Mages : How do I Handle Them?, Theyr in my gamez killing my missionz Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

How about keeping him busy on the astral? When an enemy mage starts throwing spells at the players from the astral, it's the mage's duty to step up and duke it out... leaving him dead weight in the meanwhile.

Mages cannot throw seplls from the Astral to the Physical... and no grounding of spells through Foci anymore either...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Is your mage using Invisibility, or Improved Invisibility?
If he is just using Invisibility, then having a Security drone
with the security team works..just have it on Autopilot, following
the guards on their route, and its dog-brain is set to alert the
buildings Spider on encountering muzzle flashes or anyone in
the facility who is not broadcasting correct credentials. Guards should
also have biomonitors that, again, upon death or unconsciousness,
alert the Rigger and appropriate other assets in the facility.

Also, does not attacking make invisibility get dropped?

Do the runners also remember to put their commlinks in Hidden Mode?
Does the Samurai have the wireless on his Cyberware disabled? Do
they make sure to run a Tag eraser over their clothes? It can be amusing
for them to be going through the building, the Sam invisible, except for
the AR broadcast of "Jacket bought at Weapons World! On sale until XXXX, only 300 Nuyen!"
around him (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Invisible Mages do not suddenly become visible when attacking, though you should get an idea of where they are attaacking from in my opinion...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I think the question is how materialization works. It's a complex action isn't it? Can it be done smoothly in a maneuvering helicopter without appearing with your head inside the rotors by accident?

Also if any spirit can materialize anywhere while going at astral speeds then a mage could ask a spirit to materialize in front of an enemy while going at 100+ metres per second. I don't have the books with me, but if you count it as a ramming test then even a low force spirit could do something like 20DV...

Yeah, but don't forget... Sending spirits to their death (and manifesting in front of a speeding vehicle is pretty much death for most spirits Force 6 or lower) does not endear you to the spirit world... gonna start acquiring Spirit Bane Negative Qualities pretty quickly with that tactic...

Keep the Faith

[Apathy]

A lot of this is redundant to what people have already said, but:
As GM, you keep mages in check by how you set up the world, and how you imagine corps would defend against magic.
How you set up the world.

The two easiest balances against mages are the optional rules for making drain nastier, and the application of background count.
• For optional drain rules, I dislike the new one in SR4A - it makes calculating drain more complicated and slows down combat. Instead, if you must nerf mages you could always go with the optional rule in the BBB and make drain "Force plus X" instead of "Half Force plus X".
• If you don't want to use any optional rules, you can just make background count more common. General opinion on the board is that BC is rare, but nothing in canon really says one way or the other. BC really hoses mages fast so don't apply more than a point or two unless you want them to be useless.

How targets defend vs magic.
On the low-budget end (gangs)...

• Use dogs or similar for detection. They're cheap and you could assign one to every guard if you wanted to. Their primary sense is smell, so they'll catch the mage even though he's invisible, sound-dampened, and levitating.

Mid-budget (A and AA corps)

• Wards. They're relatively cheap to set up, don't require a full mage to make, and would be most places which are valuable enough for a decent mundane alarm system. They don't have to be high - Force 1 is fine. They just let the creating mage know as soon as they're breached by an astrally active presence. Then the monitoring mage calls Lonestar.
• DocWagon bracelets (or similar). Generic sec guards will never stop real runners of any type - they're just there so the alarm will go off when you kill them. Then the monitoring agency calls Lonestar, locks all the doors, and disables wireless in the building.
• Drones. They're cheaper, easier to hide, harder to affect with magic, and more durable than people.

Higher budget (AAA and secure facilities)

• Magic. As always, the best counter for magic is magic. AAAs will either have a mage on site or a remote mage on call that can astrally zip over there with his spirits to kick ass. Spirits/Watchers patrolling perimeter or pairing up with guards to alert them of magical activity.
• Alternate sensor suites. Sonar, Radar, Pherome Detectors, RFID sensors, etc for alternate ways of spotting the bad guys.
• Artificially created background count (there's an awakened lily which creates a BC of up to 4 - consider spreading those around the entrances.)
• Defensive architecture. FAB. Biofiber in the walls. Revolving Doors with cameras and pressure plates which don't turn, or worse trap the runner if he's invisible and/or levetating. The nastier version then fills the enclosed compartment with knockout gas. Highly secure buildings will be underground, making astral scouting difficult (move through earth takes a long time)

Finally, opposition should use intelligent tactics. Magic has been around for over half a century and people know it's capabilities and limitations. Attackers will stay spread out so they don't get hit by one AoE spell, or rush among the team so that you can't use AoE spells without also hitting your own people. They'll make use of cover so you can't see them until they're close.

[Whipstitch]

Also consider that even if there might not be a squad of patrolling mages in every place, a lot of places will have passive astral defense that can detect astral/magical intrusion and off-site astral backup can arrive very quickly with spirits and projected mages.

Really Mages are powerful but virtually everything they do with their mojo leaves an Astral fingerprint that can really screw them over, you aren't giving them all of the time in the world to clean up after themselves are ya?

Take note of these because it shows how speed is really, really important in the Shadowrun world. Runners typically have a fairly short time table to work with if they're detected, particularly if they do something that escalates the situation, such as a allowing a bunch of biomonitors to alert the central metroplex corp security station that an entire on-site goon squad just went unconscious in the blink of an eye. Now, you might say "But the team Hacker can intercept that message!," which might be true, but in that case you might consider the idea that you're making it too easy for the team to isolate their targets consistently. Hackers and Mages are powerful, but their toughest opponents can literally move faster than the speed of sound, since Agents, Spirits, corp Spiders and projecting wage mages all have ways to check in on a facility without having to actually worry about little things like physics. So while skilled hackers and corp mages may be relatively rare numerically speaking, it often doesn't really mean that much in practice because they're so capable of providing remote backup. This forces runner teams to hit things hard and fast, since siege tactics like chain summoning Spirits from a helicopter are operating under the assumption that the guys right in front of you are the only thing you have to worry about, which couldn't be further from the truth.

[Marwynn]

They don't become visible per se, but they get the Blind Fighting bonus to them (or rather the others get the penalty).

[cndblank]

I agree Magicians should be powerful, but they can over shadow the other players very easily.

One thing you can do is give the Mundanes 10 or 20 K of free cyberware at start up to help balance it out (or at least encourage more people to play mundanes rather than awakened).

Another is require the Mage to start the game with a lower Magic rating.

If it is bad enough, you might be able to talk your player in to rewriting the character with a lower Magic stat so that the Magician doesn't over shadow the Street Samurai so much.

One issue we have is that Magic is used for every thing and the Mage can always pull out the big can of Whoop Ass with Overcasting.
That leads to the Mage really hogging the spot light when they are the Swiss army knife and the go to guy with the chips are down.

I've heard someone suggested that an overcast requires both a Physical Drain test and a Stun Drain Test. That would seriously slow down the Mage and let the other characters have a chance to shine.

Having Lonestar check out every site that the Mage has been throwing magic around at and letting him know they know what his spells look like and are looking for him might convince him to pull his horns in a little.

Also all the Spirits and Biologicals (Hell Hounds, Cockatrice, and the like) will go for the Mage first. He is the one that is blazing like a torch while the Street Samurai's aura can barely be seen.

Finally never under estimate the power of pure confusion. Visibility is a big issue with Mages. People are running around screaming. Lights are flashing. The ground might be rough and slippery. Weird things are happening.Have them having to duck or get hit by a car that doesn't see them or a rolling dumpster can slow them down.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I've heard someone suggested that an overcast requires both a Physical Drain test and a Stun Drain Test. That would seriously slow down the Mage and let the other characters have a chance to shine.

Not really... those mages that are optimized to be pure mages will not really wory all that much about throwing Drain twice... 0 Drain x 2 is still 0 Drain... Most highly competant mages can control their drain enought that they never suffer from it (ar at the very least, minimally suffer from it)... this just slows the game down because now you are rolling twice for drain instead of once.

Keep the Faith

[cndblank]

Thought of one more point.

Any thing you can do to pin the Mage down is going to provide time for the Street Samurai to shine.

If the Mage has to keep sustaining a detection spell or keeping an eye astral on some thing then you can provide problems for the Street Samurai to deal with.

[Whipstitch]

I guess this line of thought surprises me a bit because I've never really had an issue with the street samurai of all people really being over shadowed. For one thing, a good samurai should be as fast or faster than anyone else on the team and have a whole bucket full of perception modifiers as well as enough Reaction to drive a vehicle passably well. As a mage player I just let them handle combat more often than not. Dude can eat nails and crap bullets anyway, so why the heck should I stick my neck out?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I guess this line of thought surprises me a bit because I've never really had an issue with the street samurai of all people really being over shadowed. For one thing, a good samurai should be as fast or faster than anyone else on the team and have a whole bucket full of perception modifiers as well as enough Reaction to drive a vehicle passably well. As a mage player I just let them handle combat more often than not. Dude can eat nails and crap bullets anyway, so why the heck should I stick my neck out?

There is no doubt about that here... yes a mage can be extremely powerful, but they have their own tasks to take care of... let the Street Sam tear through the physical opposition... that is his job after all...

Keep the Faith

[cndblank]

And that would be bad why? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Once I've recorded the damage to the NPC, I'm on to the actions of the next player so only the player of the Mage character is going to have to have to make the extra roll.

Gives me a little extra time to plan the oppositions next move.


I mean if the Mage wants to cast force 11 stunbolts then that if fine, but if he is casting the big stuff at Force 11, I want him to worry a little about it.

As is if he gets a bad roll he will just use Edge. This way he has to save the Edge for the Physical Drain and he at least has a chance to pick up some stun damage.

Thanks

Not really... those mages that are optimized to be pure mages will not really wory all that much about throwing Drain twice... 0 Drain x 2 is still 0 Drain... Most highly competant mages can control their drain enought that they never suffer from it (ar at the very least, minimally suffer from it)... this just slows the game down because now you are rolling twice for drain instead of once.

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And that would be bad why? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Once I've recorded the damage to the NPC, I'm on to the actions of the next player so only the player of the Mage character is going to have to have to make the extra roll.

Gives me a little extra time to plan the oppositions next move.


I mean if the Mage wants to cast force 11 stunbolts then that if fine, but if he is casting the big stuff at Force 11, I want him to worry a little about it.

As is if he gets a bad roll he will just use Edge. This way he has to save the Edge for the Physical Drain and he at least has a chance to pick up some stun damage.

Thanks

Per your statement, you have no extra time as you are already on to the next character/NPC's interaction... and forcing 2 rolls slows everything down... and really... 3 Physical damage from that Overcast Stun Bolt is pretty damn significant (even if he does soak all of that damage; and why should that be any different than him overcasting that Napalm Spell at Force 11 (12 Drain)... it will be self limiting in the end)... equates to receiving a bullet wound... this is why we have 2 tracks, to simulate incrementing grevious wounds from non-letahl to lethal; and why we have a drain mechanic that get more lethal with the power of the spell... using 2 rolls against the character with a 17dp Drain roll is just stupid in my opinion, and wastes time... it forces him to lose track of what is going on around him... I don't know about you, but I still want to be involved in the narrative of the story going on around me, not trying to resolve multiple extraneous rolls because soemone thinks that I am too powerful of a mage...

I have said before... the mage is there to be a hammer when needed (hell, as are all of the other archtypes), and has considerations all of his own... let him shine where he needs to shine and let the others shine where they need to shine...

Are you going to penalize the Street Sam because he has 4 IP and a Fully Automatic Grenade Launcher and is laying waste to a facility? How about the Technomancer who is threading Stealth to 14 because he can and is raiding all of your corporate Servers? Each Archtype has their own specialties that they will be good at, and which you will have to plan for)... I would quit worrying about the MAge (or the Physad, or the Hacker, or the Technomancer) and just let them shine...

You can control a cahracter's actions through the world itself without having to resort to handicapping a specific power or archtype... never forget, there are always bigger and badder Sharks out there just waiting for your characters to swim into their domain...

Probably was not a lot of help here.... Sorry about the Rant...

Keep the Faith

[cndblank]

I've had a Gunslinger Physical Adept over shadow the Street Samurai in my campaign early on.

Attribute Boost is powerful.

But one time I surprised the group and the Adept was really at a disadvantage (sans boosted attributes) while the Sammy was ready to rock and roll.

I guess this line of thought surprises me a bit because I've never really had an issue with the street samurai of all people really being over shadowed. For one thing, a good samurai should be as fast or faster than anyone else on the team and have a whole bucket full of perception modifiers as well as enough Reaction to drive a vehicle passably well. As a mage player I just let them handle combat more often than not. Dude can eat nails and crap bullets anyway, so why the heck should I stick my neck out?

[cndblank]

I have to balance out the game so all my players have fun.

Every thing else is secondary.

If one player who has been doing very very well for himself has to roll an extra resistance test then that is how is will have to be.

[Nimblegrund]

Mages cannot throw seplls from the Astral to the Physical... and no grounding of spells through Foci anymore either...

Keep the Faith

Could they summon spirits?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Could they summon spirits?

Sure, you can summon spirits anywhere... but the spirits have to materialize and only one summoned spirit per mage unless you are using bound spirits...

Keep the Faith

[Octopiii]

Here are some tips for challenging mages without necessarily bringing out a mage of your own.

[Ayeohx]

As usual, excellent post everyone. I've got a ton of advice so here's what I'm going with:

Drones
This isn't just to throw off mages but someone mentioned that they are cheap. I've been using more metahuman security than I should have when drones are a better option. A few thousand for a excellent sec drone or a few thousand every month for a fleshy? I'd go with the drones myself. Still, I don't think everyone (the common citizen) would carry a drone because most wouldn't have a use for them.

Background count
I don't pay enough attention to this. My runs tend to hit the Redmond Barrens a lot and that place has to have some really nasty astral spots.

Spirits on Loan
I tend to forget that mages can bind spirits and loan them to people. I know that if I was a semi-wealthy shop owner I'd pay for a mage to loan me a spirit of man.

Wards
Even smaller stores should be able to afford wards. Also, Street Magic has a lot more on wards; I need to check it out.

Send Mages on Runs that Require Mages
Another "oops" of mine. I keep running the game as if two samurai are playing. Now that it's a mage and a samurai these guys can go after runs involving magical threats. Even better paying jobs which will make my players happy.

Ultrasound
Ultrasound has always confused me a bit in the past. It helps with vision but it's not an eye enhancement, it's headwear. I think I finally get it and I'll be including it a bit more often. Not so much as cyberwear but it'll be in all high end sec-gear helmets.

Shock Weapons
It seems kind of wierd that normal weapons do not work yet electricity attacks will. We've been playing before SnSs came out so they seem a little foreign to us. But if it's the only thing that mundanes can use to drop spirits I guess they'll swiftly get integrated into our games. Shocking a fire spirit, or earth spirit, into submission seems to be such a cheesy workaround though.

RTFM
Meh. I don't want to read Street Magic right now but I think it'll help. I've browsed it and I know that the defenses versus magic were promising but... meh. I'm still spinning from Unwired.

Skipping for Now
I am not going to add houserules or use the optional rules to fix these issues; yet, anyways. There is obviously more that I can do with the world itself to limit the mage's impact of the game.

Thanks again gang! I really appreciate the help!

Edit:
Thanks for the link Octopiii. The Magical Guard sounds good but I really liked the idea of a offsite sec mage showing up in astral with his spirit army when an alarm sounds. Seems so obvious; somehow I missed it. That is a great service for freelance sec mages to offer. I bet my player may start a side business for his mage when I mention it to him. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Saint Sithney]

Drones
This isn't just to throw off mages but someone mentioned that they are cheap. I've been using more metahuman security than I should have when drones are a better option. A few thousand for a excellent sec drone or a few thousand every month for a fleshy? I'd go with the drones myself. Still, I don't think everyone (the common citizen) would carry a drone because most wouldn't have a use for them.

Do remember that the security and military purpose drones you see listed in the gear section only represent the kind of gear that pros are going to be interested in. There's plenty of cheap little "robot pals" out there like emoti-toys that can add sensor capabilities to bypass regular invisibility. Improved invisibility should, naturally, take security-level sensors and drones to invalidate.

Oh, and it's great to see octopiii out. He's a wellspring of innovative SR4 ideas. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Do remember that the security and military purpose drones you see listed in the gear section only represent the kind of gear that pros are going to be interested in. There's plenty of cheap little "robot pals" out there like emoti-toys that can add sensor capabilities to bypass regular invisibility. Improved invisibility should, naturally, take security-level sensors and drones to invalidate.

Oh, and it's great to see octopiii out. He's a wellspring of innovative SR4 ideas. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif)

Those little, cheap ass, toy drones will also see through the Illusion if the caster does not get at least 3 hits on the Physical Spell involved...

Just because they are not Military or Security level does not change the OR that is needed to bypass the sensors

Keep the Faith

[Sixgun_Sage]

When I play, I play either a combat hacker, or a mystic adept, so I tend to have to scratch for points, which means outside of my area of expertise my character is relatively vulnerable.This is generally true of all characters, the thing most people don't consider about mages and awakened characters in general is how much harder it is for them to branch out. In a tough spot the chromed out sammy can switch skillsofts, even low-end corporations have the cost for some multi-optic systems for their security (especially if said corporation is some form of tech consultancy firm), and sustaining spells is a task that does take attention away from other things you might have to do. Foci? nice targets for when the security mage does show up looking to fry someone for interrupting his lunch break. A smart enough mage WILL succeed the vast majority of the time, but only because he has planned, considered and prepared himself for the jobs he knows he can do well and only does those jobs. Everything else he relies on teammates for.

[Ayeohx]

Those little, cheap ass, toy drones will also see through the Illusion if the caster does not get at least 3 hits on the Physical Spell involved...

Just because they are not Military or Security level does not change the OR that is needed to bypass the sensors

Keep the Faith

Isn't the OR for drones 5? I understand that sensors themselves are OR 3 but the way it's worked before was that an object isn't usually affected by it's parts but as it's whole. So you can't necessarily target the drone's sensors, you have to target the drone itself. Once again, I got 4 different systems rattling around in here so "grandpa" tends to get confused occasionally...

[The Overlord]

While most of the ideas i was going to suggest have already been covered, here is one that no one seems to have mentioned, RFID tags. The book describes them as being everywhere and anywhere. Cloths, packages, food, and so much more. While mainly used for commercial purposes, there are other applications. Since they are constantly broadcasting to the world, a careless runner is essentially a walking beacon to all sensors that pick up the RFID. No amount of invisibility or sense blocking can stop it from transmitting its existence. So even the highest force Invisibility will be worthless when the security sensors detect that someone with Ares Victory brand boxers and recently consumed soy chips is walking down an otherwise empty corridor. Even if the players disable any RFID tags that might be on them before a run, sprinkle a couple hand full of security RFID tags around key points partially covered in an adheasive so that when the player comes in contact with them then they are now walking around with RFID tags that are out of place. And being so small and innocuous that they are easily overlooked.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Isn't the OR for drones 5? I understand that sensors themselves are OR 3 but the way it's worked before was that an object isn't usually affected by it's parts but as it's whole. So you can't necessarily target the drone's sensors, you have to target the drone itself. Once again, I got 4 different systems rattling around in here so "grandpa" tends to get confused occasionally...

I have seen corroboration by Devs (Don't remember which thread, but it was a while ago) that Sensors (even on Drones) are OR3... You are not targeting the Subsystem of a Drone when sensors are being used for the most part... you are creating an effect that the drone sensors perceive external to themselves... if you are using Direct Combat spells, then yes, the Drone is OR5, if you are using Chaff or Trid Phantasm, or any of the other sense affecting spells, it is OR3 for Mechanical devices... the big benefit with most drones (of at least small size and up) is that they are totally unaffected by MOST sensor affecting spells as they do not include senses that the Sensors on the Drone utilize (Like Radar)... Radar is completely immune to the effects of current Illusion Spells, as there is no Invisibility to Radar in the Spell Publications... the best that you are going to get is the Chaff spell, which reduces SENSOR rating, not the benefits of the radar system, so you will still get the radars Dice Aditions, even if your SENSOR RATING is reduced...

A lot of people will disagree with this, as they do not like the idea that it appears to be targeting the Drone, when in fact the drones sensors are targeting the effect... this is a very big distinction...

Keep the Faith