And the mage still... well, doesn't die, but is in serious trouble. Detect enemies doesn't go out that far that it will prevent you getting surprised by a sniper, but assuming that the mage isn't surprised:
6 from combat sense
9 from reaction
So 15 dice on defense, which means you still get hit, but only 1-3 net hits, which means 10-12 damage. For soak you're looking at:
6 armor spell
9 body (could be higher, but not super likely)
8 armor (fairly common)
-4 AP
-4 APDS ammo
So 15 dice to soak with, which is a good 5 hits, which means anywhere from 5-7 damage. Not enough for a kill (assuming we aren't talking about a called shot for increased damage), but it is serious damage. And you're comparing something that a sammy can easily easily easily do from chargen with something that would require 60+ karma and a few hundred thousand nuyen after chargen on the part of the mage.

True, which on its own is 15ish dice, which means the mage is still dead (9P + 8 net hits - 5 soak = dead mage).

And sneaking up on a mage is easy, established or not. I'm fairly sure I can get within a mile of a mage.

True
Though we were talking about A Well Developed Mage, vs 10 5.2M nuyen cyberpunks, originally.

And this assumes that the Mage goes out in public in his own form, and doesn't use Illusion spells to make himself look like some random guy, or..

I forgot about Improved Invisibility, with a Thermal Dampening suit.

And ultrasound passes right through that. And you're getting kinda silly if you're talking about the mage living all the time under illusions. It's like saying the sammy never goes outside without a nanopaste disguise on (different person every day) and chameleon suit.

Hey, if I'm worried about a sniper rifle to the head maybe I do.

Ultra sound does not have a range of 1mile though
If he's close enough for ultrasound, I'm close enough to be going full defense.

I play a very powerful established mage and i get hit all the time.^^

Do they have expendable foci in 4th Ed? I don't know about the rest of you awakened folk, but I dump my paycheck into those things every chance I get. That and ritual materials. And high lifestyles, since being awesome demands kobe beef and plates that don't say "papermade".

well now you know to walk invisible 10 meters behind your illusion double

Well most people don't build their characters with the thought to break the game with an invulnerable character.

I do.^^

Well now thanks to this thread you have some pointers to help.

I beleive foci addiction comes into play whenever the total force of you bonded foci is higher than 2 * Magic. Addiction is the Path to burnout.

Addiction leads to Burnout. Burnout leads to Cybernetics. Cybernetics leads to SUFFERING...

From, the surgery, you know?

Not just bonded but active foci have to exceed twice your magic, if you even follow this fairly obscure guideline.

Sounds feasible, but I don't remember reading that anywhere. Can you quote the reference?

"More Morphine please!"

Addiction is the path to burnout, burnout is the path to cyberzombie, cyberzombie is the path to being possessed by a dragon. I chalk that up as a win.

At work now so AFB, if one of theEuro posters can look it up....

I dunno if that's quite how it works.

There is no mention of Foci addiction in the main book. It's a Street magic thing, Page 26-27.

Sadly I don't have my copy of street magic at work.

No, no, sabs. I meant this: "burnout is the path to cyberzombie, cyberzombie is the path to being possessed by a dragon."

Anyway, SM p26-7 only describes what Focus Addiction is like, not how to acquire it.

I'm positive that's how it works.
Although really.. given how much cyber/bio you can squeeze into a pc without going negative. Do you really need Cyberzombies anymore?

You don't want to be a dual-natured walking domain? That's the 'point', if not the intention. They're just supposed to be magic-immune NPC monsters, which is why I said that's not how it works. Burnout mages don't become cyberzombies, because they're not NPCs; and why would a dragon (who, of course, isn't a possession spirit) possess a cyberzombie (which sounds all kinds of difficult to possess)? Messy.

Unless it's all part of some convoluted ritual for stopping the Horrors from coming across early.

Or something

i'm beginning to suspect that someone may not know about the dragon heart =P

I certainly don't read the fluff and plot.

It is a reference to the novels. In it a burnt out Azzie mage named Billy (I think), is a cyberzombie who get's sent after the main character. He later becomes possessed by Big D's amnesic ghost who somehow ended up as a powerful freespirit. I also seem to remember him getting fused to the Dragonheart which is a very powerful focus of some sort.

It's happened once so it could again.

I never really liked Cash for Karma. It doesn't really even things out because the Karma is so much more valuable to the Awakened character than it is to the non-awakened one. And the conversion rates I see suggested aren't anywhere near reflective of the costs of advanced and upgraded cybertech, or vehicles, or electronics other characters need to improve their abilities.

Mages with too much money should just be doing what any good rich Magician would do. Models.




http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/ar...tty_254189s.jpg
http://www.starsjournal.com/wp-content/upl...el-broke-up.jpg

"A man walks into a bar and says, 'Double Entendre'."?

That's what the complaint is though, is that mages don't have much of anything to spend their money on except high/luxury lifestyle. Personally I'd imagine that the mage wouldn't be complaining.

I think the real complaint should be under expected guidelines you see from adventures karma comes at a higher rate for advancement than cash does, so near pure karma improvement classes seem to get more from runs. I know I am not adding cyber every adventure, but the mage can easily add a new spell every adventure, you can initiate every 2 adventures about the only slow thing is the actual magic attribute and a couple of the focuses. Heck it took me at least 5 runs to get my cyber arm. Sure I held out until I could afford a good one, but shooting lefty for 5 runs wasn't easy. I do not feel any need to make it even easier for mages to advance.

Shinobi is totally right. Just looking at Shadowrun Missions Karma awards, 6 Karma per adventure isn't out of the realm of possibility. I'm sure in some home campaigns it's handed out like candy. But based on Missions alone, a mage should be able to learn a new spell just about every time they complete an adventure if they so chose. You know how long it takes to afford Beta Grade Wired Reflexes 2? lol. I think the character could play an entire season's worth of Missions and hide out at the Squatter Lifestyle and still not be able to scrape together the cash for it after their other expenditures.

Trust me, if the worst thing a mage has to endure is an ever-fattening bankroll that increases faster than they can snort Novacoke off the dietware enhanced asses of high priced escorts while wearing the latest Zoe fashions, they can always donate some of their earnings to the poor samurai or to the rigger.

It's definitively a possiblity. After a particularly rewarding run my mage character and the other mage at the table paid a bit more than half of the cost of Betaware synaptic accelerator 3 for the street sam. We considered that a team investment, like when we paid a share of a bunch of toys for the dronomancer TM.

I never said that mages didn't have it good, I was just saying what the complaint was.

Heck missions under the new 4a guidelines probably under rewards karma. You can get up to 10ish karma a run under the new 4a guidelines, though that would be hard to hit. But 6ish is kind of the baseline, but money is still scarse. It is one of the reasons why I suggest Sams and riggers etc just put the max into resources since it is harder to come by than karma.

And Karoline, sorry I did not mean to imply that you thought that I was just trying to respond to the generalized complaint. I should have been clearer.

Excellent.

WE frequently have a group money set up. Lots of times you put in what you can afford, other times it is 1/2 of the take. It usually goes towards things like drone riggers and other characters with disposable money concerns.