Been playing SR4 now for about five months and have been generally having a horrible time but that's another issue.

One of my players happens to be running a mage and he seems to out class his "gun toting" compatriots quite a bit. (To the point one said toter has not fired his rifle in many sessions). The mage in this case usually has a combat sense 6 and reflex enhancement 3 foci active at all times. Prior to combat he tends to astrally project and scout for foes. Then should the drek hit the fan he "bombs" distant opponents with a force six elemental while blasting spells from the safety of a heavily armored vehicle.

Pretty standard stuff I'm sure but here's the dilemma for me. I know that I could easily geek his elementals or even him with some similar strategies. For example I could have a mage astrally scout and "spirit bomb" him too. But it'd be unreasonable to expect that every (or even most) opponents have their own summoner on hand. Not to mention as a GM I'd feel dirty wiping them out with that trick.

Any body have this happen before? My mage seems to dominate all the combat encounters. Even ones with vehicles. (Often taking them out with the accident power or simply engulfing the pilots.)

Thanks to all who read this wall of text.

Does he take the time to clean up all of his astral signature each and every time he casts one of those big spells? If not he's leaving TONS of magical forensic evidence, and possible ritual links.

If he's in a "heavily armored vehicle," are you giving him any LOS modifiers? For example, looking out of a narrow porthole could easily give concealment modifiers to the enemies. If he not a metahuman of some type and he's got no cybereyes, chances are he's also getting some penalties due to things like darkness, mist, and other things like that.

Enemy teams are known to employ their own mages, who use their own foci, and supply their own counterspelling. A mage with the Adversary mentor spirit, for instance, could easily sling 7 or 8 dice for Counterspelling your own magician's spells, and that's WITHOUT the proper Counterspelling focus.

Enemy mages also probably have the trusty standby Manabolt. That's great for taking out spirits of any caliber. And if you want them to have something beefier, just give them Mana Static. Discussions abound about how that's probably one of the best spells in SR4. That spell can wipe out your mage's entire crew of spirits for (28 - Force) days. And it can't be counterspelled. You can dig up a thread somewhere using the search function to learn more about it.

Sounds like you're giving him too much leeway in certain things as well. Accident power uses require the pilot to make a Crash Test, but it's not a 100% surefire way to take a vehicle out of a fight. A skilled pilot will probably make that test. Additionally, it takes a Complex Action for the spirit to Materialize BEFORE he can even Engulf, meaning the pilot or somebody else in the vehicle with him can do something about it. And even then, Engulf is an opposed test... It's not sure to succeed.

Better yet, have the insides of those vehicles WARDED. It's perfectly legit, as the ward stays inside the vehicle and moves relative with its movement. Spirits can't get in short of collapsing the ward or pushing through, both of which slows its down and alerts the magician that the spirit has done so. Additionally, wards provide protection dice (akin to Counterspelling protection) against targets on the otherside.

Want to really screw up your mage? Have the enemy magicians make use of Polarized Wards. If he's projecting or perceiving, they are opaque walls and he can't get LOS to target them. Meanwhile mages on transparent side see him just fine, and can cast spells on him with impugnity.

If your enemy mage is making use of area effect spells, realize that trained corpsec probably have had anti-magic training, and they'll stay around corners, out of line of sight, and avoid getting clumped together so that they can minimize their casualties in case the magician tosses them.

Magicians using Masking will appear to be mundane to your own magician, which will surprise the hell out him when they disrupt his astral form using Stunbolt.

And finally, make use of Background Count situations. They're nasty, especially if the opposing magician is using a tradition aspected to a certain domain.

Hope these help you.

EDIT: Darn, someone else beat me to the first. Ah well....

My first question to you is this: What he is doing with all that drain?

My comment is otherwise the expression of putting my face into he palm of my hands and shaking it in pain.

If he did one of these things here and there, I could understand the problem - because he's probably taking a healthy risk in drain. Doing all those things, however, begs the question of how he's not suffering drain frequently...

If you're (referring to the mage) powerhousing that much, there should be some point where that drain is a problem. There's the penalty modifier in that as well.

Lessee, counter measures...mana barrier on the physical plane helps - spells that have to go through it are weakened (layering would be helpful). Even if the spirit is flinging the spell, that still applies. Bad karma with the spirits themselves would work too. Depending how often he's using the spirit trick, high power spirits start to get annoyed if they have to do it too much. On a side note, wards (and possibly the mana barriers again), are a good way to disable foci if you can force the mage through. Too much interaction automatically fizzles them out if you're not careful.

Beyond that, his notoriety/public awareness may sky rocket the longer he does it. One does not fling spells like mad with impunity - people notice that. As more people get hit, they will start to team up or share details on it, trying to crack down on the source. You'll end up with a bounty on your head if they can identify you well enough to place it. There are ways to screw a mage over that can be created on the spot, given enough effort.

What other spells does this mage know? What's his Magic at? Is he kicking ass as a 'regular' mage, or is he a potent spellslinger?

Well Abschalten pretty much said it all. Also the mana tech in arsenal can be pretty deadly to mages. Also consider awakened critters for guard animals or just really attacked to the mages aura that is burning like a flame in astral.

Remember the motto, whatever you can do, they can do. So don't feel bad for from time to time, countering the players ideas with something that is directed just to a player. I mean, its a game and everyone should have fun. I had a mystic adept who ran around invisible punching peoples faces in. So what i did is included more environment (rain, sand, dirt, foot tracks and stealth roll for him) and more magical resistance (mages, its not just corps that have them. There are street witches and many gangs have mages in them).

Seriously. I forgot all about this aspect. I'm playing a magician right now, and with all the casting I do, I still get nickel-and-dimed on Drain after I've casted enough spells... a box here, two boxes there. OP, I second Cold-Dragon's question: how's your guy handling all that Drain?

Sounds like it's time to play Geek the Mage.

"Geek the Mage first" isn't just a cliche.

Beyond what others have said, here's my ¥2:

* A well concealed sniper with a Walther rifle and ADPS or AV ammo should make quick work of that vehicle he's been hiding in. Sniper Rifles have a range up to 1500m. Does he usually search the area that far out?
* Does the offense use smoke grenades for cover? They should consider it.
* Even a low force spirit can keep the guy busy for a combat turn or two while the mundanes take up superior position.
* Has he pissed off the wrong corporation recently? This could call for an escalation of force to equal his own. He might even find his contacts are reluctant to help him because he's making too much noise in the shadows.
* Consider giving him a "free" (gosh, thanks!) Negative Quality such as Spirit Bane or Astral Beacon because of all the mojo he's been slinging around. This might clear up on its own or he can spend the Karma to remove it.
* Structure the runs so he can't use magic as freely as he wants. Have the runners go into an area with a background count or a wild magic area. Nothing puts the fear of God/Deus/Big D into a mage like being down 3 points of magic.

Most of all, make it clear that actions can have consequences beyond the immediate situation. (Of course you don't want to be a total dick about it either; it's a balancing act.)

Force 6 can be serious drain. The damn spirit can generate 12 drain. No starting mage can soak 12 drain, even with edge. (Remember it's twice hits, not twice net hits). The average is going to be 4 hits, but 6 to 8 will be fairly common, which will do damage. Once you take damage your chance of casting goes to hell fast.

Second, there may not be a mage on site, but there is probably a security mage on contract or staff within 10 km. Who will pop in with his stack of bound combat spirits within 2 combat turns after the first magical mayhem starts. Followed by more within another combat turn or 3.

Plus a security mage can leave a bound spirit behind at HQ, and using his link to the spirit, have the materialized spirit repeat what he his is saying so everyone knows what is going on, And to do things like describe the vehicle and request someone whack it with an ATGM from one of the numerous patroling aircraft. It not like they don't know who this idiot is as soon as the see the astral sig of any of his spells.

If the players want to play in the big leagues, they need to be made to really play in the big leagues. PCs who end up in a standup-up fight with KE or LS are not going to win, and having them on your ass because you repeatedly hit facilities they have on contract should be BAD. The reason why people don't do that is that people who do this tend to have loud, bight and violent things happen to them (and anyone who happens to be near them at that time).

They are going to do stuff like send out a dozen or two spirits with search looking for his astral sig. Then they will hit him like a freight train.

Going after the player with hidden sniper type mickey mouse tricks will just piss your friends off; not actually solve you in game problem.

Take a look here at the sample security patrol writeup I did. It's not specifically spec'd to take out mages, but has some options to deal with them.

To defeat astral scouting, make sure you have plenty of stuff that can spot an astral intruded. Then the whole place can go on alert, making the job that much harder.

To reduce the effectiveness of long range spell casting, use guard shacks well protected from outside LOS, and smoke grenades when caught outside. Also, hitting the mage with flash-bang grenades, and having things like strobe lights/flash packs/etc installed as part of the installation security might help.

For the vehicle, make sure that the vehicle can't get everywhere that the mage needs to be, they have those concrete pillars, tire-shredding strips, and gates for a reason.

Remember that you are not trying to make his tactics totally ineffective, but to add drawbacks that make them not always the ideal choice.

Regarding balancing mages the people here have already addressed several issues but I'd like to reiterate some of the highlights and add a couple of my own:

• Visibility Modifiers: Make sure you are applying cover modifiers to spellcasting. A magician casting from cover at a target using partial/good cover will automatically lose 5 dice (target has good cover -4, attacker using cover -1) and it only gets worse from there. Even security guards know the dangers of magic and are taught to maximize cover and create obstacles.
• Drain: Make sure the magician is rolling drain right, summoning/binding and spellcasting at the level this character is doing he should be taking some drain on a regular basis. Plus drain is not healable through magical means.
• Passive magical security: Secure sites have wards, which can be the bane of foci of all types. If something overwhelms an onsite ward or spirit in a second, the corp will know it has to respond in force and will send astral assets en masse from the nearest site within a few minutes top.
• Active magical security: Even if the site/target does not have an active magician on site/around, it is likely that any asset that runners might be interested in has a bound spirit (or 2) watching over it.
• Security magicians: Use them defensively. Throw up mana barrier spells between the security guards and the runners, then complement that with Counterspelling all round. For spirits try barriers/wards or nuke/weaken spirits with Mana Static.
• Leaving signatures: Any magician using flashy magic effects and not cleaning up after himself risks.

[edit]somehow that last line got cropped, was meant to be: getting tracked down by a corp if he does enough damage.

...and that can get you a nice bounty on your head, a police record and quite some visits of people that you never wanted to meet. Aside from that it is not always magic that you need, aside from things already mentioned, a regular street samurai with a submachinegun can easily give your mage some additional "drain". Be careful though a long burst can sometimes be deadlier than you expect. Gas grenades can work wonders aswell (or grenades in general).

Somewhat quoting the other posters I like to say, use advanced tactics for your npcs, geek the mage first. It is also advisable to have all of the team in one boat, making every single one of them deal with consequences of the others dealings (including your mages). It is one thing if the storyteller is in dire straits trying to keep the mage in line, another if the teammates tell him to be less obvious.

Last but not least: You may have encountered the question, but...what about his drain?

First thing is " 3 foci active" screams "Your mage is a focus addict". Lots of people forget that yes it is a negitive quality and yes if he keeps it up his essence will drop. Having foci with high ratings are definitly a crutch and the addiction rules are there to balance them out.

Next, are you keeping track of background counts? Lots of corps and gangs pick places based on having an abnormally high background count if they are short on mages.

Third is send in the drones. Corps love them becasue they are cheap and expendable, and magic doesn't work as good against them. 2-3 rotodrones should make short work of that car he is casting from and they should be hard to get line of sight on.

As for the elemental, background counts work against them too. For extra crunch have the place Aspected to boost corp mages and hurt runner mages and spirits (Geomancy is great for just that reason). Lets see how great he is on a run whne the place is aspected to Shinto mystics. And if he loves his fire elementals, don't forget to trigger those fire supression systems.

how's he passing his drain tests after the first two foci are active? Or his spellcasting. Assuming he's go conjuring 6 because he's summoning force 6 spirits, he has sorcery 4 + 6 of the stat for a DP of 12 (mentor spirit), down to 8 dice, and what, 10-12 dice on the drain test down to 6-8. Not good!

What does having multiple foci active have to do with the drain test for summoning?

I don't recall anything in BBB or SM that says multiple foci = dice pool penalty for summoning.

Is this a call, Synner, or did I miss something along the way? I thought Heal couldn't do anything about stun damage... so if the Drain is physical, you *can* use magic to heal it...

It's explicitly noted as NOT magically healable in Street Magic.

By the way...he stays in the van? Ever hear of a shadowrun taking place inside a building or something?
And force 6 spirits aren't exactly unkillable by mundanes - I've seen force 8 spirits popped while manifesting by a couple simple action bursts by a 10-12 dice npc.

- Did someone mention wound modifiers so far? Use low-damage attacks from behind, wide bursts etc.

- Much the same thing with spirits, try shotguns and edged rolls against spirits.

I'll have to second that most armored vehicles don't really fit into corporate laboratories...unless it's a PMV with a rigger cocoon.

I'll second using IR smoke (preferrably combined with UV goggles) as a method that is both effective and cheap enough to be used even by low- to medium security installations.


If you're going to use dual natured guard critters, keep in mind that a projecting mage can just hover out of reach and zap them with manabolts.
Corpsec will probably know this, so equip them with biomonitors and let the guards pay attention when the hellhounds start to bark madly at something invisible before they start to break down in spastic convulsions.
In such cases, they'll be advised to call in serious astral backup, which can lead to "it's a shit sandwich and we're all gone take a bite" type situations.

Which reminds me, don't just go ahead and change over from a game world with nonexistent astral security to arcane alcatraz runner nightmares.
Let the next Johnson warn them that astral sec is gonna be tight, hinting at some of the countermeasures.
If the layers screw up, don't let it appear like a frustrated GM tried to throw something invincible at them.

Even better, talk to them out of game about your problems with GMing for the group.

Also cars tend to be hackable...

Ok I am not a SR magic specialist (still a relative newb to SR4 but have played SR3 for several years) but I have a question about what I am seeing for the OP.

I guess it starts with what is the distance from the armored vehicle the mage is hiding in to the combat. Is it in LOS or is the mage suppose to be doing this from a distance thru astral projection? If LOS then you can limit how close the mage can get in his little protected tank. If It is thru remote means then how is he doing so much?

If the magician is Astrally Projecting from the safety of an armored Vehicle some distance away, then how can he be casting spells at remote targets without ritual spellcasting? If he is astral how can he target the physical plane? Isn't it stated in the BBB that you cannot target auras, only astral or dual-natured targets? Or am I missing something like the magician's astral form materializing on the physical plane and then targeting physical objects? Is that even possible in SR4? and if possible would the magician be vulnerable?

Also wouldn't using spirits remotely mean they would have to be sent on remote tasks. Meaning using valuable bound spirit services or by summoning a unbound spirit, with all the entailed drain, and sedning it remotely to fight?

Help me understand this if I am wrong. But my understanding is mages are very useful in combat "When they are physically present" or using Spirits with remote tasks but would not be so deadly from a distance(since there is no LOS) without using ritual magic which takes a lot of time, well beyond any normal combat scenerio.

Background count is good...folks intentionally find places with high background counts (or make them) to keep their facilities secure. (At least they do in my games...)

Wards and patrolling spirits should slow down the astral scouting, although astral scouting isn't a bad thing. As long as it's under control.

Also, kzt mentioned combat mages from off-site popping up and summoning spirits. They could show up with spirit'o'man's whose only purpose is to use innate spell to cast Mana barrier...that would slow things down.

Enemies should absolutely have SOMETHING on hand to deal with elementals...they might have a clip of APDS or an adept on each team just in case.

But here are my two best ideas....they involve the vehicle.

1) Enemy rigger takes control of the vehicle and drives it to the nearest Stuffer Shack.

2) When the enemies figure out that there's a mage in the vehicle, the street-sam blasts the vehicle with a long-burst of paint-balls. Then let's see your mage get LOS.

I could almost see a dealing with mages sticky being made at some point.

Anyway I think this has all been mentioned in passing. But I think it bears a bit of elaboration.

First wards are cheap in SR4. They should be all over. This isn't even a "screw the mage" thing. They are made to be cheap, long lasting, and common like maglocks, cameras, and RF paint. Force 3 type wards should really just be everywhere on buildings while military vehicles and secure installations should have higher.

Now while you mage cold probably push through a ward if given a while the key thing is that the wards caster is alerted. Which means that it's rather like setting off the alarms before even starting the run.

The mage can get around this by walking in physically and only then casting the spells into the foci, but then he has to deal with the drain inside.

I suggest just telling your people that you didn't realize wards were supposed to be so common. Your bad. Now they're all over.




The second thing is drones. Drones are very cheap in SR4 and should also be used in large numbers. They're good against mages due to having their high object resistance and total immunity to mana spells.

Finally while elementals are awsome they also go down easily in this edition. Regular weapons do fairly well but elemental attacks just rip into them.

This is why they never should have gotten rid of grounding. Hellblast and you're done.

I'm curious to how you let him get a force 6 sustaining foci. If hes been able to pick up one of those, surely your other characters have gotten similar upgrades.

Just to make it more clear. If a place has wards if your mage wants to get in with his sustaining foci active he either has to "push" through with enough successes, which could take while, or just try and step through (more popular with internal wards or when making an escape). However just stepping through might knock out the foci.

Either way the mage that cast the ward will know of the attempt and would therefore call in that there is a security breach.

This could result in the mage in question being deployed. I.e. if there was some gunplay the corp might not call in the security mage, figureing they can deal with this using assets on hand or that it wouldn't be worth it, but if they already have their mage on the line and know they are dealing with a magical threat.....

Rockets take out vehicles, spirits, walls, people. Mundanes when under attack against powerful mages they probably have the green go code to unlock the extremely heavy weapons. Grenades also work fairly well.

*edit* the most vicious and legit tactic you can use though is if the other mage knocks out the sustaining spell. Your mage goes from 4 IPs to 1 and is suddenly not insane. Also be aware that commanding spirits takes a simple action so it means that he can't actually cast spells on the 1st IP. Spirits also only have 2 IPs on the physical plane, and the 1st IP is taken manifesting (which from what I can remember is actually a simple action not a complex... still they can't cast a spell when they are doing it.) *edit*

Avail 24R, base cost 60,000. Hmm, in the vicinity of Wired 3. Or 60 Anti-vehicle rockets. I wonder how tough that armored vehicle really is....

Alright got a lot a good ideas from these posts (I never considered applying visibility modifiers to magical tests).

To clear up about the runs. In the game I play a lot of the action actually takes place in the streets. And meets often happen in the barrens. Ironically fights often break out at meets too.

As for drain I'm fairly confident that using sustaining foci explicitly protects you from sustaining modifiers.
Also he uses some tricked out optical lenses to ensure he can make long shots.

I only own the core book. I'm not even sure what "Background Counts" are. Sounds like they reduce magic pool or some thing?

Occasionally he takes drain but even when he takes a little bit it only drops his dice pool by one die maybe two. It doesn't really stop the carnage at all. Many of the NPCs resist entirely with their will power against manabolts. And when the drones come in he likes to toast 'em with electricity damage from his lightning bolts which make machines inert even if they don't take damage.

A background count is an area of astral space that is different...it's polluted or noisy or distracting somehow. A background count reduces a mage's Magic by it's rating, and ratings go to 12 or so. Anyone whose Magic goes to zero while projecting because of a background count dies.

And it doesn't take much for a background count. A concert, according to the fluff, would have a BC of 1 or so. I used a background count of 4 for a warehouse with a stack of frozen corpses behind it. Let me tell you, the mage had a healthy respect for that warehouse.

Well it sounds like you may have a more fundamental problem than the mage thing in that you're having a lot of fights against inferior and unpreparied foes outside. This is generally an exploitable situation and it's just the mage that's doing it first (though they do have an easier time of it).

A rigger with a budget on par with the mages for those foci could have a fleet of heavily armed aerial drones that also finish the fight on round one.

And lightning bolts will take out drones. But at least the mage has to work for it and they should see some drain coming through. Make sure you aren't making it to easy to take out the drones.

And yes use background counts. While 4 is pretty extreme background counts of 1 are pretty common. And there are some spots with very high background count in Seattle. Background count is a known thing, and those that fear being traced by magic and the like may well go there. High counts would be found in places where there has been massive amounts of human emotion (especially suffering). For example the warehouses where the metahumans were burned on the night of rage. And also in places with massive ecological damage. For example Glow City (an old abandoned radioactive nuclear power plant out in the Barrens).

I wouldn't overuse background counts. Rating: 1 is a violent crime scene, Rating: 2 is a maximum security prison, Rating: 3 is for things like the site of a major battle, etc. They are there, but they should be used sparingly.

Similarly, foci addiction is a negative quality. Imposing it on a mage because he "uses foci too much" is like giving a sammie the Augmentation Addict quality because he has an Essense of less than 1 and has upgraded his 'ware recently.

Your best bet is to keep track of this guy's Drain (it's not just a dice pool penalty - it's stun damage, and enough of it can put him out) and use cheap, common magical defenses. You don't need to go out of your way to screw with him, you just need to stop the free ride that he's been getting.

Rating 4 is now a 10 point negative quality, weirdly enough. Just though I'd throw that in there after my brain snafu previous in the thread.

Just make sure you don't let him buy some glasses/contacts/goggles and get away with negating them. The ONLY way he can cast in less than optimal conditions and not suffer penalties for it is by getting cybereyes with the right mods (because they're paid for with essence.) Electronic gizmos and doodads don't cut it. (I'd get a page reference but I'm at work right now.)



If the lenses are optical (lens-based and not electronic-based) then sure, they'd help.
Sustaining foci don't help with drain, you're right. If he casts the spell, he resists the drain one time, and then it's sustained without penalty through the focus. Though I thought about what you said about him sustaining Combat Sense 6... you do know that you can't sustain a spell at a Force higher than the Force of the sustaining focus, right? Does he seriously have a Force 6 sustaining focus? And that every focus is for a spirit or spell category... i.e., you can't sustain Combat Sense and Increased Reflexes on the same focus, because one is a Health spell and the other is a Detection spell.



Background Counts are awesome, and they represent either a dearth of mana in the area, or a psychoactive build-up of it. Both of them screw with awakened characters and critters (except in limited situations.) For every point of Background Count, he loses 1 Magic, and the Force of his spells for the purposes of Drain are increased by 1. You seriously want to pick up Street Magic, for that will give you so much more to keep this mage in line. It's also a damn good book with good production values all the way through.



You really ought to give your NPCs some Counterspelling protection. Better yet, put him up against a team backed by a competant mage with the Reflection or Absorption metamagics (also in Street Magic) to slap him across the face with a nasty retalliatory spell.

Keep in mind that drones are cheap, can be controlled without being jumped in, and can easily swarm a magician. Don't send one or two drones in. Send three, four, or five. Drones get 3 IPs, even if your magician gets 4. That's 9+ initiative passes of pain to your guy's handful. If he's got an area effect electricity spell, have them flank his position from multiple sides. And it's an indirect spell. They get a chance to dodge it.

I agree with one of the previous posters, too. You don't even really need to be a dick to him, just stop giving him a free ride. Or just talk to him off to the side and ask him to ramp it down. If not, just let him dig his own grave. Sounds like he might need to lose a character to learn him some real shadowrunning anyway.

There is always someone bigger, badder, meaner, and with more resources. Always. Your player's mage isn't even close to the biggest baddest awakened.

There's a price for drawing attention to your power.

It's no different then the reaction someone walking into a bank today carrying a heavy assault rifle. Yep, the guy with the big gun is the baddest guy around... There are consequences to blatant displays of power.

Oh, and the rest of the team should suffer for having that showoff linked to them. You hang around the guys with the big guns, you better accept dealing with the results.

Two issues that you seem to be interpreting oddly. One is that the secondary effects for drones is based on the net hits of the ranged attack roll, not the DV. Net hits is affected by smoke, cover, etc. If the drone resistance test generates more hits based on armor+body+non-conductance the lighting bolt has no effect. (You could also apply the object resistance rules on indirect spells to make drones tougher, but that has SERIOUS impacts on the effects of magic)

The bit about metal armor not having any effect only matters if they ARE using metal armor. Which is not common, most drones would need to use plastic/ceramic armor systems in order to be light enough to move. Adding rating 6 non-conductive costs 1200, which is less than the cost the the drones GL and HE rounds. A doberman with non-conductivity 6 has 15 dice to resist a maximum of force hits. In other words, they almost always resist. Heck, with only their base 9 dice they have a 30-40% chance of being unaffected on average, assuming the drone get no defensive modifiers.

And the drone will get defensive modifiers. With thermal smoke and flashpaks the mage should have a 6 die pool to hit with the lighting bolt, so the net hits will tend to be minimal. The drone using radar has minimal issues with smoke. Only 3 vehicles in the game can stand up to sustained attacks of HE grenades or LMGs with tracer firing FA full narrow busts ((even without APDS it's of DV 13 AP-1 with 11 dice for the attack roll, and drones are unaffected by recoil). If you let the PCs do runs while driving around in a Banshee, Citymaster or patrol hovercraft I don't think we can help you much...

Warn the group that if they overescalate the powerlevel that it will hurt them in the long run.
Let them know to focus on story and not gamebreaking ways of wargaming things.
Throw a clone of the mage at the group and when they make new characters they can consider their choices of power level with renewed perspective.

Also, just in case someone hasn't said it yet, use Counterspelling to turn off his Increase Reflexes focus. He'll then miss a couple passes until he can turn it on again. That takes a complex action to recast. Then turn it off again. He'll never get an action!

Nailing a drone with an indirect combat spell shouldn't be super-easy. They get pilot + handling to dodge, then Body + half armor to soak it. Against the secondary effects, they roll Body + armor vs. the hits of the attack (I am assuming they roll against net hits), and are unaffected if they get equal or more hits. Also remember that hits (not net hits) are capped to the spell Force, so casting a Force: 5 spell, he can only get 5 hits. And indirect spells have a pretty hefty Drain.

Most wage mages will probably shy away from dispelling a shadowrunner's sustained spells, since their Magic tends to be more around 3 or 4, compared to the 5 or 6 that a shadowrunner will have. Try to dispel that Force: 5 or 6 increased reflexes spell, and they could be looking at physical Drain. They are better off casting something like clout or powerbolt directly at the mage, rather than whittling down his buffs. Keep in mind that a wage mage might be behind one-way glass in the guardhouse, or using a fiber-optic viewing system, and able act with less fear of retaliation.

Also recall that unless taken out by damage vehicles will start up again after a couple turns if zapped.

But in Shadowrun it isn't generally about defense. Though your combat senses mage is probably pretty hard to hit with bullets.

But generally in SR it's about who does what first. If you just have some goons go up to the players in their armored vehicles they're probably going to get taken out in short order.

If you want it to be a challenge. Mage or no mage, you're talking about snipers (against which you don't get a defensive roll if you don't know they're there, so combat senses won't help), and maybe some heavier weaponry. Note that combat senses doesn't help against being in blast effects either.

But mostly it's just a matter of giving them more realistic missions that happen in places that are warded. Having to recast the spells once inside means they probably won't get enough hits for the highest combat sense and maybe not the highest initiative. And they might have to eat some drain.

ok I havn't read all the posts but is the vehicle air tight? gas grenades dude, narco will knock him out but..pepper punch and other cocktails work too gas him and when he crawls out gasping go to town..or you could say have the team work in a heavy backroudn count area for a mission or two, or maybe an area with lots of astrel secrity, glow moss ect,

Ok if a mage is loaded out with his sustaining spells w/ combat sense and the other one that gives him 4 IPs most people will walk away from the meet. If the mage can see that these spells are being used you are just not going to get hired for any job if you are always loaded for bear. When you approach a Johnson you don't bring your rocket launcher to the table and expect that he is not just going to walk away. Many people take it as an offense, or do not want to deal in a situation where they do not have the upper hand. It should really gimp the social aspect of the game where if the mage keeps up the tactic of "bring the hurt to every single situation" then they just won't get any jobs. Most people during a meet will also want your team to completely exit the vehicle, and if the sensors are cut many will demand that everyone exit the vehicle. If that is not complied then they will either attack the team, or walk away from the deal.

Here is the angle you can play. Run a mission where the Johnson is somewhat concerned about a sensitive package that needs to be picked up from the coast and delivered to an area in the badlands. There is no actual mage that the Johnson brings so he does not realize what the mage has on himself. He tells them nothing except the pickup location, and the drop off location. When they go to pickup the package the sensors that the smugglers have can easily cut through the vehicles barrier rating (and conceilment) and picks up the mage hiding inside of the vehicle. If the mage does not leave the vehicle the smugglers will attack suspecting a set up. If the mage leaves the vehicle without any hassle the smuggling team will want to leave nothing to chance and wants to search/scan the entire party. If the party refuses then the smuggling team will also attack suspecting a trap. If they are searched ask the mage exactly what he is planning to do during this situation and if he has any hostile intent towards the smugglers the mage on the other team will have his detect enemies sustaining spell go off and the smugglers will attack. If this happens the boxes which are rigged with a small amount of explosives will end up being set off, and the team will have one extremely pissed off Johnson who will be spending quite a lot resources to hunt the party down and kill them. He was also monitoring the pickup sight discreetly, and will find out that the team caused the whole situation thus really really hurting the teams reputation as well. The package was extremely important, and it was a smuggling team that has really helped out this particular Johnson.

Boom. The team takes a reputation hit, completely fails a job, and now has a very powerful enemy.

*edit* Cadmus it also matters if the mage is in a sealed suit. Won't matter how sealed the vehicle is or isn't if the mage has no skin showing *edit*

This does apply. Unless they're really properly equiped with their own snipers J's usually like to meet indoors and in situations where they feel reasonably safe.

Though they might not themselves be loaded up properly if the runners just went on the offensive in a meet that should have gone well (though there are rep considerations there).

But I'm guessing more likley than not it was the classic double cross by an inferior force that didn't realize it was inferior. It's a gaming staple. The issue seems to be that the mage is able to clean up much faster than others in such a situaiton.

You also mentioned the sending in spirits to a building to clear it out, and doing similar things with a vehicle. Wards and elemental effect weaponry balance those issues fast.

Though can spirits materialize if they don't have room? A cargo helicopter or something would have space. But most combat vehicles have a cocpit barely big enough for a pilot. Even if they punched the ward they might not be able to materialize.

If I was GMing a meet in the barrens as he is, not going in loaded for bear (to me) means either you are so good, you don't need the firepower or you are stupid or foolish. If you are that damn good, why are you working for me as your Johnson? If you are stupid or foolish, why would I want still want to hire you for this job?

For your scenario, you are assuming that the smugglers' sensors are good enough to detect the mage in the vehicle. Granted that smugglers with poor sensors do not live long, but why should it be assumed that the smugglers can detect the mage in the vehicle? There should be a chance that the smugglers do not detect the mage.

And should the smugglers assume a setup? Turn it around and look at it from the runners standpoint. Why should my most "bullet magnet" member come out of cover? Who knows how many other smugglers you have hidden in ambush while all of my guys are out where we are vulnerable? You keep your boys where they are, I keep my boy where he is. We meet in the center, make the deal and both of us back off. My boys screw up, I die. Your boys screw up, you die.

Your entire scenario is rigged. Substitute a normal runner team into your scenario. Why would any mage leave the security of their vehicle? Why would any runner team allow themselves to be at the mercy of an unknown element? This isn't a high end establishment and the guards are checking weapons at the door, this is a meet in probable hostile territory.

Actually its more like if the Sammie decided to walk around all the time with his Wired 3 reflexes on or redlining all of his cyberlimbs all the time. Anything that makes you drastically better than human, if used to often or for to long can cause addiction problems.

Yes, but he has to roll down drain when he is loading spells into them.
And when he has to pass through a ward unnoticed, he has to deactivate the foci beforehand and load the spell into them again on the other side.
It may just be one or two boxes, but they can add up, especially when corpsec is using stun gas.

Wards also greatly reduce the possibilities for scouting beforehand.
And they aren't that expensive.
They should be used frequently in corporate installments.



Casting through optical systems like endoscopes, mage sight goggles and mirror arrays entails a -3 dice pool modifier.

]
You're mixing up direct and indirect spells. Lightning bolt, and indirect spell, the drones get to dodge against the hits the mage gets (which are, capped by force). Drone dodge is I believe pilot + handling + maybe some autosoft, can't remember off the top of my head. Next, drone resists damage, and since its an indirect spell, the drone gets body+1/2 armor to soak the damage, if the damage isn't soaked to 0, then you roll for secondary effects. I fully believe that OR should factor into this, as drones are the mage killers. Its a big paper/rock/scissors game. Mages are the paper, riggers are the scissors, and sammies are the rock.

Most drone armor I think is metal. It gives a nice counterbalance to the OR needing to be beaten in order to affect them.

Not every single meet is or should be on the Shadowrunners terms. When a Johnson hires a team for the first time no one has any idea what will happen, and yes the smugglers might not detect the mage. There is a very good chance they will though if they have radar vision. If they do more then one sweep (which would make sense) then chances are they will find the mage.

If a team is going into a warehouse to pickup some drugs or is doing something illegal and this is the first time they have done it why would they not be searched? Why would the other side not be totally suspicious and want everything to be on their terms? How come this does not make sense? What do people do in RL during these types of situations? I would play it that way, because during most of these situations the smugglers want the mage sitting in the van... oh no wait they don't. They want to know what is going on and if the person in that van is a plant. Also no one on the other side of the situation who wants a mage sitting in a heavily armored van unless they have the ability to nail it with multiple rockets? There is no way of knowing if the team wasn't eliminated and replaced by a different Shadowrun team who is actually going to try and attack them. It gets done (and makes for an interesting run.) Yet having a mage stay in a van in a situation like that I think would make anyone edgy and/or pissed off. Your mage is on the sand during the meet why isn't theirs? It all smacks of suspicion.

Because the Johnson hired these people to pick it up. The run typically isn't "convince the johnson's men to give you the box he hired you to get to safely transport." Usually the run is in the transporting of the box safely, not the picking it up from the J's people.

Also, what happens when your mage has a lovely influence spell, and tags the leader with a "Let him stay there, the Johnson said someone would stay in the van."

The biggest issue that I see in cases like the OPs, in past experience, is that you might be playing robots. You know the ones. Like in the old video games where the enemies just enter from the right side of the screen to be blasted, chopped, and beat up. Were the enemies aren't using tactics, cover, suppressive fire, etc.
I can tell you right now that I could hose out that problem mage, and probably the whole group if I was feeling ornery, in a heartbeat with a group of six street mercs with one mage and one rigger amongst them running nothing but 4s in everything important. No crazy magic foci, no insanely expensive cyber or drones, no heavy weapons except a grenade launcher shooting non-lethal ammunition.

Easy...as...pie....

And here's how you can do it:
1) The enemies don't want to get dead. Sounds pretty simple but think about it. Why would they just pull up in plain view and pile out when they know that uber-mage and ilk are just gonna break their feet off in your NPCs asses? Any street merc, ganger, bug mage, etc. will do everything in their (sometimes considerable) power to make things got their way when they attack. A full frontal assault with cover, concealment, or other tactical advantage to your enemies is for chumps with a death wish. Don't run your NPCs as chumps with a death wish.

2) Location, location, location. Your enemies should be picking the spots to fight, not the other way around. Use narrow corridors. Cut off their escape with a good flanking maneuver form a few other NPCs. Deny the PCs cover and concealment via technology, gas grenades, etc. Have your NPCs use cover all the bloody time. Cover also works against magic, don't forget.

3) Patience is a virtue. Yeah, the NPCs can jump the party as they leave the run location, but why? Have the enemies follow them instead. How often have you heard your PC declaration of "I'm looking for any tails..." after the guns have stopped blazing and everything seems cool? Not very often I bet, and that means that your intrepid runners are in la-la land and counting their before they blow most of it at an afterparty. Sounds like a good time for the enemy to find their bolthole and attack them there, neh?

4) Fight dirty. I'm not talking about slapping the PCs with a random 1000kg JDAM here or sniping them from two klicks out. That's not dirty, that's BITCHASS. What I'm talking about is using the NPC tools to maximum advantage here. Run a street-side PC (or two) over with that rigger-driven Hugh Jass, blacked out SUV as the PCs get out of the car. This works even better if you can jam the PCs vehicle against a light pole of some such so the door(s) don't open. Use CS gas to teach that mage how hard it is to cast spells when you're crying and snotting and coughing and burning everywhere at once. Pop a hot smoke to cover their movements from the rigger and troll as your NPCs take cover and open up form there. Use that signal 8 sat-com directionally to give that rigger/hacker a good dose of the ECM lovin' before they can go to work for a few actions or turns. Have the NPC mage toss a few low-end stun balls around. It won't do much but it'll certainly get the attention of the mage with the spirit so the other NPCs can focus on something not indestructible.

5) Be multi-dimensional when you can. The NPCs will try flanking, crossfires, and other nastiness as often as possible. If you go two guys up front with SMGs doing point shooting and two guys in back laying down a layer of suppressive fire with ARs...it gets a lot tougher on the PCs. Now have the SMG guys toss some smoke and/or CS gas (seeing a trend here?) and it gets even tougher. You won't get them with just guns. You won't get them with just flanking. You've tried magic and it's a no-go. Heck, you sure won't get them with just gas. But guns, flanking, magic, and gas? Now we're cooking!

6) Don't be afraid to scream and run. If things go poorly for the NPCs, let them lay out suppressive stuff and do a runner. The survivors have learned important tactical info for the next time they, or their compatriots, see the PCs that will make that fight even harder. Don't beat a dead horse with your NPCs, let them escape to fight another, better prepared, day.

Hope these tips help and happy GMing...

I think all parties to "neutral" meets are going to have some kind of overwatch, whether that be long guns, mages in a van a block away with zoos of spirits listening in on the tacnet ready to project with their little friends at the first sign of trouble, and that all parties know and expect that the other party is going to take measures to protect themselves from double-cross. It would be unprofessional not to. There is absolutely no reason for the smugglers' mage to be "on the sand"; they could be in a booth behind cover, and likewise no reason for them to demand, require and expect that all the 'Runners' cards get laid on the table. They should be *assuming* that there are more assets they've not spotted yet. How do they know it's a mage, not the Rigger? Whether the team is a substitute (or the vehicle lurker is a stooge) isn't going to be revealed by having the "mysterious vehicle-lurker" show their face (for whatever that's worth, given nanopaste and Disguise, and Mask spells and simple face-obscuring clothing); that's down to whatever authentication the sponsor of the mission has arranged.

All sides are suspicious and expect to not have everything their own way. If you can't deal with uncertainty, you shouldn't be in the Shadows.

Yeah you want to have overwatch, but it is a point counter point. You should have a sniper hiding out in the trees far far away, but if he is spotted expect the other side to want them to come out, or they have made preparations to kill said sniper. It is also easy to send... gee a force 3 spirit on the astral to check out the person in the vehicle, and suddenly it becomes obvious that the person is a mage.

Whats not to say just because the smuggling party is out on the sand w/o cover that they also do not have any tricks themselves? Is there a guy hidden behind deck with a rocket launcher? What kind of weapons does the boat have? Did the smuggling team cast a physical and mana based illusion to make it seem like those people on the sand are actually real? If it didn't get cut all you would see is a spell effect in the area surrounding the smuggling party. There are a lot of tricks and spells and things you can throw at a party, but having the other team want to show themselves is not an uncommon crazy thing to want for both sides. Having a mage in a box where you can't strike back at him would make me walk away from the unknown party right then and there. If you put yourself in the smuggling teams shoes would you like to have a force six mage do that? You know that you would be hamburger if the opposing party wished it in that situation. Sorry if I don't know you and if the mage is unwilling to get out of his box-o-kill us all I would say the deals off. Maybe it's ok in your setting, but in mine that wouldn't fly.