Astral spirit can cover 100km in a minute. Easily enough for a few companies in Downtown to share the financial burden. I don't think it's really necessary for the argument but it supports Octopiii's Magical Security firm even more.

Incidentally, for anyone who wants it, I did a full write up of the members of just such a magical consulting firm a couple of years ago. The PDF is here.

K.

[knasser]

[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.]

I know the scenario. The opposition is being herded toward the party and pretty much just throngs the streets and the courtyard. Force 10 manaballs aren't really the issue. The players could, if the GM doesn't run things using some of the techniques you suggest, have exactly the same effect with grenades, hurling a couple of them every combat phase for every manaball you get off. It's not like you have to worry about scatter. And you can use gas grenades for the knockout effect of manaball if you want to.

It's pretty irrelevant. If the GM is pitting a disorganised mass of untrained streetlife at PCs with 175 karma and doesn't adjust the scenario to suit, the PCs are going to walk it regardless of whether they use magic or technology. The big killer in the scenario is the Yama King. With an Initiative of 18 and 3IP, it should be getting the drop on any PCs and when that thing hits, it hits hard (it also has ranged attack powers and more Edge than any PC could ever have, too). As it has Magical Guard and Counterspelling nearly in the double digits, it could also have very easily protected the crowds from the manaballing if it chose (another advantage a good grenade shower would have had).

I'd recommend to Cain that he also use the errata on bows.

K.

EDIT: I don't think I've thanked Octopiii for an interesting guide, yet. An oversight I'm now correcting. Very nice, and very useful to GM's who are on the receiving end of a PC magician for the first time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Traul]

We've been talking as if mages and spirits are bound to one site.

Would you consider "Keep patrolling our 153 clients forever" as only 1 remote service? That sounds a bit nasty to me, and it is the main reason I think only a mage could do that.

[Malachi]

I know the scenario...

Me too. Aside from Chin You on the roof, the other Yama Kings are supposed to be "cut scene" type material. However, if the PC's are having too much of a cake-walk with the junkies on the lower level, it would be pretty easy to turn one or two more of the Yama Kings on the PC's to increase the danger in the scenario. Considering the Yama Kings are free Shadow Spirits, I would say it is entirely in keeping with their character to be attracted to people of extraordinary magical power.

PS Yes, pre-SR4A bows are broken. I begged for some sort of restriction to be put on them when we proofed the Gear chapter.

[HappyDaze]

That requires materialization, like a real spirit has.

Note that, with a Great Form Guardian or Task spirit's use of Endowment, it is possible for a metahuman magician to have Materialization. The spirit could even do this on a number of magicians = Force x 2 at once while it sits back at base. Now the astral cavalry can Materialize and do some real damage to those pesky runners.

[Octopiii]

EDIT: I don't think I've thanked Octopiii for an interesting guide, yet. An oversight I'm now correcting. Very nice, and very useful to GM's who are on the receiving end of a PC magician for the first time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I am blushing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif) . My main hope is that people read the guide and realize they don't need equally powerful mages to challange PCs; and if they do use mages, they can be rather "weak" yet still a challenge. After all, abstracting the Magic stat, for most of the 1/1000 people who are magically active, the bulk of them have a Magic of 2 or 3 - the really good ones are going to get snapped up by Corps in exchange for bucket loads of nuyen, but any magical talent is special. Firms can work with these mages - Foci, Specialization, etc, can go a long way for a mage to make up for their lesser magical ability. Hell, I would imagine that every Mage with Magic 1 would specialize heavily in counterspelling - it's the only way they can play on even footing with the big boys, and collect that oversized paycheck for their minimal talent.

[Octopiii]

Note that, with a Great Form Guardian or Task spirit's use of Endowment, it is possible for a metahuman magician to have Materialization. The spirit could even do this on a number of magicians = Force x 2 at once while it sits back at base. Now the astral cavalry can Materialize and do some real damage to those pesky runners.

I had not noticed that. That is vicious! Should I be afraid come tomorrow?

[HappyDaze]

I had not noticed that. That is vicious! Should I be afraid come tomorrow?

No, not tomorrow... but someday...

[Jaid]

Would you consider "Keep patrolling our 153 clients forever" as only 1 remote service? That sounds a bit nasty to me, and it is the main reason I think only a mage could do that.

doesn't much matter. at sundown/sunrise, it's gone anyways, and the more places it patrols the less effectively it can patrol them. if you have 1 spirit patrolling 5 facilities and each facility has 10 rooms, plus a quick patrol around the outside, it could be quite a while before the spirit gets around to paying the team a visit.

[Falconer]

That's one hell of a nasty idea... grant the materialization power. I'm so tempted to get invoking now on my mag7 mage... just so he can endow himself w/ that and see how the GM reacts. (also funny because mental stats would replace physical stats for materialized astral form).


As far as probably one of the easiest ways to protect your guards from rampant magical abuse.
Intentionally build the facility in a background count. Particularly one either w/o an aspect, or one aspected to your predominant magical security tradition (wuxing would be a good example for this).

Also get wards up in place and mask them so they're not immediately evident. (I think that's possible, don't know where in the RAW to look for that though; you should be able to hide a ward somehow)

[Cain]

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.

That's what Octopiii's advertising, and it's simply not the case. Yes, you can get good magical security, but not cheaply. Binding high-force spirits is tough, and fairly rare. Initiates with Invoking are going to be even more rare. So, running across a powerful Great Form spirit with Magical Guard is going to be reserved for the most secure of facilities, where they didn't skimp on the security budget.

It doesn't matter if it's a single mage or a security firm, the fact is that you can't cut corners and expect good magical security. If you want it to be good, it needs to be on-site, be it spirits, mages, or riggers.

[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 already hit this one. Having a lot of them hopped up on Kamikaze and K10 means they're going to act stupidly. However, don't forget that I added a Prime Runner hit team to the scenario. They escaped the manaballs by using the sewers, but were discovered and went down to a fully-automatic grenade launcher.

Note that, with a Great Form Guardian or Task spirit's use of Endowment, it is possible for a metahuman magician to have Materialization. The spirit could even do this on a number of magicians = Force x 2 at once while it sits back at base. Now the astral cavalry can Materialize and do some real damage to those pesky runners.

And again, magicians who can Invoke are expensive. You're better off summoning a Spirit of Man and using it's innate spell ability. Granted, the Endowment would give the mages ItNW, which would be burly; but it'd still be very expensive.

[HappyDaze]

doesn't much matter. at sundown/sunrise, it's gone anyways

Not if it's bound.

[HappyDaze]

And again, magicians who can Invoke are expensive. You're better off summoning a Spirit of Man and using it's innate spell ability. Granted, the Endowment would give the mages ItNW, which would be burly; but it'd still be very expensive.

Really? Any more expensive than that cybered-up group of Red Samurai we see in the book? I really doubt it. You keep making assumptions that trained magicians are expensive, but they are not really so any more so than other professionals (and, if you think they are, show me something in print that supports your claim). Once they've been trained in and have leaned to use the ability, the upkeep cost is pretty damn low for an Invoker. Besides that, you only need a few of these guys operating from a central security hub to be able to send out Materilaizing astral hit squads with a global reach within a few minutes time. It's worth a whole fucking lot, but there's no proof that it costs what it's worth.

[Cain]

Magicians are rare. Only 1 in 100 people show magical talent, and we don't know what percentage of them can summon. It is known that a good chunk of them don't even know they have magical potential, and thus never develop it. That's more or less straight from Street Magic.

But let's try an analogy. According to Dr. Funk, about 1 in every 100 adults in the US is a doctor. And doctors make good money-- a family doctor averages $136,000/yr, according to Payscale.com. Not all magicians are Initiates, so that makes them analogous to specialists. We also have to consider that not all summon as a specialty, making them even more rare, analogous to surgeons. They earn an average of $217,000 per year. The top ranking for practicing MD's earn about $250,000 per year.

Magicians are slightly more rare than MD's, so we can assume these figures go up a small amount for them. Now, we add to this by asking them to take on dangerous tasks and take physical damage every time they try and summon a high-force spirit. That jacks the price up further. To keep things simple, let's take the high number, and assume that a good, trained security mage with Invoking, who can summon spirits with Magical Guard, costs over a quarter of a million nuyen per year.

Mages are expensive. There's no way around it. You're right that you only need a few of them, but they still cost.

[HappyDaze]

Mages are expensive. There's no way around it. You're right that you only need a few of them, but they still cost.

I'd dare say that the Megacorps have made it so that it's less expensive for them. They can bury the costs by providing in-house services (and patronizing initiatory groups) - just as military doctors won't be making bank today, we can expect that corp-owned magicians won't be high ball'n their salaries for a number of reasons. Firstly, any magician can initiate - and all of the corp-sponsored ones will be pushed into it. Further, in many of these corp-run initiatory groups, choice of metamagic is not entirely free. If they want a bunch of invokers, that's what they'll get at Grade 1. As for that whole idea that these magicans always go for the bottom dollar as thei motivation, we know that's not entirely true (outside of PCs...) - corp/government loyalty goes a long way.

EDIT: From what I've found, top-end military surgeons are looking at less than $150,000 yearly (including incentive pay). If anyone knows better, please correct me (I'm a civilian at a military hospital, so I have access to the pay charts, but that doesn't mean there's not something hidden in plain sight on there). Now consider that 40% of that is taken up by a Middle lifestyle (with the assumed dollar-to-nuyen conversion) - which the corp can maintain in bulk - and that's money flowing back to the corp to make the felt cost even lower.

[Cain]

However, because of supply and demand, there's never going to be enough mages to go around. Like doctors, there's dozens of specialties a mage could go into. Magical research is more profitable than magical security, for example. You're not going to risk your prize Thau.D. researcher in front line combat if you can at all help it.

I believe that security mages are going to be a specialty, like the others. They're also going to be paid as specialists. Megacorps can defray the costs somewhat, but they'll still be paying a hefty salary, and won't risk their mages lightly. That means, no invoking on overcast spirits, and probably not a lot of invoking period. Too much chance of physical damage to their investment.

[knasser]

doesn't much matter. at sundown/sunrise, it's gone anyways, and the more places it patrols the less effectively it can patrol them. if you have 1 spirit patrolling 5 facilities and each facility has 10 rooms, plus a quick patrol around the outside, it could be quite a while before the spirit gets around to paying the team a visit.

Well actually, 1 spirit patrolling 5 facilities each 50km apart would take a few seconds each room (3x50 seconds) + thirty seconds to travel between each site (5x30 seconds), meaning each site gets an astral sweep every five minutes. That leaves a window that a someone could do an Astral flyby in but for a physical intrusion, it's really tight. And wow, your timing would have to be tight.

But it's academic. because I actually agree with Traul that I wouldn't allow "patrol 153 sites" as a service. Though I don't know where he got the number from. You could maybe have each site be a service and call them in simultaneously. So maybe four or five places shared a spirit, however.

Considering the Yama Kings are free Shadow Spirits, I would say it is entirely in keeping with their character to be attracted to people of extraordinary magical power.

Chin You is actually described as having an intense hatred of all magicians, iirc. Let him mix it up in there and the whole scenario should change. Average initiative result of 24 and 9 counterspelling dice. Ouch!

K,

[Jaid]

Well actually, 1 spirit patrolling 5 facilities each 50km apart would take a few seconds each room (3x50 seconds) + thirty seconds to travel between each site (5x30 seconds), meaning each site gets an astral sweep every five minutes. That leaves a window that a someone could do an Astral flyby in but for a physical intrusion, it's really tight. And wow, your timing would have to be tight.

But it's academic. because I actually agree with Traul that I wouldn't allow "patrol 153 sites" as a service. Though I don't know where he got the number from. You could maybe have each site be a service and call them in simultaneously. So maybe four or five places shared a spirit, however.

K,

not really. you just need to keep an eye out for where the spirit is. when it gets close, you just step into a room it's already patrolled, and make sure you're not in the first room on it's list. now, we're down to the spirit only being an inconvenience once every 5 minutes. also, that assumes the spirit just steps in. no checking around for intruders, just steps into the room and that's it. even assuming 5 minutes isn't more than you can spare (5 minutes is a lot of time for a group of intruders to be able to spend in one room), there's also the matter of the outside area for each building, plus if the spirit is going from facility to facility that makes it really easy to interrupt the spirit elsewhere, and if the spirit has to spend any time at all at one facility, that just starts adding up.

also, for one remote service you get a spirit that checks. it doesn't attack, it doesn't manifest. you pretty much need the spirit's summoner handy to tell it what to do about an intrusion, and to interpret what an intrusion is, because the spirit won't recognise the difference between an employee's legitimate use of the facilities and a shadowrunner team's. also, don't spirits use up 1 service per sunrise/sunset unless long-term bound (the one where you pay karma) now? or is that just an optional rule somewhere....

[kzt]

not really. you just need to keep an eye out for where the spirit is. when it gets close, you just step into a room it's already patrolled, and make sure you're not in the first room on it's list.

It blows through walls, you can't see it until in pops in, and it's moving really fast outside of the building.

[HappyDaze]

you just need to keep an eye out for where the spirit is. when it gets close

If you can see it, it can see you.

if the spirit is going from facility to facility that makes it really easy to interrupt the spirit elsewhere

If it's been there before, it can shortcut through the metaplanes. Are you really going to go through the trouble to set up an ambush for it there?

[HappyDaze]

That means, no invoking on overcast spirits, and probably not a lot of invoking period. Too much chance of physical damage to their investment.

You're forgetting that this is a world that has amazingy good first aid capabilities. Professional level paramedics (First Aid 3) can easily throw enough dice with teamwork to negate up to three points of Drain from any badly rolled test in only a few minutes time.

Besides, if you're talking about a magician Invoking behind the scenes, his buddies can easily enhance both his Body and Willpower by 4 for the duration of the Summoning and Binding+Invoking. Their Drain will likewise be handled by a team of on-site paramedics. In general, the limitations that a single PC magician faces can be overcome by the corporate team's support.

[Blade]

I still don't see how more difficult/expensive it is to protect your guards from mages than from other runners.
Yes your guards can be easily manabolted to death by a mage, but they can also get shot dead by a street samurai, a rigger's drone or an infiltration specialist, or conned by a face, or led into believing there's no problem by a hacker

[AngelisStorm]

If you're limiting the amount of room which can be warded (warding costs money, after all), then ward the main guard room. That way spirits are not popping in and taking out the surveillance guards (or rigger/spider), and the guards who are not actively walking about are safe.

Cameras can't pick up mana spells. But if the guards fall down, won't the people observing the security cameras (or the agent program doing it) notice? Even if it's fully automated, have the guards wear those nifty detect magic glowsticks. If said stick lights up, the recognition program which is running on the system sounds the magic alert. And when you pass out from manabolt/ball, doesn't your biomonitor still register that your down and out?

And those portable satelite uplinks aren't terribly expensive. I would be suprised if almost every facility didn't have one, in case their lines get jammed ("in case of emergency, unlink through a satelite and get the word out"). Doesn't stop a good Shadowrunner team, but it does keep them a bit more on their toes.

[Cain]

You're forgetting that this is a world that has amazingy good first aid capabilities. Professional level paramedics (First Aid 3) can easily throw enough dice with teamwork to negate up to three points of Drain from any badly rolled test in only a few minutes time.

Besides, if you're talking about a magician Invoking behind the scenes, his buddies can easily enhance both his Body and Willpower by 4 for the duration of the Summoning and Binding+Invoking. Their Drain will likewise be handled by a team of on-site paramedics. In general, the limitations that a single PC magician faces can be overcome by the corporate team's support.

And what happens when the mage takes 6-10 hit points of physical drain from a good roll on the spirit's part? Even if he lives, you've sent your expensive asset to the hospital for months to recover.

You can always add more mages as backup, but that gets even more expensive. Adding two mages means a total of 3/4 of a million in salary, just for one spirit. To put that in perspective, that's 360 nuyen an hour to summon one invoked spirit, excluding binding materials and paramedic fees, plus damages if the spirit goes uncontrolled. That's like putting your Harvard-trained lawyer on security duty.

[knasser]

And what happens when the mage takes 6-10 hit points of physical drain from a good roll on the spirit's part? Even if he lives, you've sent your expensive asset to the hospital for months to recover.

I find it greatly amusing how people arguing that magic is over-powered can on one-hand ignore the risks of unaverage roles and argue without accepting the risk as a factor, and then when wishing to show that magic is overpowered because it can't be defended against, use that same risk to put down non-PC magicians. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)