Anti-magic character concept questions Options

[Daylen]

I tend to be the one that gets saddled with playing the magical utility character that has a magical solution to everything in games. I'd personally find it more interesting to not play that concept in this case.

Currently I'm giving the GM the benefit of the doubt and hoping that he just wants to give a variety of opposition as opposed to using the foreknowledge of our characters' abilities to throw hard counters we have no way of defeating. If its the latter then the issue has nothing to do with character/party design and has a great deal more to do with GM/Player expectations. If I was playing in a group where the average player would need more than their fingers to count the number of Shadowrun sessions they've played in their life then I could see a point in trying to pick the optimal solution.

Being too specialized can promote such actions by the DM, but then one shouldn't try to be immune to anything a DM can throw, such is impossible. Have you considered being an adept instead of magician, buying full points in magic resistance, and counter-spelling with a Remington 700 (or other rifle with high damage)? This would cost less for the antimagic part, not require noticing the mage to be effective(or at least to not get slammed).

I like the high perception, that can be most useful.

[UmaroVI]

The main thing you need a mage to cover is Astral Perception. If you don't have a way to detect and deal with astral people, you have a huge, huge problem because it means spirits (or projecting mages) can completely bypass your physical perception - meaning you're super easy to ambush and catch and whatnot. Spirits are handy for this because you can set them to keep watch, but anyone with Astral Perception can do this.

[Ol' Scratch]

Being too specialized can promote such actions by the DM.

There's a big difference between being a specialist and being a one-trick pony. The proposed character specializes in dealing with hostile magics, but he can handle himself in a gunfight, he is fairly tough and can take a beating as well as the next guy (not to mention dishing one out), he pays attention to his surroundings, and he can sneak around fairly well. That makes him a valuable specialist, especially since his team needs someone who can deal with magical threats. If all he could do is counterspell, then he'd be a relatively worthless one-trick pony. But he isn't, and there's definitely nothing wrong with that.

[Glyph]

The main thing you need a mage to cover is Astral Perception. If you don't have a way to detect and deal with astral people, you have a huge, huge problem because it means spirits (or projecting mages) can completely bypass your physical perception - meaning you're super easy to ambush and catch and whatnot. Spirits are handy for this because you can set them to keep watch, but anyone with Astral Perception can do this.

Pixie adepts make good spotters. They get astral perception for free, and the enhanced perception power works for assensing as well as perception.

[klinktastic]

Pixie adepts make good spotters. They get astral perception for free, and the enhanced perception power works for assensing as well as perception.

Playing a pixie would really lead to one-trick pony syndrome. Very good inflitration and spotting, but that's about it.

I guess you could make an assassin type pixie mystic adept....hmmm

[Glyph]

Pixies can be good at covert intrusion and theft - a few tech skills added to the stealth is all they need. And I played in a game with such a pixie who also had a monofilament garrote, so the assassin angle is definitely doable as well.

[Saint Hallow]

I'm a little upset that it seems the only way to be anti-magic is to be an adept or mystic adept, have astral perception & buy a lot of magical protections. Seems the only way to counter magic is with more magic.

I know of the magic resistance quality for mundanes, but it doesn't help against spirits. I would love to see an anti-spirit quality of the same nature. Maybe Spirit Haze (5 BP per rating, max rating 4)... the quality gives the PC an extra die per rating to resist a spirit power, & a PC can never benefit/be a willing subject from allied spirit powers.

[Daylen]

I'm a little upset that it seems the only way to be anti-magic is to be an adept or mystic adept, have astral perception & buy a lot of magical protections. Seems the only way to counter magic is with more magic.

I know of the magic resistance quality for mundanes, but it doesn't help against spirits. I would love to see an anti-spirit quality of the same nature. Maybe Spirit Haze (5 BP per rating, max rating 4)... the quality gives the PC an extra die per rating to resist a spirit power, & a PC can never benefit/be a willing subject from allied spirit powers.

SR only gave us hammers and fingers. I do seem to remember some rule interpretations that made those with tons of cyberware resistant to many spells.

[Irion]

@Saint Hallow
It is even worse. The only way to counter a mage is to be a mage. It is as simpe as that. Even an adept is goint to get ******* in very nasty ways, dealing with a full mage (if the mage is thinking)

(Well, mystic adapt with astral perception is a mage...)

[Daylen]

@Saint Hallow
It is even worse. The only way to counter a mage is to be a mage. It is as simpe as that. Even an adept is goint to get ******* in very nasty ways, dealing with a full mage (if the mage is thinking)

(Well, mystic adapt with astral perception is a mage...)

I don't buy that load of bs. Mages die just fine when they loose initiative and take 10 rounds of APDS from a LMG in the face. And if you want to start getting into circumstances, well circumstances can be made to favor the gun bunny if the gun bunny is smart.

[Irion]

@Daylen
Well, how do you shoot somebody who is only present on the astral Plane?
Have fun with that.
He still is able to send spirits to kick your ass...

And yes, that would be the most likely security response because going to a position on the astral space as fast compared to driving there.
Thats actually one of the main advantages of a magical response team. They have a reaction time of under 1 min for a 1000 mile radius.

[rlor]

I don't buy that load of bs. Mages die just fine when they loose initiative and take 10 rounds of APDS from a LMG in the face. And if you want to start getting into circumstances, well circumstances can be made to favor the gun bunny if the gun bunny is smart.

With no worry of wards or magical threats the mage has to screw up so the street sam/drone can target him with a LMG, much less hit him.

With a decent selection of spells the mage should be able to determine when and where a fight will happen against pure mundanes with spells like extended range detect life. They have plenty of spells/abilities to avoid detection by mundane means and they can chain summon spirits till the cows come home with decent skills and drain resistance tests or just dump 4 bound spirits on the mundane party.

Not to mention if the mage wins initiative (or strikes from being magically hidden) and overcasts stunball/manaball (think those are the right spells) he can feasibly waste the entire party with his attacking dice pool being 2-5 times the size of the defender's die pool and probably only take 1 or 2 points of physical damage at worst from it. And yes, sustaining spells hurt his die pool but with some drugs and foci he can easily sustain 8+ spells before he even gets close to only having a 50/50 shot of "missing" with a direct damage spell. Not to mention all the other crazy spells that don't need to touch your damage track to cause you to lose.

The best part from the mage's perspective is he doesn't have to even be present for the fight and there is no reasonable way to track him back to his body mid-combat with mundane means.

Finally its not going to be the mundane party versus just a mage, its going to be the mundane party versus a bunch of other mundanes and a mage (who if he's smart won't make his presence known until the first set of actions are completely finished and the battle line is drawn unless he's in a position to just 1 shot the entire party).

You'd have the same issue if a rigger was fighting the party with a horde of drones and no one in the party even owned a commlink or way to scan for wireless signals. You need some electronic tools to be able to do more than fight the rigger to a draw and you need some magical tools to be able to defeat a half-way intelligent mage.

[Daylen]

@Daylen
Well, how do you shoot somebody who is only present on the astral Plane?
Have fun with that.
He still is able to send spirits to kick your ass...

And yes, that would be the most likely security response because going to a position on the astral space as fast compared to driving there.
Thats actually one of the main advantages of a magical response team. They have a reaction time of under 1 min for a 1000 mile radius.

Well, how do you send spirits who is 500 yards away that you don't know about?
Have fun with that.
He still is able to send big bullets to blow your brains out...

How's the mage to protect himself

Again you're using bs circumstances, which can be flipped the other way very easily.

[Daylen]

With no worry of wards or magical threats the mage has to screw up so the street sam/drone can target him with a LMG, much less hit him.

With a decent selection of spells the mage should be able to determine when and where a fight will happen against pure mundanes with spells like extended range detect life. They have plenty of spells/abilities to avoid detection by mundane means and they can chain summon spirits till the cows come home with decent skills and drain resistance tests or just dump 4 bound spirits on the mundane party.

Not to mention if the mage wins initiative (or strikes from being magically hidden) and overcasts stunball/manaball (think those are the right spells) he can feasibly waste the entire party with his attacking dice pool being 2-5 times the size of the defender's die pool and probably only take 1 or 2 points of physical damage at worst from it. And yes, sustaining spells hurt his die pool but with some drugs and foci he can easily sustain 8+ spells before he even gets close to only having a 50/50 shot of "missing" with a direct damage spell. Not to mention all the other crazy spells that don't need to touch your damage track to cause you to lose.

The best part from the mage's perspective is he doesn't have to even be present for the fight and there is no reasonable way to track him back to his body mid-combat with mundane means.

Finally its not going to be the mundane party versus just a mage, its going to be the mundane party versus a bunch of other mundanes and a mage (who if he's smart won't make his presence known until the first set of actions are completely finished and the battle line is drawn unless he's in a position to just 1 shot the entire party).

You'd have the same issue if a rigger was fighting the party with a horde of drones and no one in the party even owned a commlink or way to scan for wireless signals. You need some electronic tools to be able to do more than fight the rigger to a draw and you need some magical tools to be able to defeat a half-way intelligent mage.

Again you are simply giving the circumstantial bonus to the mage. In most cities detect life is about as useless as it gets. "I detect life" "its everywhere". If the parties are equal then there is an extra person on the team without the mage, they should also have someone sitting in the shadows with something potent, Preferably something he can use and not give away his position such as a suppressed rifle. I'm not sure what parties you are familiar with, but I have never seen a mage than can 1shot a party. That implies the opposing party sucks balls, or the mage is worth far more BP.

[rlor]

Again you are simply giving the circumstantial bonus to the mage. In most cities detect life is about as useless as it gets. "I detect life" "its everywhere". If the parties are equal then there is an extra person on the team without the mage, they should also have someone sitting in the shadows with something potent, Preferably something he can use and not give away his position such as a suppressed rifle. I'm not sure what parties you are familiar with, but I have never seen a mage than can 1shot a party. That implies the opposing party sucks balls, or the mage is worth far more BP.

The post was started with the idea of dealing with an NPC mage + their party getting the drop on the party and generally controlling the fight. It is not a question of PC mage + mundanes versus PC mundanes in which there is a level playing field. The simple matter is that mage can multiply the effectiveness of the rest of the NPCs greatly when the other team has no magical support or anti-magic of their own.

Assume the party members have 4 willpower each. That gives them a 10 damage track. The mage with a magic of 6 overcasts stunball at force 11. He rolls 15 dice (with a max of 11 successes), each party member rolls 4 dice (or 8 if they have maxed magic resistance). We'll say the party gets very lucky and the mage only gets 1 net success on each of them. The stunball has what, an 11 meter radius? It does 12 damage (there are no further resistance checks). The party falls unconscious. The mage then has to resist around 5-6 physical drain. Even if he rolls 0 successes he's still conscious and can calmly walk around with a pistol and put a bullet in the brain of each party member. If he's worried about pain editors he can just take 1 more physical damage to make his attack physical.

A starting mage can easily get that many dice (and many more). In fact he can probably split his dice pool and drop 2 force 11 stunballs if he needs to target different areas and still have a 50/50 shot of taking out a party.

[Ol' Scratch]

With no worry of wards or magical threats the mage has to screw up so the street sam/drone can target him with a LMG, much less hit him.

With a decent selection of spells the mage should be able to determine when and where a fight will happen against pure mundanes with spells like extended range detect life. They have plenty of spells/abilities to avoid detection by mundane means and they can chain summon spirits till the cows come home with decent skills and drain resistance tests or just dump 4 bound spirits on the mundane party.

Not to mention if the mage wins initiative (or strikes from being magically hidden) and overcasts stunball/manaball (think those are the right spells) he can feasibly waste the entire party with his attacking dice pool being 2-5 times the size of the defender's die pool and probably only take 1 or 2 points of physical damage at worst from it. And yes, sustaining spells hurt his die pool but with some drugs and foci he can easily sustain 8+ spells before he even gets close to only having a 50/50 shot of "missing" with a direct damage spell. Not to mention all the other crazy spells that don't need to touch your damage track to cause you to lose.

The best part from the mage's perspective is he doesn't have to even be present for the fight and there is no reasonable way to track him back to his body mid-combat with mundane means.

Finally its not going to be the mundane party versus just a mage, its going to be the mundane party versus a bunch of other mundanes and a mage (who if he's smart won't make his presence known until the first set of actions are completely finished and the battle line is drawn unless he's in a position to just 1 shot the entire party).

You'd have the same issue if a rigger was fighting the party with a horde of drones and no one in the party even owned a commlink or way to scan for wireless signals. You need some electronic tools to be able to do more than fight the rigger to a draw and you need some magical tools to be able to defeat a half-way intelligent mage.

Most of that is dependent on the magician knowing he's going to be fighting a mundane in some kind of duel. Magicians don't walk around "fully buffed" 24/7, and if they do the GM isn't doing his job by demonstrating just why that's a stupid thing to do. Surprise, in particular, is the biggest tool in a mundane's arsenal when dealing with a magician. And if it is some kind of silly dueling scenario, you can't assume the mundane character is just going to stroll right up to the magician and say "hi, please kill me." He's going to play smart. Sniper rifles, drones, and stealth can easily turn the tide against a magician. Especially if the mundane knows how to stay out of range of any detection spells, which really only matter in such a nonsensical scenario anyway.

Regardless, awakened characters aren't the super end-all be-all group of archetypes in the game. I've played plenty of sleepers who could and have taken them out with minimal problem. Heck, the one I mentioned in my first post in the thread (who technically isn't mundane I guess, but he's definitely no magician or adept and lacks any type of Magical Active Skill) specializes in magical threats.

[rlor]

I never said they were the super end all be all. Rather that as the OP we were having major issues dealing with teams that had mages where we were not when they were composed of mundanes. We don't have the mission to "kill x mage" we have a mission to steal an item or pacify an outbreak etc in which unknown to us there may be a magician character lurking about. Generally if that magician character has a few seconds to prepare then he can make the run much harder for us than the average street sam will because we don't have enough dice to resist his spells or perceive through decent infiltration+concealment.

Edit - The character thanks to the people offering advice (yours included) will now accomplish this. Given our game, the new character design will make an ambush by a decent mage of equal danger to an ambush by a decent street sam. I disagree with Daylen who seemed to propose that we were not at any disadvantage at all in our games taken A) I was there playing in them and B) Mundane + Magic is better than just Mundane.

[Saint Hallow]

1 mundane character created via regular chargen vs a mage created via regular chargen. Both are 400 BP. The fighting arena is a 3 story warehouse. Neither person can leave the building without killing the other. 1st floor has 15 foot high ceiling, with tons of plasteel crates filled with sand, garbage & a mix of organic/inorganic matter, creating a maze. 2nd floor has offices with scattered furniture, some overgrown indoor plants, scattered supplies of ammo, water bottles, medkits, electronics gear & even an office drone or 3 that travel on wheels carrying food or other heavy items. 3rd floor is a totally open space. Both are dropped/enter the building at the same time at different entrances.

If you were to lock a mundane runner vs a mage in that place, it looks like the mage is going to win 8 out of 10 times from what I've seen & heard so far.

[Irion]

Well, how do you send spirits who is 500 yards away that you don't know about?
Have fun with that.
He still is able to send big bullets to blow your brains out...

How's the mage to protect himself

Again you're using bs circumstances, which can be flipped the other way very easily.

I do not know what you are getting at. An astral mage is able to see the auras of living beeings and he is able to tell his spirits to kick their asses.
While the mundane would need to finde the physical body of the mage. That sucks....

Or if you do not like it, take spells like shapechange and the squirrel of death.


Yes, as soon as the mage as no chance to prepare is going to have problems. Some of those might just be solved by summoning a big, bad spirit to get concealment or something like that...

Again you are simply giving the circumstantial bonus to the mage. In most cities detect life is about as useless as it gets.

Unfortunatly this is not true. With some net hits you know a lot of every single living beeing in the radius. That sucks hard, I know. But RAW this spell means "I go to through the cities and know what you are doing"...

[thorya]

It sounds like you don't want to have to make a magical character just to deal with one problem and it also sounds like your GM is going "I need to challenge them, but thinking up a new challenge would be hard. Here face another mage! You should have made magical characters!"

The dual natured plant life in Street Magic might be useful to you.

Have you considered using Glowmoss? It senses astral disturbances and spellcasting then glows. It works like the magic sense adept power and would be a fast easy way for mundanes to get some magic detection.

You might be able to carry around a cloud of FAB III in a jar to unleash on spirits or mages that give you trouble. Or just see if you can get your characters to be carriers somehow.

Haven Lily could be used to weaken other spellcasters (though not by much) or spirits in the area to make them easier to deal with. Maybe you carry a self contained planter case for them with your team.

You might also be able to argue to a biofiber layer in your armor to offer magical protection. Though that's something you'd have to work out with your GM. (there might be something like that in Arsenal for all I know).

The problem is that a lot of the dual natured plant stuff is vague in terms of area and actual effect, so you'd have to discuss it with your GM.

[rlor]

thorya:
Good points on those, thanks. Up until about the time I made this thread none of the players had access to any of the books past SR4A which really had no materials for mundanes to use (had considered the biofiber armor idea but hadn't brought it up to the GM yet). I'm going to make an effort of looking through the books for those and see if the party can get some or all of them.

In actuality I didn't get the anti-magic character ready in time for the game so I just rolled a generic magician. I tend to be pretty good with playing mages in games (speaking in relative terms with the people I play with, not trying to say I know what I'm doing in comparison to all Shadowrun players) and as expected our party's capabilities about doubled in the runs we've done since then. This is even having to deal with some magical defenses on the other side. Even something as simple as the concealment and movement powers have greatly altered the party's dynamics not to mention now being able to roll 2 dice pools to resist NPC spellcasting. I'm on the fence about switching characters now but death isn't too uncommon so probably with a few months I could bring the anti-magic character into play.

[Udoshi]

@Daylen
Well, how do you shoot somebody who is only present on the astral Plane?
Have fun with that.
He still is able to send spirits to kick your ass...

And yes, that would be the most likely security response because going to a position on the astral space as fast compared to driving there.
Thats actually one of the main advantages of a magical response team. They have a reaction time of under 1 min for a 1000 mile radius.

There are a bunch of different responses that mystic adepts can use here.
1) Turn on astral perception. Stunball.
2) Turn on astral perception. Declare counterspelling.
3) Call up your own bound spirits, and send them back at him. bound spirits are nice because he'll only be able to deal with one.
4) I've seen this trick used. Passenger spell + Watcher spirit lets someone see the astral without needing anything.
5) Mana static.

I'll let you in on a little secret involving the astral-super speed.
It doesn't mean shit.
You know how you deal with someone who can move a thousand times faster than you at the speed of thought, and TRIES to reason that it will let him dragonball Z his way out of anything you do? How do you deal with that?
Delayed actions, natch.
What?
Delayed actions. Due to how they work, you can hear what other people are going to do (must be declared during step 3a, in which the acting character for the current Action Phase says what he's doing. The character who has the delayed action gets to decide if he wants to go before, after, or simultaneously with the action phase he's interrupting.
The thing about the astral jetfighter is that it doesn't really change anything rules-wise. You don't gain any bonus to initiative or extra actions for moving at astral speeds, or the ability to dodge anything because you're so fast. They still follow all the usual rules for the system, including the golden rule of Line of Sight for magic.(spirits get around this slightly, but if an astral mage wants to cast at a dual natured defender when they turn astral perception on..?)
So yeah. Delayed actions let you deal with an astrally harassing mage either as they cast at you or before they move away. The mana barrier spell, by the way, is fantastic for this.

[Udoshi]

Have you considered using Glowmoss? It senses astral disturbances and spellcasting then glows. It works like the magic sense adept power and would be a fast easy way for mundanes to get some magic detection.

A good friend of mine came up with a fantastic use of Glomoss. You see, it comes in Ratings. The range of the glomoss goes up with the Ratings.
So you basically make your own custom Glowand, mixing ratings from 1 up to as high as you can go(6 at start, though there is no listed cap, and it is -cheap-).

Arranging the highest -rated mosses at the tip of the want, and marking your device down with range-markers, you can make a detector that lights up the CLOSER magic phenomena get to you. The end will light up as far away things pass by, and if there is a spirit -right next- to you in astral, the very base will be lit up. Its an absolutely fantastic way of getting a bit of an astral warning system without sticking your head it in.

[Daylen]

...
Yes, as soon as the mage as no chance to prepare is going to have problems. Some of those might just be solved by summoning a big, bad spirit to get concealment or something like that...


Unfortunatly this is not true. With some net hits you know a lot of every single living beeing in the radius. That sucks hard, I know. But RAW this spell means "I go to through the cities and know what you are doing"...

No one really has a chance without a chance to prepair.

Everyone seems to assume only the two parties involved would be within some large expanse of nothing. This is not universal. Most runs I've been on have bystanders and plenty of humans around to make finding the specific problem ones a bit more difficult if they don't want to be found. I don't know of any spell called, "detect someone who might want to kill me if he knew me"

The scenarios that are getting put forth seem to be SHTF type, I don't really see how a party is any better or worse off with or without a mage and with or without magic opposition. Having opposition riggers send in armored and well armed drones would have the party just as fubar. If the party is hit with a stunball, why not hit them with a rocket? Salvo of grenades? Heck a good sniper can destroy a party darn well. Having someone to be able to counter a mage is nice, but like anything else, its not required. If the party screwed the pooch then puppies are on the way whether there is a magical counter or not.

And yes it is true that detect life is useless in many cases. It doesn't tell you who you want to look for, just what is there. In fact it even says in the rules "In a crowded area, the spell is virtually useless, picking up only a blurred mass." Its not the "I know everything spell".

[rlor]

No one really has a chance without a chance to prepair.

Everyone seems to assume only the two parties involved would be within some large expanse of nothing. This is not universal. Most runs I've been on have bystanders and plenty of humans around to make finding the specific problem ones a bit more difficult if they don't want to be found. I don't know of any spell called, "detect someone who might want to kill me if he knew me"

The scenarios that are getting put forth seem to be SHTF type, I don't really see how a party is any better or worse off with or without a mage and with or without magic opposition. Having opposition riggers send in armored and well armed drones would have the party just as fubar. If the party is hit with a stunball, why not hit them with a rocket? Salvo of grenades? Heck a good sniper can destroy a party darn well. Having someone to be able to counter a mage is nice, but like anything else, its not required. If the party screwed the pooch then puppies are on the way whether there is a magical counter or not.

If they have a counterspeller then they can have a more reasonable chance to resist a spell sort of like how if they wear armor they have a more likely chance not to die when shot by a gun. Having armor is obviously superior to not having armor when faced by an guy using an Ares Predator. It might not help you enough or in certain cases be useless to what you're facing. You might survive the Ares Predator shot with 0 armor but why not actually spend the nuyen to buy some decent armor if you tend to get shot at often.

I think it makes sense at a party level to devote 5-10% of their resources (a decent % of BPs of 1 character) to double or triple their resistance to magic if it is proving to be an issue just like I think that the party should devote some of their resources to armor, chemical protection, firewalls, ECM, ECCM, etc if they are worried about bullets, chemicals, hackers, and drones.

The simple fact of the matter is that the NPCs are using magic to circumvent our ability to detect threats and are thus getting the drop on us. With the ability to counteract that then they can no longer do so with impunity as we now have better than a 0% chance to detect them. This may not be a problem in the games you play in, I have not been discussing your game, merely stating the issues with the game I am in an effort to seek some aid. I'm not making assumptions rather I'm just pulling from the encounters we've been faced with so far as a party.

A good friend of mine came up with a fantastic use of Glomoss. You see, it comes in Ratings. The range of the glomoss goes up with the Ratings.
So you basically make your own custom Glowand, mixing ratings from 1 up to as high as you can go(6 at start, though there is no listed cap, and it is -cheap-).

Arranging the highest -rated mosses at the tip of the want, and marking your device down with range-markers, you can make a detector that lights up the CLOSER magic phenomena get to you. The end will light up as far away things pass by, and if there is a spirit -right next- to you in astral, the very base will be lit up. Its an absolutely fantastic way of getting a bit of an astral warning system without sticking your head it in.

That is an awesome idea.