[X] My Assistant

[Traul]

Everyone has to sleep sometime,

There is no spell for that?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

There is no spell for that?

Eventually, you will succumb.

[Stahlseele]

Well, the houngan maybe.
But he is a houngan for a reason.
Loa, ride me like a Horse tonight.
Keep my body safe, while i'm sleeping.
Retaliate with lethal force if neccessary.

[Irion]

Eventually, you will succumb.

Crank
Type: P • Range: T • Duration: P • DV: (F ÷ 2)
Crank alleviates a voluntary target’s need for sleep. Every
hit scored approximates 1 hour of sleep. Popular among student
magicians, Crank does have its downside. At the gamemaster’s
discretion, a character who abuses Crank to avoid actual sleep
for long periods may find themselves addicted to magically-aided
sleep deprivation (see p. 247, SR4).

Well, you probably will loose your sanity at some point...


Possessed or not. This only means you have to shoot him in the head with a big gun...
Well, I guess a pixie could be kind of hard to kill, because those little buggers my sleep in strange places.

[Stalag]

Plus when you're in a fight with a dedicated counter speller on the other side being able to shoot is very important. I've seen our team mage shut down when hit for hit he was being countered again and again. Or just one decently powerful spirit with mana static (at least I think that's the spell.)

True, in the case of a counter-speller you can't get past then the caster plays the support role instead (nuke is the least of a mages functions).

The idea of a spirit using mana static is like a troll ripping his own arm off to beat you with it.

I admit there might be a time when it would be nice to have a backup option in a fight but those instances should be rare or else what's the point?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I admit there might be a time when it would be nice to have a backup option in a fight but those instances should be rare or else what's the point?

Why should they be rare, though? I see it as business as usual in a lot of instances. If your Mage is not being challenged, then what is the point?
Besides, Counter-spell works against sustained spells too, you know. Sucks to have that levitate dispelled out from underneath you when you are 30 stories up; or have the mage go down from gunfire while he is sustaining it.

[Stalag]

Why should they be rare, though? I see it as business as usual in a lot of instances. If your Mage is not being challenged, then what is the point?
Besides, Counter-spell works against sustained spells too, you know. Sucks to have that levitate dispelled out from underneath you when you are 30 stories up; or have the mage go down from gunfire while he is sustaining it.

There's "challenged" and then there's "nullified" - forcing your mage to stop using magic and pick up a gun isn't challenging him, it's just turning him into a second or third rate gun-bunny. You wouldn't take your gun-bunny's guns away and try and force them to cast spells would you?

Challenging him would be making him find creative ways to use his spells in a different way.

And that's not to say mages shouldn't be multi-functional... indeed even somewhat specialized they are pretty much naturally multi-functional. Sure, they should have some skills to use if the situation doesn't call for magic... it's always good to be able to fill in the gaps.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And that's not to say mages shouldn't be multi-functional... indeed even somewhat specialized they are pretty much naturally multi-functional. Sure, they should have some skills to use if the situation doesn't call for magic... it's always good to be able to fill in the gaps.

Which is the point. You do not always need magic, and a Gun incurs absolutely no Drain. Sometimes that is preferrable. When I play a Mage, I tend to have a decent gun skill. Maybe not "Professional Rating," but at least the ability to be competant with the gun. Skill 2, Specialization and Smartlink is 6 Dice, so a Mage is probably throwing between 9-10 dice prior to any spells being cast, or Tacnets being added. Not too shabby in my opinion.

As for whether that is good or not, that depends upon the table. The mage I currently play is throwing 10 Dice for Guns, 11 Dice for Manipulation Spells (13 for Ritual Spellcast Manipulation Spells), and 7 Dice for non-Manipulation Spells. That sucks if you are at a powergaming table. But it is pretty sufficient for the things that I tend to use my magic for. *shrug*

[Mardrax]

Carrying a gun around and toting armour is also a nice way to fould the renowned tactic of "geek the mage first."

[CanRay]

Carrying a gun around and toting armour is also a nice way to fould the renowned tactic of "geek the mage first."

I put it to one demo group I was running for: "In Shadowrun, Magicians aren't necessarily squishy. Some of them are Trolls and a whole lot bigger and tougher than you. And can kill you with their brains."

[Irion]

Skill 2, Specialization and Smartlink is 6 Dice, so a Mage is probably throwing between 9-10 dice prior to any spells being cast, or Tacnets being added

Well, I guess it depends on what the opposition is. Your mage will be firering from cover, I guess, -1.
The opposition will have something between partial and good cover (-2 to -4), now we need also to look at visibility modifiers, here it is easy to get another -1.
So you end up with around -5 probably.
You still need one net hit. With 10 dice this means the reaction of your traget should not be too high...
(Well, using single shot and short burst afterwards is going to increase your chances...)

But still begs the question if it is not a better idea to stay in full cover, counterspell and be ready to help stabilizing somebody who got hit bad/drag him or her behind cover etc.

But I guess it depends on the opposition. If you are shooting your way through a horde of mooks with no dicepool it is the better option, I guess.

[Elfenlied]

Everyone has to sleep sometime, even a Pixie (or a 6th Grade Initiate Houngon Vampire... Besides, a 6th Grader is not that much of a challenge anyways. I mean really, how much does a kid know?).

In case it wasn't clear, I meant it as "initiated 6 times".

Point is, unless you arbitrarily increase the bounty on a character's head, it's not worth going after them. Fighting an initiate mage for 6000? I wouldn't even do that if the character in question was just a normal human.

As for the whole "you take them unawares" stuff:
a) you need to know their true nature first. A magically disguised pixie won't be identified as a pixie by just everyone.
b) you need to find out where they sleep, if you wish to take them down sleeping. And get past the security of their lifestyle.
c) "detect hostile intent, extended" means that you won't take them unawares while blending into the crowd.

So, unless it's something personal, or the pay is dramatically increased, you're basically performing underpaid wetwork.

[The Jopp]

I would allow 'heavy' weapons for pixies but as one said, when you're 45 centimeters tall weapon options are kinda limited.

Pistol: SMG sized (size varies from hold-out to heavy)
SMG: Rifle
Shotgun/Rifle/A-Rifle/sniper Rifle: Shoulder mounted or Tripod
LMG/MG: Tripod
Larger: N/A

Shoulder mounted weapons have X2 uncompensated recoil modifier unless braced.

So, can i have my 45 centimeter tall Space Marine with wings and a shoulder carried laser cannon now. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

Good rule of thumb: Any given weapon is four times larger for a pixie.

Pixies are on average 18 inches high (45 cm), which is one quarter or so of a human.

A handgun is normally say six inches in length along the barrel. To a pixie it is the equivalent of two feet long, about the size of an SMG or very short carbine.



-k

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In case it wasn't clear, I meant it as "initiated 6 times".

Yes, I know Elfenlied, I got that. It was just funnier the other way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Point is, unless you arbitrarily increase the bounty on a character's head, it's not worth going after them. Fighting an initiate mage for 6000? I wouldn't even do that if the character in question was just a normal human.

As for the whole "you take them unawares" stuff:
a) you need to know their true nature first. A magically disguised pixie won't be identified as a pixie by just everyone.
b) you need to find out where they sleep, if you wish to take them down sleeping. And get past the security of their lifestyle.
c) "detect hostile intent, extended" means that you won't take them unawares while blending into the crowd.

So, unless it's something personal, or the pay is dramatically increased, you're basically performing underpaid wetwork.

True... Can't argue those points... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Seth]

In case it wasn't clear, I meant it as "initiated 6 times".

Point is, unless you arbitrarily increase the bounty on a character's head, it's not worth going after them. Fighting an initiate mage for 6000? I wouldn't even do that if the character in question was just a normal human.

As for the whole "you take them unawares" stuff:
a) you need to know their true nature first. A magically disguised pixie won't be identified as a pixie by just everyone.
b) you need to find out where they sleep, if you wish to take them down sleeping. And get past the security of their lifestyle.
c) "detect hostile intent, extended" means that you won't take them unawares while blending into the crowd.

So, unless it's something personal, or the pay is dramatically increased, you're basically performing underpaid wetwork.

I can argue with these points quite easy: Shadowrun has a basic premise that anyone can be captured/killed easily if its worth their while. This is reflected both in fluff and crunch. The point of the disadvantage as I proposed it was to make it more worth peoples while for a pixie, than for a human, to counterbalance the approximately (underestimated) 50 bp advantage for being a Pixe.

Let us all remember that shadowrun has a large variance on die.

• If you are running Physical Mask to avoid being spotted as a pixie then you need to maintain a high force spell. If you have a low force spell, it will be seen through quite easily. Maintaining a high force spell is hard: either you have a very very expensive foci, or a bound spirit which you are torturing to death, or you are maintaining it yourself (-2 to all actions).
• You don't know how well you have cast the spell, so you don't know how many successes you have. Given the large variance you will occasionally roll only 1 or 2 successes.
• Detect hostile intent needs to be a high force spell to actually work reliably all the time: see the above comments
• Even masking is an opposed die roll. Average die don't matter: given the variance on the die, you will be spotted if you interact with a lot of people.

Basically if your pixie is paranoid, hiding all the time, avoiding most human contact, then they can have their security. If they wander around and interact with people, given shadowrun die variance, they will be spotted.

[Elfenlied]

I can argue with these points quite easy: Shadowrun has a basic premise that anyone can be captured/killed easily if its worth their while. This is reflected both in fluff and crunch. The point of the disadvantage as I proposed it was to make it more worth peoples while for a pixie, than for a human, to counterbalance the approximately (underestimated) 50 bp advantage for being a Pixe.

I agree with you, especially with the bolded part. Since we don't have actual RAW bounty values for pixies, I'm going to assume that it's somewhere in the same range as for the infected. And at those rates, I do not consider it "worth my while" to go out of my way to hunt those critters, especially with their high percentage of mages.

With your houserule, however, one of my characters might actually give it a shot if they had some hints about the whereabouts of a NPC Pixie. If I were DMing for a group with said houserule, and one of the players was playing a Pixie, I would exclude them (the other players) from that rule, since it would lead to unnecessary amounts of backstabbing and bad blood among the players.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Indeed... My reluctance to hunt said creatures is that is is not really "Worth My While" to do so. *Shrug*
Could it be made to be worth my while? Almost certainly, but the pay should be better than a few thousand nuyen.

[Seth]

If I were DMing for a group with said houserule, and one of the players was playing a Pixie, I would exclude them (the other players) from that rule, since it would lead to unnecessary amounts of backstabbing and bad blood among the players.

Yes.

Mostly it was just a way to encourage Pixies to be secretive and hidden. Metahumans have many fewer bps but can safely interact with the rest of the world

[Manunancy]

Good rule of thumb: Any given weapon is four times larger for a pixie.

Pixies are on average 18 inches high (45 cm), which is one quarter or so of a human.

A handgun is normally say six inches in length along the barrel. To a pixie it is the equivalent of two feet long, about the size of an SMG or very short carbine.



-k

which also means that asuming they're built about human lines of height/width ratios and density they're 1/64th of the weight - a lot of firearms will end up being heavier than the pixie trying to handle them.... Recoil compensation is an absolute necessity for pixie-adapted guns, unles you want them to double up as propulsion systems.

[Stalag]

...unles you want them to double up as propulsion systems.

The entertianment potential of that would almost be worth it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Miri]

Time for an enterprising armorer to work up some gyrojet guns (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

I have brought up the incident before where my pixie character attempted to fire a full size Predator pistol, and critically glitched.

The cartoon trope of a pixie shaped hole in the drywall behind her comes to mind.

In hindsight, making the attempt with two dice was probably a mistake.




-k