Best way to totally rail a shaman or mage, Because I can't think past guns and fist Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Because my brain is very small and very simplistic, when I GM SR I mostly think in terms of guns and martial arts beatdowns.

However, I feel like I am not providing sufficient dangerous challenges to the magicians in my group who have buttloads of karma and really beefy attributes and magical powers.

What are some of the best ways to make magicians sweat, if they have enough karma and junk like that to generally survive gunfire with very little damage?

[Siege]

The obvious answer is a magical smackdown.

The less obvious answer would be creatures that are resistent to magical attacks and/or ones that target the mages first.

Nothing quite like a Predator clinging to the ceiling, waiting for the first members to pass so it can pick off the rear elements.

And how many people ever think to really look up or down?

-Siege

[Arethusa]

Also, don't forget background count.

[Kanada Ten]

1. Background count. Makes everything about magic more difficult, even more so as it gets higher. Keep in mind that extreme Background Counts usually indicate a Toxic environment. Toxic domains mean Shamans (and Wu Jen) cannot summon or control their spirits.

2. Enemies that make effective use of Wards. Hiding behind a powerful, or even moderately powerful (Force 6) ward blunts the power of all magic attacks and makes it more difficult for spirit to reach the target (though not impossible). Wards, however, do not impede bullets.

3. Nimu Salamanders. These creatures absorb magical energy when spells are cast. Doing so increases their power, but it also makes them insane. I always spell them wrong, but they are in Critters.

4. Counter magic. Despite how often the characters float around with invisibility, players often forget enemies can open the same bag of tricks. Even support magic in the form of Spell Defense, Astral and Spell Barrier, Armor, and so on, can tip the balance back to center.

5. Naval Scale weapons. It always sounds easy to board a pirate vessel and steal the Black Pearl Focus, but when the USS Screwed shows up and pounds the pirates with anti ship missiles - while the characters are aboard no less, it makes thing rough. And those hungry Krakens can be killed, but the Megaldon? Not so much.

6. Girl friends. No seriously. Nothing sucks more than rescuing your girl from Craft as he tries to invest his Queen into her body. You had to pick the hottest chick, didn't you? And after you've survived the hoard of spirits and defeated Craft, you drag your near dead body to her and look into her eyes... She smiles and says, "I think we should just be friends."

That's all I got right now.

[Traks]

Kanda Ten, magically active plants are also your friends.
Using biofibers or virus is also pretty pretty effective.
And cast control on mage's sammie friend so he makes holes in mage is nice too.

[Zephania]

If you can't get through the armour spells etc how aboput going round them with a few gas weapons?

Tear gas should do the trick and I don't know a law enforcement agency that doesn't have it.

[Glyph]

Magic is the best way to counter magic. Magic may be rare in the general population, but it will be much more commonly encountered both among runners and among their opposition - corporate security, Lone Star, organized crime, etc.

Use wards, background count, and (sparingly) a few of the threats geared towards awakened characters - FAB bacteria, hostile spirits, and so on. Enemy mages are the best way to keep magical PCs honest - they will need to allocate some of their dice to Spell Defense. Otherwise, they can pump high levels of dice into spells and blow away the mundane opposition, and still easily resist Drain. And why? Because they are able to split their dice between two things, when those dice were intended to be split between three things.


Don't discount mundane opposition, though. They can use suppressive fire if they suspect an invisible character (doors opening by themselves, etc.). The Increase Reflexes +3 spell is nice, but only the equivalent of Wired Reflexes: 2 (and usually not quite as good as that). Plus, Spell Pool and Foci dice don't refresh until the next round. The armor spell makes the mage a glowing target, and is not hardened armor - nearly any ranged attack is still potentially lethal, and the armor bonus does not offset the increased targetting by enemy forces.

[Eyeless Blond]

[Egon]

Well normally mages are busy spending all their karma on magic stuff, such as going up grades, focuses, quicken spells ..... That being the case they come up short in the actual skills department. So make them use skills.

make them go to a party or talk to people about non magical things.

make them disarm a bomb or use a computer

make them ride a motercycle or fly a plain

if all else fails use flash granades and make them blind.

[Kagetenshi]

Drones.

If you want to take the thread title literally, miniblimps with railguns.

~J

[Sahandrian]

[Misfit Toy]

Or just a regular magician built sensibly instead of investing everything into magic.

[Clyde]

Don't forget forensic investigation! High force spells will leave behind the mage's astral signatures. If they leave anything like a ritual link behind, great, but if not a group can use an astral spotter to guide the spell. Yeah, maybe your mages/shamans are tougher than one or two azzie blood mages, but are they tougher than 6 at one time? :D

They may ease off on the uber spells if they know that those will be more likely to bring down the heat later, just like the samurai may have to leave his APDS at home if he doesn't want to bring down all kinds of attention.

[kevyn668]

Naw, forget forensic investigation. Stick with the wards...the girlfriend bit. That was great. :D

If you're going to use magical crime scene investigators remember that you are setting a precedent. There are no canon rules for how LS/KE/whoever works the crime scene. So if you use that to screw your mage, you have be consistant and use it to screw the sam, the rigger, decker, the face, etc...

Besides, more mages clear the astral air after slinging the mojo than sams pick up their shells...

[Egon]

[Kagetenshi]

[Egon]

[kevyn668]

[kevyn668]

[TinkerGnome]

[Traks]

[simonw2000]

[Raife]

I disagree with most of the people here... Magic is a good way to counter magic... but Vehicles are better.

Check out Rigger 3. Drones can really give a magic user a bad day... especially when armed with Gel Rounds. To most characters gel rounds just mean they get knocked out. But to a magician gel rounds take away their casting abilities.

A doberman or lonestar strato-9 can seriously put the hurt on a mage if it hits them with a Medium Machine Gun burst of gel rounds. Making them suffer target numbers really screws them up, and they can't use anything to "heal" stun damage.

This goes doubly for everyone else in the group. Stun damage can't be healed by the caster, if you knock them all out using gel rounds you just made one of the mages spells worthless... and unconcious people are really easy to kill.

Your going to want to look this up, but I'm pretty sure that a drones armor works against powerbolt/ball just like it does against bullets. So unless they are using Lightning Bolt/Ball they are gonna have to throw a really big powerbolt to hurt a drone even a little. If they do manage to kill the drone... the rigger can just send in a new one. Captains chair mode + 4 strato-9's w/gel rounds = bad day for mage.

Along with gel rounds you have Tazers and Stun Batons. Basically just use a boatload of stun damage.

In Summary:
There once was a mage from seattle,
Whose power was fearsom to battle,
He met some nice riggers,
Who just pulled the triggers,
Now the mage looks like dead cattle.

Just a thought.

[Eyeless Blond]

[Raife]

Ok I just broke out my BBB and found how this actually works:

As on page 150 of the BBB