CZs override any other background count with their own domain.

Wonder of that counts for the Astral Hazing and Mana Static too?

Good question. Astral Hazing is a negative quality. Maybe the effects of natural and your own backround count even stacks? Horrible idea.

Based on rulings in the FAQ regarding mana static, the logic would appear to be that the highest background count always applies.



It's included because there are perfectly valid character concepts (such as the sniper or rigger characters you mentioned) who can make use of hazing without screwing their group over. It's still a disadvantage, and a severe one, but if the player, and their group, are willing to work with it, it could potentially be a lot of fun. It's also a genuinely interesting ability for NPCs, or for oddball games. I'm still a fan of the all mundane party concept where the face has Hazing, and everyone else has Arcane Arrester or Magic Resistance through the ya-yas. They go around geeking mages and spirits.
Time and again it has been demonstrated that the developers of Shadowrun, at least the current generation, take the view that as many options as possible should be made available, and that it is up to the GM to determine when something has become abusive or broken. Essentially, they're designing the game for all the people who aren't pricks, because that's more fun than making something that's perfectly balanced, but so tightly locked down that you can't actually do anything interesting with it.



Do you really want me to list all of the possible situations where runners could get shot at in a car? Because there are an awful lot of them. I mean, seriously, you actually let your players ride around the streets in a freaking APC without the cops taking notice? I mean there's a few ways to blag it, but none that are workable in every situation.
And everyone using their own vehicle is a fine idea, but not exactly practical when making a get-away. It's also a big drawback if you do get in a fight, because you have no-one riding shotgun.

Saying "It's not a disadvantage because you can do X to avoid it" doesn't count if X removes enough tactical options on it's own. Being forced to do whatever X is becomes the drawback. Same as having a 10 point compulsion; it closes off certain options to your character.



Rolling back round to the original point of this thread; the trick to building a mage geeker isn't killing the mage, it's keeping the mage from killing you. The answer is less about build, more about tactics, though Arcane Arrester or Magic Resistance do help, a lot.

• Carry a glo-wand strapped to your combat vest or whatever. If it goes off, activate the smartlinked Petite-Brum mana grenade you carry strapped to the other side of your combat vest. In sneakier situations, keep a glo-wand with a luminosity sensor rigged up to it sewn inside your trouser leg. Your pan will tell you when it's going off. The mana grenade can hopefully be concealed somewhere about your person as well. If not, a small canister of FAB-II.
• Take a very high perception skill, with bonuses on visual. When you recognise someone casting, immediately detonate a thermal smoke grenade. Again, if circumstances prevent you sneaking in a grenade, doing something else to obscure vision. Killing the lights is a good option.
• Or just fire a thermal smoke at the mage from your underslung grenade launcher. Now that he's blind, suppress the air, and pump hi-ex grenades in until he's dead. You can blindfire, he can't. This one relies on having some heavy fire-power along for the ride, but hey, most serious mage killing situations where you don't have some firepower are probably going to involve getting the hell out so you can come with bigger guns.
• As soon as you know you're fighting a mage, hit cover, sling up a microdrone, and use your smartlink to shoot around walls without exposing yourself.
• If melee combat becomes necessary, throw down smoke if possible, and rush him fast, with a flash-pak strapped to your vest if you can. Most smart mages will have invested in flare-comp, but you might get lucky, and every bit of extra vision penalty is going to help.
• When in melee, go for a subdual, pinning the mage's face away from you, then get to work with a knife. If he can't turn around to look at you, he can't blast you, and you've got all the time in the world to cut his throat. Works better than trying for an instant kill.

Well I tend to approach things i want to kill with an Ares Alpha with ExEplosive rounds.. and just put enough rounds into them, if not fire the Gernade Launcher and let that go splat.

My problem is.. how do you deal with all the crazy stuff mages can do.. Watchers, Invisability, Mask, Combat Spells, Spirits running around crazy like.. basicially like how to "control / maintain" the mages ability to do anything and then pop a 10 round burst in his face.

Part of the reason that the mind set of "Geek the mage" is hard coded into security forces is there is no answer to all of the tricks a mage can have and there is almost no way to tell what he can do. One can often distingush betweem a heavy weapons specialist and a knife fighter by looking at them. The mage in a suit in the back? Who the hell knows what he's about to do - mad damages, illusions, mind control, magical scaning, summon monsters or enhansing and healing his team? who knows... just kill him and get the unknown element out of the fight before it kills you. Most of the games I've been in the mage has not been the dealiest person in the group, sometimes close to, but never quite. The threat comes from never being sure whats next - sure he's healing his buds NOW, but in a few seconds he could be turning the corner and liqufiing my bones with toxic wave or forsing me to shoot my allies.

From a finance and training stand point:
Rather then give basic security forces in depth magical training to prepare them for all the options possible to a mage just blanket order that everyone understands after a quick explaination: Geek the Mage!

Astral Hazing: the kind of flaw that looks good until you have to roleplay out in the world - I'd warn people away as most awakened persons will start with intence dislike of you that is rather hard to overcome - that having been said I'd probably allow it, sounds cool, looks cool, brings up roleplaying.

The ruling in the FAQ deals with Mana Static and aspected Background Count. Both Astral Hazing as a Negative Quality and CZ Astral Hazing are worded similarly enough, and they both state that the character always in the center of the Rating 4 Background Count. Hence logically, they always trump the ambient Background Count as per their wordings.

And that innate hatred from mages is what I WANT! Let alone i want to be everything a MAGE hates So ExEplosives/APDS burst.. and Burning-out sounds good

I hate to bring this up, but is there a WAY around the Astral Hazing if you are the character with it? Lets say you have Magic 4.. do you ever have a chance to cast spells and all that? How does it effect the Sustaining Foci?

Filtering? Maybe? am I using the right name for it? An advanced metamagic from Street Magic that allows you to filter out local background counts. At this point you are a 2nd grade Initiate - maybe third I can't recall if it had 2 pre-reqs or not - Cleansing prerequisite I'm fairly sure. And I'm not sure it works on this problem as I'm not TOO familiar with Astral Hazing

um... a rating 5+ power focus?

Spirit pact - Power, to boost your magic rating.

All 3, at the same time.

Soo, would the CZ Background Trump over the AH Background and the AH Background would trump over the CZ Backgrund at the same time?
If so, i can see the AH Background not having as big a Problem, due to him not being kept "alive" by Magic. While the CZ will simply become a heap of Cyber-Ware if the AH Background tops the CZ Background even once.

I thought most people used a van? Like an APC it means you can have one guy in the passenger seat and one guy in the cargo space - a short wheelbase transit has 2.5 meters of cargo space, so assuming your sammie has an essence of two or less you'll be fine sitting in the back.

And yeah, my rigger has a van with armour plating for the job of moving people covertly.

If you realise that both BCs are 4 and unaspected, therefore even if the AH BC trumps the CZ one, there should not be any change in Magic, the point would be practically moot.

All those comments about throwing smoke... please do so.

Mages will love you and your false sense of security... astral perception can see where normal vision fails.

Nope.

By RAW, astral perception is blocked by physical objects.

What is smoke? It is a cloud of physical objects suspended in the air.

So no, smoke provides the same or better concealment on the astral.

I don´t think so. Air is also physical and causes no penaltys. According to your definition, it would also leave a "shadow" on the astral plane. No chance. And if you go RAW: it is not mentioned in the list of astral perception modifiers. But nice try.

It depends on GM interpretation of the accompanying text, however.

By strict RAW, smoke does not cause penalties in and of itself. It may, however, cause penalties due to astral shadows.

I think even our guys from SR would have added SUCH an important information. We can lean back relaxed, and I think nobody has to invest energy in that question. really...

Doesn't work. If you're astrally perceiving, you're targeting the astral. Let's you fling spells at astral spirits and the like, but not people. The only way to target something in the physical world with astral perception is if it's dual natured. Everything else is just shadows, which, as mentioned, block line of sight but cannot actually be targeted with magic.



Stop and actually think about it. Air does not block vision in the real world. Air does not block vision in the astral. Brick walls do block vision in the real world, and they block vision in the astral. Since smoke falls into the latter category (does block vision in the real world), it's a fair bet to say that it blocks vision in the astral as well. At this point you'd have to give some reason why there should be an exception for smoke, when anything else that physically blocks line of sight in the real world also does so in the astral.

Dr Funfrock, that's incorrect. While using Astral Perception, you can target either physical targets or astral targets with any given castin (Mana spells only for astral targets).

I think a lot of would be mage hunters need to familiarize themselves with their prey lest they themselves be prey. Especially the parts where they go into a bit more detail about what astral space looks like.

Okay you toss smoke... Lets look at this from the mundane perspective... the vast majority of mages get low-light vision (5BP positive quality or cybereyes) and/or Thermographic... and only an idiot doesn't get flare comp in this setting.

What happens... congrats you gave the mage a mere -2 to his MUNDANE visual mods to target you with a spell. He can still see you. (that's heavy smoke or heavy thermal smoke on the chart).

Now, you're shocked that he can also see fairly well using his psychic vision senses? Exactly which column of visibility applies to psychic vision? Especially when there's a load of mods specifically relevant to psychic. I can buy maybe a none going up to maybe 2 dice of obscurement depending on the GM, but blind... no.

Everyone would use thermal smoke - and as the particles are identical on the astral to the physical, the vis mods should be the same. Just saying.

Really... why do you say that. It's not alive. It doesn't 'glow'. It doesn't hide their aura behind another aura. Unless it's solid and has some permanency it tends to appear as a haze or light fog on the astral. Remember this is psychic vision, not optical light.

Remember the astral is a realm where a lightbulb looks the same whether it's off or on. Things which glow are living entities and the planet's gaiasphere. A realm where you can sense the sheet of paper, but not the words written on it.

You're saying that on the astral visibility is worse than it is using mundane vision. Given the extra astral visibility modifiers... that's not an easy sell.

A little confused here Falconer... Extra Astral Visibility Modifiers?

Where are these documented... the only modifier that I know about is the -2 dp for Astral Perception up while doing other things (like casting spells)...

No, NOT LIKE CASTING SPELLS. You really don't know the magic system at all do you.

When doing PHYSICAL actions like aiming a gun or driving using astral perception you get the -2 penalty. Spellcasting takes no penalty.

Astral modifiers are detailed in street magic. p114 The section is entitled "The Mirror World".

The only modifiers from the BBB are modifiers for cover (partial cover, good cover, attacking from cover, full cover doesn't matter because you can't target what you can't see on the astral). The rest is subsumed into stuff like shadow clutter or user distracted. As well as other mods... (astral vision is a lot harder to use in a jungle teaming w/ life because it's like hiding a single fish inside a school of fish. It's easier in a clean environment like an office or hospital when the targets by itself and stands out from the lifeless background. Background count also comes into play (but it depends on if it's a domain or an ebb).

FYI: a FAB cloud would be a -2 astral visibility penalty... so I have a hard time seeing smoke being much worse.

No need to be snarky, It was just a question...

And you are right, amazing how missing one little sentence in a paragraph changes the entire meaning of the descriptor...

This is why I ask... I don't memorize the books, and I forget things that I have not used in a while... Since I have not played a mage for over a year, I am a little rusty...

As for visibility Mods, I did not think that there were any, I just wanted to clarify the penalty to actions for Perceiving...

Thanks

I'm saying its exactly the same. A metal wall obscures your vision equally on the astral and the physical. So does thick clouds of dense smoke.

You won´t find a specific section that will clear this question in a way, that there is no "but it could be meant otherwise"-statement anymore. But if normal or thermal smoke would work, why did the introduce extra magical smoke grenades? Why is no modifier mentioned for smoke in astral perception. Of course you have a shadow of the smoke on the astral, but even if you can see it, it won´t be enough to cause a penalty.