Ah. I always seem to interpret this stuff badly. That takes it from "these aren't the droids you're looking for" to "OK guys, you're invisible to the world". I have no clue how I'm going to handle force > party size spirits with that power, especially since I can't see how to keep it from stacking with Chameleon Suits with thermal and it works in astral. That sort of global madness makes even MAD Scanners pointless. Bleagh. Back to the drawing board.

How do enclaves keep out the Devil Rats?

Aye... also Pixies have it limited to themselves.

And their low body/strenght doesn't matter, since they are quick as hell and have HIGHER MENTAL ATTRIBUTES. ALL OF THEM. Intuition and Charisma i can take... but LOGIC and WILLPOWER? GRAH.

EDIT: But the concealment isn't THAT bad... if they don't have high stealth as well. Perception is one of the easiest things to buff into the sky (Or low orbit), and most professionals have it.

Not really. Awakened are nearly irreplaceable by definition. Unless your Samurai Awakens himself somehow he's just not going to be counterspelling things or Warding the safehouse any time soon. Magicians in particular are a rather odd duck in the sense that they're uniquely capable in a pretty important niche (Acting as a counter to Awakened threats) while being able to leverage the same skill/attribute sets to also at least do a half-assed decent job in other niches. Ultimately, what bothers me about things like say, Combat Spells, isn't that they're powerful, really, but that any wimpy Magician with a decent Magic+Spellcasting pool can cheaply become a rather potent glass cannon just for the price of adding Mana Ball to their repertoire. You'd almost be crazy not to dabble a bit in room clearing given the opportunity cost.

Personally, I don't really think Shadowrun is truly intended to be "balanced" in the same way that most competitive games aspire to be. I think some archetypes are frankly just a bit more powerful in general and that this fact isn't something that the developers should lose sleep over at night, since it's not like the current discrepancies are really so wide as to render the other archetypes virtually unplayable by comparison. Really, what I think it comes down to is that "Geek the Mage first" is a part of Shadowrun lore for a reason. Magic and Resonance abilities are boogie man powers and are not to be taken lightly. This leads me two conclusions.

1. If you really wanted to divvy up screen time and weaknesses more evenly between players, I think you could make a very strong argument that Magicians and post-Unwired TMs should be the first ones to get some pruning. For example, I think you could cut the potency of most Combat Spells down pretty hard and they'd still be somewhat useful just because Magicians could still use them in lieu of developing good meat combat pools and because they still have unique properties (ignoring IMTNW and working on the Astral) that their tech counterparts just don't have. Magicians are such a resilient archetype that you can nerf them in a pretty wide variety of ways and they'd still bring a considerable amount of value to a team.

2. The above conclusion is probably accurate, strictly speaking, but it is something I'd never follow through on. Is it possible that it's perhaps a bit too easy for "utility" Magicians to nevertheless have a serious impact on combat? I would say yes. But is "fixing" that worth losing the Carl Combatmage type builds as collateral damage? I would say no; for better or for worse a lot of players want to play their Magicians in a lot of different ways and I don't think reining Magicians in a bit would be worth potentially losing any of that diversity.

This is pretty much my stance. In an open build system, characters are all technically balanced: some players will build better, others will not. In the end, they can all be smashed.

I think the best example in the book is in the Prime Runner list: it specifically mentions that those who have less points are often not going to be in the field, but will have access to a great number of allies who probably are.

I've mentioned this a few times in the thread but I thought I'd mention it again. Shadowrun is unbalanced but it is unbalanced at the GM's level. Sure characters can be unbalanced and while that might upset some players most will generally be willing to accept their roles and figure out a way to contribute. But the imbalance results in a) combat encounters being WAY too easy or TPKs, and b) everyone's a decker (one or two characters go off and play a mini game with the GM for 15-60 minutes while everyone else gets pizza and plays video games).

The Decker complaint almost always stemmed from poor GM time and situation management or players with ADD who can't stand not doing anything for a few minutes. Even though, in pretty much any game, there will be times when individual players aren't doing anything unless you solely play dungeon crawling D&D style games, heh. Our problems with the Matrix revolved more around the fact that there wasn't always a player interested in doing it. In a world full of mages and street samurai, playing Nick Burns, Your Runner Team's Computer Guy isn't always as exciting.

It's harder for a GM to counter the fact that, as written, magic has developed a "win button" type nature to it that makes balancing out the threats difficult. It's not like the old "decker problem" that was countered simply by designing streamlined and organized Matrix runs that can be resolved quickly.

One BS solution. Realy the first guy to pick combat skills pissed off every one else wanting to fight oreven fight ok. Screw set in stone rules. PCs aren;t likely to spend poitns to replace what the party can already do, they will nearly walyas spend it on things that add tot he party as a whole. If that means the mage takign more socail skills cos the face can only be in one place at a time and it could help out fine. If its the mage taking more firearms skills as they don't a want to rely on an escort all the time fine. The thing is just let the party grow organicly. Even if there is some toe stepping it shouldn't be a huge issue for your player or are they that immature that they QQ over some one doing there job at times or the mage getting more gun kills that the sam for once?

I'd be glad if I was a sam and my team could also stand in a fight why? Cos then I can branch out too and nop pump everythign in to kicking arse something that slow gets less and less worth the karma and money. Some times overlap is just plain useful having only one guy that is stealthy can be useless they're on there own all the time no back up no support=dreck happens they die.

Like Invisibility.

This is thing I have noticed, I have been GMing and playing a game and this is mostly what happens. Shadowrun or at least most of the games I've played in seems to like overspecalization

That is the point. We have this topic so ofter but it never comes to a final solution at the end. There will always be some guys that say "mages are too powerful" and others that say "this is completely the other way round"....and i am not going to see that change. So i don´t know, how many times we will see this topic rise up from the death again in the future, but IMHO balancing out is not a question of classes and overspezialisation, it is a question of how good you GM is. If he puts all the enemies in a clear line of sight, in an area of (force) meters, in a location with no background count, no visibility-penalties, everyone standing side-by-side so that no cover comes into play, no mage that grants spell-protection AND the mage acts first....yes, THEN a mage can really ruin your day. But this are a lot of ifs and whens, don´t you think? And yes, a spirit above force 4 is a really nasty thing for mundanes, but a potential drain from summoning between 8 and 12 is not less nasty. So as long as there is drain...i think we don´t have to discuss balance.^^

Overspecialization is a result of the idea that "the party should never split up." And why should they? There are a ton of tactical advantages to staying together and just as many disadvantages to splitting up. Conversely, there is almost no penalty to sticking together (unless you're a VERY large group) and the bonuses to splitting up are minimal (again, except for large groups). If the group doesn't split up, then they CAN overspecialize. So if overspecialization is a problem, it's not a problem to be solved by changing the rules but a problem to be solved by the GM. A clever GM can give a group all kinds of incentive to split up and thus give them a reason to generalize a bit.

After rereading the magic rules, I have not found a problem with magic. The whole declare your force and force limiting your hits (not net hits) makes things more bearable... Summoning on the other hand is something I am still working with...

Things like invisibility can be overcome by a thorough security design. (For example security checks the weight of the individual before opening the door)

I'd strongly disagree here. The way I build magicians you typically need a final drain value of 4+ before they even start consistently taking chip damage. And effects with a Drain Value of 4+ are typically potent enough that you're essentially paying a point of damage or two to greatly impact situations that could otherwise easily be lethal. Frankly, my magicians have only ever really been foiled by rolling badly on the Spellcasting or Summoning test, not the drain values.

Let's not even talk about mages who use less than 1 point worth of 'ware to drop the threat of drain even lower.

Mmmmmmmm Cerebral Booster.

(No one thinks that Tailored Pheromones help you resist drain, do they? I don't care what RAW says, that's just retarded.)

Proceed directly to the Broken Rules thread. Just kidding: they specifically only boost Social Tests.

Edit: Er, sorry, misspoke: they specifically *don't* affect magical abilities tests. Theoretically, they affect non-social (and non-magical) Charisma uses… are there any such things?

I should point out that I don't really think this means that drain serves no purpose in the game world, mind you. That you have to account for resisting Drain at all influences the way many characters are built, after all, and so in a sense drain serves as something of a BP tax on Magicians as well as a source of minor chip damage. As far as Binding is concerned, again, usually it's just scraping up enough hits to win the test vs. a high end Spirit at all is typically the biggest limiter, not taking the drain, since with some preparation the sheer power of First Aid takes over, and binding already takes some preparation by definition anyway. Thus I think drain is more of an interesting wrinkle than it is a speed bump.

Just take Latent Awakening at character creation... I never said it would be a good idea, just with enough karma you can do it in 4e because of caps. Though since magic does not cap its the one place where I'm wrong because your mage can always keep ahead of your street sam.



I've mostly seen it at conventions, but I have seen it in some home games to where one guy is just a dick and wants to be better at everything. Pistol 6? well he took 7 after he found out you took 6... The dick with the Mage decker I had not see until 4e though, that one still makes me chuckle, what a waste of a mage!

Jensen: [Aisha has the Losers in a Mexican standoff] Ohhhh... shit. She's got a gun and... it's pointed at my dick. Clay, it's pointed at my dick!
Pooch: Would you rather it was pointed at your face?
Jensen: I know it makes no sense, but yes!
[Aisha points her gun at Jensen's face]
Pooch: Better?
Jensen: Not really...

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Yep, this is something that has bothered me. (Note: In our game we have done away with magic and a lot of bioware has been halved in cost).

I want to improve my character's climbing skill. Here's my options (within our houserules).

Muscle Augmentation II -> IV: 3,500 / +1 (+1 to 3 different skills of which I use 2 regularly) (Climbing, Running)
Synthacardium: 5,000 / +1 (+1 to 4 different skills of which I use 2-3 regularly) (Climbing, Running, Gymnastics)
Neo-EPO: 8,000 / +1 (+1 to 4 different skills of which I use 2-3 regularly) (Climbing, Running, Gymnastics)
Enhanced Articulation: 20,000 / +1 (+1 to 9 different skills total of which I use 3-4 regularly) (Climbing, Running, Infiltration, Gymnastics)
Reflex Recorder (Athletics): 25,000 / +1 (+1 to 4 different skills of which I use 2-3 regularly) (Climbing, Running, Gymnastics)
Reflex Recorder (Climbing): 10,000 / +1

Muscle Augmentation is clearly the best method to take followed closely by Synthacardium. The problem with Muscle Augmentation is that I'll be sporting 8 Strength as a character that almost exclusively uses firearms (read 9 Agility). I have 1-2 ranks with a specialization in both the unarmed and blades group, which makes me a passable melee character (mostly flavor reasons). When I suggested that Muscle Augmentation IV would be my next augment, it irked a player that has an unarmed combat character because my dice pool and damage would be creeping ever closer to his. Unfortunately, with the exception of Reception Enhancers, Qualia, and Muscle Toner IV + Genetic Optimization (Agility) there isn't much outside of Synthacardium that improves my primary skills.

I will admit that the perception of toe stepping can be there on my part, but the truth is I can't deal Physical damage, I don't have the soak pool to slug it out in melee, I don't have the dodge skill, and the icing on the cake is that I lack martial arts bonuses from Arsenal that the melee characters have. I have it as a fall back for when the enemy got close to me, or even worse, just after I have to use an Escape Artist check...

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Hidden Mundane Sniper can do it. Of course that character relies on ambushes to eat the crap out of your dodge pool or a Barret with APDS ammo for the sammy tank with ambush to eat dodge and armor.

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My stealth character has a hard time seeing himself....

Visual Perception: 5 Intuition + 4 Perception + 2 Specialization + 3 Vision Enhancement + 1 Synch - 4 Chameleon = 11
Infiltration: 9 Agility + 5 Infiltration + 2 Specialization = 16

If I try to use thermal I would roll 9 to spot against 16 to sneak around. Even using Ultrasound its 15 dice to spot vs 16 dice to avoid being seen and if I'm not mistake the defender wins on ties.

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As for balance? One word.

Pornomancer

I don't think Shadowrun (regardless of version) is balanced at all. That's what makes it great. Way too many RPG's focus everything on game balance, and that does nothing but distract from any kind of realism the game may be trying to represent. To paraphrase a previous poster, real life isn't balanced at all, so why should the game be? Not everything in real life has a "countermeasure"; some things are just damnably unfair. Shadowrun is about fighting your way up from the garbage of the streets... it's about survival. If everything was "balanced" (and by this I mean character generation AND the world around the characters), then why bother trying to survive? You'd already be equal to everything else. Yes, Mages can have awesome powers. Yes, a sammie can truly be an amazing fighting machine, etc. That doesn't mean that they have to be as powerful or less powerful than anything else. Again, to paraphrase another previous poster, it all depends on the Player.

My two euro's.

I actually don't think SR4 makes mages worse. Spirits have ALWAYS been hell on the GM (and on players when used by the GM). Casting has always been able to deal with a lot of things in both direct and roundabout ways.

However, as a GM it's quite easy to mess with the mage, and SR4 has introduced manatech to make this aspect even worse. In SR3, sneaking with active spells could well protect you even from spirits on the astral, and there was only one skill needed to do it. Now that has been made a lot more diffiicult. Wards were more prominent, but now we have those biofibre things. Hiding has generally been made harder for mages, IMHO.
In SR3 you could make a mage and FILL him up with ware, while keeping full magic attribute due to Geasa. And then you did not yet have the force limit for successes on spells. My mages used to make do with lots of spells at force 1 to 3, because when cast with full casting pool you easily have 10 successes or more. This is fixed in SR4. Likewise, with the loss of absolute protection from armour, a mage can no longer tank quite as well as in SR3.

Now one thing SR3 did way better than 4 (IMHO) was the way in which encounters were predictable (IF you got rid of over-Deadly damage. Basically we cut off at Deadly and left it at that). If you KNEW your team had 9 ballistic armour on average, then you could easily hit them with subguns or even ARs on 3rd burst and know that a TPK was not at risk. And if you want to hurt them summat, then just use XX or APDS (in a smaller gun). That was one of the very, very conventient aspects of SR3, IMHO. GMing combat was quite easy, in that you could decide the level of threat in a nearly linear manner. Of course, magical risks were harder to predict. Unfortunately a lot of min-maxers left out maxing willpower, when a 6 in willpower would have protected them from a LOT of nasty spells due to threshhold and the general drop in probability simply from having to roll a 6. However, it was quite possible to get a 6 in WP even as a sam in SR3. So there was a chance at getting a predictably tough party. Of course, there was a high risk of passing over the cut-off point of resilience, which was basically every time a character had to roll 6s or higher to soak. Although even then... few things made the troll player happier than taking a hit from an assault gun and walking out of the encounter with light damage.

Now in SR4 I'm not so sure. Not only is it harder to make a well-rounded character in SR4 (with Pointbuy, Karma is much better), but also the numbers are even more spread out. You can't just assume a certain defensive average and shoot at everyone in the team. (which GMs in SR3 used to do, at least in games I played in.) Defense needs to be pushed to be strong, and IMHO the team-average defense pool will include wider ranges. Of course, a GM can simply demand that players put at least 4 in Bod and buy appropriate armour. Even then, an average joe with 12 points in "soak" dice will still have to worry about light pistols.

So basically, I think the risks have gone up with SR4. SR4 is more like D&D where combat risks are concerned. Which also means the team has to be more on the same page. Players have to work this out in advance.

Ugh... Gay-asses. I hated those in SR3. I however totally agree with you from the GM point of view -- it never really was a big issue until we got SR4.

Fully agree...every focus you lay (may it be dodge, spellcasting, summoning or shooting) will automatically cause a weakness in another area. I like it when everything has a weak spot so you don´t start becoming cocky.