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cryptoknight
I'm sure this keeps coming up... but I keep running into a wall to counter magic in a way for a mundane.

i.e. One mystical Adept casts Improved Invisibility then runs around with a monofilament sword slitting throats... Other than having either a mage running counterspell or a spirit doing the same, or giving everybody ultrasonic vision, if he manages to nail 3-4 hits, I don't see most security guards ever having a way to counter it that doesn't make logical sense (i.e. they aren't going to pour flour on the entrances or hallways every night for a building that people actually use).

Another mage tells his spirit to materialize in the Ares City Master over there and kill the guards inside. Yes I can play the spirit direct to the letter and call that two services, but I find it very odd that the only real way to stop that would be to ward all the Ares Citymasters out there. And the guards inside aren't exactly going to get past the Immunity to Normal weapons that materialization provides.

Spellcasters aren't required to have a geasa (sp?) so they kinda look at you and blow you up.

etc... etc... ad naseum.

I could see fixing invisibility by instead of just making them disappear, making it that the invisibility hits add to the normal stealth/sneak hits, but that doesn't really stop the materializing spirit.
hobgoblin
arsenal have a few tricks there wink.gif

glomoss on a stick is one example.
coolgrafix
The Dowdian adage from editions past still holds true... Magic Is Power.
Stahlseele
magic is mostly over-powered, because it IS open end . . in the high karma values magic will do everything better than anything mundane can do it . . aside from that, magic usually starts out weaker because fresh from the start there are things magic just can't frigging do and that tech does better than BEGINNERS Magic . .
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (thread title)
Why Does Magic Seem So Broke, How can mundanes compete

...burst/auto fire capable weapon with S&S, followed by Mage Mask and Mage Cuffs and a Containment Coffin. grinbig.gif
Stahlseele
burst/auto with s&s and a closing(or opening) head shot with Ex/Ex or APDS to follow takes care of most magicians a little more permanently ^^
Lionhearted
I'd say, high infiltration.. hide and wait until the mage drained himself dry.. THEN KICK HIS LILY ASS!
or you just wait until he projects devil.gif
Ryu
High Intuition, maxxed Reaction, Edge on the initiative test, and Edge on the Heavy Weapons(LMG) test, Shiawase Arms Nemesis LMG on wide burst.
Method
The first answer is- talk to your players. It seems like there is a disconnect between how you want magic to work in the game and how they want magic to work in the game. See if you can come to a concensus about how magic would work in the game world your group is collectively creating. If they insist on being a death-on-wheels magical killing party then...

The second answer is - retribution. Your mystic adept might think that trick is great, but eventually some corp or syndicate is going to figure it out and send people specifically equipped to deal with that character (so yes, counterspelling magi, spirits and ultrasound vision). Also reread the section on spell signatures. Lone Star and most corps have the magical security resources to followup on a criminal spell signature.

Third- if your NPCs are used to living in a world where a mage can "look at you and blow you up" they will start adapting their behaviors. They will start using cover more effectively (see modifiers below). They will shot anyone that appears to be magical first. The minute a spell goes off they will take cover and call for magical back up. Corps will start using glow moss, and FAB and whatever. Magical security will become more common place. Etc etc etc...

Forth- make magical threats more common in your game. If the awakened are running rampant start throwing in wild (and angry) spirits that are drawn to their use of magic and don't like it. A shadow, a toxic spirit, a few shedim here and there. Remember that any dual natured critter can see an invisible character on the astral. Ghouls, shapeshifters, etc etc...

Fifth- dry up their contacts. After a Lone Star detective comes around to their talismonger with a picture of the character that talismonger is going to think twice about supplying the materials the mage needs to counger another "murderous" spirit or learn another "muderous" spell.

Sixth- enforce some modifiers. Remember that spellcasters usually need to see their targets. Vision mods apply to many spells. You can also give the mage mods for being distracted.

Seventh- use the surprise and perception rules. If your mage needs to spend a simple action to observe in detail he can't immediately cast a spell at the guard he sees, much less the guard he doesn't immediately detect. He also can't fry anyone who surprises him.

Just a few tips. Good luck.
djinni
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Feb 5 2008, 07:05 PM) *
magic usually starts out weaker because fresh from the start there are things magic just can't frigging do and that tech does better than BEGINNERS Magic . .

okay I agree that beginning magicians are weaker than advanced magicians,
but I need an understanding of what can't beginning magic do that technology can?

QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Feb 5 2008, 07:16 PM) *
I'd say, high infiltration.. hide and wait until the mage drained himself dry.. THEN KICK HIS LILY ASS!
or you just wait until he projects devil.gif

that's the combat problems... you can't wait for him to drain himself stupid because he won't.
Mercer
QUOTE (cryptoknight @ Feb 5 2008, 10:44 PM) *
Another mage tells his spirit to materialize in the Ares City Master over there and kill the guards inside.

This might just be my group, and we might be wrong, but we've always ruled a mage needs LOS to direct his spirit. You could order to attack the Citymaster because you can see the Citymaster, but you can't order the spirit inside to kill the people you can't see. (Although if they're all mundane, its pretty easy to project along with your spirit into the Citymaster and tell it to kill everyone.)

Mundanes do have it pretty hard against magic, but I think its pretty comparable to how bad they'd have it if in a highly technological area they had no defense against hackers or if going against sams they had no armor or weapons. Which is not to say there's nothing they can do, they're just starting way behind the line.

Most of the time, anything worth paying shadowrunners to do (particularly magically-active shadowrunners) is going to be worth it to someone else to pay similar people to stop. While magic is rare, its something that the characters are going to be dealing with a lot, because they're going to be dealing with the other 1% of people who do that. It’s like baseball. The number of people that can accurately throw a baseball 100mph is fairly low, but those that can are playing at the level where the people they're throwing the ball by are pretty good at hitting things going 100mph. Any given major league pitcher can clean up in any given church league, its just generally not worth his time.
hobgoblin
i say again, glomoss. or other stuff from manatech in arsenal, or street magic (much of the manatech chapter seems to point back to street magic).

have the prettied with potted plants and similar, with a nice colony of glomoss and a optical sensor in there somewhere.

when the invisible mage walks by, it will most likely light up, the sensor will pick that up, and a alarm go of in the control room.

next thing you could have mundane guards with glomoss wands show up, doing a sweep of the area, maybe a security mage is doing perception via fiber optics to try and spot the source of magic, or a spirit or projecting mage arrives to have a look around.

in more high sec areas with little to no magical activity, have haven lilies planted instead. if i got it right one should be able to take down anything of force 3 or lower if one have enough of them.

hell, it may even be that if one is breaking into a magic lab, the path into the place is lined with these to keep some of the low level effects contained.

and thats before one start to talk both mundane and awakened guard critters, or maybe just a pheromone scanner or the lowly movement detector using ultrasound. even pressure plates in front of doors work. dont need to be loud, just need to have a light or a slight beep when someone walk past. so if it goes of and the guard cant see anything there...

basically its the same kind of setup that a automatic door have, or a shops bell.

if it goes of, and noone can see anything, call magic security asap.
Fortune
QUOTE (djinni @ Feb 6 2008, 10:40 AM) *
but I need an understanding of what can't beginning magic do that technology can?


Heal Stun damage. wink.gif biggrin.gif
Fortune
QUOTE (Mercer @ Feb 6 2008, 10:44 AM) *
This might just be my group, and we might be wrong, but we've always ruled a mage needs LOS to direct his spirit. You could order to attack the Citymaster because you can see the Citymaster, but you can't order the spirit inside to kill the people you can't see. (Although if they're all mundane, its pretty easy to project along with your spirit into the Citymaster and tell it to kill everyone.)


Even if you rule that way, there is always Remote Service.
Sir_Psycho
I've had a similar problem going on in my head. How do you infiltrate a place with magical security if you're not awakened? If you need to defend one, FAB-III can do the trick. But getting in is the problem.

So say a character, let's call him mr. Sneaky, wants to leap into some high security facility property and grab a doohickey. This guy is a master of gymnastic-fu, and he's got all the complimentary ware, say, kid stealth legs with hydraulic jacks and quickness enhancements, Move-by-wire 3, synthacardium, muscle toner, oxy rush nanites. And he's not called Mr. Sneaky for nothing. He's practically sam fisher combined with casper the friendly ghost for all anyone can spot him, say a stealth rating of 6 (SR4) and 8 (SR3, and let's not forget that +3 dice for stealth and athletics from his Move-by-wire). And let's he's donned his favourite ruthenium sneaksuit. He's got maglock passkeys, keycodes, memory strings stored in his headware memory, retinal and fingerprint tailor nanites, and he's got a sweet lockpick and electronics kit to bypass any maglock he doesn't have a code for.

He easily sails over the monowire laced perimeter, and the pressure pads to boot. His sneak-suit has a couple of levels of thermal dampening on it, so no cameras or IR sensors are going to pick him up, especially at the speed Mr. Sneaky is going. He rolls his 11 (SR3) Stealth dice. Whaddaya know? two sixes. Re-roll them? Another six! and a two. A target number to spot Mr. Sneaky is 14, and add ten to that for his ruthenium suit, so that's a TN of 24 to see him, and that's before applying vision modifiers. He hits the open field leading to the facility running, he can see the claymores by their heat signature, and the gun turrets are blissfully ignorant of mr. sneaky, thanks to the fooled sensors.

Unfortunately for mr. Sneaky, the facility has magical security. There is a watcher spirit patrolling the field. According to MITS Page 88 the base target number for the astral patrol is 2, not the stealth roll of 14, and certainly not 24. Uh-oh Mr. Sneaky, The field is less than 2,000 square meters, so we've got a -4 TN mod, not that it matters, because TN 2 is the lowest of the low. So let's say this watcher is force 4. He rolls 4 dice. My God! He rolled all ones! The watcher suddenly reaches the impossible conclusion of the tree falling in the woods paradox and spontaneously combusts, without even alerting his daddy shaman that he just ceased to exist. Lucky mr. Sneaky!

So our sneaky gentleman powers his way up the facility wall with his grappling hook and insane athletics skill and finds an inviting skylight. With his electronics kit and lockpicks, he silently disables the security circuit on the skylight and rappels in, closing the window behind him, and the security rigger is none the wiser. So he's dancing about through the facility, opening maglocks and leaping through laser trip-wire mazes and generally having a great stealthy time. But uh-oh mr. Sneaky! Looks like you passed through a ward! Because you're not an Initiate with masking metamagic, or even awakened at all, you can't spoof your way past it, and like with the watcher spirit, your base stealth skill did drek all!

So to cut this unnecessarily long story short the corp shaman feels something pass through his ward summons a hearth spirit he quickly uses it's search power to locate the intruder and surprisingly doesn't get all 1's. Now either the Shaman says to his pal Mr. Mage "We've got some-one in sector 4" and soon Mr. Sneaky is engulfed by a fire elemental, or if Mr. Shaman is the only Mr. Magic user in this corp facility, he gets Mr. Security Rigger on the line and says "We've got some-one in sector 4" and the dogs with the genetically engineered Gamma-Scopolamine carrying bees in their mouths are released, or the rigger fills sector 4 with Green Ring-8, Halon gas, Gamma-S, Fugu-56 Million or whatnot, possibly all at the same time. So any way you slice it, Mr. Sneaky is incapacitated, beaten, tortured, experimented on, and has jumper lead clamps attatched to his genitals. If he's lucky.

And that's not even very impressive magical security. It's one shaman, probably not even a full magic 6 shaman, let alone an initiate. And a ward.


kzt
Um, but things not astrally active don't show up to wards....
kzt
A meta game answer is that SR has decreed that mages are really, really rare. As in 1% are magically active and more like 0.2% is a mage or adept. For PCs I find it tends to run more like >50% are mages or adepts. That's because it isn't that expensive a choice for a starting character to do. And even a magic 4 mage given time to summon a spirit can really kick mundane butt. So if you try to follow the way the rules say you tend to get magic being dominating because the typical opposition has none. It's like only PCs can carry guns and all the NPCs only have knives, what would you expect from that?

So either you convince your players to tone it down (in any of several ways), provide magical defense to the NPC/facilites or you have to assume that at least 20% of security guys are fully magically active and ignore the book to keep the game fun.
Mr. Unpronounceable
And in SR4 at least, infiltration tests do count against astral perception, and watchers only have 2 dice to spot with (since they're max force 1.)

yes, I know your example was pre-SR4



edit: kzt: a force 4 spirit is a lot easier to take down than a troll in most circumstances - if you can get past the 8 hardened armor, it's usually toast since it has about half the soak dice.
Lionhearted
QUOTE (kzt @ Feb 5 2008, 08:47 PM) *
Um, but things not astrally active don't show up to wards....


still it was a good story, you gotta praise him for the effort
We looooove you Sir Psycho love.gif
Synner667
Welcome to the shadows, chummer smile.gif

Mages are very powerful [some of the example in various rulebooks have great examples]..
..But very rare.

And, hey, if it was easy the Mr Smith wouldn't have needed to hire professionals.
hobgoblin
about spirits attacking a transport of some sort, paracritters trained as guard animals perhaps...

barghests, hellhounds or even nagas may be deployed alongside mundane troops if they expect any kind of magical attack from spirits.

also, a group of mundane soldiers hitting a spirit with force of will attacks should make for a interesting sight. sadly, banishing isnt declared a skill one can learn without magic rating. if it was i would expect most security having a course in it alongside unarmed combat and similar.
kzt
QUOTE (Mr. Unpronounceable @ Feb 5 2008, 05:50 PM) *
edit: kzt: a force 4 spirit is a lot easier to take down than a troll in most circumstances - if you can get past the 8 hardened armor, it's usually toast since it has about half the soak dice.

Sure is. And after it hits you with fear you won't, as 8 vs 3 usually wins, and it can do this from LOS. When it engulfs your friend next to you it tends to limit the use of heavy weapons. And when they do blow it up you summon another. Spirits are very powerful, even at low force. At high force they are insane. If the magic 4 mage summoned a force 8 spirit and didn't have really bad day it's hard to stop until it runs out of services or a mage.
Athanatos
I generally am more conservative with what I have my Spirits do. A Magician that spends as much time as mine does in the Astral and on various MetaPlanes(Too Damn Cool not to when you have access lol, and it's encouraged) needs all the friends he can get. I also don't tend to bind many spirits, except my Familiar/s I just added a second more minor one.

As for the question of Why Does Magic Seem So Broke, Is this a game where there are Elves, Dragons, and the Big Nasties of the Darkest Deep Meta-Planes or not? Do you realize how much Karma You throw down the bottomless pitt that is "Mage Character Developement" to get the ability to levitate around surrounded by a powerful shield and blast things with the Lightnings and Fiery Dooms??!!! devil.gif
cryptoknight
QUOTE (Synner667 @ Feb 5 2008, 08:56 PM) *
Welcome to the shadows, chummer smile.gif

Mages are very powerful [some of the example in various rulebooks have great examples]..
..But very rare.

And, hey, if it was easy the Mr Smith wouldn't have needed to hire professionals.

The problem... is once it isn't easy... Mr. Smith hires pros... they bring a mage... and it is easy.
With magic being so rare (per the BBB) I feel like I'm getting silly by laying out magical defenses... not to mention which, the non-magical characters get sick of mage on mage and spirit on spirit action... but without them, the mundanes feel useless...

i.e. I throw in some spirits to keep the magic ones busy so the mundanes can deal with mundane guards... The mundanes on either side have to deal with immunity to normal weapons, so they're going to be stuck if they have to hurt a spirit.. and whichever side wins the magic duel will then win the fight.
cryptoknight
QUOTE (Athanatos @ Feb 5 2008, 09:23 PM) *
I generally am more conservative with what I have my Spirits do. A Magician that spends as much time as mine does in the Astral and on various MetaPlanes(Too Damn Cool not to when you have access lol, and it's encouraged) needs all the friends he can get. I also don't tend to bind many spirits, except my Familiar/s I just added a second more minor one.

As for the question of Why Does Magic Seem So Broke, Is this a game where there are Elves, Dragons, and the Big Nasties of the Darkest Deep Meta-Planes or not? Do you realize how much Karma You throw down the bottomless pitt that is "Mage Character Developement" to get the ability to levitate around surrounded by a powerful shield and blast things with the Lightnings and Fiery Dooms??!!! devil.gif



Ummm I'm dealing with a mage with 6 magic (7 with his power focus) and a mage with 5 magic (2 for spells and 3 points of adept powers)... Most of the time they overcast and handle the drain (because most of their spells are F/2 + x and a force 8 or 10 spell is only 6ish points of physical drain. Usually blown down to 2 points or less. One of them just sustains improved invis... that's all he casts as a mage. The other throws spells left and right and laughs at drain. These aren't characters with high karma... they've earned about 12-14 by now. These are basically new characters.
Athanatos
Ummmm..... "What is Sarcasm Alex?"

Did you get the highly unlikely flying powerful forcefield firing high force spells left and right? I might need to add Tele-kineticly Crushing things and Summoning Spirit Armies Ala Mummy Returns lol! And lets not forget the "Holy Light shining down upon me!"
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Feb 5 2008, 03:16 PM) *
...or you just wait until he projects devil.gif

...that kind of thinking gets extra karma. grinbig.gif
DTFarstar
Keep in mind that yes, magic is relatively rare, but since magic IS so powerful, it isn't 1% of shadowrunners are mages, it is 1% of the population. How often do you see a group in any of the novels or in someones actual game that doesn't have at least 1 adept or magician? Usually there is 1 of each or more. Shadowrunning, research, and security are going to be the BIG jobs for mages. I mean do you actually expect to step into an accountants office or your local Burger Haven and find a mage doing taxes or running the counter? No, so you take all the other jobs in the world and you find almost no mages in them because it is SO much easier to make more money just making wards. Not to mention, corps have had nearly 60 years to adapt security procedures to the presence of magic. Like I illustrated in a previous thread somewhere, don't think that by now there aren't training seminars that are basically "Ok, Bill, if Bob dies in an unexpected manner, I want you to avoid line of sight, throw off your smoke grenades, hit the "Mage Alarm" button to activate the FAB vents and flash packs built into the lighting and set up a crossfire with your remaining team members, and if at all possible get your gas masks on and drop some of these neurostun grenades".

Not warding important things and building in these REALLY inexpensive equalizers is basically the same as not giving the opposition armor and guns when they fight the samaurais. Costs about the same too.

Chris
DTFarstar
Really, the biggest problem I see people having is being unwilling to apply magical security because they feel like they are "stacking the deck" against the mages in an unrealistic and unfair manner, but they don't think a thing about giving jazz injectors, armor, and guns to sec forces because those are precautions they can understand and are based in reality, but realize that magic is mainstream in SR, not accurate mainstream, but military capability isn't accurate in the mainstream today so that isn't so different. What people seem to have trouble wrapping their head around is that corps have had over half a century to research magic and mundane magical defense and research it they did, I'm sure, because it is alot cheaper to install the aforementioned things than it is to hire an on site mage. Wards are also REALLY cheap. You have to look at it logically and from the perspective that magic is just another statistic of threat to corps in their security procedures.

In my personal game, all military vehicles and all HTR team vehicles and most homicide and narc detectives vehicles are warded because that is a lot cheaper than replacing the car when someone wrecks it with a single spell to kill the people inside.

Chris
Cthulhudreams
If you look at the dudes on a three man shadowrunning team

Combat Guy
Hacker/Rigger Guy
Magical Guy


The first two probably trained for years, may be we have an ex soldier and some highly skilled kung fu coder who is also super wizard with a HMG controlled by a virtual link up. Those skills are pretty uncommon in todays population (How many skilled commandos do you know? Really?) and thus probably more uncommon in the world of criminal enterprise (The hacker rigger guy could just get a job with Google of the future, and the soldier guy did work for the military, and salaried jobs are well received.)

By contrast the magical guy literally just has to turn up, and he can summon spirits, and maybe throw down some magical spells. But really just the spirits thing is fine. And even with a fairly low level of training and a medium magic score he can do that with some efficency.

And there are lots of people with few skills and poor training in the world of criminal enterprise - in shadowrun they are called the SINless and don't have any other choices. So criminal enterprise is going to have a disproportionate number of mages due to demographic issues, and people who deal with criminals - lone star, security services are going to know this and have a plan, whatever that plan may be.
Sir_Psycho
QUOTE (kzt @ Feb 5 2008, 08:47 PM) *
Um, but things not astrally active don't show up to wards....

Well I just went through all the ward rules in MITS and the core book. I figured that because even a mundane has an aura they would set off astral barriers but it seems I am wrong.

Despite the fact that that wastes a huge chunk of my quaint little tale, my qualms about astral patrol still stand, unless you possess sufficient rule fu to prove that you can use a stealth role against an astral patroller.
Fortune
QUOTE (cryptoknight @ Feb 6 2008, 12:29 PM) *
... a mage with 6 magic (7 with his power focus) ...


You are aware that Power Foci do not add directly to the Magic Attribute in SR4 aren't you? They only add their rating to the Dice Pool for tests involving the Magic rating. This may not sound like a big distinction, but it makes quite a difference.
Fortune
Haunted connection for the win! eek.gif
Fortune
Bullshit multipost hell. frown.gif
djinni
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Feb 5 2008, 10:36 PM) *
So criminal enterprise is going to have a disproportionate number of mages due to demographic issues, and people who deal with criminals - lone star, security services are going to know this and have a plan, whatever that plan may be.

how many people rob banks? how many banks have security against being robbed?
how many women get mugged or worse? how many carry "protection" against muggers?
how many people have their houses robbed? how many lock their doors?
the proportion of security to actual crime rate isn't what you need to look at.

how devestated would the bank be if a mage summoned a spirit and had it transport all the cash in the vault home?
obviously they are going to have magical security even though no one will ever try to "magically" rob a bank.
same with all other aspects of security...
Kyoto Kid
...good reason for that cancel post option. grinbig.gif Saved me from DP-ing a lot of times because of a poor conection.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (djinni @ Feb 5 2008, 11:19 PM) *
how many people rob banks? how many banks have security against being robbed?
how many women get mugged or worse? how many carry "protection" against muggers?
how many people have their houses robbed? how many lock their doors?
the proportion of security to actual crime rate isn't what you need to look at.

how devestated would the bank be if a mage summoned a spirit and had it transport all the cash in the vault home?
obviously they are going to have magical security even though no one will ever try to "magically" rob a bank.
same with all other aspects of security...



I'm not sure whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with me (lolz)

But yeah thats my point. Poor, ill educated people who no career options other than being a criminal are going to get lucky and sometimes be magic users. And they will then become criminals, and probably do quite well at it, so people are going to be aware this could happen and do something about it.

But I'd just like to point out that every bank in the universe has (or at least pretends to have) some sort of risk management based approach to managing security, and a risk is

Threat (A proxy for frequency, modus operandi and some other things) x opportunity x impact = Risk

which is why banks spend so much time on internal fraud controls, because guess what the biggest source of 'criminal' risk is? Yeah you guessed it.

But other than internal fraud, magic users are going to be a much greater threat because no only do they have unrivaled opportunities, they are statistically much more likely to be the dudes trying to break in than hardened commandos, so the bank is going to devote more effort to dealing with them than the commandos.

Edit: Another way of looking at it, once you've applied the risk mitigation strategies you'll have in place to combat internal fraud, the risk for magical threats will be significantly greater than mundane threads, so you will have a risk mitigation plan for external threats that will focus on magical external threats.

Thus mages will be met with anti mage tactics at secure installations.
Method
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Feb 5 2008, 07:35 PM) *
Threat (A proxy for frequency, modus operandi and some other things) x opportunity x impact = Risk

And to take that one step further, who owns all the banks is SR? The AAA megas. It doesn't take the smartest data-pushing wageslave to come up with the idea of applying this theorem to all types of security throughout the corp...
Ravor
Magic is only overpowered if the DM allows it to be. After all unless the corps in your world hires retarded children to design their security measures there are many cheap and easy ways to handle magical threats, many of which has already been mentioned.



Wards are cheap, easy, and aren't easy to slip past without turning off the mojo.

Sensors are cheap, easy, and aren't easily fooled by magic.

It's really easy for a corp to pile on the visibility modifiers at the first sign of trouble.

Biomoniters are cheap, easy, and are nearly impossible to fool via magic.

Background Count should be nearly universal and serves as a great limiter for Mages and hurts Adepts even more.

Spreading around your astral fingerprint is a really bad idea, and Mages should seldom be sure that they will have enough time to clean up after themselves.


And I also say "Bah!" at the notion that magic is unbalanced because it is "open ended", hells, Unlimited Karma Mages can only exist in a certain subset of games, and any type of character is overpowered in a montyhaul style game.
Whipstitch
Magic 1 or 2 CyberAdepts in my games end up spending an awful lot of their time being mundanes for all intents and purposes thanks to background count and domains. Sucks to be them, but so it goes. Mages also spend a lot of their time wishing they had cybereyes due to vision penalties, but the only way to do that is to well, take an essence hit. Which means Magic 5(4) Mages in my games promptly get spanked down to being an effective Magic 3 in areas where there's a background count (which are quite common), leaving them in much the same boat as the pseudo-adepts. All of this leads to Mages in my games generally finding themselves pretty useless if they weren't careful to make sure they're decent astral scouts/combatants, assensers and utility mages rather than Karl Combatmage wannabes who rely on high Force everything to get stuff done.
Earlydawn
As a side-note, you can't ward vehicles - Pg. 123 - "The Physical Anchor", Street Magic.
swirler
I have to stand by the street adage from my old SR1 days

"It only takes one shot to geek a mage."
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Earlydawn)
As a side-note, you can't ward vehicles - Pg. 123 - "The Physical Anchor", Street Magic.

...the FAQ has thrown a potential spanner into this, and there has been long winded dcussion in the past on the topic of wards & vehicles on this forum.

QUOTE (FAQ)
Can a ward be placed inside a moving van?

"A physical anchor cannot move more than a few centimeters relative to the ward enclosure when the ward was created." That's the key phrase and it can be pretty tricky. For instance, if you create a domed ward outdoors using a rock as the physical anchor, and then someone kicks that rock a few feet, the ward will collapse. It has moved more than few centimeters from its position relative to the domed ward at creation. But, if you ward a shipping container using the walls of that shipping container as the physical anchor, and the shipping container is shipped across the Pacific Ocean, the ward does not collapse. The entire warded enclosure is moving, so in the relationship between the ward and physical anchor, it hasn't moved at all from its relationship at the ward's creation.

Technically, if you can ward the van's body (the "enclosure") it should work.

...goddess forgive me for opening up that can of rockworms again...
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Earlydawn @ Feb 6 2008, 01:16 AM) *
As a side-note, you can't ward vehicles - Pg. 123 - "The Physical Anchor", Street Magic.


You can ward vehicles, actually, it's just that those rules were poorly worded.
Maelwys
If you're having problems with the mage's power, perhaps you should look at changing the drain from F/2 to simply Force?
JonathanC
Here's a question: What if a mage/mystic adept with Improved Invisibility walked into a room and stepped on a pressure plate that activated a special sprinkler system that sprayed them with paint? Would they still be invisible, since the paint is covering them, and the spell affects them? Or would regular people be able to see them?
Fuchs
Easy ways to counter the invisible mage:

Have some dogs come with your guards - fooling a dog's nose is harder than fooling a human's eyes. For a step up, have the dogs cybered. For even more oomph, have paranormal guardian critters.

Cheap spotter drones with ultrasound sensors patched into the commnet of the secruity force should take care of invisibility as well. Pressure pads on the floor work too. Then there are the CO2 detectors, air pressure sensors, and gas delivery systems.

Or have combat drones roam, who have standing orders to fire on anything that shows up on ultrasound, but not on visual.

Magical means start with watchers and cheap wards. IMC, most important buildings are warded. Some even have contracted mages who come by in the evening and morning to summon a spirit to watch the building till the next sunrise/sunset. The magedoesn't have to be present at all, he just makes his rounds in the evening/morning.

Then there's the astral signature threat. If a mage has to expect that forensic mages will check his signature, he is less likely to use magic all the time.
Cardul
Personally, while I feel a mage is essential to any Team, I also feel that magical security is essential to any secure facility. I generally assume that a) there is a Wage Mage on the facilities designated High Threat Response Team, b) that the normal guards are trained in anti-magic tactics, and c) that there is anti-magic stuff put up through the facility.

Haven Lillies, FAB, Glowmoss, guards with glow sticks, guards with that new smoke grenade from Arsenal that blocks mage LOS, those are going to be common. In secure areas, I assume 3 man guard teams with 2 regular guys and 1 heavy weapons guy. I especially like the Neuro-stun vents linked to the guards biomonitors.
Synner667
Considering that Mages are supposed to be so rare, it would not be a cheap matter for them to be employed in ordinary security [shops, etc].

The skills necessary for a Mage to be any good at using their Magic [ignoring the game mechanics nature of being able to offset fatigue, etc] should equate their training to a professional soldier or doctor..
..So there shouldn't be hordes of Mages in the SINless population, etc.

Of course, the balancer used to be that Mages worked for Corporations [who would scout for, and hire, emerging Magical talent] and Shamen used to be the ones in the general population [and couldn't fit into the Corp mentality].


Of course, the demographics in SR are completely fubared !!
Mages and those with more than basic Cyberware should be rare/very uncommon, yet many groups have at least 1 Mage and most people with non-standard Cyberware [and very often, little good reasoning how they got their training and/or Cyberware].

I run in a magic light and serious Cyberware light SR, so the Magic stays special and uncommon, and non-standard Cyberware isn't everywhere
Kyoto Kid
...Radar Sensor Cyberware.

QUOTE (Augmentation P. 36)
It is unaffected by visual tricks like camouflage
and Invisibility spells. It is unable to ascertain
colors, lighting,or other visual features.
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