Hey guys, my group has been playing for a while and because of me (GM) moving I'm puting together a new group. I've noticed some things that bugged me in SR4 and I decided to put them here to see what the community thinks.

Powerball and Stunball. In my last game I can only remember 1 occasion that the mage used any other spell exept for these two (and the single target versons) and that occasion was to use lightening bolt to knock out a drone. I'm thinking of increasing the drain to be more in line with the elemental spells or just removing them.

Technomancers. Players refused to even consider them. One time I asked my hacker if he would enjoy playing one and he couldn't stop laughing. In the v3 books the Otaku where divided between the Cyberadepts and the Technoshamen. Now heres my idea, Cyberadepts does not lose Resonance because of essence loss and Technoshamen use magic rules for learing complex forms and their rating.

Well theres my ideas, I'd appreciate any input.

I think he meant combat spells. But seriously, I think Stunbolt/Ball and Manabolt/Ball were meant to be the staple Combat Spells. There's a toss up between the elemental combat spells and the powerbolt/ball for attacking non-living objects, depending on OR.

If your players are laughing at TMs, then make one that makes their life living hell. Not having access to the TM only abilities is a big gap in their capabilities.

...in today's session, I had a PC mage make very good use of an Extended Detect Life spell. Had he not, the NPC they were protecting would have been in very, very deep trouble.

The balls'n'bolts are meant to be the general use spells. The others are for special effects and hurting people out of LOS (actually re-reading it that's a little less clear in SR4, but it looks like it still holds that power/mana ball require you to see all targets to hit them, whereas indirect spells create and effect which could then affect targets out of your LOS.)

If your problem is with the relative power levels of the spells vs mundane weapons I could see that. But remember most security teams' mantra is "Geek the mage first".

As for technomancers the deal with them is that they suck up all a chars BP/karma whereas a Hacker will generally be able to be competant at other stuff as well.

Also technomancers require more thought. If you're player isn't smart enough to figure out how to use threading and sprites to be vastly more potent in the matrix than any hacker they will have a bad time of it.

However you need to consider as a GM how much you would enjoy having a TM. On one hand they aren't particularily effective outside of using drones and hacking so they get a little one dimensional. On the other hand what they can hack is incredible. So either you have to let them into everything or you have to have systems that a hacker would have little chance at. (Note that judicious use of databombs or making them have to hack target after target after target can bring their potency down).

If I were going to change TMs I'd make the BP costs to effectivly be one vastly lower and then I'd cross out the "threading" and "registering sprites" sections.

Complaining about mana/power balls/bolts being used frequently is like complaining about sammies using their smartlinks all of the time, instead of using laser sights. As toturi and sunnyside said, they are meant to be a mage's staple combat spells. Gimping these spells would make mages far less useful.

In an open build game, there will always be optimal choices for certain roles and builds. If you see a preponderance of faces with the first impression quality, or sammies with cybereyes and muscle toner, it's not neccessarily indicative of an "imbalance" that requires you to make those options less effective.

As for technomancers, they require a daunting level of rules savvy to use, and are far more hyper-specialized than hackers. So players not being interested in playing one doesn't mean there is something wrong with them, just that no one wants to play one.

...if a mage didn't have Stunball, Power/Manabolt, Improved Invisibility, and Heal, I would think there is something wrong with the player's thought processes. However as I mentioned, above, there are some other spells that are terribly useful not to have such as Detect Life, Physical Mask, Trid Phantasm (which was also used very successfully in today's session), and Telekinesis.

If no one in your group wants to play a TM then why force the issue? They are supposed to be fairly rare. Why do they have to be in every group? If they need to have a hacker plus then have them hire an NPC. Most of the time my groups didn't have a hacker at all. They hired one when they needed to.

You don't need to boost the Otaku/TM's in order to make them more playable. Just describe what sprites can do. If that's not enough, and you absolutely have to try and have an otaku in your games, then reduce the BP cost to become one.

I really wouldn't suggest allowing Cyberadepts to take on cyber without losing Resonance, that could get very unbalanced very quickly.

If you're sick of Power/manaball/bolt, the best thing to do is have your player call them something else. The thing I've always liked best about Shadowrun is how flexible the magic system is with so few spells. It's always best in my opinion to rename all the spells to fit your personal character. If it's a wolf shaman, Manaball becomes "Wolf's Will", Powerball becomes "Wolf's Rage", Improved Invisiblity becomes "Shadow of the Wolf", etc. Sure, that sounds cheesy, but I just woke up. All the stats stay the same and nothing changes but the name.

The Abstruse One

Well lets put it this way, Combat Wise EVERY Mage should have the following...

Stunbolt
Manabolt
Lightingbolt (Flamethrower is worth looking at as well.)
Ball Lighting (Fireball works almost as as good.)
Manaball
Rating 3 Cybereyes
Improved Reflexes (Plus a Rating 3 Sustaining Focus)

Now, Lightingbolt could be exchanged for Powerbolt but lets be honest, you aren't going to be using Physical Combat Spells on living objects unless its for the Secondary Effects or you are trying to send a message (Using a fairly low force Acid Stream spell on a prisoner for example.) and personally I've always liked going against 1/2 Impact instead of the ORT although I'm not sure if the raw math bares me out.

As for Powerball, please, IF your mage is staring down an army of Drones and can't handle the extra Drain from a couple of Lightingballs then you are just painly hosed, and yes Indirect Combat Spells can hit targets that are out of LOS so no matter what you are going to want at least one anyways...

As for the Cybereyes, well the first time you play with a DM who actually remembers that Vision Modifiers do affect Spellpools then you'll understand why they are so important.

Honestly, at the high ends Mana Bolts get pretty sketchy compared to Fire Bolts.

I run a game where the characters have a lot of experience. They've been playing every week since the 4th edition book came out. And one of the characters has a high grade of initiation and shielding. His counterspelling dice make up a very large pool. Manabolts bounce off him. Stunballs bounce off the whole party. But you know what? Firebolts don't.

Here's why:

• When you get manabolted, you compare the spellcasting pool of the caster against the defense pool of he defender. Counterspelling adds to defense. If the manabolt gets even a single net hit, the hapless victim takes a metric fucktonne of damage because there's no soak - the entire force is applied as damage.
• When you get firebolted, you compare the spellcasting pool to the defense again, but this time defense is just Reaction, no counterspelling is added. So you get a lot more net hits, and the base damage is noticeably higher. The down side is that now you do get to soak with your Body, and you add in half your armor and even throw in Counterspelling at this point. So chances are, you're looking at taking less damage than the Force of the spell would indicate, which is probably less damage than a Manabolt of the same Force (let alone the same Drain) would inflict.

So if your opponents have enough counterspelling that their resistance pools start looking like your casting pools, firebolts start to look wicked awesome. Being able to reliably do damage at all is really quite an achievement when people have 10 dice of counterspelling. Which means that at the high end, magicians don't even fucking bother with cheap parlor tricks like manabolt - they go straight to the thunder strikes.

-Frank

I hate when people tell me how I have to play my character.

Then ignore us and play your character however you want to, I promise that the Dumpshock Police won't kick down your door in the middle of the night.

But I might, Omae....

Just stay on line a few more minutes....

Not every mage character wants to play a combat type.

Mind Probe, Mind Link, Control Thoughts, Influence, Heal, Shape Plasteel, Detect Enemies, Levitate, Trid Phantasm, and Chaotic World are incredibly useful.


I especially like Influence because you can just send the security guards off to look for droids.

Agree with not all mages are combat mages...

Figure my current (developed magic in game (effectivvely the latent magic or whatever, developed for plot line).

Current line up of spells:

Combat Sense
Heal
Shape Change
Orgasm
Bind
Shape Any One Material (higher drain not 'fixed' verision of Shape Material


Got combat Sense since sort of a freebie (Dog Mentor Spirit) and the story line where Dog picked me (or I picked dog) I got one Detection spell (since bonus from Dog)


Heal, Shape Change have been very useful.

Orgasm has had some use.

Havent had a chance to use Bind, Shape any one Material, or Combat Senses, yet

On the subject of the orgasm spell, One of my players wants to get it just to make me uncomfortable. I made a deal with him, we both have agreed to not use it .

Squinky:

Do you have a problem with the 'name' or the effect.

Call it Agony and mechanics wise it does exactly the same thing, yet is less polictically incorrect.

Call it Itch and it gives you the worse case of posion ivy you ever could imagine.


Call it hungover.

Mechanics wise it is a useful spell (some times more so, some times less so then direct combat / mental dominate / etc).

If you have a problem with the 'name' or the 'fluff' effects re-name and re-describe the fluff effects:

It may be a useful spell, but boy does it reinforce the image of the gamer as a guy who can't get a date. I can just hear the Beavis and Butthead laughter: "Uh UhUh Huh. He said orgy!"

Cain:

Thats why you re-create it as: Itch, or Hot-Foot, or .....


As a sideline forget Bevis and Butthead...

Think Bruce Almighty...