Huh. Other than the usual, my mage just uses magic to pick up chicks. He doesn't dominate them into submission (though he could) - rather, he uses Influence to get over the hard part of icebreaking. He figures he's interesting, but not really charismatic. He also figures there are always some chicks in the bars who are out on the town looking to take someone home - so he uses Influence to put the thought "He looks really interesting, I should buy him a drink and say hi" in their head. Best case, the conversation goes somewhere and he hooks up. Worst case, he still gets free drinks.

welcome! as the offical sexy greeter i welcome you!

cold beer to your left

hot babes to your right

and in the middle a complimentary coupon for a dollar off number 1 at mcdonlads

Fixed that for ya. Now you can materialize your Earth Spirits on the field with a Possession tradition. If your GM's really kind, he may even rule that the technically-still-living guard's stats add to the Spirit's.

For bonus points, use a Guardian Spirit with a firearms skill as an Optional Power, preferably Heavy Weapons. Now you have an Earth Elemental with a potentially crazy attack pool and an HMG.

And don't forget to add the red hat, and the grey sweatshirt upon which is written "Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho."

( 1 & 2) Hmm, if only there were a fairly easy and cheap way to scan for glowing people on the astral on your turf without tying up the exclusive services of a Mage, oh wait, that is what low force spirits and watchers are for so yes you might as well be flaunting your hand cannon and shooting off flares. Hell, even without spirits lets not forget the various manatech solutions that has been introduced over the years by the corps.

Secondly when "observing in detail" people get tired, distracted, bored, tunnel vision, ect so no, Assencing waiting lines of people is not something that is going to be easy or reliable. And your chummer's "shit ton" of cyber is going to be setting off the cyberscanners which unlike the Mage isn't going to be bored and crankly from mental fatigue so Assencing is the least of their worries.

( 5 ) As "bad assed" as the various Advanced Metamagics are they are hardly fool proof, and the last time I checked as long as you didn't burn out your Essence Rating was meaningless when it comes to the function of Masking and Extended Masking.

( 6 ) The would only be true if the lost Magic cost you more then was gained. Since that isn't the case you are simply blowing smoke.

( 7 ) Nice try but firstly even with enforcing the addiction rules foci are hardly wortlhless, just no longer a "must have" and that is hardly a bad thing. Secondly what we have are a few examples of when an addiction test should be called for, and someone who feels that they are unable to function without the aid of an adddicting substance (Which like it or not, foci are.) is a prime canidate for addiction. Once again, would you bitch and whine if your DM asked for an addiction test if your character popped Jazz, Longhaul, ect like candy and was always at least slightly "buzzed"?

1.) Had a player in one of my games that set all his Foci up on a harness of sorts. Since in that edition, if your foci lost contact with the body of the mage they de-activated, so he would just take a simple action to remove the fast release harness and all his foci would lose contact with him and shut off.

2.) Also, remember that only attacks that have a force of will behind them hurt spirits. So a spirit could move anything under a tac-nuke and hold it while it went off and be unharmed. Magic finger a grenade? just send your spirit over with 10 of them set to go off.

3.) Spirits can be summoned within LoS.

I don't know if you can do this in 4e, but I've seen it in 2nd.

Summon a force 1 elemental.
Go astral and have it come with you.
Find the bad guys and have it manifest right next to them.
Ground an area-of-effect spell through it.

If they're not magically active, they won't be able to touch you.

Another one: make a "ramp"-formed Physical Barrier-spell for persuing vehicles.

A.

This is 4th Ed right? Spirits have Immunity to Normal Weapons, which is counted as Hardened Armor equal to twice the Spirit's Force, not "it's a normal weapon, so I don't care." It should be noted that SnS ammo works on all spirits, to disasterous effect, and you can kill a Fire Elemental with a Flamethrower.



Unfortunately (fortunately?) they dropped grounding spells in 4th Ed.

It should also be noted that you can target active foci (and any object, really) with spells. Powerbolt the sammy's gun, Powerbolt the mage's active Combat Spell/Sustaining/Power Focus. Powerbolt the adept's Weapon Focus.

Though I wholeheartedly agree with this particular tactic... there are a lot of individuals that believe you cannot destroy/damage magical foci, only deactivate them... I Can't remember the Topic, but it was very long and involved...

Keep the Faith

The theory is that it "isn't fair" to the Player if the DM is able to destroy something that costs a bunch of Karma, but there isn't much actual reasoning behind it under the rules or fluff.

I wouldn't exactly say its not fair, its just a dick move. I mean if your in a fight and someone steals your foci or knocks it out of your hand so be it, just give them a chance to get it back. If you destroy an NPCs foci so what? They dont have to pay karma and nuyen to get it back, the GM can just give them a new one so their ready for the next fight if they survive and they lose nothing. A player on the other hand has to pay again for that lost resource and unlike a destroyed gun or car these things cost karma which an awakened character is already strapped for. I've seen a couple of riggers lose a car or drone and go eh. Not because it didn't annoy them, it did, but because they could either salvage it or just steal a new one and have a mage cast demolish RFID tag on it. They would still pay for mods but it wasn't that big of a hit on their equipment in the end.

As-where I'm from the school of thought that says that the NPCs are just as real as the PCs are and will do whatever is realistic for them to do so, and destroying foci can be a realistic and viable tactic.

But then again I don't simply crank out NPCs either, I've put alot of serious thought in what I feel is a reasonable range for NPCs to fall into so if a NPC Mage survives sans foci it fragging matters just as it would to a PC.

Fragging Double Post.

So you keep track of an NPCs karma to make sure they can get a new foci? The point is NPCs lose nothing, unless you keep track of their karma which I've never seen done but I am assuming you do, while a PC not only looses an investment of nuyen but also karma which is a lot harder to get unless you have a karma/nuyen exchange which would be a bit more fair for the mage who has to keep track of every last bit of karma he can get his hands on.

Anyways this is a bit off subject so lets agree to disagree ok? Your of the *insert what you said* school and I am of the its only fun if everyone is having fun school of thought. Losing something you tried so hard and had to invest so much into is not fun unless you are given a fair chance to get it back which may be fun if done right.

Oh and like I mentioned above demolish RFID tag is probably one of my favorite spells because its so freaking useful. Need some extra spending money? Jack a car, take it off the Grid and have your buddy work his mojo to destroy the tags so you dont have to give your new wheels a cavity search. Works on just about anything stolen which kinda bugged our GM because after we would off people we could do a quick looting of the corpses in under a minute and while we were doing that the mage would cast a large demolish spell to make sure they wouldn't be tracked. To be sure however the technomancer would give all the stuff a good going over while we were driving.

EDT: Something I realized was that I was being a hypocrite saying what was and wasn't fun because I hate it when people try to define a game by what they think is fun. Some people find those rough and sometimes heartbreakingly hard games enjoyable. They dont mind losing a focus because it's realistic. I am not one of them but I should have thought of that before hand.

*sighs* Of course I don't keep track of Karma, but it isn't anymore reasonable for a NPC Mage to be able to bond powerfiul foci after getting one destroyed than it is for a PC, I call it using common sense and eyeballing the rest.

I have to admit I was being sort of a smartass with that comment lol.

Oh one I forgot was our mage using a sustaining focus to make our troll adept invisible while levitating him. The mage was hidden and when our target came through the door he dropped the troll on top of her crushing her to death and then the troll used his surprise attack to waste her two guards with a couple of shotgun bursts. Good times, good times.