Okay, so I'm playing an ork mage in an upcomming Shadowrun game, and I had some questions after perusing the main book and "Street Magic"

1) What is an "Astral Shallow" and what exactly does it do?

2) what creates background count, and is it as bad as it was in SR3 (for those of you who don't remember, SR3 background count said that any fight, no matter what, counted as Background count 2 unless you were a blood mage or followed some super-violent tradition, in which case it became a POWER SITE two.)

3)Street Magic mentions that the "Astral Space" around Wuxing has become visiable. Is this an Astral Shallow? If not, then what is it and how is it different?

4)Lastly, is there a limit to overcasting? Can a mage with rank five magic fire off a Force 15 Manaball, then take 8 physical drain (Sure, he'll need to go to the hospital, but he's going to survive. The ten security guards however. . .)

1. Astral Shallows are places where the Astral bleeds a little into the physical. Characters astrally perceive there all the time. But the cool part is that you aren't even extended onto the astral plane and can't be attacked - you can just assense things even if you don't have the Assensing skill or the abillity to Astral Perceive under normal circumstances.

2. GM fiat creates background count. As always, the guidelines for what makes Background Count are inconsistent. One could make a perfectly good case for any site having a background count of zero or 4.

3. That's an Astral Shallow.

4. You can't overcast to more than twice your Magic, whether you are using Sorcery or Conjuring.

-Frank

Frank's answered everything, but just to give a feel for how I personally use background count in number two (because it's nice to know where other people draw the lines), I use background count fairly rarely. It's mostly frustrating for mages and it really upsets adepts who have to give up precious powers and become nearer to mundane. I certainly don't add it in to any random site of murder, though I will use it for sites that have seen some special degree of violence and death, e.g. a war-ridden town or somesuch. I probably make less use of it than a lot of GMs, but I feel that mages are fairly balanced with other types of characters as is, and I don't like to penalise a couple of the players for no good reason.

What I do tend to use it for quite commonly is in sites of magical power, such as a black magician's lair, or a triad base, in which cases the background count is aspected in their favour. That boosts up the magical opposition without jeopardising my precious power-level. It penalises magical characters but due to the magical nature of the environment / opposition, they have already received a boost in the importance of their powers over mundanes, so I think it's more balanced than it appears.

At any rate, I mainly use background count for reasons of the magical environment rather than emotional goings on.

Other GMs may vary.