Sammies tend to whine a lot about spellslingers. But this comment in another thread got me thinking

3) Shoot them in the face with a assault rifle.

hiding is also quite good. it even works against astral perception. and most any sammy should be able to hide at least a little, many of them will be very good at it too

in comparison, not too many mages will max out their perception (not that they'll never have it at all, just not likely maxed out).

How exactly do LOS penalties affect spellcasting? I mean, smoke only subtracts a number of dice from visual perception tests...and if the mage has cybereyes, wouldn't that remove that penalty for the most part?

Plus, couldn't the mage just activate their astral perception and target you that way?

Just about anything that will counter a gun will counter a combat spell. Magicians don't suffer range penalties but they do suffer all of the visual penalities that other characters do.
Darkness is less useful due to astral perception, but thermal smoke works very well, as does taking cover and shooting from a fully concealed position using a smartlink camera or a grenade.

Large amounts of living material can make astral perception difficult, as well. Since all life has an aura it is difficult for a magician to pick out a single astral target in a jungle, for example. Hiding in foliage is very useful as is decorating your abode with far too many potted plants. Dual-natured plants are even better since the an astral being will not be able to move through them and won't be able to see or attack through them if they are sufficiently dense.

Background count is almost a requirement for the discerning samurai's home. You know how homes where grizzly murders and mass suicides took place usually sell for far les than their actual value today? Well they'll go for far more than their actual value in the future because those grizzly murders and mass suicides will make it far more difficult for a magician to kill you in your home.
If you can't buy a home with a Background count then you can always make your own. You don't have to be a twisted magician to gain benefits from torturing and murder a few children every day. Remember, a murder a day keeps the spirits away (except for blood spirits because they like that sort of stuff).
It is also important to know where the background counts are and what they are. If you keep up with the latest geomancy journels and almanacs then you should know the safest places to battle a mage of a specific tradition are and you should make sure the battles take place in those locations.


Then there are Free Spirits. Remember, anyone can summon a free spirit, even a mundane. It is quite possible for a samurai with a decent willpower and edge to bind a Force 1-3 free spirit and keep it on call for emergencies.I really wound't recomend this because it tends to make the spirit angry and angry free spirits aren't good for mundanes. However, a samurai should be able to safely rebind a force 1 spirit indefinitely.
Likewise, a mundane can make a spirit pact just like anyone else. A samurai doesn't need nearly as much karma as a magician does so he can benefit from karma trading far more easily. Power Pact: Magic Guard is of particular use to the anti-magic samurai since it would allow him to learn and use counterspelling.
A savy samurai with knowledge of spirits could bind a force 1 free spirit with the magical guard power and force it into two pacts, first a formula pact (so no one else cound bind the spirit; immortality is a plus) and second a power pact for magical guard. As long as the samurai keeps the spirit bound and renews the power pact daily he can learn and use counterspelling as if he were a magician. When the power pact is disolved the counterspelling skill would become a far less useful knowledge skill untill another power pact is made.

A samurai could also purchase wards and anchors from magicians who make them for a living. This cound get expensive, especially if the anchors are used often, but there are some great benefits. A samurai could buy an anchored mana static spell, for example, and use it whenever he goes up agaisnt a magician.

Specific spells can be countered specific ways. Invisibility can be defeared wirth ultrasound, for example.

Also, drones can be used to defeat or bypass certain spells or to just stay out of danger. Drones are far cheaper now and any samurai with a comlink can use them. Due to the OR threshold even the smallest drone is nearly immune to all low force spells and drones are naturally immune to some illusion spells such as forboding and orgasm. A single skimmer with a brick of C4 strapped to it can do in a mage far more cheaply and easily than some other methods.

I'm a big fan of the "beat them with your superior initiative, shoot them in the face" plan. If, for some reason, that doesn't work out, I've yet to fail with the "spam thermal smoke grenades, then hurl high explosive or incendiary grenades into the cloud of smoke."

Mages tend to not soak damage real well. So the street sam's old standby of "kill shit" is often the answer.

[edit] this is in response to JonathanC's post, for the record [/edit]

well, if the mage has cybereyes, then he's already got a penalty to spellcasting.

secondly, cybereyes won't help against thermal smoke (and i can't imagine anyone bothering with normal smoke, to be honest... thermal vision is too common)

thirdly, if the mage fails a perception check to see you (provided one is required), then he cannot target you with spells. with the possible exception of the high-drain indirect AOE spells, depending on your GM's opinion at present (rules can be interpreted either way), and even then they need a general idea of where you are to target you.

so, for example, if a mage has intuition 3 and perception 2, and you give him -5 or more to his dice pool to see you, then he has 0 dice in his pool... and therefore, he cannot target you with any of his spells.

as another example, i personally recommend electrical damage. most sammies will have some stick'n'shock ammo... and mages often can't afford as high a body as they would need to resist the secondary elemental effect =)

[edit] oh, and about astral perception... that works great against invisible targets and the like. it does absolutely nothing to help you spot someone who is hiding behind stuff, or to help you see through a smoke cloud. [/edit]

Smoke works on the astral the same as it does on the physical.

Cover is incredibly useful against mages. Unlike sams with guns, you can't "blind-fire" a spell. Get some remote information feeds piped in, and being behind a solid object isn't a problem. Sure, the mage can get behind cover, too... but he's less likely to have a weapon capable of reaching *around* cover.

Smart characters will know that mages are incredibly dangerous. The smart character, when faced with a mage and not having a good shot will find cover, prepare for a possible spirit attack, and get their own mage/hacker/rigger online to nail the opposing mage indirectly.

My personal favourite is the Ranger Arms SM-3 but any rifle with enough range will do the job. Shoot, repeat until they are down, shoot one more just to be sure. Remember that 500m is great for most people but not very far if they have any kind of elemental or astral servant.

Alternatively, there are a variety of knock-out gas grenades. A simple respirator will allow you to approach the now-unconscious mage and remove any items that look like sustaining focuses. Complete this with a few well-place bullets, coups-de-gras if you will.

The most spectacular I ever saw involved a rating 10 Fire spell of some description... That was how I learned the GM was a twinky bastard...

...superior firepower, cunning, and a called shot to the head is always a good solution.

Just hope the offending spellcaster isn't a troll though (as has been the case too many times in runs I have been on). That would take a PJSS (with EXEX), Panther Assault Cannon or light anti tank weapon to bring down in one shot.

Seems that tinting windows tends to be helpful, getting into the whole need line of sight thing.

Making your windows one-way glass (reflective on the outside, transparent on the inside) would help too.

Is there any actual RAW text on whether or not you can see through glass on the astral? I've always played glass as an opaque surface.

Actually, glass = opaque doesn't make any sense. How do mages use binoculars, otherwise?

Yeah. Unliving matter between you and what you're trying to see. Kinda like a wall is unliving matter between you and what you're trying to see.

I like the electrical damage, but what it is really useful for is knocking out their buffs. A mage has to make a check when damaged to hold his sustaining. If you you're hit with a spell that saps your abilities or are faced with a mage or his buddy that seems to be affected by a spell, electrical damage makes it really hard to keep up spells (the roll they make is Body+Will (3) i think).

Buying wards for your team van and your apartment is a neccesity. I'm pretty sure Demonseed Elite said that you can ward a vehicle.

Drone sappers are a good idea to have for any team in many situations, so I don't think it really counts... But I love the idea


Hanging up curtains in a hallway is a great way to limit visibility that can't be countered with Astral Perception. Any thin, unliving barrier that can be seen through with Thermal vision is a good idea for killing mage LOS.

Send in the armed drones. Object resistance tests are horrible.

This is important. Read these carefully.

http://www.sprawledout.com/?p=15
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=14230

The second will take awhile to find where they start really talking about moving wards, but just search with your browser within the page and you'll find it eventually.

...so, (using the case of the warded shipping container) if a ward were cast on the body shell (not the wheels or drivetrain) of say, a Bulldog Van or Conestoga Trailer unit, it would not come down when the vehicle moved?

Street Samurai cannot beat mages at longrange. A fireball or lightning bolt will fry you. You MUST close to melee range, and if you have wired reflexes, it should be simple from there to hack them up with a sword.


Fireball>Gun

True, but I'd put money on an Adept carving up a street sam in melee, if both men are specialists in the area.

In d20, the grapple is the ultimate mage killer, but that doesn't seem to be the case in SR so much. Is there a way to slap a blinder on a mage, though, given that they will tend to have weak physical stats?

drugs. hit 'em with a DMSO/whatever cocktail, to raise their TNs. but if you can shoot them with a squirt, you can shoot them with a bullet.

That said, the rule of thumb is if you can see through it in the physical, you can see through in in the astral. The only exception to that are wards.

Strike fast and hard. That's what samurai do. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Chances are, you're going to have more IPs than the magician. So stay behind solid cover for your first IP, then go get 'em. If the magician doesn't cooperate and delays her action, toss a grenade or something to get her to dodge, then smite her.

Let me expand on that then. Take cover, throw a grenade on your second to last action, then attack. If I see a grenade coming and I can't take it out or get behind cover, then I'm going on Full Defense when that thing goes off. Which will give the sammie the edge.

You can't rely on having more initative passes. Increased reflexes in a sustaining focus is still a viable.

well, look, if we're gonna give the mage unlimited resources (oh noes! he has 50 different spells sustained on himself with foci) then we may as well just end the thread now, because it's just getting silly.

sure, you can go on about how "any decent mage is gonna have X", but quite frankly, that isn't always true. not everyone *has* 20,000 to just toss around you know, mage or not. not everyone knows increase reflexes either... this is for dealing with mages, not pure combat mages who make it their life goal to nuke everything in sight.

and anyways, i personally would assume that increase reflexes is a lot like wired reflexes in terms of flavor text... that is, it's really annoying to have it running all the time.

iiiiiiittttt fffeeeeeeelllssssssss liiiiiiiike eeeeeveryyyyyooooonnnneeee iiiiissss taaaaalllllkkkkiiiiiinnnnnngggg rrrrreeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyy ssssssslllllooooowwww, for example.


and it would get annoying after a while. then, when it's time for combat to begin, they may very well not have time to cast over and over until they get max sucesses, and each time they do retry gives you time to set up, and costs them drain.

so, sure, if we're dealing with a situation where the mage literally has everything going in their favor, then you're screwed. but this isn't just about situations where the mage has 9 bound spirits, all of his stats raised to racial maximum, 4 IPs, and a force 10 ally spirit. it's for situations where you're dealing with reasonable mages who aren't purely specialised to kill you.

i personally have made mages before that i intended to be capable in a fight, but they didn't have increase reflexes on their spell list. just as the runner team's mage can be a combat mage without being the main damage dealer, a combat mage may very well want to do other things with his karma than turn himself into a killing machine. the mages you go up against can just as easily be built around supporting allies as around nuking stuff.

I honestly think that it is reasonable for a combat mage to have a force 3 sustaining focus (30k), or to simply walk around always sustaining an increased reflexes spell at force 3, giving him 4 initiative passes. initiative passes are very important to combat; a mage specializing in combat would be ill advised to ignore such an important spell. I've seen some mages who go so far as to have both an armor spell and a physical barrier spell sustained on them. But that's going a bit far.

A reasonable configuration for a combat mage would be something like an armored vest (6/4 armor; I'm assuming the mage didn't go higher than 3 on their body, and doesn't want to take the penalties for armor encumbrance), has a sustaining foci for their Increased Reflexes (+6 reaction, 4 initiative passes), and as soon as they sense trouble, will cast a decent armor spell on themselves.

That's the bare minimum to expect from a combat mage, IMO. A serious combat mage, say, one heading into what they know is trouble, would have the armor spell up to begin with, possibly a physical barrier as backup, or maybe the combat sense spell.

But forget about that. Let's assume our mage went light on his physical stats, say a reaction 3, and an intuition of 4. So he's already running around with an initiative score of 13 with his foci on. You can't assume that your street sam is going first, unless you invested in edge points. And if you do go first, consider that he's rolling about 9 dice in reaction to defend against your firearms test, more than that if he's got a decent dodge skill and is willing to abort to a dodge (thus giving up his complex action...actually a good thing, since you'll have him on the defensive). But with 9 dice and an armor rating of 9 (on par with a street sam), he might be willing to take his chances to drop you with his next spell.

A combat mage is a bear to deal with, and a well-twinked combat mage is an absolute nightmare. Your best bet is either using another combat mage, sending drones after them, or running them over in a car with tinted windows.

That mage with Inc. Ref going in his sustaining focus 24/7 is a great candidate for focus addiction....

Flash paks.

Granted flash comp is cheap and easy, but did they remember to get that?

Having a camera record what you're seeing or double checking your eye recorders is a great way bypass mana Invis and Phantasm. The spells won't affect the hardware, so the recording will be clean.

Think about how a sammie can deal with each type of spell category and spirits too. Spirits are just as much a part of an encounter with a mage as spells are.

Combat - LOS limitation, usually taking cover. Indirect spells can be dodged, but enhancements to your armor like Nonconductivity can save you from most of the damage from these spells. Manabolt, not so much. Good luck with that one.

Detection - A good Will roll can make some of these spells vague. Even Clairvoyance can be made more vague by sneaking, so don't get discouraged when you know there's a mage looking for you. You still have a good chance to evade his watchful eye. These spells aren't a catch-all.

Health - The offensive ones are touch, so this is a no brainer. Don't get close and, like others have suggested, shoot 'em dead. Mage buddies that are buffed by these can't be too powerful. To make them uber they need lots of spells sustained. Unless they have just one Inc Reflexes. In which case deal with it.

Illusion - above^

Manip - Pain Editor is a great piece of bio, grab it for the extra Will. Someone Controlling your Thoughts has free riegn, however. That one is tough, does anyone have a counter for that? Besides counterspelling support and LOS tricks as mentioned above? Manip is tricky, as it can do so much. It's not usually immediately deadly like a Manabolt is, though. You'll probably get a chance to shake them.

Inc Reflexes is a non-issue. Keep in mind this is a thread about countering mages. Assume your enemy is just as fast and take the chance to pop a shot into the mage every chance you get. Damage might make him drop the spell and if his has a sustaining focus then there's not much you can do. Just keep him on a defensive.

A lot of that can be said for any character in many situations. Stick to Sammy vs. Mage tactics and strategies, favoring the sammy of course

Basic infantry tactics work well against mages.

• Spread out
• Cover
• Concealment (Stealth)
• Covering fire (in SR terms, suppressive fire and delayed actions)

+ a lot of things mentioned before.

Of course this works only in groups, but someone mentioned his NPCs chewed by Mages. And, Manipulation spells are still a tough nut.

Good, that's more of what I'm looking for. I've delayed summarizing because I'm still getting suggestions. Once this degrades into talk about something completely different and I can't keep it on topic, then I'll wrap it up.

Thanks to everybody that has contributed something useful thus far

i'd prefer the squirt or a capsule round (they will be in arsenal, wont they) with DMSO and a decent toxin, splash grenade(arsenal) or flyspy equipped with a chemical deployment system, if the target is in hiding.

Reasons: wether or not the mage got more than 1 IP, most mages will have spirit ready or summon one to protect them, so if u don't take em down right at the beginning, u will very likely face a pretty pissed force 5 spirit (good luck). u stun the mage the spirit is still after u, u kill the mage, spirit goes bye-bye.

spirits are ur major concern, plus the possibility of the target (mojo-tosser) being decently armored in mundane and magic ways.

"geek the mage first!" ain't a sayin just for kicks....