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Larme
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 01:31 PM) *
And what happens when the mage takes 6-10 hit points of physical drain from a good roll on the spirit's part? Even if he lives, you've sent your expensive asset to the hospital for months to recover.


That might be under the old SR3 "No, fuck YOU!" healing rules. SR4 healing rules are a roll of body x 2, interval 1 day. A Medicine test adds the hits scored on the doctor's Medicine + Logic + medkit or autodoc rating. Take a mage with average body, drop him in an average hospital with average doctors. 6 dice for 2x body, + 3 dice (for average hits on the doctor's Logic 3 + Medicine 3 + autodoc 3) = average 3 hits, = 3 days to be fully recovered from 9 boxes. Hardly months. Maybe it's unrealistic, but people heal FAST in Shadowrun.
Cain
QUOTE (knasser @ Jun 16 2009, 09:43 AM) *
I find it greatly amusing how people arguing that magic is over-powered can on one-hand ignore the risks of unaverage roles and argue without accepting the risk as a factor, and then when wishing to show that magic is overpowered because it can't be defended against, use that same risk to put down non-PC magicians. rotfl.gif

6-10 hit points of drain on an invoking roll isn't un-average. When invoking a force 6 spirit, it'll average 4 successes, for a total of 12 drain. I was lowballing it.
Dreadlord
QUOTE (The Jake @ Jun 15 2009, 09:13 AM) *
This reminds me: can an astrally projecting magician manifest and still cast spells?

- J.



Nope. Manifesting gives a Mage NOTHING! Essentially, they are in astral space still, but have made themselves visible to the Physical Plane. The Mage is still on the Astral Plane, and perceives exactly the same as before (no reading written words, living things are auras, magically active things glow brightly, etc.). He gains no capabilities at all. People on the Physical Plane can see, hear, etc. the mage now, that is the only thing it does. It was meant to allow communication between the two planes for astral beings without Materializing.
It is NOT the "mirror version" of Astral Perception.

I wish they would clear up the wording even better in SR4A... It took me a lot of in depth research and word parsing to get what they rules are saying for manifesting.

[EDIT: Doh! kzt and others already answered this! That will teach me to wait until I have caught up on reading the whole thread...]
Apathy
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 15 2009, 08:38 PM) *
Dumori already hit this one. Having a lot of them hopped up on Kamikaze and K10 means they're going to act stupidly. However, don't forget that I added a Prime Runner hit team to the scenario. They escaped the manaballs by using the sewers, but were discovered and went down to a fully-automatic grenade launcher.

You've lost me again. I thought your original point was that mages (and specifically the spell Manaball) was overpowered because in your recent game the mage was able to kill dozens or hundreds of opposition with just a few manaballs. Then we find out that your team was playing in a contrived scenario where the opposition were mindless idiots standing in the open with no ranged weapons and no survival instinct. And we hear that your team was a highly-developed team with over a hundred karma in a scenario originally designed for beginning runners. And the biggest threat (the Yama King) wasn't killed by the mage, but instead by the uber-twink troll-bow adept. And you added another runner team to make things more challenging, but it also wasn't killed by the mage. It was killed by the sam with the auto-grenade launcher. So the only thing your lauded manaballs killed were a bunch of low-threat junkies who were too dumb to take cover. What's so broken about that?
HappyDaze
QUOTE
And what happens when the mage takes 6-10 hit points of physical drain from a good roll on the spirit's part? Even if he lives, you've sent your expensive asset to the hospital for months to recover.

First Aid can drop this by 3 or 4 assuming a good team of medics with teamwork and good tools. Then the healing rules kick in and things still get back to normal within a few days.

QUOTE
You can always add more mages as backup, but that gets even more expensive. Adding two mages means a total of 3/4 of a million in salary
As I noted, no it's not. Corps can get mages on the cheap and in bulk just like the military of today gets its doctors.
Cain
QUOTE
First Aid can drop this by 3 or 4 assuming a good team of medics with teamwork and good tools. Then the healing rules kick in and things still get back to normal within a few days.

Not before the mage goes down from drain, and the great form spirit goes uncontrolled.

QUOTE
As I noted, no it's not. Corps can get mages on the cheap and in bulk just like the military of today gets its doctors.

Except you can't get more than 1% of the population as mages, and you'll usually get considerably less than that. You can't get mages in bulk. Additionally, security mages would be eligible for all sorts of special pays, if we're going by the military charts. That further jacks up their costs. So, unless you've got something better, the average salary of a quarter million a year for a security mage who can Invoke spirits with magical guard fits.
Omenowl
Ok lets see the different evels for defense

Basic shared defense (several corporations protecting low sensitivity assets with mutual defense). A few guards lightly armed (pistols and armor jacket), a few drones, cameras and a few watcher spirits. Magical on call support and hacker security. Low level mages and spirits Force 3 or so. Will call on Lonestar at first sign of trouble. No extra territoriality. Goal is to protect merchandise and structures from destruction, to keep people out for safety and efficiency of work. Warehouse docks and shipping facilities excellent example. Encryption and databombs probably in the 1-3 range

Basic corp building. May or may not have extra territoriality (depends if multiple companies rent space or it is used by one corp). Guards have basic equipment, but may have an armory for more powerful weapons such as rifles. Tend to be better trained and have more guards. Keycards required for entry and visitors must check in. Facility capable of going on relative lockdown until reinforcements arrive either corp or Lonestar. May or may not have spiders and mages onsite A federal civilian building is an example. Hacker security tends to be 1-3 range. Spirits still in the 1-4 range.

Hardened building. Several guards. Full armory available along with military grade weapons and armor. All visitors must check through security and guards protect each floor. Magical support is onsite along with possible paranormal animals. Data is considered secret. An embassy would be an excellent example. Background counts possible as well as initiated mages. Black IC 4-6 range and magical detection or limiting. Spirits 3-6 range

Hardened facility. Multiple levels. Guards are seen more than the workers. Access is limited to every section with multiple defenses. Drones are lethal and shoot on sight. Guard towers. ECM, background counts, spiders and mage on site along with full tactical team (red samurai level). Reinforcements 10-15 minutes away with multiple tactical teams. Numerous nodes with black IC. Spirits in the 4-6 range. Maybe protected by possessed animals and cyberzombies and awakened sapient critters. Equivalents would be American Embassy in Iraq, Fort Knox, the White house, or the Kremlin.


Now for a prime runner opponent who doesn't use magic. I would use a changeling cyber samurai with magic resistance 4, with astral hazing. Supported by a magician or adept with metamagic cleansing and filtering (maybe a gnome). Light to heavy armor with full gear. Leads a group of 2-3 tactical teams and may lead the attack. I would also use a couple of fomori as backups. Either a technomancer or hacker along with a rigger to fill out the group. This would be the team corps call on for reinforcement security. Independent contractors who might work for several corps and this is why the players would see them when they screw up on high level missions.


I do think players should even at higher levels have opportunities for both milkruns and high risk/reward missions. Sometimes it is nice to know your group can pull off a mission cleanly without leaving a trail of bodies or having something go wrong even when they do everything right.

Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 08:21 PM) *
Not before the mage goes down from drain, and the great form spirit goes uncontrolled.


Except you can't get more than 1% of the population as mages, and you'll usually get considerably less than that. You can't get mages in bulk. Additionally, security mages would be eligible for all sorts of special pays, if we're going by the military charts. That further jacks up their costs. So, unless you've got something better, the average salary of a quarter million a year for a security mage who can Invoke spirits with magical guard fits.


I'd say that is actually on the low end. Mages that can invoke are probably rarer than neurosurgeons today.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 11:31 AM) *
And what happens when the mage takes 6-10 hit points of physical drain from a good roll on the spirit's part? Even if he lives, you've sent your expensive asset to the hospital for months to recover.

You can always add more mages as backup, but that gets even more expensive. Adding two mages means a total of 3/4 of a million in salary, just for one spirit. To put that in perspective, that's 360 nuyen an hour to summon one invoked spirit, excluding binding materials and paramedic fees, plus damages if the spirit goes uncontrolled. That's like putting your Harvard-trained lawyer on security duty.



In my experience it is NEVER a term of MONTHS for healing... Sorry, but you get to roll everyday, and in a hospital (probably Corp for the Corp Guy) they are pretty good... at worst, he will be out of it for a few days...


EDIT: OOOPS, Looks like Larme beat me to it...
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 11:58 AM) *
6-10 hit points of drain on an invoking roll isn't un-average. When invoking a force 6 spirit, it'll average 4 successes, for a total of 12 drain. I was lowballing it.




Uuummmmmm 4 Successes equals 8 Drain, not 12
Cain
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jun 16 2009, 06:30 PM) *
Uuummmmmm 4 Successes equals 8 Drain, not 12

Invoking Drain is increased by 50%. That's 12.
Omenowl
Figure a second lieutenant with airborne ranger training from west point would cost at least as much if not more than said harvard lawyer.

Fact is a mage commands a good price, but so do a lot of professions. A magic security group probably uses multiple mages each that would work in tandem in summoning. Summon a spirit deal with the drain then send it to its mission. 5-6 mages could easily send 5+ spirits with 1-3 tasks to perform. You don't need to bind spirits to use them, nor do summoned spirits hurt he summoner. Summoning is only a complex action so mage will have little trouble summoning quickly.
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (Omenowl @ Jun 16 2009, 11:11 PM) *
Figure a second lieutenant with airborne ranger training from west point would cost at least as much if not more than said harvard lawyer.

Fact is a mage commands a good price, but so do a lot of professions. A magic security group probably uses multiple mages each that would work in tandem in summoning. Summon a spirit deal with the drain then send it to its mission. 5-6 mages could easily send 5+ spirits with 1-3 tasks to perform. You don't need to bind spirits to use them, nor do summoned spirits hurt he summoner. Summoning is only a complex action so mage will have little trouble summoning quickly.


You need the right attitude, drive, motivation etc to become a X and make lots of money. (and yes luck, genetics etc.) The difference is with a mage you need those things and you start from a much smaller group of people.

If only green eyed female redheads could do a certain important and dangerous job. How many of them would have the drive and motivation and skill to do it, I suspect a ton less than if everyone on the planet could do it.

You are not just that airborne ranger picked from all of humanity, you are a 1% mage and then the small sub set of mages that become airborne rangers.
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 11:09 PM) *
Invoking Drain is increased by 50%. That's 12.


And considering its not too far outside the standard deviation for the spirit to hit 6 - 8 successes if you are invoking regularly, you are eventually dead from this. If you overcast wiped off the face of the earth and it a world of hurt if you aren't overcasting. 8x2=16x1.5=24 Damage Yeah, go ahead and soak that.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 09:09 PM) *
Invoking Drain is increased by 50%. That's 12.



DUH... Forgot about the Invoking addition... sorry
Omenowl
Admittedly the majority of mages are in the low range where they have neither the drive nor talent to excel. This leaves them with magic in the 1-3 range. Same with skills. However, the opportunity and ability to excel, gain recognition and money is much easier. Still 3 is competent and they could still summon. Just like those with magic in the 1-2 range can do basic surveillance.

Still the odds are a corp comes in with a very good offer, says it will give training and makes it seem wonderful. Then they push the mages to their breaking point and keep pushing them until near burnout (this is what a lot of military programs try to do). The difference is the reward is fairly quick and tangible. Learning a new spell or getting your magic up by say 1 point is a major leap. Yeah, a lot don't get past 3s in their skills, but the same could be said of most professions. Still my bet is there are a lot more successful mages than failures because they have a rare skill and recruiting pool willing to train them. If you fail then odds are you still have magic of 2 and skills of 2 so you could be useful.
Cain
QUOTE (Shinobi Killfist @ Jun 16 2009, 07:25 PM) *
And considering its not too far outside the standard deviation for the spirit to hit 6 - 8 successes if you are invoking regularly, you are eventually dead from this. If you overcast wiped off the face of the earth and it a world of hurt if you aren't overcasting. 8x2=16x1.5=24 Damage Yeah, go ahead and soak that.

*nods* And ever rarer are the mages who can summon high-force Invoked spirits and expect to survive. To get counterspelling dice on par with what a standard shadowrunner mage can dish out, you're talking Force 10 spirits! Assuming they score 7 successes on their resistance roll, that means the mage will be facing 21 Physical drain. Good luck with that.

If you're relying on spirits to provide you cover from manabolts, bottom line is that you'd better rethink your strategy.
HappyDaze
Cain your worldview is so damn warped I just don't think we play the same game. To save myself the bother of responding to what I see as a wall, I'm adding you to my ignore list. No hard feelings.
Cain
Okay, but I don't get it. Every step of my logic checks out.

The average mage is going to be tossing 10-14 dice in Spellcasting. That's Magic 5, Sorcery 5, with optional specialization and Totem bonus. Hardly a maxed-out build. The average opponent is going to have 2-3 dice to resist the spell with.

To have the best odds of resisting a spell, you want at least as many dice as the casting mage, and preferably more. To get from 2 dice to 14 dice, we need 12 dice worth of Counterspelling. Since for a spirit, skill = Force, we need a force 12 spirit to reliably do the job.

For a Force 12 Invoked spirit, we can expect the spirit to get 8 successes. As Shinobi pointed out, that translates into 24 drain. Most likely, this drain is going to be physical; a mage who can summon that spirit and only take stun is going to be very rare, and very, very expensive.

Now, you might be able to eke out some vision modifiers and the like, reducing the need for Force 12. However, you're still going to want a Force 10 or better, to give you the best odds. That's a mere 21 physical drain-- still enough to easily kill most mages.

Bottom line: the mage who can summon spirits with enough Magical Guard to reliably resist manabolts is going to be rare. That also means he's going to be expensive, and will be reserved for places with the tightest of security.
Jaid
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 17 2009, 12:57 AM) *
Bottom line: the mage who can summon spirits with enough Magical Guard to reliably resist manabolts is going to be rare. That also means he's going to be expensive, and will be reserved for places with the tightest of security.

i can think of much scarier things to do with a force 10 great form spirit anyways. so we're not just talking about the subset of mages who can even handle binding a force 10 great form spirit at all, we're talking about the even smaller subset of them who don't have people offering massively superior deals than security. spirits like that can shift an entire area into the astral plane, or grant regeneration, create storms, earthquakes, and so forth. magical guard is not going to be high on the list. it's probably cheaper to bind multiple force 3-6 spirits (even then, force 6 won't be horribly common) and use teamwork to boost the dicepool up to a respectable level.

incidentally, another (relatively) cheap way to protect your security forces from magic is to put them in enclosed PMVs with mirrored windows. no LOS on the guard, no chance of casting a spell on the guard barring ritual spellcasting or cracking open the vehicle. of course, this still does relatively little about the fact that a simple frag grenade is still going to do bad things™ to your security guards. really though, it's not manaball you should be worrying about, there's plenty of ways to kill people very reliably in shadowrun, and most of them don't involve taking damage equivalent to shooting yourself while wearing an armored vest. it's relatively rare for a team to have access to a magician with magic 5 (bearing in mind that PC groups are not necessarily going to reflect average, and are typically at a level where magic 5 or even higher is fairly common), but pepper punch is cheap, legal, and easily accessible to pretty much anyone, and can be easily put into a grenade.
EnlitenedDespot
I hate to butt in, but how is a mage contesting the drain of a F9 or F10 Manaball or Stunball (or whatever, really)?

I'm looking more along the lines of if this is feasible for a mage that is starting out or not much past chargen. Say, Magic 5, Sorc 5 or 6 and Specialization (plus mentor spirit bonuses, if you wish). As mentioned above, that's probably around 14 dice or so. But anyhow, even assuming a Drain Resist pool of 10 (the two relevant attributes at 5 each), how are you going to compete with all the drain headed your way?

I guess I haven't really taken a long look at overcasting, as I'd assumed I'd generally stick to the limit or near the limit before I overcast...
crizh
Centering and a Centering Focus are good places to start...

Improved Attribute Spells.

Seriously if I were a Mage and casting spells burned my brain the very first spell I learned would be Increase WILL followed very quickly by Increase (Other Drain Stat).

Not a big fan of pain....
Octopiii
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 16 2009, 05:21 PM) *
Except you can't get more than 1% of the population as mages, and you'll usually get considerably less than that. You can't get mages in bulk. Additionally, security mages would be eligible for all sorts of special pays, if we're going by the military charts. That further jacks up their costs. So, unless you've got something better, the average salary of a quarter million a year for a security mage who can Invoke spirits with magical guard fits.


Look, a fulltime, dedicated Magic 5/6 mage may get neurosurgeon money. A Magic 3, "on-call", "I can summon, bind, and loan out spirits" mage is going to be somewhat less. Not all magical talent want to work a job type job - they will take less $ in order to have free time with minimal interruptions. Plus, even the elite mages are going to be worth it to a company who uses that use one mage's talents to cover dozens and dozens of facilities. What do they charge? Whatever their actuaries tell them they can get away with, based on what their risk models tell them they can. For 250k, if they can cover 350k worth of facilities, it's worth it. Can they cover 350k worth of facilities? As you've trumpeted quite loudly, mages are rare. Mages who turn away from an easy, lucrative jobs with minimal involved effort in order to run the shadows, potentially getting killed, for the crap pay that shadowrunners get are even rarer. I think one security mage can cover quite a bit of facilities reasonably, making his salary worth it.
Octopiii
Hell, since we're throwing numbers out there, let's throw numbers:

Let's say a veteran guard makes 5k a month - that's a medium lifestyle. That works out to be 60k a year.

Let's say a mage (any mage) pulls in 250k a year. That's somewhere between High and Luxury lifestyles.

Let's say a magical security firm charges 5k/month for basic, "loaned spirit service" coverage. For the cost of a guard, they get on-call, 24/7 spiritual back up. Sounds good, and worthwhile! Easy selling point for a security firm to make.

The mage working for the firm needs to be able to cover >= 5 (300k worth of service coverage) facilities. As you've stated, mages are rare. The chance that one of those 5 facilities will be magically assaulted are extremely rare. The same mage can probably cover 10, or 15, or 20, or etc facilities. I imagine our 207x actuaries have exact figures worked out - the fact is, that "expensive mage" suddenly becomes very cheap by the very fact that the reason he's so "expensive" (rarity) means that his services will be rarely used.
Stahlseele
By the way, can anybody tell me how these spells are supposed to look/sound/feel/smell?
Does the Mana-Ball simply Destroy anything weak enough in a perfectly spherical portion of the Room?
Is there a BOOM? A sizzle? A Fizzle? A Glow? What Now?
AngelisStorm
Except they aren't making that much money. This is Shadowrun. If you give an individual that kind of salary, who knows what they will do? The corp is going to hook them up with a real nice house, cover this cost of living, and give them a nice little salary to play with. The house, food, entertainment, etc comes from the corp, so they can produce it at a fraction of the "cost."

Yes, mages are valuable, and corps fight over them. But the corps aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot by getting into insane bidding wars over any given mage. This is dystopian; people just don't make as much as they would in our world. Mages would likely have a nice solid lifestyle, middle in most cases with some higher rating aspects for the good mages.

Besides, the corp likely put the kid through college. Or his parents work for the corp. Or the kid is just happy to get off the streets, get a SIN, and get some cash in his pocket and a nice place to live. Heck, the corps can have your family (politely, discreetly) held hostage against your good behavior. There are alot of mitigating factors in these equations.
crizh
I like the idea of using the cost of University to place Mages in a form of indentured servitude. It would explain a lot of Runner Mages. You don't earn as much but at least you have your freedom.

I still feel that Mages will command ludicrous salaries but these will be offset by the enormous student loans following them around. The fact is though that competition amongst the Megacorps will allow Mages to drive the market price through the roof.

Each extraction would give a Mage the opportunity to improve his contract and have his new Corp pay off chunks of his student loans.

There has to be a huge pressure on the Mega's to provide effective Astral security without relying on Mages. Mages can provide extremely effective security but it is wildly expensive and even if money is no object there is only so much Mage to go around.
easl
QUOTE (Jaid @ Jun 17 2009, 07:49 AM) *
incidentally, another (relatively) cheap way to protect your security forces from magic is to put them in enclosed PMVs with mirrored windows. no LOS on the guard, no chance of casting a spell on the guard barring ritual spellcasting or cracking open the vehicle


I think this is an excellent idea, and I think limiting sight against mages (mundanely or magically) has been undervalued on this thread.
What's needed is a way for the guards to see the intruders before the intruders see the guards. This should be a goal of any security system (magic or not).

Cheap warding in combination with walls may be a good example. Have your wage mage drop a bunch of opaque Force-1 wards into the walls around the area you're trying to protect. The wage mage can see through them, the runner mage can't. The runner mage can, like the rest of the party, just walk in without knowing what's on the other side of the walls. But if he astrally projects to pass through the wards and get a peek of what's there, the wage mage will see him coming before being seen...and can manabolt him or sound the alarm while the runner is messing with the ward.





W@geMage
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 17 2009, 12:57 AM) *
The average mage is going to be tossing 10-14 dice in Spellcasting. That's Magic 5, Sorcery 5, with optional specialization and Totem bonus. Hardly a maxed-out build. The average opponent is going to have 2-3 dice to resist the spell with.

The thing is that the mage will rarely have his full pool to cast.
Often forgotten are the visual modifiers, lowly flashpacks/therm/smoke grenades and full/partial cover.
Add these and maybe some wound penalties and the mage could be looking at a penalty of anywhere between -2 to -10.

In a decent facility the guard booth could also be protected by a permanent mana barrier, one way glass or something else and suddenly the guards are not such an easy magic target.

----

In the example of Ghost Cartels, how much people could the mage damage at 1 time?
Since he must be able to see all his targets, most likely he could only mow down about two lines of people with his manaballs. The others who came behind wouldn't be affected at all.
(Unless he was standing in an elevated position or something similar, ...)
Blade
By the way, what's the difference in the Kowloon Massacre situation between the manaball and a handful of pepper punch grenades?
The average opponent is also going to have 2-3 dice to resist them to.
Malachi
I agree that Initiated Mages are rare and Invoked Spirits are not going to be summoned to go on Magical Guard patrols.

Security in Shadowrun seems to focused on being reactionary rather than preventative. The amount of resources/effort required to stop that "first shot" from ever happening is extremely high. What is far cheaper is to make sure the intruders that fire those shots never get out to tell the tale. Once the intruding Magician has tipped their hand by casting a spell, and Security has marked them there are plenty of things to do to counter their magic: ambushes, visibility inhibitors, drones etc. I think only the most highly sensitive facilities would dedicate the resources required to preventing magic from ever happening. Most other places use their front-line guards as their "magical security." Corps in SR are described as having a very cavalier attitude towards the lives of their employees, I think it's entirely in-keeping with that attitude to basically use the fact that their guards are going to get Manaballed as part of their security measures. Then all you need is that Bound Spirit to sit and watch for magical activity (and a Force 9 Manaball is pretty freaking hard to miss) then run and tell someone. The facility then goes into lock-down and the High-Threat/Magical Response Team is called in.

If your runner team can get to the point where one Manaball is "I win," then good for them. They probably did a lot of legwork and Infiltration rolls to get to that point. It's the job of the GM to make sure that one Manaball doesn't solve everything.
Octopiii
QUOTE (Jaid @ Jun 16 2009, 11:49 PM) *
incidentally, another (relatively) cheap way to protect your security forces from magic is to put them in enclosed PMVs with mirrored windows. no LOS on the guard, no chance of casting a spell on the guard barring ritual spellcasting or cracking open the vehicle.


Good suggestion! I've added it in to the OP.

QUOTE
In a decent facility the guard booth could also be protected by... one way glass... and suddenly the guards are not such an easy magic target.


This too.
Larme
QUOTE (AngelisStorm @ Jun 17 2009, 06:38 AM) *
Except they aren't making that much money. This is Shadowrun. If you give an individual that kind of salary, who knows what they will do? The corp is going to hook them up with a real nice house, cover this cost of living, and give them a nice little salary to play with. The house, food, entertainment, etc comes from the corp, so they can produce it at a fraction of the "cost."

Yes, mages are valuable, and corps fight over them. But the corps aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot by getting into insane bidding wars over any given mage. This is dystopian; people just don't make as much as they would in our world. Mages would likely have a nice solid lifestyle, middle in most cases with some higher rating aspects for the good mages.

Besides, the corp likely put the kid through college. Or his parents work for the corp. Or the kid is just happy to get off the streets, get a SIN, and get some cash in his pocket and a nice place to live. Heck, the corps can have your family (politely, discreetly) held hostage against your good behavior. There are alot of mitigating factors in these equations.


Good thinking! Corporate employees of Shadowrun aren't so much like private employees of today, they're more like government employees, because the corps are pretty much governments in business for themselves. With a megacorp you get job security, you get to live in a nice safe enclave with no daily shootings or paranormal disturbances, and you get a lifetime non-compete contract where being fired would cost you everything, and defection would be seen as treason and breach of contract at the same time. You might ask how free market forces could let this kind of system develop, and of course the answer is that Shadowun's market isn't free, it's collusively dominated by megacorporate interests. They might hate each other, but they will always look out for their common interests of making sure the little guy never gets ahead.
crizh
There have to be limits to this.

Mages aren't just useful resources they are a dangerous menace. The tighter your grip the more of them will slip through your fingers to cause havoc.

Let's face it few people are better qualified at 'slipping through fingers' than Mages. I would keep them in a cage, yes, but the gilding would be very impressive.

The fact is that Mages affect your bottom line regardless of whether they are on your payroll or not.
Traul
Along the tactics line, has anybody used the Lone Star offensive iBall against mages? The mage needs both low light vision and Flare compensation if he wants to to see anything at all, and that would still leave him with a -4 penalty.
crizh
I really liked the PMV idea and came up with this.

QUOTE
Daihatsu - Horseman, with Dronerack

Armour 12
Rail Propulsion
Rigger Cocoon - Enhanced
Ram Plate
Special Equipment - FAB Tank

27000 nuyen.gif


The standard Sec.Guard is replaced here with more of a Rigger type.

His vehicle has had it's propulsion system converted to run on overhead rails that run throughout the facility and which are the only method of entering the control room. He is nestled within an armoured cocoon that protects him from personal injury and has a built-in Phoenix Module to allow off-site Medics to attend to him in the unlikely event that he is injured.

Slung below the Horseman's cab is an armoured tank that hangs at roughly chest height in most of the facilities corridors. It is fastened to his vehicles super-structure where the 'legs' used to be and heavily reinforced. It contains a nutrient suspension of Rating 12 FAB II and is used to ram other vehicles, drones or intruding Spirits.

Having a Rating 12 Astral Barrier forced through them is sufficient to Disrupt most invading Spirits.

The vehicles drone rack is usually outfitted with a Ford LEBD-1 Security Drone for securing uninvited visitors and pursuing threats that escape the reach of the track system.

Regular patrols are conducted with Ares Sentinal-R Drones fitted with uprated sensors and Vindicator Miniguns. These are capable of carrying 1000 rnds of ammunition and a Rating 10 ECM system.
HappyDaze
QUOTE
Except they aren't making that much money. This is Shadowrun. If you give an individual that kind of salary, who knows what they will do? The corp is going to hook them up with a real nice house, cover this cost of living, and give them a nice little salary to play with. The house, food, entertainment, etc comes from the corp, so they can produce it at a fraction of the "cost."

Yes, mages are valuable, and corps fight over them. But the corps aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot by getting into insane bidding wars over any given mage. This is dystopian; people just don't make as much as they would in our world. Mages would likely have a nice solid lifestyle, middle in most cases with some higher rating aspects for the good mages.

Besides, the corp likely put the kid through college. Or his parents work for the corp. Or the kid is just happy to get off the streets, get a SIN, and get some cash in his pocket and a nice place to live. Heck, the corps can have your family (politely, discreetly) held hostage against your good behavior. There are alot of mitigating factors in these equations.

Better worded than I did, but it's essentially the same line of thought I posted a page or two back. I was ignored in favor of the "They have to earn $$$ because that what high-demand jobs do in today's market." line of crap, but perhaps your version will go over better.
Omenowl
Lets be honest 5k is considered middle class and 10k is considered high class. There is a much bigger jump between Luxury and High class. Paying a mage 250k a year still puts him in the high class. Still the corps make it so cushy that leaving is not considered viable. A mage probably leaves for other reasons such as revenge, arrogance, fear, etc.
Cain
The point being, having a live mage is going to be expensive. Even a weak mage is going to command good wages. Sure, a corp can defray some of this by keeping things in-house, but they still have to pay for the luxuries a mage can demand. Things like providing a luxury apartment and real food might be less expensive than a bigger paycheck, but they still cost.

Someone pointed out that security mages will need to cover enough facilities to make them worth their while. That's not necessarily the case: one facility might be important enough to deserve a full rotation of mages. For the ones that do not, long-term binding is a viable, if expensive, option.
kzt
If you assume the mage works 40 hours a week you can also pretty quickly determine just how many wards they can maintian. And it isn't as many as people seem to think.
Larme
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 18 2009, 01:18 AM) *
The point being, having a live mage is going to be expensive. Even a weak mage is going to command good wages. Sure, a corp can defray some of this by keeping things in-house, but they still have to pay for the luxuries a mage can demand. Things like providing a luxury apartment and real food might be less expensive than a bigger paycheck, but they still cost.

Someone pointed out that security mages will need to cover enough facilities to make them worth their while. That's not necessarily the case: one facility might be important enough to deserve a full rotation of mages. For the ones that do not, long-term binding is a viable, if expensive, option.


How relevant is "very expensive" to a megacorp? Especially when the alternative is "mages take all your shit?" What's more expensive, magically secure facilities, or magically insecure? You can't just make a conclusion based on cost, like all economic models the relevant figure is cost/benefit. If a mage costs 250k per year, but saves 251k per year, the mage actually doesn't cost anything -- it is actually a profitable investment. Cost, without a benefit analysis, assumes that money spent on security actually nets 0 benefit, which is sort of a hilarious idea. Nothing that a corporation does is outside the cost/benefit calculation. If security had less benefit than cost, they would lower costs. If mages were a money drain instead of a money saver, I doubt they'd have any at all. No, I think we can safely say that magical security is set up so as to at least break even, if not earn a positive return. No matter how much it costs, it almost certainly makes up for it by preventing losses that would have occurred in its absence. And in cost/benefit, losses prevented are exactly as valuable as revenue. Every dime of loss that a mage can prevent, that's how much a mage is worth. A corporation has incentive to spend that full amount, because that allows it to break even, which to a corporation means that it's essentially free, assuming adequate liquidity (which you would from a company that has its own currency). By using good magical security protocols, they can probably do even better by spending less on the mage than the mage saves, enabling them to be richer and more successful than ever.
Cain
The cost/benefit analysis still comes into play. If a live security mage costs too much, then you're going to look for alternatives to that live mage. Biofiber, wards, guardian vines, and all those tricks will be very useful in this regard.

However, when it comes to protecting your guards (also a significant investment, IIRC a Blackwater merc makes $150,000+ a year, plus the cost of training and cyber) the only forms of spell defense is either a live mage or a spirit with Magical Guard. Both are highly expensive.
kzt
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 17 2009, 11:33 PM) *
However, when it comes to protecting your guards (also a significant investment, IIRC a Blackwater merc makes $150,000+ a year, plus the cost of training and cyber) the only forms of spell defense is either a live mage or a spirit with Magical Guard. Both are highly expensive.

The guys who are working some of the personal security details in very dangerous areas make this kind of money, you don't get that kind of money working security on a fixed site.
EnlitenedDespot
On a side note, for most retail, every dollar saved or prevented from being lost is the equivalent of $2.85 in sales.

In other words, you would have to sell $2.85 for every dollar you lose in order to make up for it (on average). When it comes to highly inelastic prices (say, on electronics merchandise in our own world), the scenario is much worse. In order to make up for a single lost XBox 360, I believe retailers would have to sell around 30+ units just to break even.

I admit from what I'm reading here it is difficult to figure out how to have 'cheap' magical security, especially considering the fact that like less than 1% of the Shadowrun world is Awakened, and most of them don't do anything with it. But that is an equalizing factor in a risk scenario--less mages available to help you, less likely you would have magical attack at all anyway.

On a side note, I'm having trouble with just how deadly a mage is supposed to be anyway (at least one at or not too far from chargen). I can't find a way to not have a mage die to an equivalently-geared street sam (or just a guy who's really good with a heavy pistol and has a smartgun system), assuming that gun-wielder gets initiative. With all the stats that have to be pumped (WIL, LOG or CHA or both depending, Magic, Edge since your Edge was probably terrible at chargen), I don't see how a mage isn't super squishy when shot.

And correct me if I'm wrong, can a mage in any way heal drain (be it physical or stun), because I thought it all had to heal naturally.

I think the cheapest investment for the corps would be education of their security teams. If you think about all of the training that goes into disaster scenarios, evacuations, tornadoes, etc., mages could be like that for corp security--probably not going to happen often if ever, but when it does, oh shit.

Honestly, if I was corp security and observed a guy that didn't seem to have any cyber, not wielding a gun and possibly even in light armor, I'd already be wondering how he'd think he could keep up with his troll buddy's giant metal arm, assault rifle, and ridiculous body armor.

Guard patrols in pairs I believe to be fairly efficient, even though it's about the least innovative idea ever. If one gets taken down, hopefully the other can live to run/report it or fire back. If both get taken down, your camera people better be good at figuring out how the hell that happened. Also, this gives a chance for retreat or falling back to bait the mage into chasing for line of sight.

I'm not seeing much of a difference between cybered out street sams and mages in terms of raw damage output.

Ahh, in my somewhat long rant I've got it--Mystic characters tend to be curious and want to shove their senses into everything. Give them a good looking opportunity that's a trap. Is there some way to set up a lingering aura of something or something? Let the mage's curiosity put him into a screwed situation.

Gun turrets probably aren't half-bad, either. Less upkeep than guards after the initial investment.
Mäx
QUOTE (EnlitenedDespot @ Jun 18 2009, 10:13 AM) *
Honestly, if I was corp security and observed a guy that didn't seem to have any cyber, not wielding a gun and possibly even in light armor, I'd already be wondering how he'd think he could keep up with his troll buddy's giant metal arm, assault rifle, and ridiculous body armor.

And then that Troll blows to you in bits with a fireball, while you were staring at the hacker grinbig.gif
Well jokes aside, there isalmost no reason for the mage not to carry a gun, a good combat mage knows when to slink a spell and when to just use a gun.
And most serius mages have some cyber and as much of armor as possible.
Cain
QUOTE
On a side note, for most retail, every dollar saved or prevented from being lost is the equivalent of $2.85 in sales.

In other words, you would have to sell $2.85 for every dollar you lose in order to make up for it (on average). When it comes to highly inelastic prices (say, on electronics merchandise in our own world), the scenario is much worse. In order to make up for a single lost XBox 360, I believe retailers would have to sell around 30+ units just to break even.

Not to question your numbers, but where are you getting these figures from? If you say "Memory", that's fine; it's just that my understanding is that "shrinkage" is factored into the projected profits at most major retailers.

QUOTE
I admit from what I'm reading here it is difficult to figure out how to have 'cheap' magical security, especially considering the fact that like less than 1% of the Shadowrun world is Awakened, and most of them don't do anything with it. But that is an equalizing factor in a risk scenario--less mages available to help you, less likely you would have magical attack at all anyway.

On a side note, I'm having trouble with just how deadly a mage is supposed to be anyway (at least one at or not too far from chargen). I can't find a way to not have a mage die to an equivalently-geared street sam (or just a guy who's really good with a heavy pistol and has a smartgun system), assuming that gun-wielder gets initiative. With all the stats that have to be pumped (WIL, LOG or CHA or both depending, Magic, Edge since your Edge was probably terrible at chargen), I don't see how a mage isn't super squishy when shot.

A mage with a manaball is extremely deadly, simply because you cannot pinpoint the mage before he casts a spell. A mage can load up on body armor, since it causes a penalty to Quickness-linked skills, and most mages won't be relying on those, anyway. If they do rely on their quickness, then you're probably looking at a combat mage, who is the equivalent of a light sammie and is probably not casting spells right away. He'll still sling that manabolt when the time comes, though.

QUOTE
And correct me if I'm wrong, can a mage in any way heal drain (be it physical or stun), because I thought it all had to heal naturally.

You can First Aid Drain between battles, be it physical or stun. You can also stimpatch it for a quick fix.

QUOTE
I'm not seeing much of a difference between cybered out street sams and mages in terms of raw damage output.

Leaving aside grenades for a moment, a mage can approach a sammie's damage output with firearms. All it takes is a high quickness(5+), a firearm skill at 4 + Specialty, a smartlink, and Increase Reflexes in a sustaining focus. That's 13 dice right there; a good sammie is going to have 15+. Street Samurai will still have the edge, but mages won't be far behind, and that's *before* you factor in their magic.

Grenades even this out somewhat, but grenades are loud, prone to scatter, and set off weapon detectors. Spells do not. One stunball is much more effective than a stun or gas grenade, simply because there's fewer ways to defend against it.
Blade
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 18 2009, 12:13 PM) *
Leaving aside grenades for a moment, a mage can approach a sammie's damage output with firearms. All it takes is a high quickness(5+), a firearm skill at 4 + Specialty, a smartlink, and Increase Reflexes in a sustaining focus. That's 13 dice right there; a good sammie is going to have 15+. Street Samurai will still have the edge, but mages won't be far behind, and that's *before* you factor in their magic.

Grenades even this out somewhat, but grenades are loud, prone to scatter, and set off weapon detectors. Spells do not. One stunball is much more effective than a stun or gas grenade, simply because there's fewer ways to defend against it.


Since Shadowrun isn't a class-based game, it's possible to play a mage who shoots nearly as well as a sammie. Actually, it's also possible to create a sammie who doesn't shoot that well to begin with. But since it's got build points, the sammie will be able to do things that compensate the fact that he isn't a mage.

As for the grenades, you're forgetting the all mighty pepper punch: it isn't loud (maybe a little hiss as the gaz escapes), it's legal and the only way to protect against it is a full body armor with a gaz mask/respirator and if the opposition has those, they'll probably have a counterspelling mage as well.
It might not have all the advantages of a manaball, but for 25 nuyen it's good enough in most cases.
Mäx
QUOTE (Blade @ Jun 18 2009, 03:18 PM) *
As for the grenades, you're forgetting the all mighty pepper punch: it isn't loud (maybe a little hiss as the gaz escapes), it's legal and the only way to protect against it is an envirosealed armor with a gaz mask/respirator and if the opposition has those, they'll probably have a counterspelling mage as well.
It might not have all the advantages of a manaball, but for 25 nuyen it's good enough in most cases.

Oh yes thier really good, too bad they have a nasty chance of landing between you chacter own leg even with a critical success.
Blade
That's why you should get immune to it, or at least protect yourself.
Blade
Oops.
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