Sniper/Hunting: matter of taste. I can get behind sniper rifle, because things like wind interference might matter less to a manabolt. OTOH, if the ultimate range of (non-ritual) spellcasting is less than that of mundane weapons, that might be interesting too.

It seems like what you need is a Range modifier for the Perception Test table, which could be used both for spell targeting, and for trying to see some dude 500m away. It could be based on known human visual ability, and modified from there as necessary.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
1. An alarm ward only helps, if somebody is looking after the ward.
2.


@3278
1. They die.
2. Well, as far as the eye can see.
3. The idea came up here on dumpshock. Nobody would do such thing for real. A GM would let you do it, and after some time you are hit critical from "moon derbris" in your sleep. (From the bit you blasted off...)

@Ascalaphus
I would like it, it would be consistant with other rules. I would go with extended sniper rifle ranges though. It is just to prevent to crazy stunts.

Nothing in the rules is stopping anybody from magicing the moon.
If they can make it through the 12 void up there in between at least.

There are Perception penalties for 'far away', etc. They're just vague, incomplete, and hopelessly minor compared to 'standard' DPs.

Could you perhaps elucidate? I was hoping to perhaps have a communicative, informative dialogue.


That's not unlimited, though: it's in fact highly limited for the vast majority of shadowrunning operations. You've characterized it as a major unbalancing flaw in the magic system in Shadowrun; could you explain how, given the generally limited viewing distances, this effects the game in a major negative fashion?


I'm not certain I understand any of the latter bits, but yes, certainly it's an idea many people have had; we had some amusing speculation about distant stars and massive ground-based optical telescopes, although I'm not sure what we expected we'd do to a star in any case. But as I said, at various times, in some editions, this has been impossible, while in others it's just been pretty tough.

@3278
1. They can't defend against it and they can't run from it. So if you consequently use it in all of its possibilities...
2. Just because something does not come up all the time, does not mean it is balanced.
3. It is just one example for extreme range, not about destroying the moon. It does not have to be the moon. Since there is no limit and boosts to perception are ceap like hell (in the worst case you need cybereyes) you can do a lot of shit with that one. Even in this thread we had the "hawk of death". (And since spirits may give you additional dice for magic, you might do a lot of damage this way)
(Yes, the fact you do get an instant hit is not that bad, since projectile speed is not considered in most cases...)
Yes, you do not need to use it and not everybody does. But the option is there.

They can't defend against what? Pretend I know almost nothing about Shadowrun, and explain to me why mundane security cannot deal with magical threats; what tactics and strategies will the intruders employ that cannot be dealt with at the business end of a firearm, or a few dozen firearms? Specificity would be helpful: "it" and, "They die," and the like don't tell me very much about your thoughts.


That's absolutely true, but you listed this as a major problem with Shadowrun magic. What problems does this produce in your games that make it a major problem, worthy of a solution?


Sure. And at some times, in some versions, it even could be the Moon. But so what? What's the problem with this? What's the problem with Powerballing the Moon?


You're welcome. It could get a lot worse than that: optics aren't hard. You could easily use a spell to drastically increase visual acuity.

@3278
1. Because a mundane can't do anything about the astral world. But a mage in the astral world can just drop spirits. And if he has the possession version, there is literally nothing a guard can do to defend. (Exept getting one lousy roll)
If materialising is freaking deadly with the surprise rules in place.

2. Because in game you have a consense of what you want to play. So mage just ignores the possibility or it is outlawed by an houserule (actually it would be that in both cases). And this makes the whole argument a bit strange, because it actually means: The rules do not break our games, because we houserule them.

3. It is just an example. The point is if you can do it to the moon, you can do it to a jet, helicopter, a missile etc. etc. (And it is easy like hell to get around
15 dice on perception. This means you see 3 to 4 times as good as the normal person (actually it is even better, because the "penalties" are fixed reductions. So it can be easy 10 times).

Quick Fix to range shenanigans: Get a copy of Grimoire 2nd Edition. Find the chart that shows spellcasting penalties based on target range. Convert the increases to TN to die pool penalties. Problem (such as it is) fixed.

Here, let me give it to you - from page 111:

Range in meters Die Penalty
0-150 None
151-300 -2
301-600 -4
601-1,250 -6
1,251-2,500 -8
2,501-5,000 -10
5,001+ Target not visible

Okay, this is helpful: so the reason that magical security must exist is to protect against spirits either materializing and getting the drop on your physical security, or possessing your physical security. Is that an accurate summation?

Are there any mundane things that could be done to protect the mundane guards against spirits either materializing and surprising them, or simply possessing them?


I'm not sure what you mean here. You said, "Just because something does not come up all the time, does not mean it is balanced." And I said, "That's absolutely true." What do you mean, "No it is not?"


I'm sorry, again, I'm not sure what this is addressing. I'm not asking about house rules. I asked a question: "What problems does this produce in your games...?"

What I'm trying to find out is, if this is a major problem as you say it is, what effects it's had on your games. Obviously, being able to target anything you can see isn't a problem unto itself; the problem is what you do when you target them. So what are people doing, in-game, that's making it so that being able to target anything you can see is a major problem with Shadowrun magic?

Maybe it would help if I pointed this out: I'm not arguing with you. I'm not saying your wrong. I'm not going to take what you say, twist it around, and try to make you look stupid so I can be king of the god damned internet. I'm asking you questions so I can understand what your thoughts are on the subject, so I can understand your position better. If you're being guarded and terse because you're trying to avoid some logical hammerblow, please, for everything that might be holy, just relax. I'm asking questions, not attacking you.


Or a dragon or a guy standing without cover or a cloud or the top of a building. Literally anything you see. If you go outside right now, anything you can see, you'd be able to target, absolutely. And anything you'd be able to see with binoculars, or a telescope, too, plus a bit for technology.

In fact, I definitely advise GMs and people playing mages [or riggers] to try doing this. Well, I don't mean try going out in public and casting spells on things a long distance away, although this is the year to give that a shot. What I mean is, go stand in public and look around, and see how far you can see, see what and who you can see. If you're in suburban Seattle, how far can you knock a guy out from? If you're on top of a 20 story building, how far out can you really see individual people? Cars? Airplanes? For that matter, I can't advise enough taking your range table and Google Earth and putting into real-life terms you can understand exactly how far away some of these weapons work.

Seriously, this board needs a +1 button. No one wants to make a post saying nothing but, "Yes, I agree," but otherwise, the only posts anyone makes are the ones where they disagree. Anyway, my point is, that table's exactly the fix, IMO.

This is correct and incorrect... HOW does it affect. It creates a background count. Therefor it affects all spells cast in/on/around the character IN THE MANNER OF A BACKGROUND COUNT.


You do realize this is a NEGATIVE QUALITY (you actually get points for taking it!!!). This was actually a heavy point of criticism when the book first came out... what IDIOT wrote a NEGATIVE quality with such a beneficial effect. It wasn't til we started to look closer into the BGC rules that we realized that MANY people were misapplying the BGC to instantaneous spells. (FYI: combat spells are almost the only spot you'll find instantaneous spells.. all other spells in all other categories by and large are either sustained or permanent (sustained until made permanent)). Even if it fails to protect against only combat spells... it's still a ludiculously good quality for protecting against the other 80% of magic out there.

In most indoors settings... the mage in question will be within the astral hazing range so yes his magic will be reduced... (not many interior rooms are bigger than 30x30... and with essence 5... that's a 5m radius).




Yeah the visibility rules could deal with a large amount of work clarifying things. I let an argument drop on the SR4 forum about how far can a visibility penalty go (really... if you can't even see your hand in front of your face... how is the smoke grenade you tossed going to help more... and really if you fire up a light... you're no longer in total darkness so you replace darkness conditions with 'glare' conditions). Once you're completely blind (-6) what's the point! Also IIRC: somewhere there was a note about -1 dice per 10m distance on perception tests. Though I can't refind it. Though even that is a quick workaround, just carry binoculars... Since any vision enhancement quickly solves that problem.

Also, you can get into some real twinkery on some of that stuff. I bought cybereyes... with vision enhancement 3... does that mean I get +3 dice on my spellcasting (or gunplay) as a 'vision modifier'.

At least in SR4 they were a little consistent... cover was a negative visibility penalty on top of other negative visibility penalties... (which made area spells hell to work with... how many dice do you roll against each target... so roll the first 5... now the next 2... etc. etc. etc. The change to a positive bonus at least made all but the direct area spells easier to deal with... roll your 10 dice... now you roll your willpower since you're in the open...he rolls willpower + 4 for good cover... etc).

Materializing spirits you may shoot. Possessing spirits you have a roll. But in both cases, you are on the loosing side. (If the mage is not one or better two powerlevel lower than the guards)


No it is not a major problem in games. (Well I deleted it, it is prone to missunderstanding)
The point is: Because I assume at most tables there are "Solution" in place. Be it for NPC and PCs to ignore possibilities or real actual rule changes.



None, because "houserouled" mostly by group consense of what you can and can't do. But this has nothing do with rules...


It would be if people would use it and the GM is not just saying NO to it.


Well, I dislike going at a problem like that. Because in every group, there are a lot of houserules in place. I did not play for a while, so I might miss one.
But mostly it was: No Possession mages, essence loss is much harder on mages, you can't target stuff too far away and non-cybereye vision augmentation, forget it. (Only thing possible would be mage sight and magnification with a set factor)



All the points are true. But now: Augmented vision...
In SR it is everything you see with a perception test...
Yes, if your mage has no cybereyes and not some surge tricks, is in the middle of the action and is not able to use tricks like "I excluse targets from my manaball using AR", well it ain't a problem. But all of this has nothing to do with offical ruling...

3278, I mentioned a short list of things. The gist was, 'mundanes can't defend against magic', which should be pretty obvious. Even ignoring ambushes, surely the wide variety of spells are enough of an issue.

Yes and how many mages know EVERY spell on the list... sit down sometime and pick out the 8 you want to know... While there are a lot of spells out there and the classic argument is a mage can do X. The more important question can THIS mage do X is ignored.


As for defense... when my mundane bodyguard got attacked my magic... his response rather annoyed the GM. He pulled the pin on a smoke grenade (didn't even throw it, just set it off) and dropped a flash pak... my oh my was that mage boned after all the vision modifiers and cover got involved... I didn't even need edge to resist the next few attempts. (though I was rather miffed with the GM because he wouldn't allow me any perception check to notice the mage in the crowd even after I pointed out the perception chart to notice magic... otherwise said mage would have been geeked hard and fast. Oh well new GM and plot protection what you gonna do).


There are ways...

No. It affects all spells. Period. If a background count doesn't affect instant spells (which some pretty deliberate reading failure to start with), that doesn't change the fact that Astral Hazing does. Astral Hazing affects all spells. Instant spells are spells. Astral Hazing affects Instant Spells. There is no way to read the sentence "Astral Hazing affects all spells cast at, on, or near the character" in a way that makes it not affect combat spells cast at the character.



It's a Negative quality because you can't turn it off and you can't let beneficial spells through. Do you really have more spells cast at you by enemy mages than by the one on your team? I've never seen that happen in play. It affects the Heal spell. If that's the only spell it affected, then it would still be an overwhelmingly negative quality. As is, it affects invisibility, armor, increase [everything], hush, mask, makeover, healthy glow, crank, fast, nutrition, catfall, deflection... I could go on and on. If this is such a brokenly overpowered quality, then why have I never seen it used in play? Why are people arguing that it's a useless method to fight magic users? Which is it? Is it brokenly overpowered, or will the Hazing team drop like flies? You can have neither, but you can't have both.

i'd use it, if it did not mean pissing of every single awakened ever.

Well, if you have a low-enough essence, then it'll only bother the ones right next to you, but yeah, thank you for pointing out yet another downside. It's a Negative Quality for a reason, and that's part of it.

That sounds like a defense that you can only use after you've already realized you're under spell attack, Falconer. Sniffs of metagaming for any character whose background doesn't include a fair bit of experience with that.

And are you suggesting we assume the hypothetical mage has no spells? Otherwise, it's pretty safe to assume he has several, and that they'll be useful ones covering at least some of the categories mentioned.

As far as I'm concerned if I ever see anything with astral hazing. It gets a bounty stuffed on it's head by the local awakened community.

It's one of the most broken NEGATIVE qualities ever.


Then you look at posts by newbies like Rystefn who can't even bother to read the background count rules. Who rests his entire argument on it affects all spells. Never answers HOW the rules say it affects all spells. That's a bridge too far because it interferes with his intended reading. It never strikes him that by generating a localized BGC he is indirectly doing exactly that. Nowhere in the quality does it say... apply a -4 dice penalty to all attempts to use magic on the subject. (It also never strikes him that the author who wrote the quality might have misunderstood BGC's rules as many of us, myself included, did when they were written). The rules in terms of hard numbers only say it generates a rating 4 positive BGC. (domain)


Yeramasu:
No magic is obvious when used at high force... that's explicitly in the rules. The perception threshhold is 6-force... so someone slamming a force 9 stunbolt is not subtle. Not in the least. I can live with not being able to find the mage... but the perception check to KNOW that someone is using magic is pretty blatant to a high perception bodyguard. If you read the post... you would have realized that I edged the first roll... after which it SHOULD have been obvious.

You have someone breaking out force 9, 10, 11... it's not subtle not in the least. At that point I think it's fair game for magical counter responses to be fielded by people like the police. You know the police have mages... no reason they can't have spirits and astral mages on scene in a remarkably short time. This is another reason I sometimes wonder at the setting... someone fires a gun in the street or a crowded area there are repurcussions... a mage does it and they don't carry through the same parallels.

It's only obvious if you're looking. Getting *hit* by a spell isn't. I don't understand the concept of noticing the magic, but not the mage; it's not like a gunshot. (I'm fine with a house rule making it like a gunshot, though!) Neither did I stipulate Force 9. My point is that there's no reason a character would instantly know they just got stunbolted after being hit, and certainly not *before*. It might be too late. And if it's not Stunbolt, but an Illusion or something else?

I always factor Edge out, it's strictly special.

Yeah, it's totally broken. By taking it, you bone yourself out of most of the benefits of having a mage on your team, and it pisses off every awakened being that you get near. It just doesn't make any sense why something like that would be a negative quality. You should pay points for the privilege.




Yes, yes, I point out that you're wrong, so I must be a newbie. I must not have read the rules that we've been discussing because clearly only by never looking could I have come to the conclusion that only by deliberately rules-lawyering to the point of "depends on what your definition of is is" can you pretend that not declaring what the effect of something is is exactly the same as declaring that it has no effect. Sorry, asshole, but that's not how it works. More than that, though, I can't believe that you're sitting here and publicly stating that you honestly think Astral Hazing affects Combat spells by having no effect on Combat spells. That's some grade-A shit-shoveling, friend. Seriously, either you're destined for a career in politics or you're smoking some pretty intense shit if you can honestly just try to tell people that having no effect is a special kind of having an effect, so it's not contradictory to say it has no effect when the rule clearly states that it has an effect. Fuck, man, even by your own words, you plainly state that you believe whoever wrote the Astral Hazing quality did intend for it to work on Combat spells, but in the same paragraph insist that is shouldn't. Because fuck what it was designed to do, something not being mentioned on a list is clearly exactly the same thing as explicitly stating is has no interaction with the list. It never strikes you that the author who wrote background count might have not realized that a bunch of jackasses would lawyer it so hard that it stops making coherent sense.

The rules in plain English state that Astral Hazing affects all spells. All. fucking. Spells. If you rule that there are spells which are not affected by it, then you are directly contradicting the rule. Period. It cannot possibly be any simpler. What you are saying is the same brand of stupid as claiming that you can't learn Tamil because it's not on a list of languages presented in the book... only it's worse than that, because the book doesn't explicitly say "all languages" and it does explicitly say "all spells."

As I recall, we had a topic a while back where the writer of the BGC rules came out and told us that the guy who wrote Astral Hazing didn't understand RAW BGC, and that's why Astral Hazing works differently from BGC.

Despite being meant to work the same, by RAW, they just don't, due to author error.

Now, this is a rather esoteric area of the rules, which even the developers weren't all on the same page about, so let's be nice to each other instead of blasting those who understood it differently.

---

So I'm curious. Has anyone ever played a character with Astral Hazing? Were there Awakened in the group? How did it go?

I know it's a very esoteric area of the rules. I admit myself, and I know at least two of the other rules lawyers I respect on here had the wrong reading as well for a long time until it was pointed out to us. And when it was... the scales pealed from our eyes.


As far as an astral hazing have no effect on a combat situation... in the typical room to room combat found in shadowrun. The mage WILL be that close to you... and will suffer the effects. There's not many apartments let alone rooms where you can be more than 4-6m from someone in an inside situation. The only exception to this is the long range case... where the mage ISN"T close to the target... in that case the target generates a BGC (that's RAW in the rules for astral hazing itself). Otherwise, RAW for astral hazing says NOTHING exactly about how it affects things. It's basically pre-amble text that states the purpose... not how it works as the text is insufficient for it to say how it works.

The other problem in the astral hazing description. It describes it as an aspected domain. Which is even more problematic... especially given how it 'grows'. Theoretically this means you could found a cult... stuff you as a guru in the center of a compound... and your domain to your aspected casters would theoretically grow forever without practical limit... Fortunately it never says aspected to what... and I've never seen anyone declare that it can be aspected to any one tradition.

As far as the quality 'protecting' you from positive as well as negative spells... I got news there's a POSITIVE quality which does that which you can't turn on and off for good/malign magicks. It's called Magic Resistance and it's 5 points per rank (look at it). So claiming that by GAINING 10BP/20karma you effectively gain something better than magic resistance 4 for all intensive purposes is a bit disengenious.

As far as it being a negative quality and a drawback... every single mundane character would take it for the freebie points and protection if I could... that's how much of a 'broken' quality it is. Just exactly what friendly magic do your mages use on you regularly that you don't get otherwise. Disguise... better off with nanopaste than an illusion. Heal... see medkits and first aid.


Oh well, it's well known I have a very low opinion of almost everything found in runners companion. Only a few of the non-metagenic qualities and lifestyles really cut it as reasonable. Almost everything else should be GM only type material.

… I've seen everyone claim it can be aspected to a tradition. And then we agreed that was stupid munchkinry.

[Totally useless rumination on the physical parameters of shooting magic at a star]
Assuming one could extend the effects of magic through the void of space, how exactly would one target a star? Even the closest star to Earth is over 4 light years away, so it has moved tremendous distances from the place where we see it at the present moment. And even if it had not moved, how long would it take to set up the magical link necessary to send the mana hurtling down the pipeline?
[/Totally useless rumination on the physical parameters of shooting magic at a star]

The difference between shooting and casting spells is that you do not need to align a weapon with the target and have is stay aligned while you pull the trigger. Simply seeing the target is a lot easier. There is however the rule that you may need to make at a perception test to be able to target someone/something with target. If you succeed there are and should be no range penalties.

As for powerbolting the moon, yes that would be possible but IMHO the moon should have something around 10^10 damage boxes, OR 1 though. So have fun scraping away.

Come to think of it, that's really just a more extreme example of what happens every time you cast a spell. Now, when it's two people standing next to each other, their relative motion is zero, but it's interesting that the spell still drags along in the same frame with them, sharing their momentum and thus not flying off through space as the Earth rotates and orbits. When the relative motion of two targets is non-zero, though - say I'm firing a spell at an airliner - you have the same problem as when targeting a star, just on a vastly smaller scale: you're firing where it was when you saw it, not where it is now, and certainly not where it will be once the spell reaches it. [How fast do spells travel, anyway? The rules assume instantaneous effect - within three seconds of starting the process - no matter the distance, but how fast are they, really? Are Direct and Indirect spells different speeds because of the different medium through which each travels?]

Presumably, seeing the object [specifically, the quasi-astral targeting link, if you allow fluff from earlier versions] gives you a view of the essence of the thing, and you target that essence, which the universe can always find, whatever its physical location. But then you have to wonder: relative to the target and targeter, does the spell travel a curved path or a straight one? Will the spell simply shoot directly for the future location of the target - like a quarterback lobbing a football ahead of a receiver - or will it follow a [much longer] curved path, constantly tracking previous locations and correcting - like a heat-seeking missile?

Mostly - obviously - it's academic, but I can completely imagine terrestrial situations in which you'd see something out the front window that would be out of the side window by the time your spell gets to them, and there'd be an open question of whether the spell would go out the front wall or the side wall.


Yeah, it does seem like Shape Earth would be more useful, if you wanted to write your name in regolith or something.

Fun Question:
If spirits last from sun up to sun down or the other way around, when they are not bound . .
What happens on the moon?

@Stahlseele
What happens if you order your spirit to go east...


@3278
Has nothing to do with relative motion. Light speed is limited too, you know. Some of the stars you will see tonight might be gone for a hundred years. So actually you would cast a spell at a target which does not even exist anymore. Does the spell now travel back in time? Actually it has to.
Thats a funny thought.
But this would actually mean that all spells travel back in time...
So spells travel with the speed of light, but backwards in time.

Star Trek Officers:"I'm getting a headache ._."

Not a problem, the spell is instantaneous. So it travels, if it travels at all, with infinite velocity. So yes the target is still in the same place when the spell hits as when the mage saw it. Of course the object is no longer in the same place when the photons reach the eyes of the mage as when they they left the object, but if that time makes a difference you will be talking about very fast very distant objects. I doubt you can still see those anyway.

Frame of reference is much more interesting with the levitate spell and moving objects. Start levitating a speeding bike at 0m/combat turn

@Dakka Dakka

No it is not, because light does not travel with infinite velocity. So the target you see is not only in a different position, it is from a different time.

How is it a problem to keep it consistent with the world? If the PC mage is the type of mage that can rule the universe from beyond the grave he is not getting hired to rob a warehouse with a handful of mundane guards. If he is a mage that is powerful but not absurd he still isn't getting hired to rob a warehouse with just mundane security. The only time your mage will be getting hired to rob joints without magical security is when he is a weak to modestly powered mage and they are not causing any balance issues. That makes in world sense. That special snowflake quality works against the mage as well, you just wont as a Johnson pay high powered mage rates for jobs that don't need a mage.

Designing the adventures so they challenge the PC actually makes more in world sense than just following the stats blindly. Your Johnson basically has a stack of resume's and he wont be hiring team 20+ dice to knock over the stuffer shack and harass the new owner, he wont hire rookies for a high end job, he will try to hire people appropriate for the job so he neither wastes money nor has a botched job.

@Shinobi Killfist
The point is, there is actually nothing in between.
Summon a force 6 spirit use concealment, transform into a little bird a walk in. (If there are any Wards you may drop your birdform for a second or so)
Get the stuff you came for and get the hell out of there. Best is probably an eagle transformation as soon as you are outside.
(Or forget shapechange and just take a chameleon suite with thermal damping and concealment)
Thats a low level mage.

To stop him you need astral security on side.
For wards he may just change back and move through.
Spirits are a possibility. For those you need an influance spell, "go away".
So you end with spirits behind wards.
Thats already very expensive. It depends on how you handle the duration of one service of a bound spirit. (If it is 24 hours only, well the binding material for one week will cost you big time.)
And now on what to do if the mages just activated the ward?
Should one mage get there?
And this is the point were rational NPC behavior is countered by "adjusting" for the players.
Of course it should only be one mage, because a group of mages will just fuck up the mage player and any mundane players, who are with him.
But would you send one mage alone? No, of course not. As you do not send single SWAT-members today.

The major problem with astral security is the reaction time. Mundane security needs to get there first and after that get some intel etc.pp.
Astral security does not need to.
So while the mundane security (SWAT-Team) may also kill of anyone of the PCs this is not an ingame problem. The PCs probably know they triggered the alarm and now have a chance to get out of there.

So in order to keep it realistic, you do not do much in order of astral security. Maybe a ward, but nobody watching it and no possibility to get magical backup.
This of course lets the mage do the job alone.
So it ends up with a mundane guy and a mage guarding what the runners want to steal. Yeah, thats quite good of a challange for mundane and the magical part.
But is it a realistic approach?

Shinobi Killfist: Unless your mage doesn't mind taking a pay cut in order to have no risk. I bet many would take that.

One major aspect of the issue has a great deal to do with relative motion. If I wasn't clear about why that would be, I apologize, and would certainly be willing to answer any questions you might have.


Some of the stars you see tonight may have been gone for several thousand years. That doesn't mean you could target them, though: would the magic fail if the target's essence were no longer in the universe? Unanswerable. Certainly it seems like Damaging Manipulations [Indirect Combat spells] would require a Ranged Combat test if they didn't automatically target where the object will be, but it remains an open question if the spell anticipates that [straight line] or tracks it [curved trajectory].


It's quite explicit that time travel isn't possible with magic, so it seems unlikely that all spells produce a temporal paradox.


My offhand interpretation would be that this would be true for [in SR4 terms] Direct Combat spells, but not for Indirect Combat spells, which do see to travel in a discernable path, meaning slow enough for people to see the Fireball whizzing down the corridor. But that's just offhand, and maybe not supported by much.

Irion, I suggest actually reading the full text of shapechange.

Especially the body limitations.

Any mage capable of doing that is going to be so frail as to not be able to wear much armor. Will also be naked and without equipment while he's inside the joint.


Shapechange is nifty yes... but if you're reasonably durable and able to take a hit (body 4 or 5). About the smallest you can do is a large dog or the LARGEST of birds. I found shapechange more useful just for assuming human disguises (humans are animals too... and not para's like the other metas).


Similarly... the cost to keep a bound spirit by strict RAW is pretty much forever until the mage is dead. (good way to piss of a bound spirit... make it count grains of sand on the beach... or all the beaches). The best I've seen in house rule and played with is just go with a month.

The cost of keeping a modest bound spirit on duty behind a ward... is trivial. The only thing which would increase that cost is rarity. Even paying a mage to simply bind the spirit to the service for a year and a day is an option. (it costs a small amount of karma, but it doesn't count against bound spirit limits and the rest).

Quite frankly... it's spirits that break the magic system more than anything else. Just as dragons/some other things completely break the skill system. (I see no reason why anything which has lived long enough has the karma shouldn't be able to have say 10-12 in a skill. But that's off point). Similarly, look at your example... it's more reliant on the broken 'concealment' power than on the ability to change shape. (I could also simply levitate myself in concealed... using infiltration... not much difference).

@Falconer
Well, he would have a body of 3, since body one is the lowest body possible...


Yes, it is trival. It depends on how much it costs to bind said spirit. (Binding materials are 1.5k per point of Force)
But yes, if one spirit may work for you forever as one wish... But well, this is than again broken in so many ways...
I would restrict it to 12 or 24 hours, just to prevent the mage with "task" spirit having some really "great at all worker" doing whatever needs to be done...


There are always several ways. And several obstacles. Concealment does not get you through the tiny window on the second floor. (But yes, this power is also very broken)


@3278

Only if you assume spells are like solid matter. Light for example would act different. But yes, if spells act like bullets they would have several overlaying motions.


Here it gets philosophical.
You are always seeing people only in the past. Just fractions of a second, but still past.


Why? Actually there would not be a contradiction. Spells are just outside spacetime. Does not mean they can manipulate it.


The first is impossible, because it would need to know the future of the object. (That would be a contradiction to the no time travel, because the spell is using information from the future, where will the object be)
So it would be the second.

If the team wants to do milk runs that is up to them I guess, but I would suspect a powerful mage isn't running with a weak sauce street sam so the sam will be blowing through the opposition as well. Unless you are positing a place that spends mucho nuyen on piles of mundane security but somehow decides to ditch some basic magical security and that kind of breaks the lore as well. As much as we like to talk about the 1%, they have come out with information on complex's security, security companies and magic while not always being a strong suit is pretty much never ignored in the high security zones.


@Irion, sorry I don't see it. While concealment is a poorly designed power outside of really low rent places a mage relying upon that and shapeshift would end up dead pretty quick IMO. Not everyone is rocking a crappy perception pool. There really is a scale to these things, plenty of mages don't come close to breaking the game.

I know, but we're also talking about game groups, not ideal plot elements. The mismatch between mage and mundane power level in a single game group is exactly what we're talking about.

Still, even in-game, I'd expect there are some mages willing to earn less money in exchange for not getting killed, tracked by magic police, etc. My point is that you can't just assume the ideal case (Mr. Johnson perfectly matches everyone) is the only one.

Mismatches in power can occur when two people are playing the same archetype. A modestly built mage is not overpowering a modestly built street sam, at the extremes a mage is more powerful but it probably isn't much of an issue in play. Because if they do a simple run everyone has a super easy time and who had the easiest of times is kind of pointless and if they aren't you have access to a lot of magical defenses that will curb the mages power. If someone builds a super powered mage on a team with modestly built street sams, deckers etc. it might be a bit worse but not much than someone building a optimized street sam on a team where everyone else is built modestly.

So lets assume you have this mage who only takes safer jobs and is willing to accept less pay. Okay it is a low rent facility with no magical security, how much physical security are they putting there? If they can't afford magical security, what makes you or anyone think they can afford security that will challenge the street sam or the decker in the slightest. So who really cares if the mage walks all over them the sam is walking all over them the face probably walked through them and had them make him a cup of coffee while they loaded his car with the stuff he wanted to steal, and the decker sent the drones in to mop them up while handling the alerts. People seem to want to stretch this 1% thing to the point where most places have excellent physical security that challenges the whole team but has no magical security and it just is not held up by the setting. Almost every mention of corporate security and security for hire includes magical defenses except for I think one security for hire company and they were a low rent company. The places that had competent physical security had magical security as well.

I wasn't saying anything about that; sounds good. I was just saying that there's plenty of reason specifically to reject the idea that Mr. Johnson always tailors the runs perfectly to the groups (esp. the mage), in and out of character. You explicitly said the mage would never get hired for jobs "with just mundane security" and "without magical security", but I didn't agree in all cases. I know it's nitpicking, which is why I tried to keep it so brief.

@Yerameyahu
Actually, if I just have mundane security I would hire just a mage, because he can do the job with a very high chance of success and I do not have to pay a complete team.
(You can get to the argument, that mages are rare and therefor more expensive. But the problem with that is: Do you pay the mage in your group double?)
@Shinobi Killfist
The problem is: What is magical security? Having a mage on side? Probably not. Even if you just have to pay him like a "normal" guy, it would still be a waste of ressources.
You probably have a ward and the mundane security has the possibility to call in magical backup, if they get hit by intruders. And I guess shots fired would be enough for that.
(It is just bullshit to force them to find out, if there is a mage...)
And here is always the problem: You won't send a single mage, because you want to have him back on "ready" status as fast as possible". And if he runs in just two mages he will get fucked up. So you just send around 6. Why? Because it is to assume that you will get astral superiority like that. If this is achieved, they drop 6 spirits to help the mundane guards with the intruders. (At least one spirit of man to heal injured mundane guards.)
At that point, they can return and wait for the next call for help. (This will take 1-2 minutes probably even less, after the rules)

NPCs groups are not PC groups. PC groups are often paid the same "as a team" or for "group balance". This of course is nothing to consider for NPCs. There of course a mage will earn double or tripple of the entire team.

SYL

If they negotiate individually, they are paid individually. If they negotiate as a team, they are paid as a team. If the mage gets the other runners to agree that the lump sum is to be split unevenly, that's what will happen.

We have an Astrally Hazed Fomori (Essence 0.8 ) in one of our Shadowrunning Teams. The mage absolutely hates him. Takes great pains to avoid him, and is considering just eliminating the character, as he is a continuing nuissnce. The only reason he has yet to do so is that the Fomori is BAD ASS, and has saved his ass a time or two. Does not stop him from dropping dimes on him subtly to the authorities, however.

OK, enough of all this talk about powerballing the moon or stars already. There's this thing called the manasphere, and spells that reach it just fizzle out (OK, high enough force spells may go slightly further into the void, but they ain't gonna reach the moon, let alone stars light years away).

Actually the absence of a mana sphere is just BGC of -12. Since Combat spells are not affected by BGC...