My players trounced the Kreiger-Rak ghouls. They combated the ceiling climbing Rak-Ghouls with flying drones sporting SMG mounts. Just slaughtered the ceiling ghouls, and many of the flanking ones, too.

So I sent in the ambush of astrally projecting, but physically manifested ghouls in on one side, and a group of charging murderously physically real ghouls from the other, they just didn't have the initiative passes to keep up.

All my players were pulling 4 actions thanks to the drug-addict black mage sustaning 5 increased initiative spells at once (which only totaled to -5 due to his drug). Remember my plans to grapple and rend PC's? The ghouls ran up and did the grapple like I planned, so far so good. But then the other 3 initiave passes where they were mostly helpless to the constant bombardment of arrows, spells, and LMG/SMG gun fire.

In desperation I released my brain-child. A Toxic Shaman Troll Ghoul. Who was posessed by 2 bound force 12 Toxic Beast spirits. One was 'Mutating' to add 12 to the troll's strength. The other adding 12 to his body. I also decided that if the players were gonna have improved initiative sustained all the time, there was no reason why the Nemesis Troll Ghoul couldn't too.

His Body came out to 26. Yessir, thats 21 health boxes. But between the hail of 14P arrows from our good archer, and force 12 Manna bolts from our Crack-Mage (THAT ARE RESISTED WITH WILL NOT BODY!!1!1!) the monstrosity I was planning on eating half the party with just flipped over one of their vans (With 4 players in it, I resolved damage like a crash at the speed of Nemmy's Strength! ), smashed an irritating roto-drone, then died before his 3rd initiative pass.

Players were just so buffed up with Improved initiative and stat increases (Many sustained with foci) that after a month of play ate through one a pretty lethal scenario without so much as a single character death. Fuck!

So how do you people deal with mages specializing in buffing powers to augment everyone and their sisters with 4 (total) initiative passes, and augmenting their casting attribute to their racial maximum?

I'm just going to point out the obvious flaw: the ghouls should have gang banged the mage first.
If you're players are so bad ass, you need to apply bad ass tactics to them and make them suffer.

[edit]one addition still creeps in my mind: let the mage make a lot addiction tests if he's taking drugs like there is no tomorow

Given that your players' tactical doctrine seems to rely heavily on a buffing mage, adjust fire accordingly.

There are a number of options to inconvenience, incapacitate or otherwise eliminate a mage - they need not be fatal, but a focus abusing, drug addicted mage has a pretty fair number of weaknesses to exploit.

-Siege

Thing is is that he only takes drugs on runs. Outside official run encounters he doesn't touch the stuff.
I thought focus assault would be of some help, but was unsure of how exactly to pull it of in an adventurous manner.
I'm slightly insulted to at the suggestion that the ghouls attack the Mage first. They are dual-natured monsters, the mage was what they were going after. Hash out an Elvin mage with an adjusted charisma of 11, casting pool of 20 (15 with his minuses) or so with a likewise impressive drain pool (and negative modifiers don't aply to drain tests) launching 4 power 12 mana balls/turn.

With the ghouls all taking but single actions they could run (I gave them a more then generous speed of 15 meters). Those that were in range leaped on the runners and sucessfully grappled them. Next action its an auto 8p damage from each ghoul in range to the poor runner as he gets rended and torn apart. The second action never came. As fast as I poured ghouls in they got slaughtered.

Why ever play an adept when any mage that took the posession option could outshine them easily?
Why play a decker when as a mage (Improved initiative and 'Analyze device' spell) you can AR hack faster and use your computer more proficiently then any decker ever did. Same for rigging.

Am I just realizing something everyone knows already? Or should I just make my enemies attack the mage firstier next time?

You should still make addiction tests. If I was only doing speed in combat zones, I could still want to take it afterwards, that is what the test is for. Also, if everyone is using foci all the time... addiction tests.

As for that rest of it - you sent ghouls (who have no guns) charging into a mass of people that had machineguns in a semi fortified position. This is exactly what happened at Rouke's drift, except this time the British have automatic weapons, and the ghouls didn't have any snipers (the zulu's had hundreds of bad snipers at Rouke's drift)

Of course they were going to die. The same team would probably have been nailed if you just had 8 snipers with maximum augs and Barretas, rather than hundreds of ghouls.

Thirdly.. how does the mage have chr 11?

Lastly: You used the wrong spell. Use Mana static with the toxic shaman next time. A mana static on the mage would have ruined the entire party.

Improve attribute spell?
This is what I mean about the mages buffing themselves. Improved Charisma+elf=11 Charisma.

And I can start pressing the addiction angle, but with use of the 'detox' spell they can pretty much ignore any of the negative side effects after the drug wears off. It takes months and months for addiction to actually lower your magic attribute.
Focus addiction... I remember it in 3rd ed, but how exactly does it work in 4th? I'll check that avenue out.

So thats more minuses against his casting skill (which you didn't mention, you said he had 5 improved reflex spells and was taking psyche and had a -5 modifier to the pool, so I assumed he didn't have any more sustained spells) and it still doesn't particularly explain how his casting pool is getting to 20.

But either way, hit him with a mana static! that shuts the entire thing down *hard core*

Edit: Oh you forgot enviromental mods, remember if it is dark, or the choppy ground gives cover, that is also a penalty to the spell casting too.)

I did. Let me break it down.

Being an Elf=6 Charisma
Having a force 5 Improve Charisma spell up=5 Charisma

Total it up?
11 Charisma
5 Skill
Force 3 power Focus

19 Spellcasting pool.
-5 from the massive number of spells being sustained (Which I did mention above)

Once you are enhancing both charisma and and willpower your drain pool yawns at all but the drainest drain.
His Countermagic is also equally impressive. So unless I throw a very powerful wizard out at him the spell will fizzle.
And I have a hard time giving anything short of full cover for the 12 meter aoe of a manna ball

If I am I murking up somewhere please tell me, it looks very plain and straightforward to me.

Casting Pool:

Magic Attribute + Spellcasting + Foci

Drain Pool:

Drain Attribute + Willpower (+Centering)

Sounds like your mage is pulling your nose.. to have a Spellcasting pool of 19 even with maxed skill, specialisation and a powerfocus 3 (which.. if im not completely out the window.. costs 15 karma to bind) would need a magic score of 8 (and atleast initiate grade 2, if he is completely implant free) however, since he only had 5 in his spellcasting skill and no mentioned specialisation he would need a magic of 11 (initiate grade 5 wo. implants)
Summing up to a humongous pile of Karma (let say he had 6 magic from chargen) it would still be whooping 105 karma (Attribute raise= 3xnew ability) and additionally about, 30-40 karma from the initiation (potentially less w. ordeals/magical group) Unless your running a highpowered game, there's something wrong here, 11 charisma indeeds give mighty drain resistance.. but doesnt explain his Spellcasting DP..
Finally.. the golden rule of GM'ing.. dont forget to apply modifiers, visibility, background count (A nasty ghoul infested place, home to a toxic shaman to! wouldnt be very astrally clean), range and so forth.. Dont forget that with great powers, comes a great astral spotlight.. and some nifty signatures left behind. I put great weight in informing my players of "sure you can have two tons of metal in your body.. but dont complain, when the scanners go off" or "sure, you can cast force 10 manabolts if you can handle the drain... but dont forget that signatures is traceable" or "sure, you can attempt hacking Ares.. or even Horizon, but are you really suicidal?" It's a dangerous world, the sea of shadows.. and you sure aint the biggest fish around

Some random thoughts to mess with the group:
Spash Grenades with Freeze Foam
Grenades (preferably following the above)
Great form Task Spirit Endowing several bruisers with binding (let them use binding instead of grappling and let them do it form a distance)

btw, how were grappled runners shooting SMGs and LMGs?

Also, you said he was sustaining 5 improved initiative spells not 5 improved initiative spells and Improved charisma. Were there any others?

And yes, the mage is overdue for multiple addiction tests

He can get to 18 with:

Magic 5 + power focus 3 + spellcasting 6 + specialization 2 + mentor spirit 2

Add in either spellcasting 7 or magic 6 for 19 dice. Of course, that's for only one type of spell.

ah yes, very limited specialisation although.. how is that old saying?
Overspecialize and you breed in weakness
Im anxiously awaiting clarification from OP

Screamin Demon said:

Being very nitpicky, but it would have to be a Force 6 Improve Charisma spell, as the minimum force is the value of the attribute being improved.

As everyone else has pointed out above, thats not how it works (that is his drain pool, not his spellcasting pool), plus you should have a -6 because he's maintaining the charisma buff and 5 improved reflexes

But either way, yeah, a mana static is the way to go as there is no resistance test so he only gets counterspelling (what, 4-6 dice for 1-2 successes? If he has 18 dice for counterpselling, 18 dice for drain, 18 dice for spellcasting and is using charisma for all of them, your problem is not that mages are OP, it is that your mage is actually cheating), and that will probably completely shut him down

Advantages of mana static

No resistance test, so very easy to get it in
Kills spirits and all active buffs with a one shot nut punch
If you can summon two force 12 spirits you can easily lay down a huge mana static (hell, get one of the spirits to cast it at force 12, giving you what, 8 successes for a 12 meter radius background count of 8? Instant one shot all of the mages spells.

There are 3 spellcasters in the group, between them they had the themselves and the premier fighters improved to 4 initiative passes. I know that the Dark-Mage had 5 spells all being sustained. Some of those were improved initiative, other were buffs on himself.

The Troll archer who was the only one to avoid a grapple shot two arrows, freeing the gun toting sammy, and he fired on the others alongside the 2 roto-drones and an upgraded doberman. Then the mages started in with insane drain pools and force 12 manaballs. It all went oatmeal after that. The ghouls might have had a chance if they acted on more then 1 initiative pass... Honestly it was more troll-arrows and atomic spinning manna balls, but what really killed those ghouls was the 3 passes they stood there, getting shot off of whoever they were on. I imposed a -4 dice penelty for shooting into a grapple, and on a glitch both grapplers will be hit. Nobody glitched.

I suppose the lesson I am going to learn from this is that shadowrun really is a game of shadows and firefights. The Ghouls kinda brought claws to a manna ball fight and got pasted. I can see how in the future (When they fight Cyberzombies

My primary concerns are the mages pumping their drain pool so high by augmenting both their drain attribute and willpower to somewhere around 24 and then launching force 12 manna balls all day long... I am in process of designing a cyberzombie badass enough to extract my vengence. I'll post his stats on a new thread, my goal is to make him immune to anything my cocky players can throw at it as so I may murder them all!!

Then start anew with Ganger chargen rules.

Good points on manna static. Sounds like just the tool for a Renraku strike team.

Screamin Demon - The dice pool you use to cast spells is completely independent of the drain attribute(the state of the tradition- Charisma in this case). From what you listed, your mage should have had a dice pool for casting spells of 6(magic-I assume it isn't higher because you keep mentioning Force 12) + 5 skill + 3 power focus for a 14, which is respectable. However, keep in mine you need an increase attribute spell whose force is equal to or greater than the stat it is increasing. That stat is then increased by the number of hits he gets on his spellcasting test. With 14 dice, that is going to be 4 on average. So, 10 Charisma, and again, Charisma doesn't help with casting spells, just resisting drain. Once he is sustaining 5 spells or more his dice pool is 9, with anything but perfect lighting conditions that goes down even farther.

Mana Static adds a background count to the area equal to the number of hits generated on the spellcasting test. Background count lowers the magic rating of every magically active person, and the Force level of all spells and spirits by an amount equal to the count.(4 hits on Mana Static of 4 or higher= background count of 4 = -4 to the force of every spell, focus, mage, adept, and spirit in the area. Dismissing spirits, dispelling spells, and lowering the possible force of spells as appropriate. Adepts lose powers with a cost equal to the magic loss till they get out of the background count.

Also, do not ever let your players build characters around each other. It may not have happened this way, but it kind of sounds like they specifically built characters to be able to get the maximum benefit from each others abilities. Do the samaurais and adepts and such normally have initiative enhancement? If they don't hit them with a Mana Static to dispell the Increase Reflexes and they will power down greatly.

Chris

That is retarded propaganda and simply does not happen. Learn the rules and try to emulate the mage who does all that with 400 BP. Good luck.

Also, your problem seems to be that you are not very firm with the rules and your players are bullshitting you all over the place. Also, if your group has three mages you need to adapt the opposition to be a serious magical threat. And you need them to use accordingly, not clashing them like the tide against the players.

If you have too much time on hand post your players characters. If we know more, we can help you better. And in this case information is critical.

19 spellcasting pool, isn't that hard, it's just resource restricted. Ignoring for the moment the +4 you can get to one school (spec and mentor), you can get extra dice from foci (spellcasting or power), aid sorcery (bound spirits or ally spirits), edge or even teamwork tests. Bound spirits and foci eat nuyen, foci and ally spirits eat karma, and edge is handy for other things, but 7 extra dice is easy, you just can't do it very often.

so . . you wanna WIN shadowrun by killing off the whole group and now try to min/max and rules lawyer your NPC's to be able to beat them but complain about your players doing the same?

Or maybe he wants to challange them. Right now he cannot even do that, as it seems.

well, fighting is not all there is to shadowrun . . make them do legwork, make them do negotiations, make them be bodyguards . . all their fighting power won't help them anything, if they are not the target and the target is squishy . . then there's allways matrix-stuff and the such . .

I rewrote the whole Initiative System so IP bonuses are not the end all, and break all, of combat.

Lars

I feel a little compelled to just to the OPs defense here. Yes he got he rules flat wrong about what stat to use with spell casting, likely ignored a bunch of spell casting minuses, also ignored the augmented max for charisma (If the elven mage didn't take exceptional attribute), etc etc etc. But but let's not attack people for missing large chunks of the game when they are new and explicitly asking for help.

Mages are pretty darn buff. If you have 3 highly skilled mages in your world, then yeah you will need to address magically. Mainly that is visibility mods and background count (Mana Static or nature). Pit them again a Geomantic Initiatory order and it will get ugly fast.

Another point:
>My primary concerns are the mages pumping their drain pool so high by augmenting both their drain attribute and willpower to somewhere around 24 and then launching force 12 manna balls all day long
This doesn't happen by RAW. AugMax caps Will+Drain Stat at 19 dwarfs and charisma tradition elves. There is still the centering meta magic and foci that could possibly put a drain put up at 24. So if your players aren't initiated and bonding sustaining foci they should be at 18-19 tops. 18 dice mean you explect 4 or 5 hit. F12 Mana Ball hits you with 8P damage. Yes you can cover with edge and be pretty safe, but I promise you that drain will add up if you don't put ever single foe in one room.

Also before you resort to cyber zombies, try good old fashioned drones. 3 IPs, cheep plentiful, flying, no fear of mana spells, OR of 4, etc. Drones can be scary to mages. Go ahead Pit them against a Rigger/Mage. 12 hardened armor, 12 Dodge DP and -10 to hit from conceal power and camo will shut down most Sams. The same -10 to hit and 12 resist dice (if the spirit has Magical Guard) will shut down most magicians. Even your non RAW mages would be looking a 19 -5 -10 = 4 vs 12 without any wounds or visibility mods.

Something to chew on. Most importantly I would encorage you to just re-read and familiarize yourself with the magic section again

Take it easy! Settle down with the non-constructive criticism, I don't need to come to a forum for people to tell me I am retarded, I can get that from any old lout anyplace.

Pointedly, yes I am still learning the rules, as demonstrated by the core concepts of magic I got blatantly wrong. I like to think that I make up for any lack of knowledge with conviction and enthusiasm, but perhaps that is a little egotistical of me.

My bad if I got bull headed.

My intent in overwhelming my PCs is at this point they've deemed themselves the masters of the system, due to many oversights of my own humble self the current characters came out of character generation with a good many pieces of equipment over acceptable availability. I am incapable of just taking stuff away after we've played a few games, I hate to retcon. So right now my favored course of action is to get a good ol'TPK and start on over with the rules more strictly enforced.

Not a nasty dragon drops out of the sky TPK, but I am going to exploit their very abuses against them. They have too much reliance on magic power. I stat up a nice Cyberzombie and have a decently powerful wagemage with a decently powerful counterspelling focus and be shielding the cyberzombie. Capping myself at -4 essence, thats a lot of dice to dispel any oncoming spells. And should they manage to flee the onslaught of this unstopable beast all those damn powerful foci they keep around constantly active is going to make it very easy for the Rak-Ghoul Cyberzombie monster to track them across the city and finish the job...

The 2 worst of the mages characters forsook the Edge Attribute and left it at a pathetic '1', thats 2 murders away from oblivion. I know it seems a little heavy handed to purposefully murder your players, but it brings a sense of danger and fear to the other players. And that fear ladies and gentlemen, is second only to love.

[edit]I had actually thought of having the Cyberzombie having a few cyberlimbs wired to a rigger, so in addition to being a cyberzombie it is also a platform of articulated arm mounted LMGs that are being rigged by a rigger wirelessly. I mainly choose cyberzombie because they are already in the plot and the players are somewhat apprehensive of seeing one. Drones are nice, but powerballs like my guys throw will just ruin their day.[/edit]

No one called you retarded. Yet

If you really want to kill the players instead of simplie relaunching the game (i.e. ret conning), then you should go all the way.
Cyberzombie, supported by at least one squad of Red Samurai-esque snipers/fire support guys, one or two Blood Spirits (or regular spirits if it does not fit. At least force 5. If you're feeling evil make them Great Form), one mage purely to support and defend the CZ , another mage to dispel or otherwise debuff the players. Attack the PC mages first. No kidding, the enemy can tell and will always go for them first.

Keep in mind visiblity, terrain, cover and similar penalties. Also remember that HITS on spellcasting are limited by force, not NET HITS.

After you are done, talk to your players. If they want be be assholes, you should just have proven that you can easily be a greater asshole. You play actually together, not against each other. You are not firm in the rules, so they should not try to abuse them on any opportunity.

And a longterm advise: "I only take the drug in combat" is not a valid excuse to ignore addiction.

You do not need a TPK to restart a game or edit the characters. If you restart the game by an intentional TPK, you are a GM I would never play with. If you bring up rules misinterpretation on your end, and ask for the characters to be changed to within the RAW, the players will most likely be okay with it. If they are not, they are a group I would likely never play with.

Learn the rules, simply have the players edit their characters, or declare a new campaign (be sure to explain the reasons), and enforce the rules. Never intentionally kill off the players - anything that would justify it would be just as easily solved by asking the player to make a new character, or kicking him out of the group (depending on the problem).

You're retarded.

Apologies. I only just caught that last post in preview and had to delete a great big rant that was probably a bit unfair to you.

It irks me to see new players and GM's 'hating' on buffing mages when the source of their problem is a basic lack of understanding of the rules.

I'd like to point out another error you made that nobody else has seen fit to mention. In a spirit of love, so to speak, of course.

Possession. I just checked the Mutagen Spirit Power and nearly barfed!

You're troll shaman should have wiped the floor with your runners, dude. It should be pointed out that you probably should limit possession to one spirit at a time. RAW is vague on the issue but I'm sure most here would agree that a second spirit either suppresses or expels the first.

However even with only one possessing force 12 toxic spirit using Mutagen the Toxic Shaman ought to have been nigh unassailable. Assuming that the Shaman had access to channelling the spirit doesn't really need any of it's mental attributes. If the Shaman augments his Will to racial max and the spirit keeps it's will at least that high to prevent a miss-match making them vulnerable to Mana spells you would have had 36 points to spread across four physical stats with minimums of 17/13/13/17. I'd have gone for Body and Reaction there, 2 to 1 perhaps for a Body of 29 and a Reaction of 37. I suppose you could have gone with Agility instead of Reaction and given him a gun but where's the fun in that?

With Increase Reflexes as well that's an Initiative in the 40's and 4 passes!

So with ranged combat, if you can get past 37 dice of Reaction you still have to beat 24 Points of HARDENED armour!!

Mana spells? Magical Guard? Two Force 12 Toxic spirits will probably give you a fair few extra dice....

In summary, I think you under-sold your Shaman and that maybe the Hand of God ought to breathe life back into him and give him another crack at your runners before you start wheeling out the Cyberzombies.

I'm going to make a case for drones even at your table as it is. You say that way you are running magic rules they start with 19 spell casting dice. Totally cool. So 19 -5 from sustaining is 14. Stealth coat the drone for another -4, thats down to 10. Find a way to knock off another one more die from visibility mods, wound mods, or background count an they are reduced to 9 dice. 9 dice mean you can expect 3 hits. To hit a drone with a spell you have to beat it's Object Resistance of 4. Not likely. If you can get some counterspelling on the drone that should handle edge and flukes with ease.

Shadowrun is a game of glass cannons. It is far far easier to dish out damage than to take it. What makes drones so scary isn't there monstrous DP, but the fact that they are pseudo expendable and yet credible threats. No medium drone will be as hardcore as the Red samurai or FireWatch, but they don't have to be. For the cost off piece of ware from those spec ops, you could buy 50 drones with LMGs. Use said 50 drones to chip away at the players. The mages will take drain from time to time. Make them roll, never hand wave the drain check. In the short run have a several drones spray the party to chip away at there dodge pool. Then have the last couple drones swoop in for the kill when they can't dodge.

I really do hear what you are saying with the cyber zombie. If it's already in the plot go for it. My recommendation is that you make the give the cyber zombie a heavy drone support so that when the players finally get to the "Boss Fight" they all have some wounds on them from the drones or from drain.

Another bit of RAW for to throw at your players


I know that at your table you aren't to worried about them getting 2 hits with on WP+Spellcasting. But if you they have to roll 5 times several times a round they will start dropping spells here and there. Then they will have to do with the buff or spend an action to recast. If you are hitting them with 3 IP drones they will feel every complex action, I promise

Killing somones PC to teach them a lesson almost never works. And exploiting rules rules holes to cause a TPK to teach the players not to exploit rules loopholes never works. If you feel you have to restart the game, then have an above table discussion with your players and then restart the game.

When your players rebuild their characters, have them use the SR4Chargen excel file (available in the community projects section), so that checking teh math, availability, etc of the characters is simple. If necessary, post them up on here for us to look at.

Yeah if the problem is a GMing goof, I'll bet dollars to cents that a sit down talk over breakfast will go over better than just killing them all.

As you say, it's a learning experience - you don't know the rules backwards and forwards, so just run with it.

Ultimately, the point of the game is to have a good time and if you and your players are having a good time, the rest just isn't that serious.

-Siege

@ the OP, read sieges post again and forget everything else in this thread.

OP is obviously not having a good time, unfortunatly.

You are most likely right, but we know that for a fact. I am an ontologically cautious person. That said I suspect you're right, and that is exactly why I to make sure that we all took a moment to remember what this is really about.

Killing PCs?

Oh, no, I am having a good time.
Crizh you are so correct about the spirits taking possession of people. And that waxes me all the wroth more! That fraggin toad monster would have easily broken 30 on his body/strength stats! Plus hardened armor!!!
I still donno, though. They were dropping manna bombs on his face, and manna bombs don't care about those kind of things. Counterspelling helped drop their net hits somewhat, but force 12 manna ball is ouch.

In defence of using TPKs as a GMing tool. It won't *really* be a TPK as most of the balanced players have a reasonably high edge rating. 2 of the 3 twinking mages have only 1 point of edge. So the others get miraculously saved by Doc Wagon (I couldn't bring myself to out of hand slaughter the girls either. Took the poor things hours to make their characters)

Perhaps gamers are short in other parts of the world, but I live on Oahu and had to place a '10 player max cap' on the game just to keep some semblance of sanity in the room. If any of my wonderfully rules abusive players wants to go play the new wod 'Mage LARP' (The only other game running that night) then they are welcome to. And I've already notified the players that I am not allowing any more mages when these ones die. I want to roll with a more nitty gritty down and dirty lifestyle. Magic in SR is phenomenally powerful, as I suppose it should be. Its also supposed to be somewhat rare. All will be in balance again. And please trust me. When I kill a player they've had it coming to them. I could just have the Star track these assholes down for the slaughter at the stuffer shack they perpetrated in the first game, oops, I guess one of those nameless NPC's that was murdered in the volly of huge manna balls was someone's son. Its not like these are clean, meticulous runners. They have been getting sloppy and their power has gotten to their heads. I feel that it is the GM's right, nay, God given duity to knock PCs off of their phantasmal high horses. I'm sure you would understand if you met them.

Thanks for the advice, corrections and admonitions. I'll get to work translating their character sheets to a text formating for those interested.

If you can justify a playerkill with "they were sloppy and have heat on their tales" use snipers. Let them taste true inevitability.

Ah, snipers. Nothing other than an orbital cow Thor shot quite says, "Dude, you just got arfed,"* quite like a well-placed sniper bullet from the clear blue sky.

Yeah, not so much a fan of Sniper Wars, unless they're done to warn the players not to try the same trick. I mean, once you've forced one person to soak 20P damage, AP -5, you've seen it a thousand times, right?

*"arfed" == RFED, or Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.

Is the issue their gear? Well, I just LOVE it when people think the gear makes the character, and obsesses about their gear..Why? Nothing says "I want to be knocked out, stripped, tossed in bags, and sent to Dubai" quite like "look at my cool gear! YAY!"

And, remember, the Big Bad guy is perfect candidate for Hand of God...I NEVER let the PC's see the body of the big bads..

Magic is kinda the exact opposite of that, actually. Strip a Hacker and he's useless. Strip a Weapon Specialist and all they've got is Unarmed Combat.

Strip a mage and you've got a very angry guy throwing a Fireball at you.