Countering Magical Threats, Group Doesn't Have a Mage Options

[Nerdynick]

So I'm about to begin a campaign and we have a group consisting of an AR Hacker/Latent Technomancer/Mediocre Gunbunny (myself), an Adept specializing in melee and infiltration (first time playing), and a dedicated Gunslinger. My GM won't go light on the party however, and will send a reasonable amount of mojo our way (as he feels best reflects the setting).


The dilemma is that the most counter-magic we will have is the Adept (I don't know if he can astrally perceive or not) who might be armed with a weapon focus. So how does a group without magic fight against magical enemies and what should we really look out for?

[Makki]

one idea might be, to have a street shaman as a contact, or someone equivalent refered to by your fixer and use your upfront expenses to by a remote loaned service of a guardian spirit to provide counterspelling for the group

otherwise, use cover. without LOS the mage is useless
spirits should be either adept fodder, or you pack a flamethrower and some tasers. (I wont recommend S'n'S ammo, as I deny its existence)

[phlapjack77]

The loaned-service counterspelling spirit is a good idea. Or a "run" could be finding / hiring a good NPC counterspelling mage to accompany your group.

Other than that, drugs that raise willpower or let you perceive / project astrally? Biofiber-woven clothing?

Change your characters to have the magic resistance quality?

Expensive, but buy a paranormal "pet" that has counterspelling, like the Oracle Owl or Nimue's Salamander or something else from Running Wild.

[Epicedion]

Don't take jobs with heavy magic security?

[TheOOB]

Why would Johnson hire a runner team with no magician to take on a job which requires a magician? That's not to say that the team will never run across a magician or a spirit as an enemy(and should thus prepare, stick-n-shock works wonders), but the job should be shaped around the team.

If your GM wants to keep things real to the setting, do so during the Johnson negotiations. Don't accept jobs that will pit you against significant mojo, and if you do accept, make sure you're paid extra as the Johnson is hiring you for a job outside your teams skill-set.

In any case, when dealing with magic, there is a few good tricks. Anything that obstructs vision screws with magicians, especially since magic usually doesn't work through vision enhancements. Stick-n-shock works wonders against spirits, and always take out the mage first.

[CanRay]

Sometimes the Johnson wants the 'Run to fail. Tailchasers and Distraction 'Runs.

It's better if the Shadowrunners don't survive. Don't have to pay them the remainder of the fee that way.

[TheOOB]

Sometimes the Johnson wants the 'Run to fail. Tailchasers and Distraction 'Runs.

It's better if the Shadowrunners don't survive. Don't have to pay them the remainder of the fee that way.

Screwing over runners is a dangerous proposition, and one Johnson rarely has a chance to do twice.

[CanRay]

Screwing over runners is a dangerous proposition, and one Johnson rarely has a chance to do twice.

"Shadowrun isn't over until the Johnson has tried to screw us." is a common sentence amongst Shadowrunners. It's dangerous, but good for business sometimes. Deniable assets are even more deniable if they can't go around bragging about what they've done in a drunken haze while high on cred.

Never forget the image John Q. Wageslave has for Shadowrunners, SCUM. Terrorists at worst, mercenary thieves at best. That's where a lot of Mr. Johnsons are taken from.

Profession ones, yeah, they won't screw over a team. They'll hire a good team to do a proper job and make sure things go off right. It's the amateurs you have to watch out for. Just like everything else.

[TheOOB]

"Shadowrun isn't over until the Johnson has tried to screw us." is a common sentence amongst Shadowrunners. It's dangerous, but good for business sometimes. Deniable assets are even more deniable if they can't go around bragging about what they've done in a drunken haze while high on cred.

Never forget the image John Q. Wageslave has for Shadowrunners, SCUM. Terrorists at worst, mercenary thieves at best. That's where a lot of Mr. Johnsons are taken from.

Profession ones, yeah, they won't screw over a team. They'll hire a good team to do a proper job and make sure things go off right. It's the amateurs you have to watch out for. Just like everything else.

Never said it didn't happen, just that it's a bad idea (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

Fair enough, I sit corrected.

Amateurs are always making those. Shadowruns are just one of those occupational places where the working class can do something about middle management being "Pointy Haired Bosses". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[graymagiker]

Screwing over runners is a dangerous proposition, and one Johnson rarely has a chance to do twice.

True. But it only takes once for it to be a teems last shadowrun. If you and Johnson both die, you still die.

[Adarael]

Here's a good reason to hire a runner team without a mage:
Mages are really f'ing expensive.

Seriously, there's no doubt a much higer preponderance of mages in the shadows than there is in daily life, due to their unique skills and the high pay. But I would say that there is an even HIGHER preponderance of shadowrunner mages in PC groups than there are among NPC groups, for the same reason there's a higher preponderance of unusual metavariants: because players like to be special and cover their bases, and a mage is freakin' useful that way. But I think there are large numbers of solo shadowrunners, or pair teams who may not have any kind of magic whatsoever. And frankly, you can probably pay them less than their magically active counterparts, because hey, magic costs.

From an OOC level, I ran a spy game a couple of years back with no magically active people, and it worked fine. The only thing that made it a little "odd" feeling is that I tried to keep the amount of magical opposition appropriate. What I discovered is that it felt much more like the fluff for the game: mages were *scary*, and few and far between, and nobody really knew how serious it was gonna be when one showed up.

[Summerstorm]

Yepp... i am on the other side of that: My groups mage is horrifying competent and powerful... So i have to artificially supply the opposition with mages, against my own knowledge of how rare they are. (And IF they have them... how bad/mediocre the gros of mages are)

They will do fine without a mage. Yes there are mages and their spirits out there which can easily get your runners down in one second... but they are so rare. And the "normal" magical defenses go against awakened threats primarily. But also: yes you can't take all jobs. Just as you can't take some when you do not have a combat rigger. or especially when you do not have a hacker.

[Pyritefoolsgold]

Encourage the team to pack Lucifer Lamps so they can see the shadows of astral forms and spirits if they suspect they are about. Also, a couple of house rules that make sense and will make magic a bit less powerful, keeping enemy mages more on par with everyone else:

1: Direct damage spells have a negative dice pool modifier equal to the target character's missing essence rounded up (as in, up to 6). This keeps the most powerful spells from getting too out of hand. This penalty already applies to the heal spell, it honestly should apply to all direct spells representing that a cybered character has partially removed them self from the natural world. Most mages after that penalty should be rolling 2-4 dice on direct spells, which gives the 2-3 willpower most runners buy more of a chance at being useful.

2: Spirits can be attacked with melee weapons using the appropriate close combat skill, with damage based on charisma instead of strength. These attacks bypass immunity to normal weapons.

Other than that, just don't throw overbuilt, runner class mages at them unless it really, really makes sense for them to be there. Use the corpsec Lieutenant wagemage as a guideline for most magical opposition. He's magic 3, sorcery 4, and so can only throw force 3 spells and spirits without overcasting. And frankly wagemages shouldn't be overcasting unless their life is on the line: otherwise they are not getting paid enough to take the equivalent of a knife wound to cast a spell.

Finally, remember that assensing and astral perception do not defeat stealth automatically: The mage still has to see you with perception + intuition even if he's looking for your astral form.

[Makki]

2: Spirits can be attacked with melee weapons using the appropriate close combat skill, with damage based on charisma instead of strength. These attacks bypass immunity to normal weapons.

that's called Attack of Will. And I'd allow mundanes to learn Banishing for that purpose...

[Lantzer]

I'd like to expand on something Summerstorm said.

A skilled, purely mundane team could quite easily avoid magical security.

Magical security is usually oriented against magical threats. Those wards do zip to a mundane. Awakened critters are really no different to deal with than mundane critters. Watchers and elementals are at home in the astral - and mundane runners look just like mundane employees from their point of view.

Sneaky runners don't look like anything - the spirit has to see them, just like Bob the security guard.

You only have to deal with magical security if you screw up and security calls a mage in - and in most cases, the mage is worth more to them as an intel provider than a mojo-slinger. To be honest, if security is calling a mage in to deal with you head-to-head, they are probably also sending in the drones, the HTR team, and putting the place into lockdown.

So your mostly-mundane team is probably safest if your adept gets masking and skips foci.


It's sort of like avoiding wireless detection by going in radio-silent.

[Pyritefoolsgold]

that's called Attack of Will. And I'd allow mundanes to learn Banishing for that purpose...

The house rule I use makes it a bit easier to apply than the attack of will, and gives melee characters another reason for existing, by having their weapon skill and agility actually matter.

[Ascalaphus]

1: Direct damage spells have a negative dice pool modifier equal to the target character's missing essence rounded up (as in, up to 6). This keeps the most powerful spells from getting too out of hand. This penalty already applies to the heal spell, it honestly should apply to all direct spells representing that a cybered character has partially removed them self from the natural world. Most mages after that penalty should be rolling 2-4 dice on direct spells, which gives the 2-3 willpower most runners buy more of a chance at being useful.

I think you're going a bit too low there. Let's say a medium-power combat mage (because why would the corp send a non-combat mage?):
Magic 3-4
Spellcasting 3-4
Specialization(Combat Spells) +2
Spellcasting or Power Focus: +2-3
(Perhaps: Mentor Spirit: +2)

Altogether that gets you between 10 and 15 dice to start with, for a moderately powerful mage. With those penalties that'd be between 5 and 14 dice. Still pretty dangerous.


I don't think there are any weak combat mages; you have to be at least strong enough to be more effective than a grenade launcher, which is cheaper and more people can use it. Combat mages are rare and almost always powerful, because until you're powerful, there's really no point in using attack spells.

As was said above, the main reason to deploy a security mage is to deal with a runner mage. If the invading runner team doesn't have mages, the corpsec mage is better off sitting back; it's bad policy to risk such an expensive metahuman resource if it's not necessary.

[Pyritefoolsgold]

I think you're going a bit too low there. Let's say a medium-power combat mage (because why would the corp send a non-combat mage?):
Magic 3-4
Spellcasting 3-4
Specialization(Combat Spells) +2
Spellcasting or Power Focus: +2-3
(Perhaps: Mentor Spirit: +2)

Altogether that gets you between 10 and 15 dice to start with, for a moderately powerful mage. With those penalties that'd be between 5 and 14 dice. Still pretty dangerous.

I forgot about foci and specializations, and checking the provided statblock for a security wagemage even he has a force 2 spellcasting focus, giving him a spellcasting dicepool of 9 dice. (he has sorcery 4 and no specialization)

dicepools above 12 should be reserved for what are essentially named characters, designed for specific scenarios.

[Ascalaphus]

I forgot about foci and specializations, and checking the provided statblock for a security wagemage even he has a force 2 spellcasting focus, giving him a spellcasting dicepool of 9 dice. (he has sorcery 4 and no specialization)

dicepools above 12 should be reserved for what are essentially named characters, designed for specific scenarios.

Not on principle.. there are lots of equipment and bonuses that enhance dicepools very quickly. I'd be slow to give nameless characters Attributes above 5 (5 would be unusual), but often the attribute and skill are only half of the dice pool.



I don't really think you have to down-tune security mages all that much. If the PCs have no mages, just use fewer NPC mages. They were only there to protect the poor corpsec guards from PC mages in the first place.

[CanRay]

One story I'm working on in my head (I usually have five or six going just for mental exercises to keep me out of my corner), involves a bunch of Watcher Spirits. There's too many people on the night shift for them to memorize the auras (Watchers aren't the brightest bulbs), so they're ordered to watch out for metahumans with Cybernetics and Magically active people and scream out an alarm if they see anyone like that.

In the story, the Shadowrunning group just hires someone they feel they can trust that's a virgin to the Wire and has no Magic.

Legwork, people! It's important!!!

[TheOOB]

One story I'm working on in my head (I usually have five or six going just for mental exercises to keep me out of my corner), involves a bunch of Watcher Spirits. There's too many people on the night shift for them to memorize the auras (Watchers aren't the brightest bulbs), so they're ordered to watch out for metahumans with Cybernetics and Magically active people and scream out an alarm if they see anyone like that.

In the story, the Shadowrunning group just hires someone they feel they can trust that's a virgin to the Wire and has no Magic.

Legwork, people! It's important!!!

Luckily, a watcher is unlikely to ever beat your infiltration check with all 2 dice they roll for astral perception, and few locations have enough bound spirits to have them assense every aura, which means they are most likely only going to notice astral forms and auras doing very suspicious activities(like taking out a guard).

[Cain]

Thermal smoke grenades block LOS, meaning the mage cannot target you with spells (or at least takes a penalty for doing so). Electrical weapons are fully effective against spirits. Stealth skills are just as effective against astral perception as it is versus normal perception. Mundane disguises cannot be penetrated via astral sight, and fake paperwork and good bluffing skills can beat both magical and non-magical checkpoints.

[Mr Clock]

Boss Cain makes good points with few words here.

Continually patrolling watcher spirits? Like, 24 hours a day? I'd hate to be the guy that had to keep re-summoning those pests.

One time, we went running sans mojo. Given that our target was a magician, we hit up our one and only magical contact for some assistance, and after some mucking around and sidequest to the Barrens nonsense, we got a jar. Of...something. We were never entirely sure what it was for. Or how to use it.

Long story short, a smoke grenade to the face, setting off a fire alarm and running like bastards saved our hides.

[phlapjack77]

Long story short, a smoke grenade to the face, setting off a fire alarm and running like bastards saved our hides.

Ah, the story of a shadowrunner (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)