[X] My Assistant

[Summerstorm]

If it's combat on the open field, he who acts first takes the day, and I'm pretty sure a sammie will acts first.

Yes, that is true: first one to draw and shoot when both parties have no support and preparation and just stumble over each other is the one to win.

Problem is: If powerful (and paranoid) you will only find a mage unaware while buying milk in the Stuffers Shack *g*.
In any combat situation and "infiltration" or something you have either:

Mage is "attacker" which means he has spirits on call, maybe one already materilized with him, scouted everything out on astral and has maybe illusions running (or is buffed to to the teeth)

or

Mage is "defender" which means: he has spirits on call, get information by system/patrols and is in an defended position with mage-goggles support... safe from all harm.

[Yerameyahu]

It's very important, as I said, not to *limit* the comparison to combat (and, further, to one-on-one combat against a *specialized* anti-mage).

Even doing that, though, I still don't see why the other character (street sam or otherwise) would go first. Assuming that colors the whole question unduly.

What irony? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) BP is for chargen only. I'm sure everyone would prefer to earn BP instead of karma… because it would be broken. I agree that building a high-karma character from scratch would benefit from extreme BPgen abuse (min-max everything), but I don't think that affects the Awakened/mundane question at all.

It's rules as rules. No loophole. Anything else is a house rule. Even if it were true, mages are *hardly* powerless against barriers and vehicles. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[longbowrocks]

If you have guardian spirits you can operate ANY weapon with potential more skill than POSSIBLE for a mundane and without losing actions

Is this assuming the spirit's attribute maxes are equal to its force? Will its AGI be equal to its force? Does it need to default on ranged weapon tests? How are you possibly going to get enough dice to summon this spirit and get any tasks owed?

[PoliteMan]

I feel like the winner in a battle to the death outshines his opponent because a corpse doesn't outshine anything.

A burning corpse does (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Seriously though, death is by no means the end of a fight. In fact, for some opponents, it may not even be a serious obstacle to killing you. They're still dead though, so bit of a MAD scenario there.

Three points on OP:

#1 Yes, Mages can get silly powerful with enough Karma. Given enough money/karma/time Faces, Adepts, Technos, Hackers, and Riggers will all get silly powerful and many of them can get there much faster than the mage. Only the Sam really gets left behind, left behind being able to survive anti-tank rounds and return fire with a bigger gun, and with that much Karma they usually branch out into something else. Seriously, build the most broken 400 BP mage with say 200 karma and a million Nuyen that you can and then let people build an equivalent Face or Hacker. You won't be worried anymore.

#2 The biggest problem I have with magic is the lack of mundane counters. Sure, a mage can't outhack a hacker or outshoot a Sam but if he drops enough money (which he doesn't really need) into guns, armor, and mooks he can at least be respectable. If you're not a mage there's, um, FAB and a couple defensive structures and that's it. It's just frustrating when the enemy mage shows up and the whole team becomes totally dependent on the mage. If any other threat shows up there's usually one guy who's specialized to deal with it but anyone else with the right precautions can at least help out. It's not quite as bad as decking used to be (or can still be) but it's frustrating. It does kind of shine a spotlight on mages because there are certain problems only they can deal with and that's not really true for anyone else.

#3 It's not the mages, it's the adepts! They need even more Karma than mages but it's so, so easy for them to drop an Essence or two to pick up the best cyberware and unlike mages they usually get great synergy between their abilities and cyberware and they can almost always afford to get Alpha or better. It seems like any mundane you can build, any skills you want to focus on, will almost always be improved by making him an adept. Yes, it'll eat up BP and Karma, making you less diverse, but SR rewards specialization over diversity. As I've been considering new character ideas, I'm almost always struck by the fact that I could improve the build by making it an adept, even if it makes no sense. Maybe I'm missing something, to be fair I haven't seen a Adept build in play that took advantage of this, but it seems like Adepts are just Mundane+ and if your options are Mage, Mundane, or Mundane+, then pretty soon everyone will be awakened, even the hackers.

[longbowrocks]

What irony? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) BP is for chargen only.

Therein lies the irony. BP is much better than karma at later levels. You want BP most when you can't have it.

mages are *hardly* powerless against barriers and vehicles. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

But then they're either attacking with an area spell, or attacking the barriers and vehicles.

[Yerameyahu]

I still say a mage *can* outshoot (or rather, equal-shoot) a sam. Shooting is *easy*.

#3 is a great point. We've been a little distracted with all the talk of spells, but that's it in a nutshell: "any mundane you can build, any skills you want to focus on, will almost always be improved by making him an adept." The only exception is Technomancer, the mage of hacking. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Personally, I think mystic adept is the sweet spot: all the crazy mage advantages (except Projection, but yes to nigh-irresistible spells), and the crazy adept ones (mundane+). Bleh. A lot of this depends, again, on the premise that we have a truly stupid amount of karma to burn.
--
That's like saying youth is wasted on the young, or that the sun should shine at night, when we need the light. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

… So? They have that option, which is the point. The sam better be carrying a rocket launcher (we'll assume he invested in Heavy Weapons). I wonder how he concealed it.

[longbowrocks]

Wow, lots of point coming in and it looks like there's no letting up. Unfortunately, Portal 2 just came out and I need a break. In the meantime I'm in the mana void of space, but I'll get back to you guys tomorrow.

[Glyph]

Magical characters can potentially outshine mundanes, in theory, but in practice, they have a lot of demands on their build points, and after that, they are karma sinks.

The biggest problem that a lot of people have with mages, is that spells and spirits are both things that can be countered with magic much more easily than by mundane means. Spells are resisted with only one Attribute (plus possibly Edge), and spirits have hardened armor against mundane attacks.

The second biggest problem that people have with mages is the sheer versatility that they can have with the right selection of spells and spirits. They can fly, turn invisible, read minds, and on and on.

So awakened character can get out of hand, especially if you interpret the RAW liberally regarding which modifiers are added after the split for multicasting, or if you run into a mage with high Drain resistance who overcasts, or summons high Force spirits, regularly.

On the other hand, every character still has vulnerabilities - this is a game of the proverbial glass cannons. And mundane characters can be very powerful, too. As I said, mages tend to be spread more thin than mundanes. And finally, there are a multitude of options in the game that can be used to curb mages.

So awakened character don't have to outshine unawakened characters, although they can wind up doing so. But that's really dependent on the campaign. Magic can run wild, or be really gimped, depending on how the GM runs that game.

[ggodo]

He's talking about a Material Link (Street Magic, Page 28.).

He's also talking about Lofwyr.
Just a little context for that.

[Scyldemort]

Do awakened characters outshine unawakened?

Only if the GM fails to take into account factors that mitigate the power of Awakened characters.

Every facility needs three dimensions of security: physical, matrix, and astral. If you build your facilities without (or with minimal) matrix security, you should not be surprised when the Hacker (or Technomancer) negates the need for the party to even bother going inside. In the same way, if you don't bother to put up astral security (or only put up a token ward or two), a Mage is going to have a field day.

If you really want to, you can negate the need for Matrix security by going ultra low-tech. Computer networks? What are those? Can you eat them? In the same way, you can negate the need for Astral security by building your base in a mana ebb (or mana void). Remember - ain't no metamagic that helps against a negative background count. Both of these are great big 'screw you!'s to any Wired or Awakened characters, but it can be done.

As far as options that are available without having access to magic yourself, here's what I've got off the top of my head:

FEYWARE
Get it aspected to the Magic Resistance quality at max level, 200,000 nuyen and 40 karma gets you +4 dice on all magic resistance tests. This is, of course, a terrible solution that probably costs more than it's worth, but it does exist. There's also the Magic Resistance quality (available for 5 BP per +1 to your resistance checks).

HAVEN LILIES
You can go for Haven Lilies early on against Magicians (requires two initiation grades to be able to negate a positive background count), and you can ALWAYS use Haven Lilies against Adepts. "Hey Adepts, you know those power points that fuel your powers? Lose three of them. I choose which."

FAB III
Bad solution to magical problems is bad. And not nearly as effective as people think. It exists, though.

TUNGSTEN BULLETS
As it turns out, Tungsten bullets will chew through a materialized spirit's Hardened Armor right quick.

ASTRAL DANGERS
Deliberately build your base in an area which corresponds to an absolutely TERRIFYING region of astral space. Alternately, go for a mana ebb or a mana void. For extra lulz? The target of the run is a nuclear power plant. Watch the mage cry the first time he tries to approach the area for astral scouting. Problem, nuclear spirits?

[TheOOB]

Ehh, it really depends.

I think to start "awakened characters" needs to be split, as adepts and magicians are so completely different.

Adepts are generally accepted, with notable exceptions, to be inferior to an augmented character at creation, and it takes quite awhile for them to outstrip said character. Adepts generally also specialize in one or two specific tasks, while augmented characters can branch out a bit more with less demands on their karma. While there is no glass ceiling for adepts, the delta ware glass ceiling for other characters is set awfully high.

Magicians are more complex. The first thing to remember is that any good magician devotes a lot to their craft. Magicians need to pour a lot of karma into their magical talent and typically have little karma to spend elsewhere, which means if they can't solve a problems with magic, they likely cannot solve the problem at all. Money doesn't help a great deal, because there isn't a lot of magical things that magicians can buy to help their spellcasting and conjuring(and those things require karma anyways), and the big money sinks for other players, 'ware, drones, and ext the mage either a)doesn't have the skills to use as well as someone else, or b)would hurt their essence and notably decrease their magical abilities.

Luckily, magicians are flexible, they can learn a spell for virtually any occasion(but once again, those cost karma, and you'll never have every spell you want/need), but spells almost always risk drain, and there is no shortage of counters for them, and quite frankly, many things spell can do tech does better(an assault rifle is much better than magic for killing things, chameleon suits are as good if not better than invisibility in many situations.)

Conjuration is harder to quantify, spirits are powerful and versatile, but also dangerous and limited. Summoning a spirit in a dangerous situation is always a risk(crap my air spirit just rolled a 5 on their summoning resistance!), and bound spirits don't have the flexibility that summoned spirits have, as binding a spirit takes time and money(and drain), and you can't change the optional powers after you bind them. Most tricks that counter spells counter spirits too, and if a player is abusing spirits, there are no shortage of ways for the GM to teach the player a lesson. Also a note, spirits are generally only useful in combat if you have them materialized before combat starts. Oftentimes I'll call a spirit from my stable only to have the fight over by the time he materialized.

So in short, mages are powerful, but they are a huge karma sink, can be countered, and don't get the wonderful toys that other archtypes have. So as long as the GM doesn't stiff the party on the nuyen(which a lot of GMs do), and they through the occasional magical obstacle greater than a ward or a patrolling spirit(once again, many GMs will use ingenious traps, trained guard, deadly IC and hackers, but won't put any good astral security), awakened characters shouldn't outshine the unawakened(unless they start initiating in thedouble digits, then you need to start a new campaign.)

[Scyldemort]

On the cybered Adept issue - I am not sure about this one. I don't like the idea of cybernetic adepts, but I don't want it outright banned. Looking at it from the perspective of someone who typically does not play unawakened characters (and if I do, they are technomancers), it seems to me that the decision to take cyberware as an Awakened character should be a matter of weighing a significant benefit against a significant drawback. Unfortunately, it appears to be the weighing of a significant benefit against a mild to moderate drawback. I am unsure how to correct this problem.

I can not really speak to the problem from the other side. Can you really do better not going down to 1 essence with cyberware and making up the difference with adept powers as a street samurai? That is, a cybered adept can often be better than a pure adept. Can an awakened street samurai also often be better than a pure street samurai?

[TheOOB]

On the cybered Adept issue - I am not sure about this one. I don't like the idea of cybernetic adepts, but I don't want it outright banned. Looking at it from the perspective of someone who typically does not play unawakened characters (and if I do, they are technomancers), it seems to me that the decision to take cyberware as an Awakened character should be a matter of weighing a significant benefit against a significant drawback. Unfortunately, it appears to be the weighing of a significant benefit against a mild to moderate drawback. I am unsure how to correct this problem.

I can not really speak to the problem from the other side. Can you really do better not going down to 1 essence with cyberware and making up the difference with adept powers as a street samurai?

The karma cost to raise your magic without getting any return(because you'll lose it to 'ware) isn't a significant drawback to you? I agree that if the character is basically a street samurai who bough 1 or 2 PP worth of abilities you can't get from 'ware there is a problem, but that isn't allowed by the rules, which specifically notate that you, as a GM, shouldn't let people take the adept quality unless they are planning on actually being an adept. That said, the adept powers that just make you faster and stronger are overpriced compared to 'ware, and I don't fault a character dropping 1 or 2 points of magic to raise some of their stats via 'ware, or to get an internal 'link or some such, its only fair, and they are not only spending karma/BP on wasted magic now, but will have to spend more on magic in the future.

[Medicineman]

Again, it's not 'can a mage beat X one-on-one?'. It's 'do Awakened characters outshine mundanes, especially in the long run?'.

They Do especially if the GM forgets to apply all Mods (like Cover or Background in a fight f.E. )
If all Rules would be used it would be very much more difficult for a Mage Char
Mages tend to become Specialists ( Spellcaster, Combat Mages,Summoner, Medical Healer)
and with enough Karma (I'm talking Hundreds of Karma) they are way more Impressive than Streetsams who have a tendency of becoming generalists with lots and lots of Low Level Skills
Thats a Tendency I see when talking to Gamers on conventions or reading in Forums(and even with my own Chars.My 120 Karma Hobbit Mage is a dedicated Combat Mage, my 160 Karma Ork Military started as Jungle Fighter but developed a few "side Skills" because they were necessary at that Time )

But that is not a Hard Fact and can easily be busted by Mythbusters (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

with a much more difficult Dance than before
Medicineman

[Irion]

Seriously, build the most broken 400 BP mage with say 200 karma and a million Nuyen that you can and then let people build an equivalent Face or Hacker. You won't be worried anymore.

Only one fact by the way: The ratio Karma to Nuyen is one to 2500. So it would be 400 Karma.
And I bet a mage would be up to the task with 400 Nuyen easy.

#3 It's not the mages, it's the adepts! They need even more Karma than mages but it's so, so easy for them to drop an Essence or two to pick up the best cyberware and unlike mages they usually get great synergy between their abilities and cyberware and they can almost always afford to get Alpha or better.

This has actually nothing to do with how strong adepts are, it is all about the magic loss from cyberware, which can be countered.

A adept getting three Points of Cyber dropping his magic from 8 to 5 is not imbalanced. But an adept dropping his magic three times from 2 to 1 is.

@TheOOB

The karma cost to raise your magic without getting any return(because you'll lose it to 'ware) isn't a significant drawback to you?

No, it is not. You have to look at the numbers.
If you get your essence down to one always dropping and raising your magic you end up paying 50 Karma. Thats a little hit, yes. But look at the stuff you are now able to get.
For 0.25 Power Points you can increase any skill (exept weapons) by one point.

The first power to get cost 10 Karma, the second 15 and so on.

@Medicineman

Mages Tend to become Specialists ( Spellcaster, Combat Mages,Summoner, Medical Healer)

True for adepts. But the main advantage of a mage is, that he only has to pay 5 Karma to get a hole section.
Want to be a healer? Get the heal spell and use it with your magic and Spellcasting dicepool!
Want to be a heavy weapons guy? Get the Powerball, Fireball spell!
Want to be an infiltrator? There are many ways to go. (Spirit powers, shapechange etc.)

For most of this stuff mundanes need to get skills, equipment and preparation.
Some spells even are multible use. For example the analyse device spell.


Yes, the dicepool is rather small, compared to a Sam or a Hacker. But it is the one Attribute to rule them all.
A Sam won't roll 90% of his rolls on one Attribute. The Mage will.
In general you get your casting and summoning dice pool. Both are linked to magic.

[Blade]

Of course, awakened characters have access to everything mundane character have plus magic. So outside of technomancy and special cases such as cybermancy, a mage with infinite karma and nuyens will have as much as an unawakened character and his magic on top of that.

The thing is that long before having infinite karma, both the awakened and the mundane character will be too powerful to be playable. And before that, both the mundane and the awakened will (if created by players with the same min-maxing skills) be balanced enough that their efficiency will have more to do with the player's way to play the character and the GM own bias than with the character itself.

[Ascalaphus]

In theory, a mystic adept with infinite karma is better at everything that anyone else. So yay.

In practice, it's not nearly as bad as that, I think. For example, Edge; after a while, all the players figured out that Edge is important, so everyone had high Edge, except the mage; he couldn't afford both high Edge and strong magic use at chargen. Then there's the Facing; the mage was a Charisma-Tradition Elf, but still couldn't keep up with the Pure Elf Face with bells whistles and pheromones. In practice, mages don't have more points to spend than other characters, and the costs for powers aren't so totally unbalanced.

Who shines in a campaign has a lot to do with who made the right character for that campaign. A brutally efficient killer-sam doesn't shine much if most of the adventure is about legwork, hacking and negotiation. On the other hand, the face gets depressed if the GM isn't big on the whole social thing and just wants brutal fights.

The trick to not getting outshone is being good enough at something important. If the mage is good at combat, find a different thing in combat to do; the mage might be good at dealing with lots of weaker goons, you become good at taking down the big boss. Or vice versa. Or you specialize in drones, spirits, concealed/hard to find opponents and so forth. You can be totally deadly in combat without any magic. Guns don't have Drain, and a decent DV. Means that the Sam can be the long-haul fighter.

Infiltration is also doable; mages do great against places with no astral security (duh), but against more secure places your Agility 9, Infiltration 5, Miscellaneous Bonus 5 is going to be the best way of doing stuff. Mages have a hard time gathering enough points to beat that. And your Agility 9 means that if you run into trouble, you'll be able to handle it.

Hacking - well, mages aren't too particularly awesome at that. The points they spent on magic give only very limited help here, so a dedicated hacker has a good time being better. Let's not even mention technomancers.

Rigging - see hacking. Specialists do it better. Drones don't notice recoil much. Drones are hard to see from the Astral, and give you lots of ways to dominate the situation if your tactics are good.

Face - depending on your GM's style, who you know is perhaps more important that what mind control spells you know. The more important and powerful someone is, the better they'll be protected against coercion (magical, augmentation), so actually being able to be nice starts to matter.

---

Before, it was pointed out that mages can be really good at enhancing other characters to do their job better. I think that buffing, astral scouting and Dealing With Enemy Magic are perhaps the most important things mages do; everything else is more economical to leave to other characters.

The really frightening powergamer isn't out to make the most powerful individual character, he's out to set up the most optimal team.

[PoliteMan]

Only one fact by the way: The ratio Karma to Nuyen is one to 2500. So it would be 400 Karma.
And I bet a mage would be up to the task with 400 Nuyen easy.

Good catch, my bad. Still, I'd take that challenege, at 200 Karma/500,000 nueyn or 400 Karma/1,000,000 nuyen, say about a year of gametime.

This has actually nothing to do with how strong adepts are, it is all about the magic loss from cyberware, which can be countered.

A adept getting three Points of Cyber dropping his magic from 8 to 5 is not imbalanced. But an adept dropping his magic three times from 2 to 1 is.

Not quite. Regardless of the rules, cool trick BTW, there's a bunch of archetypes like Face, Hacker, and Rigger who do not require tons of cyberware to do their jobs, most clocking in at about 2 Essence loss. I'm pretty sure all of them would benefit from Adept powers. Yes, Sams can't take advantage as easily but it's easy to see how one of these Essence light archetypes could greatly benefit from Adept or Mage powers, even at reduced magic, especially when magic synergizes well with their abilities, like a Face who boosts his social rolls with Magic or a Rigger that has spirits inhabit his drones.

[Mäx]

Is this assuming the spirit's attribute maxes are equal to its force? Will its AGI be equal to its force? Does it need to default on ranged weapon tests? How are you possibly going to get enough dice to summon this spirit and get any tasks owed?

Guardian spirit has Agility of Force+2 and any combat skill at rating equal to Force.
And you summon and get services out of them with same dicepool you summon all the other spirits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Irion]

@PoliteMan

Good catch, my bad. Still, I'd take that challenege, at 200 Karma/500,000 nueyn or 400 Karma/1,000,000 nuyen, say about a year of gametime.

Well to have an example I would take the 400/1.000.000 one. What are the other conditions? Just a mage with 400BP 400 Karma and 1.000.000 nuyen?
How would you like to compare the two characters.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Saying 'bullet' means nothing, come on. His point is that mundanes can't stop spells.

… Once again, the mage (mysad, etc.) can use the same gun for the same attacks that those guys can. A mage needn't *ever* use attack spells, though they're really good in some situations. And (because it bears repeating), direct spells ignore armor.

I don't know about that Yerameyahu. ALL mundanes have access to Magic Resistance as a Quality. Saying that they have no recourse is a bit disingenuous. And there are a LOT of reasons that you could use to rationalize picking up the Magic Resistance Quality.

As for the rest. It is correct, and a Competent mage will take those routes more often than not. But it will take away from their magical ability each and every time that they spend karma on something not directly related to their Magic Ability (Though it has the benefit of making them a bit more versatile non-magically). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

As for the OP Question, though. I think that MAges are WAY MORE Versatile. IF they pursue that course. I cannot tell yo haw many mages I have seen who are a collection of "BLOW UP SHIT" spells, and not much else. In that case, they are an inferior Street Sams. When that mage has an array of non-combat spells, however, he becomes something that is difficult to deal with because of the many options that he has at his disposal.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

While a combined background count and or arcane arrester and such works GREAT against most mages, against a very powerful one it is just no real hindrance. (BC can be nullified and even harnessed by high-level initiates)

Note, however, that this takes time. In an immediate situation, the mage has to deal with the consequences of the BGC. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Lol, if everyone can forget I'm on the unawakened side for a moment, I'd like to ask about Rituals.
My GM says that ritual spells can be done using a material from the victim, like voodoo. It says pretty clearly in the core book that you need LOS or a spotter with LOS for rituals. What is he referencing?

Well, traditionally, yes, you need a spotter to cast ritual magic (PAge 184-185). UNLESS you have a Direct or Symbolic Link to the target (Street Magic p28-29). Blood, Hair, the wrapper form that soydog you ate this afternoon, and a voodoo doll are all examples of a link.

[Yerameyahu]

Tymeaus, I'm not the one who specified 'really high karma' for comparison. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It throws the whole question for a loop to just assume a few hundred karma, but that's what the OP wanted.

[James McMurray]

In previous editions awakened characters could easily outshine unawakened ones after a while. It didn't take them anything to start with a 6 in Magic. The only limit to the size of the Power Focus you could build yourself was time and the GM. Initiating automatically increased your Magic. None of that is true anymore. It is true that high karma magical characters are powerful, but they're not overpowered IMO.

To use the "few hundred" karma as a guideline: that's a healthy boost to a magician's magic, plus several high force foci. The unawakened character can spend that on skill groups and singular skills, ending up with Rating 3 in every single skill he's ever likely to use. Depending on which skills are likely to show up in the campaign, he can sprinkle specializations into all of them. Or he can buy new positive qualities and remove his negatives. Or he can shore up those weak stats he's got, while the mage is still limping along with 1s and 2s in some stuff.

If the campaign is going to go much over ~250 though, the GM might want to institute a cash for karma rule since the unawakened characters will eventually run out of things they want to spend karma on.

If we're talking a one-on-one fight, that's impossible to adjudicate. It all comes down to the circumstances of the fight, which in a debate either side can cherry pick so that their team wins.