That's kinda funny - I once saw an NPC one-shot 3 force 8 spirits between two passes, open rolls - no fudging. Not a munched-out NPC either, just good rolls (assault rifle base damage 6, apds so -5AP total, so needed a mere 5 net hits to punch through the "immunity.") But of course, that's balanced...but when a mage does it vs a drone with a required 6 net hits it's overpowered, natch.


Sorry, but the new rules make it more likely for mages to one-shot people. For a set damage value, overcasting gives less total drain than casting low and needing multiple hits. Old rules, the mage would actually (gasp) hope to roll well! To do 10 damage with a stunbolt a mage can overcast at force 9 and need one net hit for 3P drain, or he could cast at force 5, need the target to utterly blow his resistance test, and suffer 6S drain. Which is more likely to result in no downside for the mage again?

And, by the way, mages also have the disadvantage of being easily spotted (by a mage or even a cheap watcher spirit, at least until they choose a specific metamagic in an initiation,) highly illegal (> force 3 is forbidden, remember?) and utterly impossible to conceal when they're actually doing something (to spot a caster = 6-force successes.) How loud the spells are is going to vary by GM. And of course, casting those big spells leave easily traceable signatures that point right back at the mage and last for hours...(oh, wait, that means the GM should occasionally use a mage too! Broken! Broken!)


Nope, except by intentional self-limitation. Even (gasp) mages can use the matrix just as much as "hackers." Assuming they can spare the nuyen and karma...guess that means they're even more overpowered.


And there's absolutely no cost whatsoever for these abilities that mundanes aren't required to pay too, right? Nope, none whatsoever. Free build points, nuyen and karma for all mages, apparently. It's not like a hacker could buy the pilot skill and an ultralight (or a flying drone big enough to pick him up) for a fraction of what a mage has to pay for the ability to do it with magic. Oh, wait - they could.


A mage who relies on edge for the knockout, is knocking himself out...+1 drain per net hit for damage, remember? What drawback does the gunbunny have again? Must be really nasty to be worse than that.

And apparently only munchkin GMs would give the other guys a mage too - an easy +4 or +6 on resistance tests, why that wouldn't even out the odds at all.

I have an opinion. I can consider this proof, since it is mine and I'm not wrong. I would know if I am wrong. Now that I have proven my point, comply!

How about proving it without screwed statisitcs? But since you need screwed statistics to prove your point I guess that will never happen.

Are you really serious about this? Like, for real believe this to be true?

Look, you can take everything I say super literally to make me look like a retard. But I thought the point of this discussion was to discuss actual arguments instead of batter down straw men. The point I was trying to make is this: different team members have different roles. Mages don't have the BP to be uber hackers, nor do hackers have the BP to be uber mages, thus each archetype must rely on the other to do everything they want to do. People are still complaining about how they want their mages to be swiss army knives who can accomplish everything. Before sensors had their OR buffed, all you needed to defeat a camera was a 3 BP spell of invisibility. Now, you need to rely on a hacker who has the skills to mess with cameras through the net. My argument about mundanes being shut out from the astral wasn't to say that this is somehow bad, or that mages don't pay points for it, but simply to show that different team members have different roles. Complaining that a single team member, the mage, no longer fulfills every possible role you'd ever need quite as well is not very effective, because it's not fun for anyone except the mage when that's the case.

Re the argument of one-shotting: nothing you described there is anything like easy. It's not easy for a standard NPC to hit force 8 spirits who have 16 full defense dice. It's not easy for that NPC to score at least 4 net hits on each shot to deal DV 10 to each spirit, and it's not easy for each spirit to utterly biff its soak test and take a full 10 boxes and die. That wasn't "just" good rolling, that was extraordinary rolling. And it proves my point that one-shotting is not easy for mundos, and shouldn't be for mages either. And again, there's a straw man -- I didn't say it was overpowered for a mage to be able to kill a drone by overcoming its OR6. I think that if a mage can overcome OR6, he deserves to blow the crap out of a drone. Mundos typically need 18 or more dice to one-shot decent opponents, but when you've got that many dice you're talking 6-8 hits every time. It's entirely reasonable that that many hits would drop people right away. Requiring mages to have just as many dice to one-shot drones is fair, I think. Why should they get better results with less dice?

No one expects arguments to be fire proof, but the moment you use flammable materials it's game on.
Yes, and now mage need to cheese stoopid DPs just to do the things everyone expects them to do. And still fail reasonably often at tasks that are (or seem) simple according to fluff.
And this was bad how?

The moment fluff is changed to reflect those weird adjustments, I will shut up. I have no real beef with the crunch part (besides that it forces min/maxing), but it simply does not make sense.

Look at the Occult Investigtor. He has Improved Invisibility and a casting DP of 7. Now, if he tries to use that spell there is a 17% chance it will fool a simple camera (assuming OR4) and less than 1% chance to affect OR6 devices. And although he is a sample character, one I'm quiet fond of concept wise, he is an example of an above average mage, that uses that kind of spell for a living. Just that that spell does not work if he uses it. This. Is. Retarded.

Basically, it makes no sense that phyical Illusions exist at all. They will not work as intended most of the time, and only uber-best of the best can use them semi reliably.

Speaking of straw men...
This has been repeatedly stated as our claim, but only by those arguing against us. We've never said anything of the kind. I certainly haven't, and haven't even come close to doing so. My "complaint" is that I don't know why the change was necessary. The "reason" given was that OR4 was "trivial". I, and several others including those arguing for the change, have shown that OR4 was not "trivial" by any definition of the word.

I'm not asking for mages to "reign supreme" or be "swiss army knives" or anything else. In fact, my contention is that those that claim that mages are "all powerful" *now* are simply incorrect. I believe that any single character in Shadowrun requires a team to be effective. I believe the balance that requires this is reasonable and good for a game. I've never claimed otherwise and I don't want to see magic take over shadowrun games. Then again, it hasn't, so why change it?

That's not what we're arguing.

We're arguing that it's totally unfair to require a target number of 6 for mages to make use of 3 groups of their spells.

This nerf affects Direct Combat Spells, Physical Illusions & Physical Manipulations.

Are you really trying to tell me, that you think it's suddenly ok for 3 whole groups of spells to be made wholly ineffective?

That spell might cost 3 BP, but the mage also had to pay for their magic score. And their Magician quality.

People keep talking about this uber "do everything" mage. Do me a favor and try to build him on 400 BP. It's not going to happen.

And even if Invisibility "only costs" 3 BP, why should it be ok for that to be made useless?




Regardless of what mages can do, you still need a hacker.

Except now, the mage has had options effectively removed.






400 BP mage.

Please build one.


You will not, be able to "fulfill every possible role". That's total nonsense.

Seriously, please build one. Everytime I build a brand new mage, I'm reminded just how tight 400 BP actually is, once I've spent 55 BP just on the Magician Quality and getting MAG to 5. Note, that's more than 250,000 nuyen worth of build points.

Then, you have to purchase spells. Another 24~30 BP perhaps.

But apparently, because those "only" cost 3 BP each - you feel it's ok for them to be nigh useless. Even though the mage has just invested nearly a quarter of all of their build points to be able to use them.

Can't mention that too often. Especially when reading things like that:

Don't forget skills. That's another chunk of BP.

What are the basic roles in Shadowrun? You have combat, stealth, social, and technical, more or less. A few illusion spells take care of stealth, a few combat spells, along with perhaps a bonded Health focus for increase reflexes take care of combat, and mental manipulations take care of social. You can't hack with such a character, but that comes damn near close to one character fulfilling every role. The changes dial that back a bit, now you need another teammate to handle things like sensors and drones. I just don't understand what the complaint is in that regard. It still sounds like "I want my mage to do everything." Somehow, there's this idea that if they can't mess with tehnology at all, then they're useless. But the two problems with that are a) that's not true, because mages are still amazing against peoples' minds, and messing with humans is just as important as messing with technology most of the time and b) that hasn't even happened, they can still affect technology with a good dice pool. I don't hear other archetypes complaining that they don't have BP left over to adopt a second specialty, most other players seem fine with whatever niche their archetype puts them in. But the minute you make mages less versatile, the minute you make them rely on teammates a little more, it's like you've committed murder.

Regarding convention play, I can't even fathom why anyone would subject themselves to that. Playing a tabletop RPG with strangers, who are just as likely as not to be very unpleasant people, sounds like a bad time, especially in a system like Shadowrun where so much depends on there being a certain level of trust being the players and the GM

If you can't understand what the complaint is, with 20+ spells suddenly becoming fucntionally useless, then we are at an utter impasse and I don't know what to tell you then.

You outlined those archetypes, but nothing is stopping "mundanes" of different stripes from picking up secondary roles. Unless no one you play with does this, and it's all min maxed ultra specialized characters. But really, what's to stop a street sammie from picking up several "face" skills or wetware to help them in that regard?




It sounds like that, because you're not listening.

Wanting spells to function with a sub 18+ dice pool is not "I want my mage to do everything".

'I want my mage to do everything' is what is being projected on people posting about this issue in an attempt to belittle and demean our concerns.




You're more than welcome to attempt to build a fully functioning, 18+ spellcasting dice pool 400 BP mage.

I don't think you can do it. No one else has stepped forward to do it yet either.


I'd also put 18+ dice in the "high powered/highly experienced" (i.e. massive total karma) range, and not in the "good" range. Really "good" is more like 10~12 dice at chargen.





You don't hear them complaining, because other than Awakened and Emerged, they don't feel the same BP crunch at chargen.

This is fact.

They also aren't massive karma singularities across the entirety of their careers.




If the game designers didn't want mages to be versatile, they shouldn't have created 5 categories of spells for them.

In SR versatility is, and has been, the hallmark of the mage. That doesn't mean they can actually fill everyone else's roles simultaneously and completely. Not by a longshot. And that's not something I would desire anyway.

What I do desire is for things like the OR table to make sense.

And I desire for mages who are Illusion focused, or Physical Manipulation Focused and actually succeed at their intended role.

Well, over here in Germany conventions are a small world. I know a lot of the people I meet at cons (and often only there) for years. It's like a big family meeting. The "unpleasant people" are quite rare. And big cons are a lot more than just playing. Workshops, readings, meeting authors and devs, etc. There's nothing like camping downtown Dortmund city an spending 3 days with 2.500 gamers.

Impressions: 1 2 3 4 5

I usually stay out of these long-running exchanges, where it is obvious that no one is going to change anyone else's mind, but as someone who has built a lot of mages, I have to comment on this.

A few illusion spells don't take care of stealth - invisibility fools a limited range of sensors and still won't get you past a locked door. Physical mask is nice, but you also need good social skills if you try to do anything with it. A mage with a few illusion spells is not even close to the mundane break-in guy. At best, he has a few useful spells that he can use to supplement the team's capabilities.

Some combat spells and a sustaining focus for increased reflexes don't let a mage dominate the combat role. A team with mundane and magical members will tend to steamroll over groups with only one or the other, but you need both for optimal effectiveness. You need the street samurai, with his firepower and high damage soaking capability. Street samurai need protection from magical attacks, and mages need protection from physical attacks. Trying to get by on one or the other will demonstrate the "eggshells with hammers" aspect of the game to the character's detriment. Even with a mage with, say, Body of 5, decent armor, increase reflexes spell, and stun spells that can drop most enemies, I still feel far, far from invincible.

As far as mental manipulations replacing social skills - no. If you don't use such spells sparingly, and in moderation, you will wind up with alienated contacts who won't work with you or your group, and lots of other people out to kill you. They can be extremely useful spells, but you have to be very careful in how you use them.

For technical, I'm surprised you didn't pull out "analyze device". In my opinion, though, that spell works better cast to buff the tech guy's dice pool to even higher, rather than making the mage a bargain-basement techie.


Mages are versatile, true, but any character can be overgeneralized to the point of near-uselessness. Mages, like any other character, are better off specializing in a primary role. A team works best when they are all specialists. Would you rather fix your car with a toolkit... or a Swiss army knife?

See, that's where we disagree. 18 dice is required on average for OR 6 objects. But not all objects have OR 6. The spells still work on some stuff without a cheesed dice pool. Saying that they don't at all without 18 dice is hyperbole.




I guess it depends on your definition of "fully functioning." Such a mage would have twinkishly low physical attributes, magic 6, spellcasting at 6(, with a mentor spirit bonus in the same category as their specialization, and a power focus 2. That's 18 dice. The character wouldn't be super versatile, but would be an omgwtf spellcaster able to bust right through high OR using their specialized spell category. And that seems ok to me -- if magic isn't supposed to work well on technology, why can so-so mages mess up technology like it's nothing? You claim that the fluff supposed that magic easily befuddles technology, but the way I see it, there's this magic-and-technology-don't-mix concept that's always been a part of the fluff, which really hasn't been backed up by the rules until SR4A.



Again, it's all personal preference. I hear you. You're dissatisfied. But the "right" amount of versatility for a mage, or the OR table "making sense" is a subjective measure. It's internal to you. Some agree with you, some don't, but no matter how you slice it there's no golden standard of perfection against which to measure this. I think the best way to tell if the changes work is whether a newbie, coming to SR4A without any of the baggage that an older player has, could rationally choose to create a mage, and make it an effective character. I think that he could, and thus while the changes make some veterans unhappy, they're not out-and-out horrible as people seem to be claiming. They don't render mages unplayable, they just make them less powerful in certain respects.

I have to jump in on this for a sec. I just finished running two sessions at a small con, and it couldn't be further from this.

I think that a lot of Dumpshockers, after spending quite a decent amount of time on these boards, become convinced that everyone that plays SR is represented on here. And, given what we all typically experience through threads like, well, this one, with the sniping, sarcasm, implications of stupidity, and outright obnoxiousness (and don't make that face, you know damn good and well what the crowd around here can be like), I can see how you could become convinced that there are a lot of people playing this game that you wouldn't want to have at your table.

But the vast majority of people I've met that play Shadowrun, whether they're on these boards or not, are cool folks. The one's I've played the game with have all been awesome. Granted, my numbers probably look nothing like Dash's or John's, but I bet they'd say pretty much the same thing.

Oh, and for the three or four of you that are about to start complaining that I'm insulting you, put that shoe back on before you post. It fits so well.

Larme I have to point out that spells have their drawbacks, they don't come for free and to be effective in certain areas you need a degree of focus that doesn't mesh well with the swiss army knife description and you're overlooking the most basical limitation: mages can't do everything at the same time nor they can be in multiple places at the same time; if the GM allowes the mage to make the point of having other members in the team moot than the GM isn't doing his/hers work well, give awakened characters a break, there's no thing remotely like a D&D 3.5 spellcasters.

OR6 is a computer. That means it's easier to break an Improved Invisibility with the cameraphone on your commlink than it is with a dedicated security camera.

Besides which, what isn't computerized in SR4.5? Your underwear has a Device rating, for crying out loud.

@Convention play: well, I guess part of the disconnect that goes on here is based on nationality -- it's not surprising that Germans and Americans have different views on the game, given the differences in culture and the way RPGs figure into that culture.

@AllTheNothing: I wasn't trying to imply that mages can do everything absolutely, that they wouldn't ever need other team members under the old rules. I'm just saying that under the old rules, they are more versatile and rely on their team less, and under SR4A they are less versatile and rely on them more. That's certainly going to bother everyone who wants their mage character to stay versatile. But objectively it's neither good nor bad, it's just a change. Obviously, it's a change that some people don't like, but their dislike is not a valid argument to show that it's wrong. Everything is being framed in objective terms -- the nerf wansn't necessary, the nerf is unjustified, the nerf is poorly planned, the nerf is just plain wrong. But none of these statements are anything more than personal opinion dressed up as absolute facts. They're not facts, they're feelings, and thus they prove nothing.

Now I'll agree that as a player it is hard to have some of your PC's best stuff nerfed, but as a GM with over 10 years experience running SR, I've found Mages are in 4th Edition very effective and by far the most very versatile characters out there.

That also means they get more than their fair share of the spotlight.

Yes a mage has to specialize some, but he is still has the most options of any PC.

Most Mundanes can get 18 dice in one or two skills.

Compare that to having 16 to 18 dice in one spell category and all the options that provides.

And still having 12 to 16 dice in the other spell categories.

Just adding four or five spells can open up all sorts of possibilities for a mage.

Currently I've been learning just what fun and havoc a Mage can have with just a Levitate spell.

One spell and he can use it to fly, move stuff, or grab people.

An if a Mage doesn't have the right spell then he can just call on a spirit.

Just the pure flexibility, the Astral options, never being unarmed, never being unable to pass through the security scanners, and never traveling alone (with the spirits at your call) put the Mage square in the spotlight.

The SR4A changes just causes them to have to have to share the spot light with the rest of the team a little more.

That is a good thing for the game.

If the statistics -are- screwed, I would like to know, and know how they are screwed. Are you able to demonstrate that they are wrong in some way?

You looked at the treshhold, determinded what DP is needed for that to be reasonabley overcome and declared that DP to be easily achieved. But to easily achieve that, you need to be a soft maxed specialist, which is quite opposite of easily achieved.

Really, you should simply STFU and build and play a mage. You will realize one of two things: either, that mages are not as uber-versatily as you believe, or that the mages in your group that created that believe in you where cheating tossers.

But most likely your thickness will not yield to reason, so, whatever.

I'm not even a mage player. Of all my SR4 characters I have only one mage, and I simply cannot understand those "mages are uber, nerf them, plz" whiners.

Am I the only one spotting the irony this time?

Yes they have the most options.

They are also massive karma sinks.

That's a significant drawback, even though it keeps getting glossed over.



Now compare the karma costs to get there.

Those "options" get bought and paid for. When mundanes are able to pump all their attributes up (roughly 20~55 extra BP worth at chargen, not counting magician quality) and as they improve their character they can pick up wider skill sets or max out other skills. Mages are buying spells, initiating, bonding foci, etc.

And still having 12 to 16 dice in the other spell categories.

Just adding four or five spells can open up all sorts of possibilities for a mage.

Currently I've been learning just what fun and havoc a Mage can have with just a Levitate spell.

One spell and he can use it to fly, move stuff, or grab people.





That comes with it's own price, depending on GM of course.

Have you ever heard the term "geek the mage"?



No one is asking for the spotlight.

We're asking for reasonable changes that balance direct combat spells without savagely nerfing them into uselessness vs. technology, and simultaneously nerfing two other classes of spells that no one really complains about.

All these new changes do are force min maxing, force overcasting, force the stunbolt/manabolt/stunball/manaball slinging builds.

As knasser said, those are the cool options. The non-violent, creative, thinking man's options.

Now nerfed into near futility.

Do they? Or do YOU FEEL being forced to do so? It's not the same.

I'm sorry, you're right.

You can play a non-min maxed heal mage who is effective out of the gate.

pbangarth has usefully shown with his statistics that you have to min-max to have a hope of affecting drones and commlinks with Illusion magic and to do so reliably isn't possible out of chargen. Because of the revised OR of 6, only powerful magicians (and only very min-maxed ones out of chargen) will be able to cast such spells without overcasting. So that's the first two on The Mack's list reasonably shown to be something other than mere feeling that it is so, I think. And as to forcing stunbolt / manabolt builds, the reasons for this are two fold. Firstly, magicians that aren't min-maxed find out that this is one of the reduced number of options for what they are left with being able to do. Secondly, any magician that is min-maxed sufficiently to cast illusions on complex objects would be a fool not to also take a decent combat spell or two because ability to moderatly cast illusions on complex objects means ability to cast far more than moderately powerful combat spells.

Versatility comes for a price, and just to make my opinion clear, I think that both the increase of the attribute costs and of the OR are good moves, but I also think that the way the direct combat spells have been updated doesn't solve their problems and creates new ones; and speaking of physical illusions, I've always thought that the hits of the spell should set the treshold for a percetion/sensor test and not beat OR/be beaten by an intuition test.

The irony that my teams mage is no longer a valid supporter?
[edit]I take that back, he can still levitate my bags. That will show him his rightful place in the world!

The true irony of those changes is, they were needed because min/maxing became silly very fast. Now you have to min/max, or you will not be able to do your job, at all.

Levitate a bag with a granade (set to explode on imact) in it and wack it on evenies heads.

This is, simply put, untrue. We have framed our arguments and conclusions in the form of opinions based on the facts presented. This doesn't make our conclusions invalid in any way. If you'd like to to attack our argument, go right ahead. If you've got a different conclusion to present based on what we know, I'm happy to hear it. But we aren't arguing against the changes (OR threshold specifically) because we just "don't like" them.

When the change was made, I asked a simple question as to why it was made. The response was that a threshold of 4 was "trivial." My argument has always been that a threshold of 4 is not trivial, that reliably reaching it comes with a high cost, and that a threshold of 6 makes spells that require it effectively useless given teh cost necessary to make them reliable.

Because I have provided evidence that these arguments are valid, I can also make conclusions based on this argument. My conclusion is that the "nerf" was not necessary. The threshold was not "trivial" before, so changing it does not actually solve the proposed problem. Furthermore, I believe that little thought was put into the "nerf." The previous threshold was not "trivial" and the new threshold can only reasonably be reached with Edge (you require 20+ dice to reliably cast the simplest of spells that require OR thresholds). With regard to illusion spells specifically they already have a lot of limitations built in to each spell, never mind the limitations on magic in general. So, making a limited use spell less reliable makes it effectively useless. Claiming that the threshold has not changed for "security cameras" and so illusions remain effective ignores the fact that drones are prevalent (or perhaps just "common") in the setting. I have no real issue with direct combat spells (or combat spells in general) being less effective against technology. There are other uses for those spells beside destroying technology (though Ram/Wreck/Demolish seem...less than useless now). Illusion spells, on the other hand, have the purpose of fooling the observers. It only takes one person, or object, not being fooled to render the spell useless. With drones being "common" the spell will "commonly" be useless. That doesn't seem like a well thought out change to me. And given the responses from Synner so far, I've been given absolutely nothing to change my opinion on the matter.