Man, with such high states, no wonder he's that good.

I just wish you'd stop using the term "broken," Ravor, that's all. One GM's "broken" is another GM's "Hrm, I'm going to have to have the Johnson offer to pay these guys a lot... and then kill them with cyberninja counterspelling mystad drop bear ninjas on K-10." And no, I don't mean that with any irony, either. Having 17 dice in Bad Assery means that oddly enough, you're likely going to be able to do something bad ass, because your character apparently performs at beyond peak human abilities. The problem here is less with SR4 and more with GMs not taking the appropriate measures to realize that superhuman characters are best handled by ramming them with Citymasters and making sure that even the mooks toss a good dozen dice or so after appropriate modifiers in their appropriate skills. When your group is big enough that everyone is capable of specializing in their particular shtick it is becomes very appropriate to send them on the kind of high risk job that would actually offer a big enough payout to accomodate 4 or 5 people taking the run.

Well with optical vision magnification, vision enhancement (3), low light, thermographic, ultrasound, and flare comps in a pair of goggles or contact lenses you are taking care of a good chunk of vision. Which isn't happening at chargen, but easy enough to do after a run or two. Putting most visibility based modifiers in a 0 to -3 range. The main thing that will hit a mage is the other penalties. Target in good cover (-4), and then either attacker in cover (-1), or attacker moving (-2).

So best case is no modifier, worst case is full darkness (-6), target in good cover (-4), and attacker moving (-2). Total is -12, that is a pretty big hit, completely negating a "normal" dicepool. Now add in the vision aid above (3), power focus (2), spellcasting focus (3), and optional aid sorcery (+1 to +6 depending). So you can very expensively negate 8 points, and even end up with a +2 modifier. Then if you take a mentor spirit it is possible to end up with another +2, for a -2 to +4 modifier. It all just depends on the specific magician and what they have available to them.

While it does have a limited optimum range, it's also quite easy for an elf mage or any other meta with natural low light vision to simply take Vision Enhancement 3 and Eye Light retinal mods in order to have pretty decent vision.

...

My connection and the double posts are getting out of hand.

That's just it though, I consider Fourth Edition to be broken when it ventures into anime turf as it does in high dicepool games, and not only ruleswise, but also in terms of how the setting is presented through fluff.

Although I supposed I could say that Fourth Edition is Anikened at that point, but then people would have even less of a chance to understand my random ramblings and rants.

note that some of these goggle additions (as noted above) can't be used while spellcasting. Low light and thermo work if natural, bioware, or cyberware, but ultrasound NEVER works to target spells.

See, I'd agree with you there if it weren't for all the anime level crap I've seen IEs, GDs, SR novel protagonists, Elvis worshipping vampires, and Otaku pull off in SR over the years. "This doesn't match my vision" ≠ broken.

Okay if ultrasound doesn't work, still leaves -3 as the highest you can get on a visibility modifier. Now where did I miss the low-light/thermo stuff only working as cyber? I just want to go read it, since I missed it somewhere evidently.

As I mentioned in another thread (but hey, redundancy is fun, and it's applicable here as well), there are those that feel external (ie non-implanted) eyeware blocks Astral Perception, as glass is opaque on the Astral.

Sure, but one of Fourth Edition's focus is supposedly to return to the street and to back away from all of the anime garbage that existed in previous editions. Now whether or not it has suceeded is another matter entirely.

However, something that I feel is important to note is that you simply don't seem to see threads complaining about this or that aspect of Shadowrun being broken in low dicepool games, and that by itself either says that no-one is playing such games or that the rules tend to work better at lower levels.

Now please note that by lower levels I'm not talking about lowering the Build Point caps, or even playing "street gangers" just keeping the overall dicepools in the campaign lower.

Vision enhancements in goggles, contacts, and the like all replace the mage's norm vision without being paid for in Essence. Thus, they cannot provide LOS for magic.

Eh that isn't so bad as long as they are not contact lenses. Very easy to push some glasses or goggle up off your eyes before you go to perceive astrally. Contact lenses, not so much.

EDIT (for Dashifen)

Ah, thank you. I just rolled right by that. So cybereyes it is. Well the vision magnification can be something else, but not like it is hard to fit into cybereyes anyways. So all the modifiers stay the same, you just have to pay for it with magic (aka essence).

So that means I need to rework my shaman.

True, but then you loose any benefit of the vision enhancements. No low-light, no thermo, no magnification, etc. That could quickly increase the visibility modifiers that are faced by the mage.

You don't watch many animes, do you? Also, it's most amusing that the anime argument is also used to attack D&D 4th.

well, since goggles, contacts, and glasses are not mentioned...and in addition to that they do not "substitute themselves for the character’s own visual senses" they can still be used.

Malicant

*Shrugs* I watch enough animes to understand that over-the-top hair raising stunts are par for the course. Can't speak for D&D 4.0, although over-the-top hair raising stunts is something that I embrace in High Fantasy so that isn't necessarily a problem in that genre.


djinni

Excuse me? Are you arguing that a Mage can use non-Essence vision enhancers for Magical LOS or just that a Mage can see through the glasses and use his normal vision for Magical LOS?

AH, I wish I had joined this thread earlier, but Ill just have to work harder to catch up.

First off, I think the main issue has been gotten away from. Malicant mentioned it, but I dont feel as though it has been driven home enough: The problem is not with the rules (completely), but with both the GM's and the player's understanding of the rules. DONT let the players lead you around by the nose because you arent familiar with the rules. It is the GM's responsibility to understand the rules and interpret how those rules affect the world they create.

My previous GM feels seriously jaded about magic and wouldnt let us play possession traditions purely because one player took advantage of his ignorance and ransacked his game world. Now that may be an abnormal case, as said player was a total power gamer and did not enjoy the game unless he was in COMPLETE control of the GM and all the other players, but this CAN happen to you! So be vigilant and know the rules.

Second, if you are having issues with Stunball, you are not the only one. I think everyone can acknowledge that Stunball is the most effective combat spell in the game. Not only can you safely cast it at a higher force than Manaball or Powerball, but it is Direct as the Mana/Power, and is tallied on the Stun damage track, which is usually smaller by a box or two (many more in the case of Trolls and Orks). Im pretty sure Serbitar just plain raised it to the point of Powerball, which is not a bad move. To increase ALL drain codes by Force/2 just to prevent one spell from being abused would just be absurd.

Third, Elves, Dwarves, and Focused concentration. +Spellcasting dice is out, +Drain dice is in. Any intelligent person that reads the casting/summoning rules for fourth edition cannot help but realize how important drain dice are. While drain has always been important (I remember a dwarven mage with pumped willpower spending his entire pool on the drain test casting a Deadly Stunball and still passing out completely), it is now within our power to reliably resist ALL of it.

I also have a friend playing a 14 drain dice elf Black Magician that reliably resists Force 10 Stunballs. He does not always get 6 successes, but he usually only needs to cast that high twice on a run (A force ten stunball is usually enough to take car of a squad of anything really). Now this is a starting character, and while most characters (present company aside) will not be so properly min-maxed, this much resistance to drain at startup is almost scary. This is also before he has initiated, learned centering, taken a Fetish, or any of the other ways to maximize drain DP.

While I think having all these dice makes playing a mage much more fun, more responsibility rests on the GM to challenge this character without fucking the entire team, and without being unfair. If the character is really sticking his/her nose out, its your responsibility to cut it off. Dont metagame or intentionally try to kill the character, that is not how to deal with it. You need to come up with realistic backlashes to the blatant use of power.

If the character is really that powerful, more and more people will be interested in who he/she is. If they cant deal with him, its going to get passed up the line until someone with True Power comes a knocking. Dont underestimate the powers that be. They have taken a long time to get there and they dont like being pushed around by some upstart. Of course, this backlash should not be instantaneous. If you start having GD's knocking on the door, without first giving some kind of hint that the character is stepping on the wrong toes, you will just have player rebellion. You should always give the players a chance, even if you dont think they deserve it.

Ouch this guy is either a munchkin or a VERY experienced character. No wonder you're having problems. Although, at this power level the rest of the party should have an equivalent dice pool for their fields of expertise, and let's face it Ares Alpha can perform rather well, especially when you start lobbing grenades as well.

The mage in out group had only half that amount of dice, which made the game alot more balanced. Sure he did fire off a force 10 stunball once taking out an enemy mage and 2 spirits in one go, but that left him with alot of physical drain that almost killed him when he walked into a booby trap later in the session.

Still I advise you to change the ruling. Is it the general consensus that the mage should handle all combat single-handedly while the other players are fiddling their thumbs? If not, make them agree that "if it's not forbidden it's allowed" doesen't apply to all game rules. I mean, nothing in the rules say you CAN'T use the stunball spell to summon a nuclear bomb and wipe out Seattle, does it? Ok extreme example but really RPG rules cannot be as exhaustive as the LAW, where they have to make laws for every possible situation. 3 dice might not seem alot compared to 20, but every drop counts. That's one less damage he can "auto-soak." BTW Are you aware of how many BPs are required to get those stats at character creation?

well considering the term munchkin is defining roleplay style and not the rules on a character sheet, I think you mean power gamer, and no he's not.

163

Ah it feel SO much better to not have to read everything off a PDA, and look no typos either!

OH no its CONTAGIOUS!!!

The responsibility is on the GM that approves to run a game for such a character. Note that a magic rating of 3 works in most cases, your player does not NEED more. A magic rating of 4 is good, beyond that you have to work if you want to challenge the mage. I have run a game for a magic 6 semi-toxic avenger mage, and from that experience I´ll say that the problem areas are high-force bound spirits and mana-based combat spells. The first can be limited by using edge to resist binding, the second was solved by *gasp* talking about it (The player took Acid Wave instead, the char was tuned enough to pull it off).

Obviously only the over-the-top hair raising stunt animes. Anime is not a genre. Superheroism is. It would be more fitting to compare that over-the-top stuff with american super hero comics, but hey, whatever suits you best, right?

Seriously, I watch tons of anime and everytime someone compares over-the-top stuff with anime I'm like "Huh? Oh... right, Dragonball. Friggin' 80s style "

This is so off-topic... I will stop this now.

I don't watch Dragonball, I was referring more to anime like Ghost in the Shell, Blood Plus, Bleach, and the like.

That's funny, since Blood+ and Bleach is Dragonball all over again (basically) and GitS is not very over the top.

Damn, I wanted to stop this... my agrue feever is just to strong.

Ghost in the Shell is tamer then the rest of my list sure, but it is still over-the-top for the Sixth World.

I consider GitS as not over the top in SR - it's what I imagine the very best, governement/copr sponsored black ops teams would be like.

Most of the really "over the top" stunts I could see as the results of heavy use of edge anyway.

No kidding. It is not the sixth world. Inside of it, it works good, because the over-the-top stuff is big, expensive guns and really heavy cybermods. Not 15yr old kids discovering some heritage and running into stronger and stronger opponents. It's even less over the top then SR.

The comparison lags

djinni, I think re-jiggering the drain is a great idea. Drain based on Force rather than Force by 2 seems like a good fix...I have other house-rules that I've considered which get the same effect.

-Overcasting causes unresistable drain equal to (Force - Magic).
-Overcasting causes physical AND stun damage.
-Pay drain before casting your spell. (Makes sense...if you can't pay the piper, why would you get the spell?)
-Remove one spell--Increase Reflexes.

I don't think that last house rule is very effective with extra IP's from edge and drugs, nevermind the fact that many mages would choose a bit of bioware anyway. Or you could throw in a damage resistance test for direct spells.

Your player is definately a powerful mage, but, come on. He's got a Magic of 6...he's not a 6th grade initiate or anything. He should have to take at least some drain to rip off a force 10 spell; I don't care if he's casting fireball or makeover, force 10 should be painful. Even with edge.

wow. got the hate on for casters don'tcha.

as far as drain before casting. I dont know about SR4 (yet) but in SR3 if you went unconcious because of drain, the spell didnt happen.

Ok, the Bleach reference I got, but if you are going to claim that Ghost in the Shell is less over-the-top then Shadowrun then kindly explain your reasoning. I'm not quite sure where the entire "Ghost in the Shell works within it's universe because it's not set in the Sixth World" came from though.

Fixed.

Yeah, Hank, Im not sure if youve played an SR3 mage or whatnot, but drain seriously sucked balls. If you make it to the end of the run consciously, youre a total pimp. Of course, by SR3 rules, all spells are force 5 no matter what (since in SR3 you had to get successes based on a TN equal to force).

I think casting is SOOOOO much more enjoyable right now, and instead of just arbitrarily pumping ALL drain, you should look at either specific spells that are too cheap, or specific players who are just plain shaking the boat. You should not penalize out of game a character that used his Karma within the rules in the way he wanted to, that is not fair. Like I said before, you have to find acceptable in game ways to balance him.

I don't know, the idea of paying for Drain before the spell goes off isn't really game-breaking, but I don't like it from a thematic point because I like the idea that a Mage is able to kill herself to go out with a really big bang.

Yeah, that's about the only idea I'm cool with, but I don't necessarily like it; the potential interactions with the Dead Man's Trigger are quite messy.

the minimum drain of force-magic seems to be something to try...might curb the overcasting issue however. mystic adepts are unaffected. or minimally affected.

aside from that if the problem is not magic in general, (which is what I think anyway) what is to be done to correct the blastification being done? I'm thinking of altering the drain level for the stun spells to be in line with the powerbolt spells, or increase combat spells in general? leaving it alone is not going to curb the issue and what toes would he be stepping on? even if they find an astral signature how are they going to find him? as soon as he initiates masking is going to make it next to impossible anyway.
even if he doesn't over cast he could have a couple spirits of man cast a few spells instead (when mentioned as a "no drain because they are spirits" before I meant no drain for him, because the spirits are casting it not him)

How much are you paying per run? Remember that burning through bound Spirits is really expensive and if he starts abusing spirits by throwing them into the meatgrinder like that then it's perfectly reasonable for them to start burning Edge on the summoning/binding tests.

Also the masking Metamagic wouldn't actually help him as it only affects his aura, not his Signature, Flexible Signature only makes it harder to see the real thing, so if he is setting off magical tac-nukes right and left sooner or later someone is going to ritually track him either to put him down or more likely to leash him.

its stunball no one gets hurt, no property gets damaged, the only thing you see is the astral signature(3 hits), most of the time they are not going to know what it was that created it (5 hits).
okay so a spell was cast, nothing is damage and they didn't kill anyone, this drops to low priority we have murderers to find...
but yeah agreed if the team cuts a bloody swath someone is gonna find them and soon.

If he's a runner and has stolen stuff on a run, while tac-nuking the guards, that might warrant a higher priority than "we have murders to find". Especially since corp sec gives a rat's ass about murderers.

I wonder why are you defending him? Did this thread not start to cripple him in the first place? Or don't you want to punish his character in-game?

I don't want to punish the character, I want to reign in the "geek the mage" mentality of the game.
as it stands the only way I see to challenge teh characters in combat is to provide magical support for the opposition. once that is gone, poof game over...
the team is challenged in other ways, but as long as they protect the mage they win, and if they don't well...its game over.
yeah they've stolen stuff but from competing companies and when does the "manhunt" become too costly? if they steal a multi million dollar prototype heck yeah! but if the company doesn't even know what was stolen...they might think the run went bad. they also aren't going to vehemently pursue anyone who doesn't kill their slav- er I mean employees.
any action they take outside their territory is illegal and could garner them much more lost revenue than one runner.

right now Ravor they are pulling in enough to maintain medium lifestyle and still save up for cyber.
they don't loot the corpses, they don't mistreat anyone who surrenders, and try to use non lethal force when possible (well...this group does there's a different group that I'm gonna post a new thread about later)
monetary value I think I pull in 5-10k extra including pay data.

What kind of StufferShack does not know what has been stolen? And why would anyone send tac nuking mage into such a low-sec company in the first place?

I know that's not going to help, but I had to ask

editing the security logs to delete any trace of the information in question.
hitting a transporation detail (other runner team) before they got to drop off their package and or analyze whatever it was they were hired to extract (cyberzombie).
stealing doesn't have to be a physical item.

wowowowowow... They steal a cyberzombie and no heats comes down on them? No body notices? A guy drops magical tac-nukes without much effect on him, the logs claim nothing is missing and the people just shrug and go on with their lifes? I don't think so.

The only time in SR I know of the logs were so clean no one discovered tempering was when the logs themself were the ones doing the tempering (that was Emergence btw).

But whatever, not my game and all. You want them stealing Cyberzombies out of low-sec-no-one-cares facilities, go ahead. You don't seem to be big on in-game consequences. Some games just are like that. But kicking the overcasting-uber-mage in the groin with more drain is not going to solve the problem in the long run.

One of my favorites is restorin gthe old flavor of armored vehicles being impossible to kill with magic by having half their armor apply against the mage as dice pool modifiers.

you missed the "transporation detail" and the "other runner team" did ya? no worries here I'll specify. all the heat came down on the original team, not them. they were hired by the guys who owned him, to get him back. it was a do it fast do it now. cyber zombie is 0.1 essence away from a street sam, I don't know why everyone is so impressed with them.
unless you pull a GM fiat, if they perform the appropriate command, and maybe even have a sprite to help, the logs are clean. especially if they steal an authenticated user, and hack it with his access.

I think what they are refering to is that you generally have to not just edit out what you did, but put back in some fabricated stuff so there are no gaps. That is moderately difficult to get right.

It doesn't matter if they get enough hits to tell what spell was cast, all they have to do in order to tell if a uber Mage worthy of tracking down was there is determine what Force was being used, which is realitively easy, all you have to do is keep checking on the sig and note when it disappears and then compare that to when your guard's biomontors recorded all of them getting their asses handed to them.

*Edit*

Also note that if you are playing Fourth Edition at anime levels of power, then you are naturally going to get anime style headaches to go with it.

is a hacking+edit test, one test for both actions right?

See since I think probably 30% of the mages in the world would work in security, and of those 1 man can ward a LOT of buildings, and keep spirits leashed to go and magically support an area when an alarm goes off, 1 mage can "protect" 3-5 low to middle security areas. With those percentages, you are going to see a ward on every important building and vehicle, most transports that have anything worth a damn protecting them are going to have a spirit running protection and interference and all HTR teams and high sec facilities actually have at least one mage on site. If you want to quote the population statistics, well, try and apply them to runners and see what you get. Same thing applies to security and I would assume R&D. Keep in mind, a lot of the sec mages will be CHA and INT mages and a lot of the R&D mages are going to be LOG based mages just because aptitudes go that way. So they will be more able for combat(more spirits for more protection or higher initiative and perception).

Anyway, my 2 .

Chris

You do know that because of the cybermantic procedures involved in keeping the CZ alive that he can basically have unlimited cyber/bio in him while also generating his own personal background count and if they managed to get a mage to do it then he can keep his counterspelling skill. So... uhhh... a LOT more than just a sammie with .1 less essence. If the corp builds one right with all delta they still typically hit -4 or so essence.

Chris