How do mundanes survive magic?, OMG Stunball! Options

[Shrike30]

One of the main problems with high-force spells is that they're obvious. The threshold to Percieve a force 5 or higher spell is 1... not necessarily a good thing when you're trying to quietly stunbolt a guard, as even the dumbest security system AI can spot it on a camera, and if that guard has any friends around they're going to get the idea that something's up. Suppressed gunfire or a hand-to-hand takedown, on the other hand, can be a lot quieter.

Once it turns into a serious balls-out firefight, your mage is *not* going to have time to clean up a half-dozen high-force spells, unless your runs tend to happen in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Having the mage be unconcious at bug-out time makes cleanup hard, as well. With security response times measured in combat turns, not to mention the fact that any time spent cleaning is not time spent heading towards the door, having your mage unload huge amounts of mana during a battle is a quick way to have someone pounding on his door shortly thereafter. There's ways around this, of course, but they're all time-, nuyen-, and karma-intensive.

Sure, mages can be absolutely devastating to a theoretical security team operating in a vaccum. If you're not following that up with the responses (such as astral tracking) that the SR world has dreamed up, those mages will keep being as devastating as the troll who carries his HMG to the mall, since the cops never detain him. I can strip a submachinegun and throw the parts into a metal grinder, and as long as I didn't leave much in the way of fingerprints, blood, or other evidence at the scene of a crime, I should be good to go. A mage smears his signature all over the place when he uses his talent, and that is one of the serious limiters on their power.

[toturi]

What does the mage need to do in order to clean up astral signatures?

[KnightIII]

Our mage bugs out to the the van and as the team retreats he astral projects to go back and clean up.

[Shinobi Killfist]

One of the main problems with high-force spells is that they're obvious. The threshold to Percieve a force 5 or higher spell is 1... not necessarily a good thing when you're trying to quietly stunbolt a guard, as even the dumbest security system AI can spot it on a camera, and if that guard has any friends around they're going to get the idea that something's up. Suppressed gunfire or a hand-to-hand takedown, on the other hand, can be a lot quieter.

Once it turns into a serious balls-out firefight, your mage is *not* going to have time to clean up a half-dozen high-force spells, unless your runs tend to happen in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Having the mage be unconcious at bug-out time makes cleanup hard, as well. With security response times measured in combat turns, not to mention the fact that any time spent cleaning is not time spent heading towards the door, having your mage unload huge amounts of mana during a battle is a quick way to have someone pounding on his door shortly thereafter. There's ways around this, of course, but they're all time-, nuyen-, and karma-intensive.

Sure, mages can be absolutely devastating to a theoretical security team operating in a vaccum. If you're not following that up with the responses (such as astral tracking) that the SR world has dreamed up, those mages will keep being as devastating as the troll who carries his HMG to the mall, since the cops never detain him. I can strip a submachinegun and throw the parts into a metal grinder, and as long as I didn't leave much in the way of fingerprints, blood, or other evidence at the scene of a crime, I should be good to go. A mage smears his signature all over the place when he uses his talent, and that is one of the serious limiters on their power.

I think you are overdoing the astral signature part of the game a bit. Normally left over spells are not tracked, they can see your signature and tie it to you if they see another crime scene or assense you, but they wont be tracking you down from residual spells. Also everything your team is doing is leaving evidence that can be used to track you down either physically or magically. You get shot, hey look there is evidence on the floor etc. If you want to play that kind of game that is cool, but make sure you hit the street sams just as hard because they didn't specify they were wearing gloves while they loaded there guns, and what were they thinking not loading up on gear to destroy blood splatter, and why didn't they spend multiple combat turns fixing the scene after wards. It will probably take a minute for a mage to clear up his signatures, it should probably take that much time to clean up the physical evidence as well.

[Shinobi Killfist]

What does the mage need to do in order to clean up astral signatures?

He spends 1 CT per force of the spell cast.

[toturi]

The time is either 1 round or one IP per force point. So ya, that can be pretty bad, and unless you've got the edges which mitigate this, it could really bite any mage in the ass rather easily.

He spends 1 CT per force of the spell cast.

OK, is it 1 initiative pass, 1 combat turn or 1 round or what?

[dirkformica]

P. 179 of SR4A "Erase Astral Signature: A magician using astral perception may take a number of Complex
Actions equal to the Force of an astral signature to erase it completely. See Astral
Signatures, p. 192."

And from the aforementioned p. 192 "A magician using astral perception may take a number of Complex
Actions equal to the Force of an astral signature to erase it completely." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Ascalaphus]

None of my solutions are a guarantee, but a couple of them together will reduce the threat of wizards to something the insurance company is willing to talk about. If you want hardcore protection, you need your own mages. But as I've show, you can get quite a ways without.

[Saint Sithney]

Oddly the faq now says mages can cast spells using senses other then sight, so this one works both ways now.
(edit) or just have the mage set off a radar and ultrasound jammer and cast using astral perception, now EVERYONE is blind except for dual natured creatures.

Does the FAQ say how much harder it is to target a LoS spell when the S is Sound? I don't expect that it's easy to distinguish the exact position of a person when there's a lot of machine gun chatter in an enclosed area. And then there's the issue of, what if that's not thermal smoke? What if it's Whitestar or Phosphorous? Really, any massive sec force, mage or no, is going to have the option to fuck up a Runner's Christmas when he thinks he's too bad to be stopped..

[toturi]

Does the FAQ say how much harder it is to target a LoS spell when the S is Sound? I don't expect that it's easy to distinguish the exact position of a person when there's a lot of machine gun chatter in an enclosed area. And then there's the issue of, what if that's not thermal smoke? What if it's Whitestar or Phosphorous? Really, any massive sec force, mage or no, is going to have the option to fuck up a Runner's Christmas when he thinks he's too bad to be stopped..

Unless the runner is too bad to be stopped, then the massive sec force is fucked with no options.

Multiple extremely high Force spells (Force 9+) are a liability due to the time needed to remove the astral signature (unless you don't care about leaving an astral signature), moderately high Force spells (Force 5+) are simply slightly inconvenient to use.

[Muspellsheimr]

Where is a drone's heavy resistance to physical spells coming from? I can't find any mention that an indirect combat spell has to overcome its object resistance.

I can provide a rules quote stating spells are subject to object resistance. Now your challenge is to provide a quote stating Indirect Combat Spells are an exception to this rule.

Hint: Rules as Written, not a single spell is listed as an exception to this rule.


The closest you can come to indicating Indirect Combat Spells are not subject to Object Resistance is that OR is a Threshold, while Indirect spells are an Opposed Test, but guess what - there is nothing actually prohibiting something having both an opposed roll and a Threshold.

[Saint Sithney]

Unless the runner is too bad to be stopped, then the massive sec force is fucked with no options.

Well that's always the hope in a missive scrum, and, with everything in place, it can certainly be a beautiful thing.

[Mordinvan]

Does the FAQ say how much harder it is to target a LoS spell when the S is Sound? I don't expect that it's easy to distinguish the exact position of a person when there's a lot of machine gun chatter in an enclosed area. And then there's the issue of, what if that's not thermal smoke? What if it's Whitestar or Phosphorous? Really, any massive sec force, mage or no, is going to have the option to fuck up a Runner's Christmas when he thinks he's too bad to be stopped..

Yes... we all know how much people love tossing white phosphorus grenades into confined spaces they happen to be guarding.... Hell I do it all the time.....

[Ophis]

I'm sure I remember a quote from AH about soaking spell damage after the resistance test. Not much help I know but every little helps.

Of course the quite could be a hallucination on my part.

[Muspellsheimr]

I'm sure I remember a quote from AH about soaking spell damage after the resistance test. Not much help I know but every little helps.

Of course the quite could be a hallucination on my part.

Rules as Written, Indirect spells allow a Damage Resistance test after hitting, as normal for ranged combat. Direct spells do not, dealing their Force + Net Hits to the target if the target fails to resist the spell.

The quote you are thinking of would be during one of the early monthly chats, where Ancient History falsely stated that Direct combat spells allowed both a Spell Resistance & Damage Resistance test. This was later (few hours, if I recall correctly) clarified as a mistake by developers and Ancient History.


House Rule: Direct Combat Spells are "avoided/dodged" (aka Spell Resistance) with Intuition + Counterspelling. If the spell "hits", the target resists damage using Body (Physical spells) or Willpower (Mana spells) + Astral Armor. Unaware targets do not receive a defense test (Intuition + Counterspelling), but may resist damage as normal [the target of a spell gets Intuition against spells they are aware of, & Counterspelling against spells the counterspelling character is aware of. Counterspelling consumes a Free Action each round, following my Active Defense rule].

[Ascalaphus]

I can provide a rules quote stating spells are subject to object resistance. Now your challenge is to provide a quote stating Indirect Combat Spells are an exception to this rule.

Hint: Rules as Written, not a single spell is listed as an exception to this rule.


The closest you can come to indicating Indirect Combat Spells are not subject to Object Resistance is that OR is a Threshold, while Indirect spells are an Opposed Test, but guess what - there is nothing actually prohibiting something having both an opposed roll and a Threshold.

Well...

Note that objects targeted by Indirect Combat spells do get to resist the damage as they would any ranged attack, use only their Armor rating x2 (or just Armor against spells with elemental effects) to resist damage caused (see Barriers, p.157).

Note that nonliving objects resist damage from an Indirect Combat spell with their Armor rating x2 (see Barriers, p. 157).

This is still ambiguous, true; did they mean resist with Armor instead of Object Resistance, or in addition to? Then follows an example on the same page, in which a drone gets hit with 3 net hits, and it takes damage. Since a drone has an Object Resistance of 5, this means that Object Resistance didn't factor into it. Object Resistance also doesn't get mentioned in that example at all.

It makes sense; they're Indirect spells. Drones are hard to affect with mana, but less hard to affect with fire. The indirect spell creates fire to hurt with, rather than directly with mana.

So are indirect spells better against drones than direct spells? For lower-armor drones, yes (assuming all indirect spells are elemental). But against really heavily armored drones, bypassing the armor with a Powerbolt is a valid choice. And the Armor modification at rating 20 still takes only 1 slot. Also, the Powerbolt can't be dodged.

[DuctShuiTengu]

Oh, hey... Visibility modifiers affect a mages spellcasting roll? Its not as simple as "Oh, I can see that guy, it might only be a shadowy blob, but thats enough for LoS. Fire in the hole!"

Unless I'm misreading, yes they are.

Spellcasting
When a magician casts a spell, the player first chooses the Force of the spell and then rolls her Spellcasting + Magic dice. Other sources of power (foci, spirit spellcasting aid) and Visibility modifiers (p. 136) may affect the dice pool. The success of a spell is measured by the number of hits attained on the test, though some spells may require a minimum number of hits before they work. Using Spellcasting requires a complex action. For more information on spellcasting, see p. 182.

Step 4: Make Spellcasting Test
Casting a spell requires a Complex Action. The Spellcaster rolls Spellcasting + Magic, modified by foci, totem bonuses, bound spirits, and/or Visibility modifiers.

[Saint Sithney]

Yes... we all know how much people love tossing white phosphorus grenades into confined spaces they happen to be guarding.... Hell I do it all the time.....

It must be fun to play a game where every situation is exactly the same. Corridors & Corpsec for the win, rite?

Point is there are plenty of mundane threats which a mage will not be able to counter with a lightning bolt. Gas attack is one of those. Billowing clouds of death are a pretty effective means of changing a battle dynamic. It's also a fun situation to describe. Radar tacnet overlays pointing out targets as bullets spit out of gas clouds and drones charge through a poison fog. Runners scrambling to get their respirators on and hoping that the FFBA's chemseal will keep out whatever the hell is filling the yard all the way to the fence. It's all a special kind of terrifying killzone.

[Ascalaphus]

A good way to challenge mages is always to vary the opposition - and that doesn't just mean NPCs, terrain and obstacles like clouds of gas too. They've only got a limited selection of spells. Spirits make mages flexible, but even that only goes so far.

Also, variation is just fun.

[Ophis]

Rules as Written, Indirect spells allow a Damage Resistance test after hitting, as normal for ranged combat. Direct spells do not, dealing their Force + Net Hits to the target if the target fails to resist the spell.

The quote you are thinking of would be during one of the early monthly chats, where Ancient History falsely stated that Direct combat spells allowed both a Spell Resistance & Damage Resistance test. This was later (few hours, if I recall correctly) clarified as a mistake by developers and Ancient History.

Ah that's it, from a chat. Saw the chat didn't see the retraction. (Dumpshock and my server didn't get on at the time.)

[Shinobi Killfist]

Does the FAQ say how much harder it is to target a LoS spell when the S is Sound? I don't expect that it's easy to distinguish the exact position of a person when there's a lot of machine gun chatter in an enclosed area. And then there's the issue of, what if that's not thermal smoke? What if it's Whitestar or Phosphorous? Really, any massive sec force, mage or no, is going to have the option to fuck up a Runner's Christmas when he thinks he's too bad to be stopped..

No. The Faq says something along the lines of if the GM wants to he can allow targeting through other senses, add what modifiers you see as appropriate. They then follow up with its makes the most sense for indirect spells. To me it kind of read like hey if you want to house rule this totally go for it, it probably wont break the game or be too unbalanced.

The thing I wonder is what visibility modifiers effect astral sight. It has its own problems, but if you are getting covered in themal smoke, flashing lights etc the dice pool penalty might drop if you switch to the astral and see with your psychic sense. I doubt thermal smoke has an effect on you at all, but I really don't know, they have not been very specific about what the astral looks like. Its got the shadows of objects, okay what does that mean.

Then again any time the astral was mentioned in the faq they said that will be answered in a future supplement.

[Saint Sithney]

The thing I wonder is what visibility modifiers effect astral sight. It has its own problems, but if you are getting covered in themal smoke, flashing lights etc the dice pool penalty might drop if you switch to the astral and see with your psychic sense. I doubt thermal smoke has an effect on you at all, but I really don't know, they have not been very specific about what the astral looks like. Its got the shadows of objects, okay what does that mean.

Then again any time the astral was mentioned in the faq they said that will be answered in a future supplement.

I'm pretty sure that smoke is to disparate to actually block astral sight. It might make things appear a bit dull, but the gauzy shadow of fumes shouldn't really conceal the beacon of a living aura. It'd be sort of like a watchfire in the woods. The illumination would seep through the smoke/foliage to an extent. That's why there's the Esprit “Petite Brume” FAB grenades to mess up astral sight/travel. I'd say that an Indirect combat spell can be targeted with Dual-natured sight through regular smoke, but I'd give them a reduced partial cover modifier (rather than straight blind fire) because, while it's easy enough to see where someone is by their aura it's difficult to judge their reactions, direction of movement and all the other things which allow someone to fire at where a person is heading rather than just where they are. Direct spells are a bit tricky. It seems like a mana spell would be directed at a someone's being rather than their physical person, so their aura would be a clear bulls-eye.

[Ol' Scratch]

No. The Faq says something along the lines of if the GM wants to he can allow targeting through other senses, add what modifiers you see as appropriate.

I really hate that suggested house rule. Clearly, whoever wrote that part of the FAQ either doesn't remember or never bothered to read older source material on the subject. Previous editions, which did a much better job of going into the how's and why's of magic, exhaustively explained why LOS or Touch requirements were needed in the first place in Shadowrun's magic system. If just knowing where the target currently is would work then there's no reason at all that you couldn't use video cameras or the like to target them.

And considering how painfully inaccurate other senses are (seriously, the only two that would even be viable are Hearing and Smell), it's just an absurd notion to put forth considering that alone. Now, the house rule is saying that you can basically just randomly through your spells around and hope it hits something. That's fine for indirect spells, but not for the rest.

[Mordinvan]

It must be fun to play a game where every situation is exactly the same. Corridors & Corpsec for the win, rite?

Point is there are plenty of mundane threats which a mage will not be able to counter with a lightning bolt. Gas attack is one of those. Billowing clouds of death are a pretty effective means of changing a battle dynamic. It's also a fun situation to describe. Radar tacnet overlays pointing out targets as bullets spit out of gas clouds and drones charge through a poison fog. Runners scrambling to get their respirators on and hoping that the FFBA's chemseal will keep out whatever the hell is filling the yard all the way to the fence. It's all a special kind of terrifying killzone.

Till the mage casts a transmute rubber to water spell on the corpsec's armor to kill their chemseals. Then it becomes hilarious.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I really hate that suggested house rule. Clearly, whoever wrote that part of the FAQ either doesn't remember or never bothered to read older source material on the subject. Previous editions, which did a much better job of going into the how's and why's of magic, exhaustively explained why LOS or Touch requirements were needed in the first place in Shadowrun's magic system. If just knowing where the target currently is would work then there's no reason at all that you couldn't use video cameras or the like to target them.

And considering how painfully inaccurate other senses are (seriously, the only two that would even be viable are Hearing and Smell), it's just an absurd notion to put forth considering that alone. Now, the house rule is saying that you can basically just randomly through your spells around and hope it hits something. That's fine for indirect spells, but not for the rest.

I agree, but out of FAQs answered that I don't agree with, this one is small on the list of importance. Even though its not a big deal to me, it so explicitly wrong for how magic works in the setting it is irritating.