What spells does he have and what is his tradition? I might be able to give him and you some ideas about how this could go. The problem I'm seeing now is that you don't want to force him to do anything he doesn't want to do and it sounds like the ONLY thing he wants to do is annihilate people with magic in the most badass way possible. Which bothers you.... but you don't want to force him to change... hell I dunno, if you could copy us his sheet it would help alot too. But it is obvious- to me anyway and nothing says I'm not wrong- that his is more than just stunball being a really efficient spell.

Chris

Everybody on the team fulfils a valid role. The mage is perfectly willing to play ball, I'm just kind of annoyed that the game isn't exactly balanced in terms of what combat contribution each character can bring forth at what effort. When a mage can kick as much ass and have three times the utility of a cyber sammie, I would like to fix it without being forced to come up with a situation that specifically smacks down the mage's effectiveness.

It's ok if I occasionally smack down a character to make sure they don't get too cocky, but that's not a long term solution to the problem. And the general vibe I'm getting here is that the only fix is a encounter design one rather than a straight up mechanical change. Sigh, I guess nobody said being a GM was easy.

You can do a mechanical change, but it's likely to be tough to get the balance you want without tweaking.

A few ideas:
Increase the drain on combat spells. Remove the divide by by two for drain. So a force 13 stunball is 14 dice of drain. Or alternately, make area effect spells have double the drain of single target spells, so the force 13 stunbolt is 5 dice and the stunball is 10 dice.

Reduce the damage. For example, damage is just double net hits, with a cap of total hits of force but no base damage.

I haven't tried these, so I have no idea how ugly they they will or won't be.

That isn't exactly true - when a person is packing so much 'ware they stop having a thermal signature and qualify for a vehicle signature, they're gonna raise some eyebrows.

I love my samurai, but to be fair - they usually make the average cyberware detector roll over and die.

-Siege

That has actually happened to one of players, passing through a security checkpoint, the hacker heard this being broadcast across the coms:

"Be advised, on approach we have 3 geeks and a GM truck"

"You sure, tower, visual shows 4 of them on foot"

"Cyber sensors clearly show a vehicle there, captain"

"Oh."

The fourth member being the the casually strutting troll sammie of course.

The main problem here is overcasting as rule rather than exception. The magic 6 caster should well be able to toast gangers, but not as fast as manaball allows for.

The option of increased drain is valid. If you suffer the same drain from fireball as from stunball, you decide what kind of resistance roll on behalf of the target you can beat easier. I would advise to lower drain by one

Another option would be to limit damage from stunball etc to net hits. That would result in marginal damage in presence of counterspelling and encourage the use of foci to increase DP size.


I think one aspect that is often ignored here is the control of mage power vs. mundane power in character design (read "GM approval"). Magic 5 or even 6 seems to be the norm for most mages that where submitted to me. As are high drain stats.Casters with magic 6, spellcasting 5(combat spells), stunball, fireball and increase reflexes clear house. More so with a few cheap initiations.

On the other hand, mages can do with magic 4 or even 3, and can well spend their karma in other places. If you want to leave combat to the mundanes, tell the player to make do with magic 4 and promise to stay light on magical security. More BP to spend on non-magical things, too.

If you're sammie is hardware toting to the max with BIG GUNS the problem is a rigger rolls lots more dice because drones are cheap and he can seriously have like 5 LMGs, and so is speccing out to do jumping in to the max, and can do all sorts of other cool stuff (thanks to the drones he's a great spy, excellent transport/get away driver and can usually hack a bit) and is just as legal (ie not very).

Competing against a rigger, while flavourful, isn't exactly where the 'strength' of the sammie is. I'm more thinking biosammie as an illustrative option of the strengths of a sammie.

One bane of mages is speed. Samurai have it; they don't, usually. And with speed comes success in surprise tests.

Let us create a hypothetical character called Reasonably Fast Guy Reasonably Fast Guy has a reaction of 4(8) and and Intuition of 5, 3 IPs, and a MGL-6.

Reasonably fast guy runs into the party in a hallway by accident, both sides make surprise tests. The mage is surprised. Now, being surprised, the mage cannot Stunball Reasonably Fast Guy, or take any action against him whatsoever. Reasonably Fast Guy can, however, fire 6 airburst grenades at the mage.

The only hope is that the party has in this case is a speedster faster than Reasonably Fast Guy, who might have the drop on him or who, at least, will be going first.

Yeah, magic is overpowered in basically every RPG. It just happens by it's fundamental nature. The thing is, the mage should be bringing something to the table just like all the other characters. If the mage is bringing combat doom, then what is the sammie bringing? Support? If the sam has combat covered, encourage the mage to find his own niche. Again, apply visibility modifiers halfway intelligent sec forces should use cover, smoke etc. just for the firefight anyway, don't let the mage ignore it. Keep in mind you can't stunball/manaball/powerball what you cannot see. Cover! Cover! Cover!

If the enemies use poor tactics, and like I said in another thread, seriously magic has been around for how long now? 60 years? You can't tell me that there isn't at least a class or two in sec guard school about breaking LOS, throwing up smoke and flash packs, retreating to a warded area, and hitting the big red "Oh shits we are being attacked by a mage!" Button that summons the astral sec mage and his elemental friends. Or even nastier guardian/plant spirit friends to manifest. These are not smacking down on the mage! They are reasonable security precautions on the companies part against a threat that has been known for 60 years!

Chris

...yeah I had that experience myself as a GM. Don't get me wrong, Mages are still tough if done well. However, now I have a team that plays in a much more balanced manner so that everyone is a part of the action instead of one person hogging it all.

Stunball is an area effect spell. So if you want to cut its utility a bit, have some of the guards move in for melee combat. Maybe a few of them rush in with stunbatons. Clearly, they won't run across a hundred meter long open courtyard to do this, but with the blind turns common in a lot of building, if the NPCs have access to the buildings security cameras or something, they can plan ambushes where stun-batoning a couple surprised PCs is an effective strategy.

If just a few guys are in melee range, or have taken cover within a few meters, the mage's ability to stunball the whole world into submission is greatly reduced. If the opposing security team is within 12 meters of the PCs, then the mage has to make some tough decisions about withholding spell-casting dice.

this seems like a GM problem to me.

If you are fighting in a building, how is your own team not hit by a 12 meter radius spell?

That would cover several rooms.

Why are your bad guys just sitting out in the open, and not behind cover, as they are involved in a fight.

Why does your mage keep going so soon in the combat round? Even with a 6 intuition, 6 reaction, improved reaction spell, improved intuition spell, have them all active, and got maxed out rolls, they have an initiative of 18 reaction max.

If the combat mage has those two spells up, maxed reaction, maxed intuition, fighting idiots in a wide open space, no cover, 3 will power ratings, while none of your team just happens to be in a space about as wide as half a football field, then more power to the mage.

A little smarter tactics, a street same who is worth being a street sam, and a GM with the testicles to strong arm a player who is strong arming your game, and mages go away.

I have never, and I mean never, ever had a problem with a mage.

One player even work armur, and sustained an over casted armour spell, he walked around with 32 points of armour.

I mind controlled him, had him blind fold himself, hit him with decrease charisma, which is always fun, and packed hand grenades around him while he was standing in a mindless stupor, and exploded him.

this was after 3 or 4 sessions of him just trying to find ways to over power everyone and everything. Several warning where given. Finally, that was enough.

Also, I like to hit players with force 12 or 16 spells after they abuse them. Force 16 decrease charisma is a dirty trick, but once mage players get on your nerves, you need to apply the rules they like to use against thier group, the problem goes away.

Going first is as easy as spending a point of Edge. As a general rule smart mages keep Edge for Initiative and Binding tests that look like they're going sour. Also, an Intuition tradition combat mage with Reaction Enhancers and Improved reflexes running through a sustaining focus is faster than hell and a lot less expensive than what you're suggesting.

The first time one of those low-ranking mooks happens to be an initiate mage supervisor with improved masking, spell reflect, and a counterspelling focus -- well, it might not be the last time the mage tosses a force 12 stunball, but it will be the last time he does so with impunity. A rare event, to be sure -- but a memorable one.

Force 12 spells hang around on the astral for half a day. That's a long time for a forensic mage to analyze it. After a few runs, the mage will have quite the security profile, and likely have left some physical samples around. That gives the higher-up corp mages incentive to send out some high force spirits -- spirits that track the character when he's trying to rest off that high spell drain. Or worse, when he's meeting with Johnson to exchange the goods for some pay. The paranoid Johnson -- the one with snipers on the stuffer shack down the road in case the team tries to double cross him.

Of course, in my opinion, if the mage is leaving around extremely high force spell signatures regularly, he's lucky if only security guards notice it. Do you have any idea what a great find he'd be to an insect spirit hive? If he can toss around spells like that, they'll reason he's a perfect target to make a flesh-form. Maybe even a queen!

There have always been magically resistant beasties in Shadowrun lore, have some of them show up with some security guards guiding them. Then there's something for both the Sam and the Mage to do. Add in a few drones, and everyone's buys at once!

Remember mooks have edge too -- and can spend it to go first. They can take actions like tossing a grenade while running for cover. If they're caught by surprise? Well, taking out a pile of hapless and unwitting goons quietly is great work for a mage. And the street sam will have plenty to do when a dozen biomonitors go off in the security office simultaneously...

Tactics, tactics, tactics. Security goons don't want to be geeked by the mage. They're no doubt trained to avoid them (avoiding LOS, vision modifiers, spending edge to get to a safe spot first.) Security drones, on the other hand, are cheap -- far cheaper than security guard death benefits or hospital bills. Security goons are just there for the "human" element, and to make judgment calls -- calls like "now is a good time to turn the drones / hellhounds loose."

As others have said, "canary in a coal mine" is another job to fill. This comic sums it up well: Order of the Stick