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DTFarstar
I personally play a mage in the one game I play in (currently on hiatus because two players are backpacking through Europe) and I have 2 mages and one mystic adept in the game that I run. I would really appreciate it if this thread could be used for three things.

1) Talk about your mage and how they contribute to the party. Are they combat, support, manipulation, or all of the above? Temperment? Do they for the rest of the party to chip in on bound spirits or is it a personal thing? For that matter does your group chip in for the Sammy's bullets? I would also love if people having examples of PC mages would be willing to post them here. I have a feeling my mage is just a bit too specific, I don't know. I would like to get an idea how others play their mages and what skills they bother to have what cyber they use(if any) etc.

2) Talk about mages who you wish had never been born. If you have had a mage steal the spotlight, make you burn edge, etc. Vent your spleen here. If you think they are overpowered, tell us how and why.

3) List any house rules you have for mages, spells added or taken away, does your GM(or do you) strictly follow the visual modifiers for spellcasting and how do you deal with Astral Space? I've had alot of trouble describing it.



I hope to get some interesting input.
Thanks to any who respond,

Chris
Zhan Shi
I don't hate mages, but don't like them either. I prefer adepts, or mystic adepts, grounded in the physical world (but with astral sight). I like the concept of heroes battling "Things That Should Not Be" trying to cross over to the gaiasphere.
kzt
I tend to spend the extra points when creating an adept so they are a mystic adept strictly so they can have counterspelling.

My person opinion is that mages are grossly overpowered, though less so that in 3rd. And are way too cheap. Gaining the ability to invisibly and inaudibily kill people, blow up buildings and armored vehicles, as well as summon minions who are extremely lethal and difficult to take down; to invisibly recon remote and guarded targets; defend against magic that would otherwise kill you dead; and build magical barriers that people will pay for sure seems like something that is just as valuable as not being able to be poisoned by one synthetic poison, don't you?

DTFarstar
Don't forget that while the quality is only 15 BPS it takes a HELL of alot more BPs and karma to actually DO what you were talking about so that really wasn't an apt comparison. Not to mention I think Immunity costs too many BPs anyway. I think the main reason mages get a bad rep as being overpowered is because of Stunbolt, and the fact that alot of GMs forget to include good magical security. Stunbolt/Manabolt/Powerbolt well... they ARE really good. The magical security is something people need to really get on top of though. My GM in the game I play in just doesn't know magic in SR that well so neglects it alot and it makes my character alot more powerful than he really should be. Background counts never come into play, neither do any of the FAB's, or really anything besides counterspell. Hell, the two mages we've fought against have knocked themselves unconscious via Drain while I stayed in the back counterspelling the party and giving combat sense to most of them. (Combat Sense is WONDERFUL when someone is Indirect AoEing you while other people shoot at you.


Chris
DTFarstar
Also, I'll post a general description and playstyle for Zeiner as well as his character sheet sometime tommorrow.


Chris
Ol' Scratch
1) I usually fill support roles with my magicians, avoiding Combat Spells other than ones to take on spirits and other astral threats. Magical defense is my main objective most of the time, followed up by filling in the void of things only magic can do (Trid Phantasm, Shapechange, Turn to Goo, etc). I let the combat types handle combat, the techies handle the tech, and the faces handle the... facing. Well-rounded specialists are more valuable than pure generalists in my experience, and most magicians I see around here are either the later or one-trick pony specialists. Bad move.

2) I don't see them as being overpowered. Just different, with their own reprecussions and considerations. The only time they're overpowered is when a GM doesn't know how to handle magic and lets magicians get away with murder. Or those who are too much of a pussy to say "no" when things get out of hand despite what the rules say (or, more often than not, don't say).

3) The biggest house rule I have is a carry over from the past; spells are still learned at a given Force, which is the max Force you can cast them at. No limit as to what Force you learn them, and overcasting rules apply normally. Likewise, magicians may learn spells with geasa limitations (replacing fetish limitations) for either the cost of learning the spell and/or lowering the Drain Value (one each). These geasa apply only to that specific spell and if the geasa is broken, you can't cast that spell. If the geas is the same as those for other spells or for things like staving off Magic Loss, the normal rules apply.
kzt
Since only about 1 person in 1000 is a mage per SM, and most are not combat mages, how reasonable is it there going to be an opposing combat mage in any given situation?

In terms of magical security, even wards run into that, as a mage working full time can't maintain more than 30 force 4 wards (assuming the caster is magic 6, this is one 35x35x10 foot room per ward). This means that a mage who spends 8 hours 5 days a week doing just wards can manage to sort-of fully ward a 160 foot square 1 story building. Which can then be casually obliterated by a powerball, as mana barriers don't protect nonliving objects, like the ward anchor.

This does tend to result in the mage being very effective as it is highly unlikely that someone without a combat mage providing counterspelling will get more successes on their 3 dice than the mage gets on his 10 dice.
Ol' Scratch
1/1,000 is the numbers for the general population. Naturally, some areas are going to have greatly skewed numbers compared to others. High-paying corporate jobs, including security, will have a lot more mages per capita than, say, janitorial jobs. So while most people will rarely run into one, shadowrunners will be running into them left and right.
kzt
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
1/1,000 is the numbers for the general population. Naturally, some areas are going to have greatly skewed numbers compared to others. High-paying corporate jobs, including security, will have a lot more mages per capita than, say, janitorial jobs. So while most people will rarely run into one, shadowrunners will be running into them left and right.

There were a million people doing private security work in the US in 2004, and about 850,000 police, and a million military. Assuming that this doubles due the mega corp security, that puts about 5.6 million security personnel. There can't be over 0.33 million mages in North America per SoNA.

What percent of the 330,000 mages (max) work for security instead of more profitable stuff, like binding spirits on aircraft? Assume 25%?

So about 1 out every 68 security/police would be a mage. How large is the typical security force of a site? What percentage of them spend all day, every day, maintaining fixed magical defenses or otherwise are really unlikely to be encountered at 3 am on Sunday?

So the odds are vanishingly low that you will have anyone on the on-site security staff who has any counterspelling or other magic until someone shows up astrally in response to an alarm, assuming that the corp has paid someone to do that and the alarm somehow gets set off by the guards who get hit by control thoughts.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (kzt @ Aug 26 2007, 02:11 AM)
So about 1 out every 68 security/police would be a mage.

Arbitary as your numbers are, it still proves my point; that's a lot more than the baseline 1/1,000 number.

QUOTE
How large is the typical security force of a site?

At a highly-secure facility with research, researchers, prototypes, or other high profile targets that warrant a shadowrun? Doesn't matter. You're all but guaranteed to have at least one mage at any site worthy of a shadowrunner's attention.

Also, how many doctors are there in the United States? Now, how many do you run into at a hospital again? Imagine that; running into specific types of people in specific types of locations...
Big D
Which is where lots of spirits and QRFs come in handy.
kzt
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
Also, how many doctors are there in the United States? Now, how many do you run into at a hospital again? Imagine that; running into specific types of people in specific types of locations...

There are about 5000 hospitals in the US and about 600,000 doctors. Using that as a model is like an armed robber who decided to specialize in knocking over police stations complaining about how the cops are always right there with every job he pulls off.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (kzt)
In terms of magical security, even wards run into that, as a mage working full time can't maintain more than 30 force 4 wards (assuming the caster is magic 6, this is one 35x35x10 foot room per ward).

For the routine ward stuff, summon spirits and let them do the work.
toturi
QUOTE (kzt)
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein @ Aug 26 2007, 01:16 AM)
Also, how many doctors are there in the United States?  Now, how many do you run into at a hospital again?  Imagine that; running into specific types of people in specific types of locations...

There are about 5000 hospitals in the US and about 600,000 doctors. Using that as a model is like an armed robber who decided to specialize in knocking over police stations complaining about how the cops are always right there with every job he pulls off.

Exactly right. That is exactly what is. Shadowrunners should be bumping into a sec mage everytime they do their job in a place when it is likely to attract shadowruns. Any place that would be a likely target of a shadowrun should have a sec mage. Which was Funk's point, I believe.
Ol' Scratch
A-yup. That would definitely have been the point I was trying to make.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (toturi)
Any place that would be a likely target of a shadowrun should have a sec mage.

And it was already established that there aren't enough mages for that...
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig @ Aug 26 2007, 04:54 AM)
And it was already established that there aren't enough mages for that...

Just like there aren't enough doctors to fill all those hospitals? According to this site there's a rough guesstimate of 6,500,000 doctors world-wide. The world's population is approaching 6.5 billion. That makes the number of doctors in the world around... hey, look at that... 1 in 1,000. And how rare is it to find a doctor in a hospital again? Contrasted to, say, running into one working the counter at Burger King or unclogging the toilet at a Best Western?

Yeah.

You're extremely unlikely to run into a mage while waiting in line at the Stuffer Shack. Might even be an uncommon day if you see one at a major shopping mall. But breaking into that AAA research facility to steal that drek-hot prototype design? Yeah, it's highly unlikely you're not going to be saying "hi" to at least one at some point.

And, for the record, 1/1,000 isn't a very small number when dealing with billions.
toturi
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
QUOTE (toturi @ Aug 26 2007, 12:05 PM)
Any place that would be a likely target of a shadowrun should have a sec mage.

And it was already established that there aren't enough mages for that...

How many billion people are there?

How many million targets are there?

And if it was established that there aren't enough mages, then perhaps you can provide a canon quote then.
darthmord
The other problem with this "arbitrary" numbers is that he was assuming an even distribution of mages across the entire population.

There won't be. Some areas simply won't have mages because they left those areas for better opportunities / employment. The major metropolitan areas would have a much higher concentration of mages per capita than a rural area in the backwoods of no-where.

Demographics rarely aligns nicely with overall averages.
Gelare
People, honestly, there will always be a number of security mages at a given run site equal to the number the GM thinks will make the runners' lives miserable. Let's not forget what game we're playing, here. Sure, mages are rare, and sure, almost every single one of them with or without a SIN is going to be willingly or unwillingly employed at a big corp because that's how the big corps roll, but in the end what matters is the GM making sure the party's mage doesn't sit, invisible and silent, on a nearby hilltop, steadily Force 1 Powerballing the building to pebbles.

Which, by the way, I would find tremendously entertaining. I almost always play mages, and not just because they seem to be overpowered in every system I've played. I'm sure Street Magic has all sorts of neat magical defenses, but I only have SR4, and my group has two SR4s between the five of us and that's what we play with, so magical defense usually involves a couple spirits, one bouns one not, and a friendly neighborhood sec mage. As for me, I usually try to take all the staple spells - Levitate, Improved Invisibility, Increase Reflexes, Powerbolt, Stunball, and maybe Heal. It's really amazing what four initiative passes and low-force Stunballs will do to an enemy security force.
Draconis
QUOTE (DTFarstar)
I personally play a mage in the one game I play in (currently on hiatus because two players are backpacking through Europe) and I have 2 mages and one mystic adept in the game that I run. I would really appreciate it if this thread could be used for three things.

1) Talk about your mage and how they contribute to the party. Are they combat, support, manipulation, or all of the above? Temperment? Do they for the rest of the party to chip in on bound spirits or is it a personal thing? For that matter does your group chip in for the Sammy's bullets? I would also love if people having examples of PC mages would be willing to post them here. I have a feeling my mage is just a bit too specific, I don't know. I would like to get an idea how others play their mages and what skills they bother to have what cyber they use(if any) etc.

2) Talk about mages who wish had never been born. If you have had a mage steal the spotlight, make you burn edge, etc. Vent your spleen here. If you think they are overpowered, tell us how and why.

3) List any house rules you have for mages, spells added or taken away, does your GM(or do you) strictly follow the visual modifiers for spellcasting and how do you deal with Astral Space? I've had alot of trouble describing it.



I hope to get some interesting input.
Thanks to any who respond,

Chris

Blam, updated and everything. How can I resist pimping me?

My SR4 Character

You can watch character evolution, or devolution depending on who you talk to, happen.

1. I do a little of everything. I suck at spirit summoning and binding though. Of course that's about to change.
Nobody chips in for jack. Of course we have a sideline business to draw party funds from as needed.

2. Cambodian naga king. Bastard and his force 12 spirit made me burn permanent edge.
Of course on a later run we did literally nuke his palace then remove all 9 heads. Payback's a bitch.

3. Talk to Frank. I do fluff not rules.
Fortune
QUOTE (Draconis)
How can I resist pimping me?

Willpower test? wink.gif
Draconis
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (Draconis @ Aug 27 2007, 12:33 AM)
How can I resist pimping me?

Willpower test? wink.gif

Not with a threshold of 3. smile.gif
Adarael
1 Million nuyen invested in cheesecake company. This is a man who likes his fucking cheesecake.
Marwynn
1) I've only been playing my Mage for a few months.

Somehow I always seem to fill in the secondary role of Face too, the high Charisma scores usually give that away and I do like having a Mage that can be smooth and slick without spellcasting.

My first mage is the all-round supporter. He had three Combat Spells in his repertoire of 16 (by the time we wrapped it up), and they were Powerbolt, Stunball, and Fireball to cover almost all the necessary stuff.

Beyond that he had all the goodies Mages dished out. He could shoot with his Automatics 4 (+2 Assault Rifles) and another +2 from Smartlinks, more than enough with his Agility 4, but primarily he was the guy making the corpsec shoot each other in the butts, and so on.

He was also very good at Infiltration, so with a Spirit running Concealment on everyone in the 4-man group we were pretty safe. With First Aid too he was able to act in many support roles. I don't think he stole the spotlight, but he was in the leadership role due to his Face duties and his supporting abilities.

I don't have the character sheet with me, we've moved on and he wasn't really as well-made as I would've liked.

And yes, we pooled our resources. But paying for the Sammy's bullets? That is where Mr. Johnson picks up the tab. Standard contract has the Johnson pay for bullets, medical supplies, one-shot stuff, and even maintenance after the job. Gives us access to hard-to-get munitions like APDS when we needed it with the caveat that we couldn't keep the stuff.

But sure, if we were doing some work on our own we pooled the money together. That Mage still had Binding as a skill which I didn't like to do that often, but everyone chipped in when they wanted that extra power.


My new mage is a bit different. He's still a Face/Mage as the group has relied on me for thar role and no one is too interested in sipping tea with Hong Kong's elite.

This guy is far less powerful. His stats are still in flux but they are based on a razorguy who pulls himself out of the streets applying his natural charisma (and ruthless streak) and awakens when he starts hitting the big time. He falls off the charts so to speak, retreating, and tries to find a tradition suitable for him but fails. Even Chaos Magic doesn't really jive.

Would you believe the power he first manifested wasn't Lightning Bolt or Mind Probe, and so on, but was in fact Fashion? When he was down on his luck he worked for the Hong Kong sweatshops as a supplier of higher-grade counterfeits. He could cast Force 4 Fashion all day and not worry about Drain, it brought in the nuyen.gif and he always looked good.

Right now, his magical abilities are a hodge-podge of stuff. His first instinct was to develop combat spells but they proved far too difficult, almost contrary, for his nature. So he needed Fetishes for them. He has a Geas of meditation, a period of self reflection. He's also addicted to escapist drugs and deepweed, to counter his inability to properly astrally project and perceive. A lot of issues that are mental blocks caused by his inability to simply fit in, a recurring theme in his life.

He's weaker, and even though he's supposedly a tough guy, my other mage could kick his lily ass so to speak. But he's far more interesting. I think he has 3-4 combat spells out of his starting 8-10. As I said, still in flux. He'll be weak in combat, comparitively, but we're toning that down so we may have something to, ahem, shoot for later on.

This razor/face/mage isn't even sure how his 'ware is interfering with his Magical abilities; he purchased Muscle Toner 2 and Tailored Pheremones after he awakened thinking he could use it as an edge.
CyberKender
I've had lots characters, and about half of them have been magically active.
Winburn: 1st Ed. Hermetic mage. Female.A bit of a wild, prankster personality.
Leatherback: 2nd Ed. Gator Shaman. Male. Quiet, deliberate, thoughtful.
Whisper: 2nd Ed. Burned out mage. Male. Soft spoken, stoic, and ruthless when necessary.
Nox/Mr. Nightsky: 2nd./3rd./4th. Ed. Hermetic mage. Male. Studious, bookworkmish, ethical.

They've all contributed to the party, either by being straight out useful or by being the GM's punching bag. Doing what they can, when they can, when it's necessary.

By the By: Dr. Funkelstein, you're off a decimal place. 1 out of a 1000 people is magically active. Only about 1 in 10 of those is a full mage. So, out of the world population, 6.5 million mages is still a lot, but not enough for everyone to have one. Oh, and don't forget, you don't need one, you need three security mages. They have to rest and recuperate just like everyone else. If you want 24hr coverage, you need three for every position.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (toturi)
How many million targets are there?

QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
You're extremely unlikely to run into a mage while waiting in line at the Stuffer Shack. Might even be an uncommon day if you see one at a major shopping mall. But breaking into that AAA research facility to steal that drek-hot prototype design?

Runners don't just break into top secret labs and steal stuff. Especially the the 'street level' approach of SR4.

Nearly everything and everyone can become a target. And most of that targets won't have magical security at all, since there is no-one paying for it.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
Runners don't just break into top secret labs and steal stuff. Especially the the 'street level' approach of SR4.

Nearly everything and everyone can become a target. And most of that targets won't have magical security at all, since there is no-one paying for it.

No one said they would. But any target worth having magical security will have magical security. It's sort of a "duh" statement, but one that seems to be flying over a few people's heads.

What's more, even some situations that aren't worth having magical security will still have a chance to have a mage show up, either as direct intervention or as a humble citizen stepping in to stop some of those shadowrunning criminals running through the streets putting people at risk. Once again: 1/1,000 is not a small number when dealing with billions, especially when that number is going to be terribly skewed towards non-third world countries, high population centers, and places with lots of money floating around.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
What's more, even some situations that aren't worth having magical security will still have a chance to have a mage show up, either as direct intervention or as a humble citizen stepping in to stop some of those shadowrunning criminals running through the streets putting people at risk.

While the latter isn't limited to mages, keep in mind that the non-combat parts of magic done right won't be noticed by anyone if there is no magical security in the first place.
Kyoto Kid
...the only awakened types I like playing are adepts - straight adepts, no spellcasting, and little if any 'ware ( Media Blitz is my only Adept who has any implants and those are all headware, eyeware, & earware related to her reporter identity). I played a mage once which I mentioned about here:

First & Last Mage PC

Just couldn't get into keeping track of spells, drain, spirits, withholding dice, foci, fetishes, and all that astral crap. Was much better at playing Deckers for at least it was easier to identify with the concepts of decks, programmes, nodes, and IC.
kzt
QUOTE (CyberKender)
Oh, and don't forget, you don't need one, you need three security mages. They have to rest and recuperate just like everyone else. If you want 24hr coverage, you need three for every position.

You need at least 5, unless you are working 7 days a week. And if you have a position that needs to be filled at all times you need 7 IIRC, to cover vacations and sick people.
Buster
An astral security mage or security spirit could easily cover an entire state, maybe even a small country. Traveling at astral speeds, an astral security mage/spirit could zoom to the scene of any criminal activity within seconds. I wouldn't think it would cost a business too much in monthly fees to have an astral security wagemage/spirit to zoom to any suspect activity in order to get an astral signature of perps. Maybe for a few nuyen more, the astral security mage/spirit could also attack dual natured beings (like pet spirits and astral perceivers) and objects (like foci). Those kinds of astral security services shouldn't cost a business too much and would pose a real pain in the ass of any B&E mages.
kzt
Once the alarm goes off they could. That's a big limitation.
Adarael
Getting to the zone of a crime once it's been reported and being able to effectively do anything but witness it are two separate things. While a first responder astral mage could make it from Tacoma to Seattle in a split second, they're not actually going to be able to affect a crime in progress other than watch it go down and give testamony later. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't pay as much as most mages would charge to just have a guy be able to astrally identify a person if he got really lucky - remember how many successes that takes. I get the impression the rates security mages would charge would be way too high for that kind of service. A security service that did that with spirits is a different matter - that could be quite lucrative, and cost customers less than being on-staff.

As to being able to patrol a zone, it's unlikely any single mage and his spirits could effectively patrol much more than they could on foot, other than having the advantage of being able to go 'up' at will. Remember that when moving at 'fast' astral speed, the world is very blurry. Just because you can move 60km/second doesn't mean you can keep track of everything you see.
Trigger
Just because you can't keep track of the shadows doesn't mean you can't keep track of the auras. They are bright and stand out against the shadows of non-living objects. So a mage could fly through a building on astral watch and all he has to do is watch for the auras as he wizs by.
Adarael
FLASH. You've been exposed to 20 auras in under 1/1000th of a second. Who are they? No, I don't think that moving at fast speed would be very conducive to recognizing anything but where you are, or getting a general idea of what's around. I'd definitely make people slow down to observe anything in detail, and in order to assense people you'll need to take an observe in detail action.

The obvious retort is "Well, there are no modifiers for perception tests when moving at fast speed." I say there aren't any for doing mach 1 through a mall and making perception tests, either.
Ol' Scratch
Or he could just sit back in the security room watching the monitors like everyone else while his spirits and watchers patrol the facility. (Gasp!)
Adarael
Well, yes. That's exactly my point. I'm saying that doing such a thing is more effective than astrally zooming around.
Trigger
Well, that is a bit much. Most astral security mages are going to be patrolling at night, when there is no else supposedly in the building besides the sec guards at the entrances and such. So you can zip around and if you see any auras out of place you stop and check them out. There are no modifiers for observing when you are zipping through astral because there don't really need to be, you are moving at the speed of thought, observing at the speed of thought, since you are observing with your mind and not with a your eyes and there is no delay in reaction time. You have to slow down to observe in detail, and that is taken care of with the fact that it takes an action to do so.
Adarael
I'm gonna bet you're from LA, given your location. Imagine this with me, then:

1) You're moving at roughly twice the speed of a landing 747 through downtown LA. You're assigned to guard the area around some of the larger warehouses down by the Garment District, over by the greyhound station.
2) Every time you see the aura of a living thing, you have to stop and take an action to assense it.
3) How long does it take you just to get to the warehouse? You'll have to assense every plant, every person in every car, every cholo out getting his drink on, every cat, every dog, every bum who's been rousted from his bench, AND still have to roll well enough to spot the runner who's hiding from you. You'll have to stop to assense them because you might see an aura, but you won't know what it is unless you stop. It's a lot easier just to not book around at fast speed.
4) I don't care if it's a psychic sense, because the argument 'you're sensing at the speed of thought' is bogus anyway. Or am I not processing what my eyes are seeing at the speed of thought? If you book in fast speed past 20 people, you'll have to stop and assense them. You can't 'store up' the assensing rolls and interpret what you saw after they're gone, in the same way you can't make perception rolls on shit you already drove by. That's a memory test, not an assensing or perception roll.
Trigger
You don't need to assense every cat, dog, or plant. They still look as such and thus there is no way to confuse them with a person. It takes a lot less time to move in and react and basically do anything in astral, as you have 3 IP instead of the simple 1 in your meat body. Move then assense, move then assense, move then assense. That was 3 seconds right there.

Also, what you are processing with your eyes is not the speed of thought. There are synaptic relays that have to occur inbetween your eyes and your mind. Astral senses are all directly processed with the mind, there is no relay, so yeah it is faster.
Adarael
Oh, no? Then explain this line to me:

When traveling this quickly, however, the magician has no time to perceive her environment. While this is usually not an issue, a magician trying to find a place must travel more slowly or she won’t even see it as
she passes.
(Page 183)

If a mage has to move slowly just to find a location, you can be sure the mage is gonna have to move slowly to tell the difference between a dog and a cat and me. By that line, the BBB specifically states you can't make stuff out during fast speed travel.
Trigger
Ok then, to clarify, what kind of speeds are we talking about. I am thinking around what would around 65-70 miles an hour, which I know for a fact would still allow for a person to make out auras of people as they move since you can make out people as you pass them by while driving that fast. A mage could move about twice that actually in astral and still be able to notice astral presences. I am not thinking about a mage zipping around at Mach 1 all the time. Moving at my first stated speed above, it should only take a mage about 30 seconds give or take (just guesstimating) to be able to make a patrol around a warehouse in the garment district.
LintMan
Any place worth protecting will have a mage on site or a mage off site with spirits bound to the area guarding it.

One mage per 5 installations should be about right. Remember if he set up the wards he knows they have been breeched.

An astral mage can still get his bound spirits and command them from astral so an astral only mage can still effect a runner team.

Buster
I wasn't talking about the astral mage doing any kind of patrolling at all. It would be cheaper for the security companies to just let the mage sit at home or otherwise go about their business until they get an alarm call. Intruders trip an alarm (such as busting through a ward) and the astral mage drops what he's doing (literally) and zooms in to get a good look at their astral signatures.

The runners are burned. If they don't have the right metamagic powers, their astral sigs get passed around to all the mage cops via mindlink just like mugshots. For ever after, anytime the runners walk through an astral checkpoint, mageguards and watchspirits get a memory test to recognize their sigs. Flexible Signature and Masking are the two most important metamagics a mage can get. Non-awakened runners are just screwed.
Draconis
QUOTE (Adarael)
1 Million nuyen invested in cheesecake company. This is a man who likes his fucking cheesecake.

You have no idea. It's actually a running joke. Hell we've even gotten into firefights in the drive thru of Just Cheesecake.

We stole some new addictive sugar substitute from Aztechnology on a whim, then we found an awakened plant in the Amazon that secrets some magical cheesecake flavored pollen. Well Scratch actually found it, he was rolling around in the foliage going "cheesecake!". He has improved scent remember.

Well the rest is history, we all kicked in a million each, 4 million nuyen later we had a factory in Hong Kong and a deal with Aztechnology to distribute. It's not a bad business, it currently pays for my luxury lifestyle each month.

Adarael
QUOTE
Ok then, to clarify, what kind of speeds are we talking about. I am thinking around what would around 65-70 miles an hour, which I know for a fact would still allow for a person to make out auras of people as they move since you can make out people as you pass them by while driving that fast. A mage could move about twice that actually in astral and still be able to notice astral presences. I am not thinking about a mage zipping around at Mach 1 all the time. Moving at my first stated speed above, it should only take a mage about 30 seconds give or take (just guesstimating) to be able to make a patrol around a warehouse in the garment district.


Oh, okay. We were speaking of different speeds, then. In astral space, mages only have two speeds. 'Slow speed' is 100 meters a combat turn, or roughly 120 kilometers an hour. The book explicitly states that an astral body moving at that speed is like unto someone walking in the normal world - they incur no perception penalties at that rate. "Fast Speed' is the other speed mages are capable of - 6000 kilometers an hour, at which the surrounding world is a blur.

So, sorry. I thought you were talking about 'fast speed', when you just meant 'moving quickly'.

QUOTE
Well the rest is history, we all kicked in a million each, 4 million nuyen later we had a factory in Hong Kong and a deal with Aztechnology to distribute. It's not a bad business, it currently pays for my luxury lifestyle each month.


Beats the hell outa my mage's attempts to market and design 'mage lighters' ("Designed and conceptualized by a real mage! Don't leave home without one! Powered by Real Magic!") to appeal to the high fashion crowd. Made me about 25 million nuyen, before CATCo took out some hit teams and performed a hostile takeover. A contingency stock dump/fast launder agent was all that let me get out with any of the money at all. Which was about 7 mil.
kzt
QUOTE (LintMan)
One mage per 5 installations should be about right. Remember if he set up the wards he knows they have been breeched.

Assuming magic 6, that's six 300 cubic meter 4 force wards per site if he spends 40 hors per weeks maintaining wards. And it only alerts the mage who cast it, who has to sleep sometime. And go on vacation and will occasionally get sick. So if my team manabolt the ward from the astral (astral driveby shooting?) or crashes a watcher into it every two hours how long will he keep showing up? If he hasn't slept for three days I'd suspect that he's not at 100% And he can't leave to investigate when he's working on maintaining wards without starting from scratch.
Cain
QUOTE
By the By: Dr. Funkelstein, you're off a decimal place. 1 out of a 1000 people is magically active. Only about 1 in 10 of those is a full mage. So, out of the world population, 6.5 million mages is still a lot, but not enough for everyone to have one. Oh, and don't forget, you don't need one, you need three security mages. They have to rest and recuperate just like everyone else. If you want 24hr coverage, you need three for every position.


I'm not the good Doctor, but his comments abour RL MD's Is persuausive.

You might not have a doctor among your circle of friends. You may not ever encounter one in your daily routine. But you can *find* a doctor easily enough, and lots of them at that. If doctors are compariably rare as mages, then finding a mage is no harder than looking in a phone book.

To run a major metropolitan hospital, you could need hundreds or more doctors. A security site might require 5-10 mages. So, finding enough mages to guard a site should be a trivial matter.
kzt
QUOTE (Cain @ Aug 26 2007, 09:57 PM)
To run a major metropolitan hospital, you could need hundreds or more doctors.  A security site might require 5-10 mages.  So, finding enough mages to guard a site should be a trivial matter.

Here's an experiment. Go find a surgeon at the hospital and tell him you'll give him a machine gun and pay him 150k/year to guard your house and abandon seeing patients. Think he'll take it? Why or why not?

Most mages are not security/combat mages for similar reasons. Most of them feel they have better things to do that will pay them more money and be a lot more interesting. And people won't be actively trying to kill them.
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