Mages outpacing Mundanes, Does it happen at your table. Options

[Paul]

So a lot of people seem to like that Shadowrun 4 handicaps the magical stuff. And in another thread it was brought up again that in some games Mages can quickly outpace Mundanes. Is that the case in your experience? I won't lie I've never really had any problems with this in twenty plus years and 4 editions.

But I get mileage will vary. So relate your experiences here so I can get a feel for what happens at other tables.

[Paul]

And the interest of disclosure I like my magic mysterious and powerful. I don't think there should be a linear scale in which mundane power is comparable to the most powerful magics. But I also like my magic to come with a price.

[Loch]

For my own recent experience, Heavy Weapons Troll shreds a lot fewer enemies with his minigun now that the voodoo mysad learned Shape Water and Shape Metal and (ab)uses them to beat up thugs and crumple tanks, respectively. There are other contributing factors of course, but it does feel a little sad.

[Irion]

Magic depends very much on the rules of each table.

Everything limiting magic is mostly 100% GM fiat.
There is nothing in the rules stopping a GM from haven each and every spirit spending edge on summoning and binding.
It is no problem to explain a BC(or void) of 1 or 2 nearly everywhere.
The next thing are Wards, they are also quite easy to build, and a pain for every mage.
And a lot of spells are open for interpretation!
And even if you do notice magic is not really obvious...

Don't use the hings mentioned above against your mages and your mages will outperform the mundane.

[Critias]

...the voodoo mysad learned Shape Water and Shape Metal and (ab)uses them to beat up thugs and crumple tanks, respectively.

How does that work out for 'em, exactly?

[Summerstorm]

Depends...

If you start up with powergame!!!! YEAH: Magicians start stronger and develope faster and have nearly no upper limit.
If you start with good, broad characters: Mages are powerful, but not overly so.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, happened in several games by now . .
As a Mundane, a cybered and bioed up piece of work, you need licenses for everything, you light up every scanner in 10m² around you, your guns and external weapons are easy enough to be taken away from you usually . . if you got to bring them at all, because of the security meaures to begin with . . also, you have a limit of 6 points of essence AND money AND availability AND device rating usually . .
A Mage hase . . none of the above mentioned problems . . and 4 or 5 karma per run are usually much more important than 5 to 10k money, with the prices as they are right now . .
this onyl gets worse with the prices for cyber and bio in SR3 . .

[snowRaven]

Sure, Mages tend to outperform Mundanes at my table as well.

BUT, despite all of their power they rarely manage to cover everything with spells, and they will almost certainly lack certain useful skills.

Drawbacks:
- Fewer skills -- and spells can't fill in for everything skills can do.
- Longer 'prep-time' for many situations in order to out-perform mundane specialists (activating foci; calling spirits; sustaining spells etc)
- Enemies will target the mage first, if possible.
- Edge often gets neglected because of massive need for karma, which means fewer second chances.
- Background Counts and Wards can seriously cripple them.

[Socinus]

Two words: Background Count.

If you really start using that rule, where EVERY place has one, and you enforce it then mages get brought down several pegs very quickly.

Mages usually are awesome until you hit a spot they dont quite have covered. One game I was part of, I was a mundane driver/gun man in a team of four other people who were all mages. We rocked through a facility with their magic and I didnt have much of anything to do because of all the mages...until we got outside and had to get away.

The rest of them jumped up and started offering up combat spells and I just very quietly suggested we get in a car and drive away really really fast. They had nothing and it would have been a hard, very likely lethal, battle with security that was arriving.

Magic is great if you run into situations where the magic you have fits the situation and the BGC doesnt trip you up. Step outside that range and you get into trouble.

[Paul]

In my opinion Shadowrun 4 is designed to kneecap Magic Users. Not only are there plenty of in game items to mess with them-back ground count; rival magic users, spirits, magical threats-but there are plenty of hard coded rules to straight up screw them: A street Samurai can toss down 10 dice plus and gets every success regardless, Magic Users get capped successes on what they can do, now there's an actual limit to the number of spells they can cast hard coded into the rules, and that's not even counting the metagame stuff like expecting the mage to heal everyone, hide everyone, and provide useful combat support.

Obviously every table will vary but woof. Playing a spell caster has never sucked more.

[CanRay]

Well, if Magicians are outstretching Mundanes, there's only one solution... MORE GEAR AND FIREARM BOOKS!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

The other side of that, Paul, is that the mages are just now finally being reined in a tiny bit. 100 minus 5 is still 95, and if the rest of the PCs are in the 30s…

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In my opinion Shadowrun 4 is designed to kneecap Magic Users. Not only are there plenty of in game items to mess with them-back ground count; rival magic users, spirits, magical threats-but there are plenty of hard coded rules to straight up screw them: A street Samurai can toss down 10 dice plus and gets every success regardless, Magic Users get capped successes on what they can do, now there's an actual limit to the number of spells they can cast hard coded into the rules, and that's not even counting the metagame stuff like expecting the mage to heal everyone, hide everyone, and provide useful combat support.

Obviously every table will vary but woof. Playing a spell caster has never sucked more.

I am curious, Paul. Where do you see a hard-coded limit to he number of spells a Mage character can cast in SR4A? There is no such limit, except for Karma allocated to Spells. If you have found such a hidden reference, please reveal it to me and the rest of the forum. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And if your Shadowrunners rely upon the mage for Healing, Hiding, and Combat Support. Well, they are just plain lazy.

[Daylen]

Well, if Magicians are outstretching Mundanes, there's only one solution... MORE GEAR AND FIREARM BOOKS!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Or slightly more deadly damage rules. Redoing the damage codes for each weapon is an easy way.

[Socinus]

and that's not even counting the metagame stuff like expecting the mage to heal everyone, hide everyone, and provide useful combat support.

That's kinda what the mage is expected to do in almost any game there are mages in.

[Paul]

The other side of that, Paul, is that the mages are just now finally being reined in a tiny bit. 100 minus 5 is still 95, and if the rest of the PCs are in the 30s…

*Shrugs* I didn't need them to do that-I'm not like virulently opposed to it, or anything like that. Just apersonal preference. And I get part of why they did it.

I am curious, Paul. Where do you see a hard-coded limit to he number of spells a Mage character can cast in SR4A? There is no such limit, except for Karma allocated to Spells. If you have found such a hidden reference, please reveal it to me and the rest of the forum. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You're right. I was mistaking the cap at creation with a hard cap for all time. Doh! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) It may be hard to believe but even I make mistakes! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

And if your Shadowrunners rely upon the mage for Healing, Hiding, and Combat Support. Well, they are just plain lazy.

Actually mine don't. But yeah I get where you're going with this.

That's kinda what the mage is expected to do in almost any game there are mages in.

To a point I agree-in most games the generalized expectation is there. I guess my point is that it's not all cut and dry. In my opinion it's all in how you play it. Other people get different results.

[3278]

I don't even see how there's a comparison, but again, I'm not as experienced in SR4 as others are. It certainly looks to me, though, like magic users are profoundly nerfed, to the point that I haven't played one yet because I find the idea so frustrating [and I like playing weak characters]. Perhaps once I see more of magic in SR4, I'll see where the benefits are.

[Loch]

How does that work out for 'em, exactly?

There have been two notable events so far.
First one, the team was trolling (pun intended (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) through the sewer slums of Generic-Pirate-Island #372 looking for a mutinous pirate captain and his crew. We found them in the slums, and the voodoo mysad and our "Black Panther" mage, Orkolm X, managed to incite a riot amongst the slum-dwellers against the pirates hiding in their midst. At the start of the actual fighting, Heavy Weapons Troll got a Willy Pete grenade off in the cramped sewer tunnels, wrecking the pirate's escape canoe and setting the guano-rich sewage on fire. Voodoo mysad takes the opportunity to cast Shape Water on the flaming waste, and uses it to wrap up the struggling pirates in a flaming orb of dirty water until they all stop struggling; GM throws his hands up and we capture the pirate cap'n and his crew with zero collateral damage and we called it there.

The first time voodoo mysad tried out his new spells was much worse however. We were breaking into a police impound dock to obtain a (different, yet related) pirate cap'n's vessel from the impound. We set up shop opposite the docks, and we see that our target ship is under very heavy guard: more than a half dozen well-armored guards toting assault rifles patrol the docks, and worse still, a trio of multiped tanks are watching the boat, which is itself secured to the dock in eight places by chains, and both its anchors are dropped. Heavy Weapons Troll hoofs it into mutual signal range, while voodoo mysad rolls up his sleeves and asks, "who wants to see something broken and overpowered?" Spending edge to uncap hits, he rolls up a force 4 Shape Metal, and gets eight hits. While the rest of the group spends their turns running for the ship, voodoo mysad crushes one tank per init pass, which wouldn't have been such a problem if not for the tanks' built-in detonation systems, which proceed to take out half the dock and a majority of the guards. Everybody piles into the ship and we leave. The only consequence the mysad has faced through any of this is that he now has the highest bounty of anyone in the party (higher than Heavy Weapons Troll, even), but I don't see that being a real problem, since the GM has yet to have anybody even try to collect on bounties on PCs.

[Yerameyahu]

Sounds like your GM is giving you the Easy Mode codes.

[MortVent]

did the gm roll the object resist test on the tanks?

OR forget to give that heavy a guard some magical muscle...

[Critias]

I...ah...don't exactly imagine Shape Metal as routinely working that way, in everyone's campaigns. I won't say your GM is guilty of some sort of badwrongfun or anything, but your average Mystic Adept dropping your average Force 4 spell probably shouldn't be willy-nilly "crushing one tank per init pass," with any sort of regularity. If you guys are having fun and like to interpret the spell that way, more power to ya, though. I'd just be aware that's not the sort of power imbalance issue that's likely to be cropping up at most tables.

At any rate, we're a little sidetracked from the overall topic of the thread. I didn't mean to derail anything by asking for specific examples, and I'm not going to stand here and try to argue those examples once I get 'em. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[bibliophile20]

I don't even see how there's a comparison, but again, I'm not as experienced in SR4 as others are. It certainly looks to me, though, like magic users are profoundly nerfed, to the point that I haven't played one yet because I find the idea so frustrating [and I like playing weak characters]. Perhaps once I see more of magic in SR4, I'll see where the benefits are.

*snort* SR4 mages nerfed? Hardly. The last game of SR4 that I was in before running my current one, I was a gun bunny adept in a team with a min-maxing mage-player. He dominated the game--and the team--to such a degree and so overpoweringly (there were at least three missions that I recall distinctly where I didn't even get to draw my guns, much less make a roll or much of a contribution, really) that I ended up leaving that gaming group out of disgust. I haven't talked with the player more than five or six times in the three years since. (although, to be fair, that player liked such high powered games that he considered a psion/sorcerer gestalt in D&D to be adequate, so your mileage may vary.)

[CanRay]

Mages get spirits. They scare my group. I once had the lawn get up and beat the house they were hiding it.

It frightened them more than the SWAT team outside did.

[Stahlseele]

Well, if Magicians are outstretching Mundanes, there's only one solution... MORE GEAR AND FIREARM BOOKS!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

No solution. Because mages can use these toys too, while mundanes can't use magic.

[Irion]

Or slightly more deadly damage rules. Redoing the damage codes for each weapon is an easy way.

Right, so the game gets a lot more deadly... Does not change a lot.