Anyone have what they think is a really great combat mage build for SR4?
If so, why?

Curious to see what people have up their sleeves.

Haven´t managed to create one up to now. Simply not enough bp´s for an old powergamer like me.^^

How absurd would you like it?

Use a Charisma-based Tradition. I like Black Magic, 'cause LaVeyan Satanism is a pretty munchkinny philosophy, all told.

Make sure your path can summon Spirits of Man - Black Magic works here too.

Be an Elf, get your Charisma up around six. This not only betters your drain-soak, but determines how many Spirits you can summon. Also, if your party doesn't have a dedicated Face already, you're just a few skill points away.

Spirits of Man have "Any spell the caster knows" as a power, and continual use of a power is only one service. Summon six Spirits of Man, force 6-12. This will hurt, but you only need to do it once.

You can now sustain any six spells on yourself, I like Improved Agility, Improved Reflexes, Improved Reaction, Deflection, Extended Mindnet and Extended Detect Enemies. A Spirit's magic is equal to its Force, so we're looking at Force 12 spells on average, Force 24 max.

Three passes, maxed or near-maxed combat attributes, an impressive Ranged Defense pool, an unhackable Tacnet for the team and the ability to chuck Manabolts,

That should get you well on your way, though it can be improved further.

Absurd? Not really thinking about it in that context. Maybe I should rephrase the question.

What are the common mistakes when making a combat mage in SR4?

It doesn't have to be min/maxed...just interested in seeing what people's take is on it.

Um, CHA determines how many Spirits you can BIND, not SUMMON! You would be spending a boatload of BPs/Karma to bind that many spirits. With the exception of watchers and Bound Spirits, you can only ever SUMMON 1 spirit.

SR4A, p.188
Summoning
A magician may only summon the chosen spirits of her tradition (see Traditions, p. 180). Summoning a spirit requires a Complex Action, and only one spirit may be summoned at a time.

Summoned spirits also only last until the next sunrise/sunset, so you have to summon those 6-7 Force 12 spirits twice per day. That's a lotta drain.

Main book, page 177: "A spirit will perform the services it owes until the next sunrise or sunset. At that time, regardless of
any remaining services or what it was doing, the spirit will depart and return to its home deep in astral space."

The one time I was looking pure "combat mage":
Elven Mage - Hermetic - Aspected to Fire spirits and combat spells
Mostly touch range direct combat spells and unarmed combat out the buns - ok, and fireball, not cause it is any good but...
Tossed in some "good" stealth/ infultration skills and gear, grenades and an assult rifle

It was amusing - full write up was a wash-out from the Tir T. Covert ops training, failed the psych profiling - he was CRAAAZYYY! Very much a "Burn the world" character.

Mistakes I've seen:
Neglecting the physical stats HARD to get that extra die of drain resistance or "active" spell dice pool - usually not worth it. Combat mages should have at least a body 4 or a solid dodge pool. Preferably both.
How hard to fight for extra IP is a matter of some debate - its really good on a spell slinger especially a boomstick spell slinger.
Spells are great but I prefer bursts of EX-EX ammo for those pesky drones.
I would avoid bound spirits in active use on a "front line" combat mage - getting knocked out is going to happen and free spirits can be alot of trouble if you are the only Mojo you're teams got (unless I'm wrong and this doesn't happen?)

Getting back to the original topic of the thread, while you ideally want "high everything" you probably at a minimum want high initiative, the ability to take out a target in one shot, and some ability to resist/avoid the counterstrike from his buddies.

I'd pick a tradition that uses Intuition (since that also adds to init), a mentor spirit for Combat. Pump skill points into perception, dodge, and Spellcasting (6 + specialty), and pump attribute points into agility and magic. With a starting character you should be able to manage 16D pool for your combat spells, initiative around 11, a ranged defense of ~10D and a melee defense or active ranged dodge 5-7D higher (depending on your dodge specialty). In play, if you have some time to set up, you'll probably want to boost your reflexes or IP with a spell and take the -2D penalty to your combat spells. If you're surprised, just drop a ball spell. Have a Force-11 touch spell and a force-6 bolt spell for "normal" combat situations and you're on your way.

For a completely different type of combat mage, consider a manipulation specialist. Shapeshifting to "big cat" with a 16D casting pool should give you all physical attributes around 10 and 2 IPs. Kitty comes with built in knives, too

Interesting and I am glad to see that you didn't feel that a combat mage has to be an elf. Not that I have anything against elves, far from it, just pleased that a person can make this type of character viable without having to be a certain race.

What is the general thought on resources and some sort of melee combat focus?
In 3rd edition I thought that the balancing act between benefit and risk from such things were nicely done.

I agree that its More Fun to have a build that is not race dependent. I like Dwarves over all because of the high drain resistance, and it works well with any tradition.

I have found that Manaball is a must, as is an offensive mana barrier.

Bob... there's a lot of ways to go for a combat mage.

Then there's other problems such as... do you want to come into your strength after an initiation or two, or right out of chargen.

In almost any case, you're better off buying mag to 5. If you need more, bind a power focus in chargen. Sustaining focus is usefull. Another trick is the spirit of man (but that that gets costly... unless you're using your one summoned spirit for it's services sustaining powers on you and your allies... as opposed to a combatant in it's own right).

Then another aspect is do you focus in combat spells, or manipulations... or if you want to be truly hardcore health (decrease attribute spells can be pretty devastating in hand to hand... decrease wil... resist w/ will which gets drained to zero... turning you into a vegetable).

I didn't want to constrain anybody's creativity but I would say that I am more interested in the following right out of chargen that would seem reasonable and yet competent...

Human
Mage
Attributes (nothing shorted to the point where it would raise an eyebrow)
Skills (be somewhat stealthy, low end martial arts, but a decent pistol shot, able to run a block without throwing up, ride a motorcycle in a chase, cast spells, summon a spirit, assencing maybe)
Spells (those first 8-10 spells should cover, protection, ranged combat strike, increased initiative passes, and an illusion spell or two to deal with getting into places that I don't really belong)
Enough cash afterwords for a low end apartment, motorcycle (big combat bike...not moped), pistola, a few clips of ammo, white noise generator, and a couple other tech toys.
Flaws (don't want to be the 3-legged cheetah, hermaphrodite, that is addicted to karaoke)
Edges (nothing in this area really blows my kilt up *BFG*)

Okay firstly, some of your goals are heavily contradictory. Generally a combat mage is understood not to be a ninja but a blaster or manipulator/mind raper who's good in a straight up fight.

Your description is much more akin to an adept than a mage. The mage in a chase on a motorcycle is more likely to have a spirit use the 'movement' power on him to burn rubber. Same goes for pistol... why a low damage pistol when a combat spell will do as much or better. If drones are a problem, then you probably need a bigger gun anyhow. Sneak... that's what concealment/silence spirit powers are for.

Gee... That was less than helpful...
He wants what he wants... what is so bad about that?

Falcon

The pistol...because in SR3 it was always nice to have something if you were not certain you could make the drain test for the combat spell.

What spells and skills do you think are must have's for the combat mage?

Its all good, I am not familiar with SR4 so all input is cool. (Well...all constructive input is cool.)

Let's see, general advice... Somewhere around:
Body 3
Agility 4
Reaction 4
Strength 2
Charisma 3
Intuition 3
Logic 5
Will 4

You might lower either Agility or Reaction to bump up Int. or Will by one.

Take Spellcasting at 6, which will limit your other skills to 4, tops. Take Summoning and Binding instead of the skill group. Banishing doesn't work as well as zapping the enemy spirit with a combat spell, so you can get by without it. Counterspelling should be a 4 too. Points will be tight, so take (whatever combat skill) at 2 and specialize in the kind of weapon you like. Astral Combat shouldn't be overlooked... you'll have to fight there too. It works out efficiently to take a Weapon Focus for the close combat type you specialize in and an Astral Combat specialty in that weapon focus as well. Dodge with Ranged speciality is another good choice. If you take the weapon focus, parry and block will serve you well up close. Points get tight with mages, so you'll have to take a lot of secondary Skill 1 (spec) 3 skills, but they'll be inexpensive to bump up with Karma. Your gun skill and bike skill will likely end up that way.

The Dark Goddess totem works well for a combat mage, giving you a bonus to both Combat and Health spells, and a tendency to escalate combat, which fits in.

You'll want at least three combat spells... Stunball is a must, efficient and versatile. Mana Bolt is a good single-target mana spell. An elemental spell such as Lightning Bolt is good for inanimate targets... you can short out vehicles and drones with it. Power Bolt or Ball could be useful for damaging things too. Shatter (Walls) can work well... it has a low drain, so you can overcast it safely. Physical Barrier is an obvious one and Levitation has many uses, so those are both musts. Improved Reflexes is good... having a spirit of man cast it on you can help, as noted above, but a spirit makes a better ally than spell-sustainer. Heal, naturally, to fix up the damage you'll take. Control Actions or Mob Control can get nasty... zap a group of guards, have them turn at each other and do surpessive fire with automatic weapons. Ouch. Physical Mask isn't very combat-y, but again, is very useful. If you're going into close combat, the Elemental Aura is your friend. Cut armor in half from the elemental effect, add damage, counterstrike anyone who hits you, etc.

It's not as flashy as many other spells, but take Low Light Vision and a level 1 sustaining focus and you'll have low-light magical targetting without too much trouble. Some people prefer cybereyes for this effect, but that's not my preference for mages. A Power Focus level 2 will run you 50K and 2 BP to bind... If you can fit it in, you should, given the high Karma cost for bonding with one later. Weapon Foci aren't super-killer efficient metagame-wise, but they are neat, and something that few other character types can use, so you might want to go with that. I like the basic sword, as it's more concealable than the katana or claymore... they all look good if you attack people from your bike. A retractable baton as "magic wand" has a neat look to it.

Human Mage
Body 3
Agility 3
Reaction 4
Strength 1
Charisma 3
Intuition 4
Logic 5
Willpower 5
200 points

Edge 2
Magic 5
Cost 40

Skills
Spellcasting 5
Counterspelling 5
Summoning 4
Binding 4
Assessing 3
Perception 3
Pistols 2/4(Semi Autos)
Infiltration 3
Ground Vehicles 1/3 (Wheeled)
Cost 124

Spells
Heal
Levitate
Stunball
Powerbolt
Increased Reflexes
Physical Mask
Physical Barrier
Mana Barrier
Mind Probe
Detect Life Extended
Cost 30

Qualities positive
Mage
Cost 15


Total 409 ( need 9 points in flaws+ whatever you need for money)

You can get up to 20 more points in positive qualities. Mentor spirit,is only 5 and fairly good. Focused concentration 2 would be 20 points and give you 2 more drain dice. For a layer of cheese restricted gear 5 point quality, power focus 4 cost 100,000(20 points) binding 4 points total cost 29 points or come up with 9 points and 35 points in flaws. It is cheesy but its hard to get one in game due to the high money and karma costs. without restricted gear you can get a level 2 one for 12 points. Personally I prefer to run without any focuses, but my latest character is abusing this as a test.

Lets put this another way... you only have 400BP. You're trying to do it all. To give you a rough idea of the outline and limitations.

With as many ways as you ask to go you lack focus. A traditional mage doesn't aim to do those things, he looks to have say 1 rank so he's not defaulting, maybe specialize it, then augment his low dice pool by penalizing the opposing pool.

200BP == 20 stat raises /8 stats == 2.5 raises per stat. STR is your only dump stat as a combat mage like you're describing. Now throw out amother 15BP for magician. Another 5BP for a mentor spirit. another 5BP for night vision (lowlight vision you WANT it either via cyber or au natural)
5bod (tough and can wear lots of armor, also heal drain faster)
2agi (something has to slide and this is it)
5rea (maximize your defense pool... also used to drive your bike, and importantly initiative)
1str (str, we be mage, we don't need no stinkin str)
2cha (again something had to slide)
3log (decent... did this one over cha as you get the extra 3 knowledge/langage ranks)
5int (drain pool, and initiative!)
5wil. (again mental toughness... all mages should have this nice and high)

Another 40 to buy up Mag... we can leave edge alone at 2 (though w/ a human I'd really like to have the points to bring it up to 6)

(not covered... twink method... buy a nice high body, then shapeshift into say an orc or troll to raise your physical stats w/ sustaining penalty/focus)

You'd probably look for an intuition tradition (intuition is used for initiative as well as w/ streek knowledges and interest skills as well which seem apt for a combat mage). There are no intution traditions w/ spirits of man (necessary if you want your spirit to cast your spell on you for you as a service). So lets look, Buddhist (maybe), druid (not really, old school hippie), hedge witch (possession, that's out), wiccan (not really, new age hippie).

Okay buddhist... air, guidance, earth, fire & water spirits. Now check to see which powers that allows as both automatic to the spirits and optionals when summoned.

Forget illusions... needing to beat Object Resistance 5 anymore makes it a no go (3 for a raw sensor, but a drone is OR5 and those are what you need to worry about). That's a SR4a change which has rendered illusions laughable. Maybe invis to sneak people past guards though or to make things 'disappear' from view (like that command detonated grenade you left by the door).


All said and told... looking above we've already spent from 265 to 305 BP, w/ 10BP left for qualities and -35 left for negatives.
Spellcasting 6
Counterspell 4
Perception 4
Assense 4
Summoning 4
Binding 4

That's 104BP in skills right there... we can start trimming bits off some of them... to shift them to physical skills

plus 3BP/spell... Stunbolt, Stunball, Heal, Increase Ref, Detect Enemies, shapechange, Levitate, Invis (you can shapechange into another human and cameras won't know the difference like they would w/ an illusion).

And that hasn't even got to the mundane skills yet.
Pilot Ground 1
Pistols 1
infiltration 1
influence 1

Equipment wise... you probably want to spend 9BP on a force 3 sustaining focus or two. (one health, one manipulation).
plus bike, plus pistol

Another thing to keep in mind is it costs 4BP to buy a rank1 active skill in chargen, but 4 karma in play... if you can wait 4 karma is a lot cheaper. Buy specializations using 2karma each quickly after chargen using your first karma award or two. (EG: pistols(revolver) if you use the warhawk.

Does this give a better idea of all the tradeoffs and such you're looking at? I believe I'm over-BP in there, and that is just a rough example.

Shinobi's design is pretty solid, if not 100% what I'd do. Taking Infiltration 1 (Urban) 3 will free up 6 points for gear and/or foci though. Most of your infiltration will be in the city, after all.

Thanks. I was floundering and you folks really came through.

Falconer,

Thanks for the tough love!
Seriously though, I didn't think that you were being mean or anything. I was too broad in my focus and that was a big part of my problem, of course my SR4 knowledge is pretty pathetic. I was hoping to avoid making three or four horribly flawed characters before getting a build that would work (i.e. survive).

I will see what I can come up with from what everyone has contributed.

Just wondering, is there a concensus that Physical Mask is a wasted spell these days?

I remember how potent it was in SR3...has that changed?

Shinobi's basic setup is good, but he neglects Edge. A high Edge is a must for any spellcaster, simply because it lets you break the success cap on spells. So, you can use ten successes on a force 5 spell. And with exploding 6's, getting those 10 successes isn't as difficult as you might think. Combine this with an Aid Sorcery service, and you've got a big boom just waiting to happen.

High edge is awesome, especially for mages. But I'm rarely worried about the success cap, since I rarely cast spells at a low enough force for it to matter. Still if there is one uber stat in the game its edge, and under 4a attributes are harder to increase. So yeah finding away to scrounge 20-30 points for edge isn't a bad plan.

I still like it, but some people use trid phantasm as the do all illusion spell. Technically it can mimic physical mask and a host of other illusion spells but with some built in limitations.

It has a higher drain. F/2+3 is usually fairly easy but you need it at a decent force due to the success cap, unless you edge it as cain points out.
You have to move the area of effect as a complex action,
if any of the targets leave your LOS it drops.

The last two make it harder to sustain than other spells when ever you and your team has to move, especially when you have to turn corners. But since it is an area version its only 1 sustained spell instead of 1 per person you are masking.

Still overall since physical mask covers all senses, and most sensor packages include ultrasound I think it beats out invisibility in utility, but has no real combat power.

I've played a few mages who ended up being combat heavy, a few things I've noted:

-Body is important, a higher body means better damage resistance, heavier armor, and more damage boxes(more overcasting).
-Take stunball and stunbolt if you can. They are very cheap drain-wise, and most foes have a lower willpower than body.
-Don't underestimate firearms, a pistol loaded with stick-n-shock can win many fights, and doesn't risk drain(or leave an astral sig)
-Get a high edge if you can, edge is important for magicians. Since you tend to use fewer, but more powerful attacks, getting the most out of them is important, as is resisting the drain on that force 12 powerball.
-Spirits are important. Spirits of elemental attack are great fighters, especially if your GM allows you to pick what elemental type they use. Spirits of Air, in particular, are quite good, especially with an electric attack. Spirits of man with spells are allright, but elemental attack can be just as powerful(if not better), with no drain. Remember, most spirits won't overcast for you.

As for the numbers, those are easy. Get as high of a magic and spellcasting as you can, maybe pick up a foci. A magic 5 character with 4 in spell casting is plenty deadly.

Pretty sure Shapeshift says you can't use it to change into a metahuman.



What does a drone see the world with? It's sensors. Use OR 3 for illusions, OR 5 to powerbolt it. Simple.



You have 10 bp left over. Not enough for a Power Focus, but sufficient for a contact and a fake sin, lifestyle, and some armor. Oh, and you have 6 edge. Who needs power foci when you have 5 edge? Suck, it world!

Obviously. Slight semantic error on my part, I was referring to Bound Spirits, of course.




That's why we bind them. And yes, I realize that binding Force 6-12 Spirits is non-trivial. Do keep in mind that you only need one service out of each, though.

But, since he's NOT asking for hideous twinkery, I'll bow out here.

Am I the only one that DOESN'T like humans?

Not to detract from the awesomeness of Edge, but Edge 2 doesn't help THAT much. Edge 2 also doesn't offset a higher body, strength, willpower - all of which you get with a dwarf, or a higher agility and charisma of an elf. You also will be lacking the points to pay for an increase in Edge to a respectable level anyway.

An elven comat voodoo houndan, using Charisma + Willpower for drain, will have a higher base DP than a dwarf. Agility linked skills means even when defaulting, he/she will have an advantage over every other race when it comes to combat skills.

For more twinkery, build a Voodoo version which allows summoning Plant spirits (not difficult when you look at the 101 variations of Voodoo depending on which region of the world it is practised). At the end of chargen you can at least summon a decent spirit and get Immunity to Normal Weapons, even if you can't directly control the spirit, beyond giving simply orders. Once you initiate and get those two metamagics, you have a lot more granularity and power.

Once you initiate go Invoking and Channelling metamagics (in that order) and you can summon high Force Plant spirits with Regeneration and soak an insane amount of damage. You also get awesome unarmed combat + dodge equal to the Force of the spirit. This also allows the build space to grow.

I would rather have a high Agility and Drain dice pool as a combat mage than a higher body. Even a dwarf at least has more flavor - an increase in body and strength means that if you want, you can have a dwarf slinging around an assault rifle or Lt. Machinegun (whatever suits you). If you're going to carry a gun and skillpoints are in short supply I would almost lean towards Automatics or Heavy Weapons - I mean you already have plenty of weapons at your disposal normally anyway. If you need a gun, you need something decent.

I'd also look at cyberware - trauma dampener, platelet factories at a minimum. Look at cybereyes, muscle toner, synaptic boosters to fill in the rest depending on your personal preference.

At the end of the day, my view is that if you're having to rely on your own natural Body attribute (or armor for that matter), then you fail as a mage.

- J.

Meat,
Spirits are awesome and I'd agree that any serious combat mage should have a summoned or bound spirit ready to be called as part of their arsenal. However, relying on bound spirits is a "one shot" strategy. Many runs are doing to involve multiple combats, and its not like you can stop for 6 hours mid-run to rebind.

Shinobi's build is good for a starting combat mage, but I wouldn't neglect the Dodge skill. In priority I might even put that 2nd after Spellcasting.

Octopii...

1. I'm not out to just slam chars together just for the sake of slamming them together. it was intended as an object lesson
2. he asked for human, he got human
3. orks pay EXTRA for that last point of edge
4. he asked for a lot of broad base... so I tried to make sure I included a spell of every school
5. Doesn't matter, standalone sensors (like a security cam are OR3), but an armed drone is OR5. We're talking RAW here.

6. I've watched people use shapechange for years. "non-paranormal critter" then they now define it as non-human, so yes you are correct. (typically this was used to change their face for disguise purposes). Though I'm going to make note to research a new version of the spell now! to keep it RAW.

Though my first referance here WAS an elf my favorite "build" for a combat mage is Troll - yes they get gimped a bit on the drain resistance summoning etc., but that extra body is good for taking punishment and soaking up overcasting damage. Hand them a low foce - high reach weapon focus, A polearm or some such, and they are unholy in the damages (foci dice and reach also help offset lowish agility/ lowish astral stats). Start play with limited spells - say 4 or 5 - stun/mana ball/bolt, mask or invis., heal and one or 2 others - spellcasting group 4, summoning 5, magic maybe as low as 3 or 4. Toss saved points in the general directon of gun, melee, stealth and dodge skills. This is usually a fairly flaw heavy/ edge light build to make ends meet - you could very easily end up living on the street with a focus that could be a good down payment on a house... oh Shadowrun

Alternativly to weapon foci/troll combo an unarmed of 3 to 5 (+2 touch) with some touch range stun/mana spells isn't a bad idea on any almost mage - the drain is a joke even at high (10-12) force and you can hold your own in a straight up fist fight, you still shouldn't go toe to toe with a Melee Sami - but you might last a few more seconds for help to show up and the standard rent-a-cop or ganger goes down pretty quick.

I've always favoured tazers on my spell slingers for ranged - 1-3 in pistols (+2 tazers) gets good milage and if your facing another spell slinger they may well inflict additional stun on themselves before you get there - good times. And unless I'm mistaken they can knock down drones and "stuff" with them as well.

3. Yeah, my bad. I had him as a human originally, then changed him to an ork so I could fit the sustaining focus in. I dropped his edge to 5.

5. That's not how I read the Object resistance table. P. 183, SR4A: "Spells cast on non-living objects require a success test". You could read that as not requiring a test at all for any spell not cast upon the non-living object. However, I choose to interpret that as the OR you are required to beat is the OR of what you're trying to manipulate. In the case of illusions, you're trying to manipulate how a sensor sees something.

He has his sheet, so I don't have the specifics, but one of my players is running a combat magician build that's running roughshod over everything. He's playing a Romany sorceress using Traditional Hedgewitchcraft as a template, which is a Possession tradition. Basically, he has a big nice summoning focus, summons a spirit into himself, and then has ItNW and really high strength and proceeds to beat everyone to death. He has spells, sure, the usuals, but they don't come into play often. Granted, this mostly works as a melee build, you really got to have someone else on ranged. Once he gets Channeling metamagic, though, he'll be able to shoot and use swords while in spirit-enhanced super mode. So, this might be an approach you could try, possession magic as a melee build.

You could easily combine this with the troll idea above, some limit cyber (to support overcasting) + weapon focus for an utterly terrifying combat magician.

Imagine a troll with a body of 6+ bumped to 16 thanks to Force 10+ spirit, with 20/20 armor and a weapon focus with a +3 reach (Nodaichi) would be scaaary....
That goes double once you get Channeling and Invoking.

- J.

Megu:

You're a new poster... I suggest HEAVILY.
1. you audit his sheet very closely. (keep a copy)
2. Read up on possession traditions and spirits... then read it again, and again.
3. Familiarize yourself w/ spirit powers. Note that most of them roll 2x force vs. willpower only (my GM recently got tired of this and invoked a houserule that spirit powers are subject to counterspelling just like mage powers... magic by any other name is still magic. The houserule seems to work well so far).
4. Most people I know outright ban possession traditions for the cheese they bring. But you seemingly have it under control.

There are a LOT of gotcha's in there. Such as without a specific metamagic... summoning a spirit into himself means he loses control of his own body as the spirit does what it will (you already realize this). But he has to 'order' the spirit to do something... the old DnD wish rules are in effect, the spirit may interpret ambiguous wording in a way he doesn't necessarily like.

ItNW DOES NOT STACK (emphasis DOES NOT STACK) w/ worn armor, use the higher value. Keeping the hardened armor damage threshhold to ignore light damage. This goes a long way towards stopping them from becoming nigh invulnerable gods who either ignore damage or soak it down to nothing otherwise. (I had the ItNW bit wrong for a long time too, until I reread it carefully and realized it lacked the operative phrase which every other stacking armor source has 'cumulative w/ worn armor').

You can still seriously hurt him w/ a lot of things (other magicians, other spirits, assault rifle loaded w/ APDS on wide burst to eliminate most of his defense pool, grenades). At least until spirits start getting silly stupid.

Read the section on summoning spirits... spirits can spend edge to resist, but they really only do it if there's good cause. The reasons listed in street magic & BBB are, caster has regularly abused his spirits in the past, spirit bane negative quality, Attempting to summon something far beyond his own magic power (generally we consider this to be, more than 50% over his magic attribute). However, generally avoid this unless the player is abusing things.

Best of luck.

Most of everyone else consider it whatever object you are casting the spell on.

Any physical mask is bad ass - you can look like other people which is nice in a game about infomation, because you can also appear as a guy not carrying a tricked out fully automatic grenade launcher.

LMAO! That would be very helpful!!!

The other option is take the reading of the rules where ITNW doesn't stake with normal armour, because it says it counts as normal armour in damage checks - which is entirely reasonable to say therefore it doesn;t stack with normal armour.

CthulthuDreams:

One... that is the exact RAW reading of ItNW. It explicitly lacks the 'stacks w/ normal armor' clause found in every other stacking armor source. So without an errata or wording to the contrary it does not stack. (I originally thought it stacked and argued against possession traditions as broken... I've since changed my mind, but only if the GM is intimately familiar w/ the magic rules/system).


Two... You roll a physical mask w/ 4 successes...
Most people looking won't see through the mask as they won't roll 4 successes on the wil(+counterspell) check. (including cybereyes... they spent essence on them, same as a mage gets cybereyes benefits when casting).
A security camera is OR3... it will not see through the illusion
A drone WILL see through the illusion as you need at least 5 hits to beat object resistance.

The resistance is, whatever is looking at the illusion in this case.

There was a lot of discussion on this thread. And it's right there in the illusion spell section:

"Physical illusions are effective against technological systems, assuming the caster achieves
enough hits to meet the Object Resistance threshold"

Whoa, didn't see I had a response. Thanks for the hints Falconer.

Part of the reason I hadn't been worried about munchkinization is the player's new too, and has even less idea what his stuff does than I do, but I do see how it could get out of hand regardless. Like, ItNW not stacking is really good news, because I was getting tired of dealing with that.

It's also helped that his character refuses absolutely to bind spirits, so we're only dealing with one of these at once. Also hasn't initiated or gotten Channeling. We've essentially been treating it as though the spirit is smart enough to run somewhere or hit something, but just doesn't have the skill knowledge for much anything else. Is that about right?

Actually, the drone works likes so against magic...

To affect the Drone, one must overcome OR 5.

To fool the drone's Sensors, one must overcome OR 3.

It is literally no different than casting against a person in this regard.

The big thing is to recognize that living targets effectively have a variable OR rating while non-living objects have a fixed one. Why do living ones have a variable OR? You roll Will+Spell defense against a spell. All successes count. The casting mage needs to beat that number to have the spell successfully affect the target. No difference than casting against an OR.

It's not like you are using your body to resist a Mana spell that is mind affecting. So why would you use the drone's OR to resist a spell that is affecting its sensors (which have their own OR)?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they finally got around to closing this loophole in SR4A? Innate Spell is no longer overcastable, IIRC.

darthmord:
In that case, you're making up a house rule. The RAW clearly indicates drones (and all portions of them) have an OR of 5.

Put another way, you can't specifically target the rubber tires to get an OR2 to burst them w/ a spell. You have to target the vehicle as a whole.

One thing, a lot of people don't understand. I'm not saying that because I like it... (OR5 is hard for any non-twinked mage to meet). But simply because I'm acknowledging that's what the rules actually say. Just because we don't like them doesn't make it so.



Megu:
The lack of bound spirits isn't a huge problem for you. As he needs to have vessels prepared to place them into on the material. In astral, he simply lacks the astral attack pack. He's also missing out on some very usefull services that only bound spirits can provide. Granted binding spirits can be expensive.


No that isn't correct on how a spirit would react. The spirits attributes depend on the force of the spirit, including it's intelligence. So a force4 spirit has sapience and is as intelligent than most characters. The primary limitation is the number of services owed. He's going to need to issue a lot of orders to keep himself possessed. Though you are right on one level... spirits don't have knowledge skills... so they're pretty much idiot savants... extremely intelligent at high forces but w/ little to no practical knowledge to apply it to.

The player must word his services correctly... This is where the 'wish' wording comes into play. If he orders the spirit to engage a certain target... and then other targets appear, he'll have to give another order. If he gives a vague order, then it's up to the spirit as to how it'll interpret the orders (or what it prioritirizes.. which might be different than what he prioritizes). I've given orders only to have to change or suffer some minor inconvenience when the situation changes later.

one combat mage i did, I forget the stats off the top of my head, good body and reaction, lots of body armor, with a 5 or 6 on spell casting but a lot less dice on binding and such 14 drain dice total in the end and 1 essence point of cyberware,

only had a 4 magic but he could take a hit and pump some spells all day

Don't I recall reading, though, that combat only counts as one service regardless of how many foes there are in the combat?

No, that's under the 'services' section where it lists what costs one service....

Normally, one use of a spirits power counts as one service. That's a special clause which allows the spirit to use it's powers multiple times but only for purposes of executing a single service. EG: one combat could be 4 uses of the elemental attack power and then the spirit deciding itself (not the player) to use it's fear power to scare things off... that isn't 4 services but one.

But in that same section "If the parameters of a spirits service are changed, for example..., another service is used". So if he starts the fight ordering one thing, then the combat situation changes and he needs to change the order (such as directly telling the spirit target priority)... that's another service.


Yes a service can be to fight in a combat. But how now did he word his orders to the spirit... Like I addressed the spirit is intelligent and sapient and may not see things the same way he does. (who knows one of the foes might have spirit bane... and the spirit just has to take him out first even though he's a mook rather than decapitating the other mage).

My point is... if you order the spirit to do one thing... "Kill 'that' guard..." that's a service... if more guards show up... it'll take another service to order the spirit to engage them in anything other than self-defense. And self-defense for the spirit, could easily include vacating the body once 'that' guard is dead leaving a very vulnerable mage now standing in the middle of a bad situation.

The more vague your order is... "follow him (the street sam), knock out anything he attacks, and knock out anything which attacks you" The less services it'll take you to accomplish your goal, but the more control you cede to someone else or to the spirits discretion.


See my point.

On the topic of spirits how would spirit affinity come into play? I have a combat mage build I'm working on and thought since I want him to be a parahunter of sorts, I got an image of him, his hunting rifle, and a beast spirit for tracking, I would want him to have spirit affinity. Then I actually read and I'm kind of confused how it would be implemented into the game.

There are no rules on how it works. Its up to the GM. If its not your summon it will try not to kill you if given the choice. If it is your summon you should get a bit more mileage out of your services.

I'm not making up a house rule. This was from one of the SR4 devs on another thread here. I want to say it was Adam or Synner who mentioned it. Now this is from SR4a, not SR4. So there may be a few differences.

The example that was used in that previous thread was a drone vice the drone's sensors. The drone and the sensors have their own OR separate from each other. If you wanted to fry the drone, you used the drone's OR. If you wanted to fool the drone's perception, you used the Drone's Sensor OR.

As I recall, the thread was filled with a lot of angst about the increased OR chart which was later reduced a notch to make it a bit more reasonable.