Countering the Magical Threat, Not that I have ever had this problem Options

[lorthazar]

We all know that some campaigns have a problem with the Magically active character starting to completely own the game. Many of you have lamented the staggering power and cheese factor of some people playing mages and adept. Now I am not talking about well thought out characters with personality and something that resembles a life. I am talking abou the munchkin, powergaming, twinks out there.

He is a few ways to handle such people.

Bring back Ground to Manifestation, but make it a metamagic. At first your PC's won't have it and even when they do the usefulness of it now that focus addiction is out there is a minimal gain. For those of you who argue that this is not Canon I beg to differ untill the change in 3rd Edition it was an everyday risk of being a mage.

Orichalcum is a premium cost precious metal and very distinctive. Every pickpocket and their cousin is going to try to to nick their Foci.

On Money for Karma: if they are using to buy skills add extra class time. If they are pumping up attributes allocate extra time for that, if they are learning spell add extra time, of if the initiate with it just have them owe some huge favors to astral entities. Inconvienant favors that don't let them gain karma while performing them.

Free Spirits who know any mages should be regularly plotting on their demise. They may not do it, but they plot none the less.

I would like to hear your opinion on any other methods of maianting character balance.

[Chibu]

"Kill the mage first"?

[Mortax]

I've used a few methods in the past to deal with munchkin mages ect... aside from cows from space. :-)

Focus addiction makes it very hard on a mage who uses them too much.
I'm also trying to rework the priority sytem, adding an f priority, to seperate money from force points. Thus far, it seems like it could help prevent mages from taking max rescorces all the time. I understand why it was set up like it was in the beguining, but it doesn't make sense for a street shaman who has been poor all his life to have 400 k lying around. However, they could have a decent number of spells.

Anouther way is using imps, shedem, and other spirits to screw with them. It's fun to come back after your astral scouting and find your body posesed.

My group is using 2nd edition rules, we like them better, so grounding a spell through foci, spell locks, quickeneings ect is still a threat.

I also limit them on when they learn metamagic. Never made sense to me for someone to initiate once and know all metamagic.


A few final favorits:
Dragons. They step on you. you die.
Mages, sever allergy, vindicator.

[Mortax]

[Backgammon]

Add injury modifier to Drain Resistance. We were doing this until we learned you're not supposed to. Trust me, mages become "balanced" with that.

You could do full force of drain as TN for drain rather than half force, like the book suggests. I'm currently playing with the idea of doing this UNLESS the mage uses a geas. One of my players is complaining about how mages can summon stuff or cast spells without the traditionnal moving about or gesturing or whatever (unless they have that as a geas, obviously). I'm thinking of letting mages be able to cast "with a thought", but with twice the drain (full spell force).

[Tarantula]

[Kanada Ten]

Give the other characters access to gear, clinics, and weapontry that allows them to be faster and as deadly.

Use Imps and Shedim.

Hostile environments that stretch the magcian's ability to compensate. Areas that require constant protection spells with fluxating background counts and hostile critters. Powerful magicains are highly prized for this type of work.

Seperate the team more often, pitting the magicians aginst the magical defenses and the mundanes against their matches. Time is the important factor to alter.

Send more quantity at a team than they can handle (you will be surprised). Use tactics designed to fight magic - guards using ultrasound in pitch black, maze like corridors; blast doors and knockout gas; drones are powerful against magic as well.

[Chibu]

[Edward]

[Tarantula]

Right... never really played 2e, so... :P

[Cynic project]

I take it you play in Seatle,yes? Because if you do, then well 90% of the city has a background count. I mean just look at the rules for what makes a background count....

[hahnsoo]

Draw the mage unwillingly into a magical conspiracy of some sort. It's a cheap shot, but it works. It could be as simple as an initiatory group that wants something from the mage, or something as big and ridiculous as Winternight.

[tisoz]

I disagree so much with most of these suggestions I do not know where to begin...

But in the same vein try these:

1. Do not allow magicians to do magic while wearing armor.

2. Require magicians to wave their arms around and shout out the magical effect they are trying to perform.

3. Change essence so that it only decreases magic, not sets a limit for the amount of cyberware that can be crammed into a character.

4. Make the TN to effect mundanes equal (10 - essence.)

5. Allow invisibility and improved invisibility to only effect the item or person it was cast upon. (If the mage wants his clothes invisible he needs to cast it at least twice, once for his body and again for each item of clothing.)

6. Roll 1D6 every 15 minutes. If the force of any sustained spell is less than or equal to the result of the die roll it fails. (Rule of 6 is in affect.) Roll 1D6 for any failed spell, if the result is 1 the focus or elemental sustaining the spell is destroyed.

7. Roll another 1D6 every 15 minutes of game play. If the result is lower than the force of any conjured spirit, it goes free.

8. Magically active PCs can not have an attribute, skill, or power over 5.

9. Require shamen to draw a conjuring circle.

10. GM chooses all geasa.

[Cynic project]

[Garland]

No kidding. Some of them are just a little strange:

5. C'mon, now. I would need that cast 11 times(!) to hide myself right now. Hell, socks and shoes take 4 castings already! If I added a belt, I'd have to be sustaining 12 castings! And what's the granularity here; do you need extra castings for shoelaces?

6. WTF? It's harder to maintain lower-force spells? And Force 7+ spells never fail?

7. Force 7 spirits never last more than 15 minutes?

8. !?!?

Is this all intended as hyperbole?

This post has been edited by Garland: Feb 23 2005, 10:29 PM

[Fortune]

Note tisoz's sarcastic tone. He did say that those suggestions were in the same vein as the ones brought up previously in the thread. I tend to agree with him in that a lot of the suggestions in this thread are unnecessarily harsh, or just plain unecessary.

[lorthazar]

I would like to take this moment to say at least mine were feasible and in Canon. (Except the first which still in Canon Limbo)

[Endgame50]

I really recommend minimum use of house rules to correct imbalance. It might be harsh to say, and I don't know any of your games so I'm not pronouncing judgement or anything like that, but be sure to check the balance of your games too. Sometimes magicians get out of hand because the influx of karma is too large, or things are too easy for them (and maybe even the group as a whole.)

Magic has alot of potential for player innovation--which should be a red flag since player innovation is, let's face it, geared more towards the player's advantage than creating a new and balanced idea. So be sure to check applications of magic rigorously before allowing them, and make sure the rules back them up.

Other than that, a good way to deal with magic is with other magic. Sure they can pull all sorts of tricks to counter mojo directed their way, but there's always someone bigger and badder. Even taking down a sustaining focus or two would ruin a mage's day--or at least distract him so he's not overpowering the physical side of things.

I've never honestly seen a mage PC get out of hand like some of you have described--but then, I've never been in games with 200+ karma either.

[tisoz]

[hahnsoo]

Hey, I admitted mine was a cheap shot. Whether or not it is canon is up to how ridiculous the GM uses it. :)

[Dawnshadow]

Personally? It's against canon, but if you REALLY truly MUST house rule something to weaken mages, just make drain subject to wound modifiers.

It's cheap. It's evil. It's not canon.

It works.

serious stun is enough to make things just not work out well. A single spell knocked mine out with it, at force 4 with deadly drain. He got 2 successes, took serious... out with 2 boxes of physical damage. Now, in my defense, it DID do what it was supposed to, and got rid of a lot of the people who were about to attack.. just not all of them.. moderate wounds are enough, sometimes.

Edit: Normally the spell doesn't do any drain. Then again, normally, the spell would probably have killed him too, setting it off at his feet like that. But that would have been preferable to being eaten by ghouls.

[Fortune]

Or, as was suggested above, use the canon suggestion to make magic harder by using the actual Force in the Drain Code instead of halving it.

Personally I don't see the need for any of this, but YMMV.

[hahnsoo]

[tisoz]

[hahnsoo]

We still use a limited form of Grounding in our games (through dual beings and through foci) as well. But it really hasn't come up yet, because the same precautions that people use to avoid being waylaid astrally are the ones that you use to avoid Grounding. All it does is limit the number of continually active foci running around in the game, which suits our playing style a bit better. Although, no incident of Grounding has happened yet in any of our games, so I suppose it's superfluous.