How do you think Lone Star would deal with the tricky problem of arresting mages and transporting them back to a (presumably magically secure) holding cell? There is a mage in the game that I run that does not like to use violence, so he would probably surrender to the cops and then use illusions, mind control etc to escape.

What do you think would be standard cop procedure for dealing with criminals when any one of them might (although not particularly likely) be a mage?

Tranq patches?

Lone Star would definitely employ their own mages, so there'd be Counterspelling to contend with.

Also, a good blow to the head (or equivalent) to knock the mage out will do.

There is this lovely item, which we all know under the name 'Mage-Mask'. Imagine something looking like a paintball helmet, but without any opening that would allow for vision and with an inbuilt white noise generator which messes with the subjects ability to concentrate properly.

I do rather like the idea of the Mage-Mask, but what happens when a clever mage decides to Powerbolt the mask when it's on him?

lone star great dragon mage mask squadron, the new divison specially maked to stop this pesky dragons, principally the denver destroyer, financed by ucas

I do not have my Magic in the Shadows at hand, so I can not look it up. The mage mask is covered by some substance that protects from magic, that's all I recall.

The magemask was just a normal device that could be attacked with a power bolt spell but if it was put on there was very little a normal mage could do. It would be the equivalent of doing a -4 dice to all magical tests plus you can't use LOS spells, plus with the connecting hand manicals you can't use touch based spells.

If you wear a mage-mask, you have certain LoS to it... vision modifiers are another thing.

IIRC the Mage Mask gave a +8 modifier to casting any spell. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

And then there's the couple of goons next to the mage-masked mage who'll be there to give him a good whallop to the side of his head if they suspect something is happening. Oh heck, they should just do it every so often anywhere especially if that mage geeked some of their buds.

Nanopaste trodes? Feed simsense without the fuss; though the magemask could have the trodes built in.

The mage could have a dikoted spur that pops out of his face and slices the mask open from ear-to-ear at eye level.

I know that I've given samurai eyetool lasers for that exact same reason, because, honestly, if you have a mage-mask you aren't using, you might as well give massive penalties to the combat monster, too.

And, well.

Fuckin' Eye Lasers, man.

Generally speaking, at least in the case of runners, by the time LS has popped a mage mask on you, chances are you're already in deep penalties due to injuries/stun dmg. Unless you know, you gave up without a fight.

Previous thread on this topic: here

I had a mage charactor once. And elf named Sinn(Hence the screen name) He was arrested and put to death for over 75 murders. Only commited about 30 of them or so. Beside the point.
When he was arrested, he had a narco jet injector place in the back of his head, reastrained with mage hoods and cuffs. And taken to blackstone prison. Think Alkatraz and Askaban(from harry potter) put into one. A huge mana warp that stopped you from casting spells. Nasty place. He didnt last long.

Isn't Askaban pretty much already Alcatraz for wizards.

yep, some island castle turned deep prison dungeon...

one could probably also have a spirit sitting pretty in the astral just waiting for the mage to move...

Alright, let's assume this Mage Mask thing works (I'm not so convinced, but that should not matter for my point).
What about the mage calling a spirit to take the mask off? Sure, Lone Star or whoever can start fighting the spirit, but this also means constant surveilance.

The most reliable way should be drugging the mage or putting him on a BTL loop. The main question is: Is Lone Star allowed to do that on a SINner?

Nothing is fool-proof; it screw most mages in an Abu Grahib style (add things like handcuffs, straightjackets...), it should at least deter rebelious and violent intents.

btw, where is the SR4 mage mask info located?

in the Arsenal book, page 66, which is the in the Manatech section of the book

I assume that most time when Lone Star arrest somebody, they don't assume them to be a mage. If they have reason to expect they are a mage, and expect that they may have problems transporting the prisoner, then the Magemask and Mage cuffs would probably be used. If the Mage was known to be a large/real danger, or if the mage tried to escape, a SOS call from the lonestar patrol car would go out, and a HRT team would be sent out to help them, which would include a law enforcement mage with spirits if there were problems.

If the mage escaped, then they would be magically tracked down, and when they got arrested this time, they would really be taken care of, including Mages and spirits on the arresting team, and lord knows what else. Drugs, a wack to the head, warded patrol van, BTL loop, etc...

Think the 1930s. How often were cops killers taken alive? "The ME determined the cause of death to be suicide, despite the alpha burst to the back of the head at contact range."

If players kill cops they are going to have a fatal "accident" in the course of their apprehension.

The assumption is that there will be an aprehension in that case. Depending on the clout and firepower that the subject possesses, the cops just might ive him a wide berth and look the other way. No since getting themselves killed, too.

The authorities can always bring more firepower than any group of PCs. Cops don't give cop killers passes. It's not acceptable to the other cops and it's simply a stupid idea. It's like "looking the other way" about the meth freaks in the next apartment who you know are making industrial quantities of nitroglycerine while they tweak. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

All the magemask entry says is that actions that would normally be done automatically now take Will + Int (4) test to pull off. I think that they meant it affects all uses of magic; although by RAW this is not the case.

Magecuffs are the new Magemask. Basically, every time the mage attempts to use magic (and it specificially states "use magic" not a specific type of magic), including projection and perception, they get hit with 12S electrical damage. I'm sure less humane versions are readily available or easier created (such as ones that inject a specific drug or drug cocktail, strangles, or even decapitates if you wanna go with some movie and novel ideas), too, though the default one is designed to be more PR-friendly.

A magecuff collar, a warded cell and a dedicated sentry drone should be more than enough to keep most magicians at bay.

Ouch. That would tend to leave a mark...

And we now get to the main reason why I strongly prefer the "chanting and hand waving" version of magic as mentioned in older SR versions as compared to the "I look at you and your head esplodie" version that has become RAW in the interim.

When exactly did this happen, and how was it explained that magic "magically" (for lack of a better term) changed to the new form in-game, BTW?

Actually, magecuffs are just a tiny bit unreliable since they use glowmoss as a sensor. Which means that the rules for glowmoss apply, which are the rules for the adept power Magic sense, which in return are the rules for the Spell Detect magic.

In fact, while dual characters will trigger it, adept powers won't - as won't Counterspelling, Banishing, etc.
And the range of the sensor is 10 meter radius, so if the mage ever gets near wards, foci or background count, he's toast.
Technically, two cuffs with glowmoss would trigger each other constantly, as they are both dual natured... but let's assume that glowmoss doesn't react to glowmoss.

Of course, if the mage actually enters even background count 1, the cuffs are rendered inert.



So... while the idea is nice, it's pretty much useless.

In the main book of SR3. It simply tells you that chanting and waving is for show-offs and that use of magic is just a matter of will.

Ok, thanks for the info.

Even way back in the first edition of Shadowrun, 'chanting and waving', while being described as being commonly associated with magic use, was also specifically listed as being not necessary in normal situations, and that a lot of magicians and even shamans did it merely for effect.

But they do add some nice mimetic components as you cast. Similar to the rituals athletes do before a race or event or the exercises musicians perform to "Get in the zone". Maybe some bonus dice if you don't mind looking like an idiot as you cast?

I figure that as long as the SINner wasn't someone important with money Lonestar can still do pretty much anything they wanted to, after all, who is really going to care?

Covered under Geas (Street Magic, p.27). Each geas taken (the list includes both Gesture and Incantation) restricts magic use by forcing use of the chosen restriction, and gives the character 10 bonus Build Points.

Geas may also be imposed later after a serious Critical Glitch (Street Magic, p.30–31), or taken voluntarily to reduce the cost of Initiation (Street Magic, p.51).

figures, the one book that do not have a index...

thanks

Step One: NarcoJet Lethe Pistol.

Step Two: TranqPatches.

Step Three: Lots of TranqPatches.

Step Four: Wait for the wheels of Justice to slowly grind. Make sure the case is solid ("If the evidence exists or not, we'll find it.")

Step Five: Put the Magician away for a long, long time. On TranqPatches and SimReeducation.

Step Six: Act surprised that the amount of drug and mental abuse has burned out the Magicians magic.

It depends on the circumstances. If the PCs are working for a mob boss who has a deal with the local brass so that all the cops know not to mess with his men, but there is this one cop who is a little bit too goody-two-shoes for everyone's good and he tries to arrest the PCs. In this case, the others cops would almost certainly look the other way, because they'd have had to kill him themselves, eventually, anyway and if the PCs had been arrested it would have jeopardized a very lucrative business arrangement.

Or, if the PCs have strong ties to a gang that isn't afraid to go to war with the police, they might decide that discretion is the better part of valor in order a to avoid massive retaliation, though they'd probably get around to it eventually.

And if the PC has local political connections of sufficient loyalty, that can prove more problematic to the department than a dead cop.

That depends on the mage being SINless. If he's got a SIN, or one that stands up to scrutiny, then he actually has civil rights. Burning out the talent of a mage with civil rights is not a good idea; the new ACLU would be all over you.

Since those assumptions would pretty much negate the stated rules in the book for the device, I think it is safe to assume that these deficiency have been mostly designed around somehow. Though the GM should feel free to inflict a string of false positives on the player foolish enough to get captured by the star. "What do you mean I tried to astrally project in my sleep?"

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Another option I have toyed around with is developing an awakened toxin that safely and temporarily negates a mages magic. It could be placed in the mages food/water, and response teams might even carry dart guns loaded with it. The effect of long term exposure to it would of course be at the GM's discretion.

Unless someone decides to take his SIN away on a lark. It's apparently a very common, very legal, and very nonchalant thing to do in the Sixth World! And no one ever says anything about it because, come on, his SIN's gone so he's clearly SINless now. Who's gonna believe a ghost?

Sorry, pet peeve butted in again.

Taking a SIN away is apparently quite a painful process, requiring making edits in just as many databases as it does to creake a good fake one. Also, it's very difficult to get rid of a criminal SIN